The Forest's Secrets

Chapter Twenty-One: Experiments

"What happened to you?", Lisa asked curiously.

"I'm Alistor", the teenager replied," and I was supposed to be the perfect human."

It was quiet for a bit, then Lisa asked:"Do you want to talk about everything that has happened? I feel like you want to get something off your chest."

Ali smiled at her through the dark, as she replied:"That'd be great."

"Well then", Lisa said and smiled back," I'm listening."

The white haired girl thought for a moment, then she said:"The first thing I remember is Fate. She was about sixteen back then and I was maybe a few days old. She told me, that they tried to make me perfect, and they were going to test my abilities. She said that something went wrong, and I couldn't go into the sun.

She explained that I'd have to try to not stand out, blend in with the others. Be nearly invisible. She said I would learn a lot about myself, but I wasn't allowed to tell anyone about this. Except her, her co-workers, and the others like me.

I met Taime, Ryth and Tae the very same day, they're all the exact same age as I am. The only thing to tell us apart was our eye color back then, I've got yellow to blue, Taime got green to blue, Ryth has grey to blue and Tae has red to blue.

We were assigned families, to test our ability to fit in. Tae lost in a matter of weeks, they're a terrible actor. Ryth ratted himself out when he was just four, he was bored and started to read books, the ones for adults. Taime is a terrible actor too, but he got through until we were six. That idiot told his parents who he was, he hates lies. They didn't believe him and actually tried to get him into a mental hospital, but he got out.

We'd meet up all the time, in the cabin. The idea was to come at night, but the others all need to sleep, so we did that during the day. We always thought it was funny that we looked alike, and so decided to keep our hair the same way as the others, which basically was a bob until we turned fourteen. Then Tae came up with the undercut.

They'd also punish us for every small mistake, so that it wouldn't happen again. The others couldn't do that much wrong, they were in the woods all the time. I've got punished a lot, I think that's the reason I hate touch now.

Anyway, when the first doctors died, I had the idea to free us. The others were being held by them, and I hated for my friends, or actually my siblings I guess, to hurt, and when only four of the twenty-two people were alive, I decided that I wasn't going to wait any longer. So I first killed Mister Thompson, his body never got found. Jasmin's body was found in that river a few minutes from here, and what happened to Ashly and Fate you know of."

"But the girls were your age, weren't they?", Lisa asked confused.

Ali shook her head and said:"Ashly was 35 years old and Fate is 32."

"But they looked so young!", the officer hissed quietly. The girl could tell that she did not believe her.

"Yeah", Ali sighed," They used a ton of chemicals so they would look like that for as long as possible. Fate forgot everything and believed that she was sixteen herself."

"What happened to the other kids?", Jaly asked now.

"Ryth and Tae live in a different city, we don't see each other all too often anymore. But we all still look the same, which is really funny", the teen replied, she sounded sad.

Lisa yawned. As Ali looked across the hall, she saw that the blonde guy had at one point entered Taime's cell and fell asleep on the chair there.

"You can sleep here", Ali suggested," I'm gonna look out for all of you."

"That's my job", Lisa replied and chuckled.

"Better than sleeping on the floor. I can wake you up before anyone notices", Ali thought out loud.

"Thanks, but no", the woman replied.

"Suit yourself", Ali replied and smiled.

It was quiet for a bit, then Ali stood up. "This is boring", the girl complained.

"So what are you going to do?", Lisa asked cautiously.

"Well, it's only 2 am. We have four more hours to go. I'm thinking of practicing", Ali thought out loud.

"Practicing what?", the officer asked, as Ali leaned down and started playing around with the lock.

"This", Alistor sighed and pushed open the cells door.

"How did you do that?", Lisa Jaly growled quietly, a hand on her belt as she jumped up.

Ali raised her hands a bit and the door shut close again. "No damage done", she replied quietly.

"That was not my question", Lisa replied angrily.

The teen sighed and thought for a while. Then she slowely said:"The mechanism here is just eight cylinders. When I get them to be in the right position, I can just open the door. It's like, with a lockpick, except I don't need those trashy pieces of aluminium."

"How did you do that then, your fingers aren't slim enough to fit in the lock", the woman whispered.

Ali smiled at her again. "It's pretty easy, as long as someone talks, the air vibrates. And I found out that I can use that to my advantage, there's notes that can manipulate the vibrations better than-", the girl started to talk.

Lisa interrupted her, by saying:"Get to the point."

"I use vibrations from sounds to push the cylinders to where I want them. Wasn't easy at first, but now it works in seconds", sighed Alistor.

The next few hours went by quietly. Ali sat on her bed and starred into the dark room, lost in her own thoughts. Lisa walked around in front of the cell, in order to not fall asleep. The officers had already had a long day, and then Brooks got them signed in for Nightshift, which wasn't all too nice of him.

As Jamie Brooks came to get the teens just ten minutes past six, Lisa and the blonde man immediately decided to both head home.