Among Us

Chapter Seven - Too Late

Chapter Seven

How did he know?

She couldn't work it out. Her parents would never tell, and Nathan didn't understand enough to blab to anyone. She'd certainly never been caught. How could she? If she was fleeing, she would round a corner and do it. As far as anyone else could tell, she'd just vanish. Nobody ever saw it actually happening before their eyes. Well except her parents. They said she'd looked blurred, like a shadow being left behind and then suddenly she was somewhere else. It was opposite for her, they were the blur, blurred statues.

She didn't do it anymore, not really. It used to be exciting, but the sickness was too awful afterwards, the fun never lasted long enough.

Nobody could possibly know.

Lain followed the line of students waiting in the canteen. The line trudged slowly forward, the students stuffed their hands in their pockets, getting antsy at the wait. They'd set up right there in the school canteen, the people from the hospital. There were lots of screens with nurses inside, taking blood and giving injections. You could see through some of the screens, light lit up behind them and shadows inched around the tiny space. The canteen was the best room for it, nice and bright and airy, good for those that were queasy for that kind of thing.

Lain was one of those people.

She fought a war inside her head, as her classmates edged closer to the screens. One side of her told her to get it over and done with. If this virus was that bad, did she really want to chance getting it and did she really want to be responsible for Nathan getting ill. The other side of her told her to run. The crazy boy hadn't helped with this. She was already afraid of doctors and stabby needles, now she was afraid that they wanted her for some reason. He'd said they were searching for people like her.

Like her?

The idea was ridiculous; there was no-one else like her. She was different and that was that. She wondered what made her even consider what he was saying. Since when did she trust anyone? Since when did she speak to strange people and have crazy conversations? She didn't know him; she'd never even seen him in the school before. That basically made him a crazy person if anything.

The sound of hurling came from behind one of the screens and a nurse came rushing out. She grabbed a bucket from a small tower of them near the front of the queue, and then turned on her heel.

Lain considered running. She didn't like the idea of throwing up with an audience, and the likelihood of her throwing up was quite high. Her face paled as she got closer to the front of the queue, her hands trembled and her legs twitched, desperate to turn away. It was moving forward much too fast, the nurses sending students in and out in minutes; it was like a production line and Lain was right on track.

What did he mean that her being different showed in her blood?

She'd been to see doctors before, but she couldn't recall if her blood had been tested. Maybe if she'd been to the hospital. That was standard wasn't it? She didn't think she'd ever been before, never a broken bone or a fall. She didn't even go to the hospital when she was sick from using her ability, but then she always got over it, the sickness always went away—eventually. Surely, she was born in a hospital? She couldn't know. There were no records of her before she was taken to the Children's home, just a first name left on the tags of her clothes. Lain.

This was it. She was at the front of the queue now; she was next. She had to decide, but it was too difficult. Nothing seemed to add up. There was too much information running loose in her brain and she couldn't make sense of any of it.

Was the virus real? It was all over the news, would they lie? What about those patients, were they a lie? Who was that boy? Why was he telling her this now? What was the truth? Was any of it true?

"Lain Morgan?"

Her name was being called. She automatically stepped forward and a man in white scrubs waved her over. She walked toward the screen, unthinking. It was too late; she'd run out of time to choose and now the decision was being made for her.

She followed the man behind the screen and paused. The screen blocked off a small section of the canteen, the size of a toilet cubicle. It was just big enough for two chairs and a tall trolley with drawers. The man took a seat and gestured toward the other one. She followed his direction. A voice inside her head screamed at her as she sat in the empty chair.

"Arm please," he said mechanically.

Lain held her arm out in front of her, staring at him, panicked.

He had an unremarkable face, the kind you wouldn't remember if you passed in the street. His hair was short and fluffy and looked like snippets of old brown carpet stuck to his head. He wiped something cold and wet across the crease in her elbow, and then removed something from a sealed packet. A needle. She breathed heavily as he brought it toward her.

Run! A voice screamed inside her. She didn't.

It was done in seconds and she watched as the clear bottle containing the dark crimson drops of her blood, was taken away, too late for her to do anything about it. Nausea washed over her, but it wasn't done yet. He came at her with another needle—the vaccine against the virus—and she held still.

It wasn't like she'd been expecting. She saw a grinning clown in long white robes, its eyes dark and lined with wickedness, its only aim to pin her with needles. But he was like a robot, trained to do a job; he did it without smiles and without sympathy.

He waved her out. It was done.

**Author's Note**

What do you think, should she have done it or should she have run?