The Post Sunday Experiment | COMPLETED 2020

Chapter 30

The hours of the night flew by, one after the other. When two in the morning finally rolled around, the shrill sound of a shriek cut the peaceful darkness. Blinking and rubbing their eyes in alarm, three of four arose from their slumber. They found Mae as she gazed over at the bare wall, her back flat against the headboard of her cot.

A bright red flush rushed to her face. The veins bulged out of her neck. Sweat drops dripped down her forehead and tears poured from her blue eyes.

Something else attracted Ody's attention. He rose, his mind still groggy as he stumbled to look at Mae. It was her eyes. Despite the fact they were crystal as always in color, there was something else that he couldn't help but recognize. It was the way her pupils stared at the bare wall just as Mr. Aldrich's had stared at him before he was taken; they were snake-like with slits.

"Mae, what's wrong?" Eric became frantic as he watched Mae screaming like a wild animal at the wall. Based on the ferality in her eyes, Eric knew there was more that he could not see. He wrung his hands and pushed up his glasses as he looked about the room at Ody. The boy was standing next to him and so was Penny.

Mae didn't respond. Her eyes continued to stare making every hair on Ody's neck stand on end. She had always been so put together but now she was unravelling.

"What are we supposed to do?" Ody hesitated as he turned to face his sister and Eric.

"All we can do," spoke Eric once more as he walked over to the fire alarm on the concrete wall.

Seconds later, they were there in the same gear Ody and Penny had seen before. No one spoke as the men dragged Mae from bed and secured her writhing body to the stretcher.

As pained as the three people were to see Mae in such despair, they allowed the men to take her. They knew all too well now that she had the Technasma. These scientists were the only ones who could save her now.

She wailed at them and let out glass-shattering screams about the air and throughout the concrete walls. She fought to free herself from their grasp. Eric and her children couldn't make out what she was screaming to the men. They refused to leave her side while the suited figures overpowered her and shot a tranquilizer into her arm.

While the men wheeling her out of the room, Eric raced after Mae in panic as the scientists took her to the lab. Ody began to follow as well but noticed out of the corner of his eye how his little sister was sitting on a cot with a deadpan expression and no intent of following the crowd.

Taking a moment to decide between following the people running and staying to comfort Penny who was sitting all by herself, he chose his sister. As the sound of their mother's screams became quieter as the distance grew between them. Ody settled down next to his sister who was staring at the dusty floor.

Looking the girl up and down, it didn't take him long to feel something was up. Something was terribly wrong. Penny was never this quiet.

"Penny... what is it?" Ody placed his hand on her shoulder. He hated seeing his usually energetic and optimistic sister like this. The funny thing was, she didn't move away from him after he did this. She continued to stare off at the hand-sewn socks on her feet that she had made weeks before their father's death.

After several moments, her mouth twitched slightly to let out one word: "Nothin'."

"Obviously, there is something. What is it? You look pale." Ody spoke in a soft tone. He was curious about what was running through her mind.

"Really, it's nothin'. I just don't feel right, that's all. I'll be fine in a bit. I'm probably just tired." Penny forced a smile though no spark of a shone in her own eyes like usual.

Ody knew he would lose her trust if he pushed for whatever was on her mind, so he didn't push further to find what she was thinking.

"Anyway," Penny sighed as she began to feel uncomfortable at the silence between them. "They left the door open."

In the rush and confusion, the two siblings looked up to see the concrete door that had earlier been locked now wide-open. Ody could still detect something different under Penny's voice that irked him. Even though he'd been away from his sister for two years before they were dragged into this together, he still knew his sister. Ody was able to read her as easily as words on a page.

"Yeah. They did." Ody pushed away the thought and pulled himself back into reality.

After all, she had every reason to be upset. Her father had just died, her remaining family was being held captive, she had numerous questions no one would or even could answer, and her mother was acting strangely. Did she need more reason than that to feel wrong?

Even though all this was happening to Penny, Ody couldn't help but feel that there was something else on her mind. Pushing the thought away once again though, he rose to exit through the door.

"It's two thirty in the morning so there can't be too many people on guard, right? Maybe we can get out in time," Penny said. Based on her facial expression, Ody could tell that she herself didn't want to leave just yet. She needed answers first. She needed to know the truth behind the Technasma.

Not responding to her, Ody followed his sister outside the large concrete doors to glance up and down the long hallways.

Besides the dark light, the children couldn't tell whether it was day or night in the underground passages.

As they turned right and began walking down the hall, Penny stopped Ody. She turned to look at the door they had just passed through.

Gazing over the concrete of the door, the children's eyes focused on the fact that it was missing any form of knob or handle. When they pushed the doors closed, all they could see of the door were the lines that divided the concrete, a keypad, and the little mail slot their dinner had been delivered through the previous night.

Their eyes gazed farther down the halls that before now had appeared to be doorless. They could now see lines in the concrete that were the frames of other doors.

Beginning down the hallway, the children clasped each other's hands. Neither knew where they were headed yet for some reason, they trusted one another.

Despite the fact that they were trespassing on military property and disobeying a highly controlling individual, they could not help but feel alright. There was something deep inside them that told them everything would work out in the end.

Ody and Penny had no doubt they could find more answers here. They had until dawn to find what they were looking for.