Field Investigations

Chapter 16: Tour Continued

"Actually," he said, glancing down at a silver watch on his wrist which I hadn't noticed before, "it's probably time to start heading over to the dormitories."

Dormitories? This was starting to sound like some sort of boarding school. I hadn't fully processed the fact that I would be living here for the next few nights at least, so the thought of where I would be staying hadn't crossed my mind. Now that I started thinking about it, though, a lot of questions came to my mind.

"Will I have a roommate?" I asked.

"No, you'll have a room to yourself," he told me. "Your room will be connected to five other rooms that all share the same living area and bathrooms."

"How big are the rooms?"

"They're probably about the size of your bedroom at home. Because this building is in the Green, we have all the space we want. Large rooms aren't a problem."

Suddenly, I remembered a question I'd had earlier on the bus. "Will I get my phone back?"

"Oh, I'm not sure. That's outside of my department. You'll probably get it back in a week or two, but the memory will be wiped clean and it will no longer be able to call numbers that don't belong to members of the AFS. I know you want to talk to your family," he said, "but they can't know that you're here. Maybe at some point you'll be able to call them, but it's unlikely. Don't worry, though. Like I said, you'll be happy here." 

Didn't he realize that every time he said that, I felt more and more uncomfortable in this place? I would never be happy in this place. Even if it was the friendliest place in the world, I wouldn't let myself like it. Not after the way I was brought here. I smiled at him, though, trying my best to seem like I thought he was right. 

"I guess," I agreed. At least I'd be getting it back at all. Maybe I could see if there was any information about the AFS on the internet. If I could find out more about this place from the perspective of a non-member, I might be able to learn how to escape. 

I didn't say anything for the next few minutes. My footsteps echoed through the hallway, thumping dully against the carpeted floor. I wished I could go back and tell my past self not to listen to that letter, to turn and bike back home. But maybe, in some strange way, it was a good thing that I was here. It seemed like this place brainwashed people in some way. If John was telling the truth, people here had been given the option to leave and not taken it. But I wouldn't be tricked. Not again. Maybe I could help the people here see the truth and get them to escape with me.

I wondered what kind of lives John and Kenna led before they were brought here. I couldn't imagine that they'd been happy wherever they'd been if they were so fine with having been taken away. Was this place like an escape for them, a step up from where they'd been before?

And what was my life like before all of this? It wasn't perfect by any means. I wished my parents were more of a part of it, I wished I'd made friends. A lot of the time, I felt like I was alone. But I had my brother, and although we didn't get to spend much time together, when we did it more than made up for my loneliness the rest of the time. Here, I wouldn't have anyone. I mean, I wouldn't have my brother to talk to, and if I couldn't make friends at high school, why would I be able to make friends here, at this strange organization where all of the members were kidnapped? 

I remembered what I'd thought earlier, when I'd seen the cafeteria here. I'd been picturing sitting at the tables there with friends, talking and laughing like a normal group of teenagers. I tried to push that thought out of my mind, but it was still there, lingering in my head. Part of me wished it could be real, and it scared me. I didn't want to end up like the people here, happy to stay at the AFS for the rest of their lives despite being brought there forcefully, and every thought like that I had I could feel myself slipping further into that mindset.

"Isabel?" John studied my face, trying to figure out what I was thinking. 

"Isa," I said, for what felt like the thousandth time that day. "Not Isabel. What is it?"

"We're there," he smiled, gesturing towards a grey door a few feet ahead of us. "The dormitories. Let's head in."

He pushed the door open and held it for me to walk through. I looked through the doorway cautiously, seeing a hallway almost identical to the one we stood in. 

"How do you not get lost in here?" I asked, stepping into the hallway and waiting for him to show me which way to go.

"Oh, you learn the layout of the building after a while. I do get confused occasionally, though," he admitted. "I have a sort of digital map of the headquarters just in case."

We continued down the hallway for a few minutes. 

"How much farther do we have to go?" I wondered. "Where are we even going? You said that we were already there, so why are we still walking?"

"We're going to your room," he explained. "We're already in the dormitories, but your room is pretty far down the hallway."

"Do you live here?"

"Yeah, on a different floor. I used to live in this hallway back when I was first recruited, but I moved once I stopped going to the Academy. I liked it here," he reminisced. "I spent three years of my life on this floor."

Finally, he stopped in front of one of the light grey doors. "Here we are," he said. "Your room."