AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hiya, lovelies! Welcome to my fabulous friendfic! (for those who don't know what a friendfic is, its basically a fanfiction based on your friends, but I promise it'll be fun to read no matter if you're my friend or not.) PLEASE DON'T HESITATE to leave a review, follow or PM me because I can't tell you how much it excites me when people reach out like that! And you can also totally request to be in the fic, I'll find a character for you! :) I plan on keeping this going even longer than Lea Michele can hold a falsetto note (some Glee humour for all you Gleeks out there) But let's keep this Author's Note shorter than Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphrey's marriage so as not to bore y'all. So without further a due, I present to you all, Cosmatlas.

The Boy With The Orange Hands

Chapter One.

"Last day of treatment—"

I snorted.

The nurse gave me a questioning glare. I glared right back.

"Come on now, Scarlet. This is a good thing. How many times are you going to hear someone say, 'you're out'?"

"11."

"What?"

I sighed and watched as the nurse's head lifted from the IV she was fiddling with. "I've heard that 11 times. The whole 'you're out, and you're free' speech? It's nothing I haven't heard before."

The nurse's brows pulled together, forming a perplexed expression. I sighed once more and began to explain, "It's always something. A seizure as I'm about to sign the release forms. A stroke as I'm being examined before release. A fever as I'm about to walk out the doors. You name it, and I'll get it."

The nurse's confused gaze slowly turned into one of pity as she rolled in my food tray. Corn and brownies. At least it's not caramel and meatloaf. I eyed her name tag and crossed my arms over my chest defiantly, "Don't do that, Jenny."

Jenny the nurse, who was busying herself with cutting up my fabulously stale brownies, looked up so her insipid blue eyes were narrowing on mine. "Do what?"

"Don't look at me like that. Like you actually feel sorry for me," I picked up a brownie square and popped it in my mouth. "you've worked at this hospital now for what, a year? Two years? I recognize you from my 2038 remission—so you've been here a while. You're a vet here, probably desensitized to all kinds of tragedies."

Nurse Jenny opened her mouth, perhaps to try and argue, but I gripped her wrist tight before she could say anything. "I am not a tragedy, Jenny."

Nurse Jenny smiled and patted the top of my head. "Whatever you say, dear."

What a fake ass bitch.

After Jenny the whore left, the room seemed a tad empty—perhaps because I wasn't accustomed to being in an area void of fake bitches.

My heart settled, but only slightly. Five days ago they told me for the eleventh time that I could leave this place—that my epilepsy was now under fair control and as long as I took my meds, I'd be fit as a fiddle in no time.

Except, I wouldn't be. I'd get another odd rash or black out for two days. History dictated my future now. No one gets this perpetually sick and comes out of it alive or "fit as a fucking fiddle".

Okay, this is getting depressing. I picked up the remote and watched as the TV flickered on. The Kardashians were fighting over something—probably who had the biggest lady-boner over Kanye. I chuckled under my breath and watched the show with content, wishing that my corn was popcorn.

"Scarlet?"

Fuck off.

"Scar? Scar, wake up."

Dear God what is it now.

"Scarlet."

I am going to punch you so hard your mother will feel it.

"WHAT?" I hissed from under my pillow. I tightened the hospital blankets around me so as to conserve the heat I had generated while asleep. I peeked out from under my pillow—no white coat or blue scrubs. Okay, not a doctor. That's a good thing.

But there's a stranger in my room. THERE IS A STRANGER IN MY ROOM.

I opened my mouth, ready to scream for help, when the stranger's hand clamped over my mouth. It was a little clammy and smelled of oranges.

I frowned. What sort of a sick kidnapper eats oranges before his abductions? And then, it all made sense. I raised my hand from my blankets to dig into the figure's hand and lifted it off with ease.

"Finn?"

The boy frowned as I sat up, fuming and flushing with red rage. He interrupted my beauty sleep—no one does that.

"It's Finnegan." He corrected, arching a brow challengingly at me. I knew that me calling him Finn annoyed him, but what can I say, it's the price to pay when obtaining my friendship.

I waved a dismissive hand at him, rubbing my eyes in agitation. "What in God's name brought you here at this time of night?" I yawned. "You may be the nurses' star boy, but not even you be absolved of punishment if the MD's catch you here." I shot him a questioning glare, and even in the darkness of the night, I was sure he could see my sorrel colored eyes shining with concern. Finn never risked his life like this.

At my inquiries, Finn raised his head. He had been making prolonged eye contact with my bed sheets before I had finished speaking. "The trials are starting tomorrow, Scarlet." His voice shook—and not just because he was going through puberty and his voice was constantly reaching new pitches. Finn had tears in his eyes.

I straightened up at the sound of angst in his voice and snaked my arms around his shaking body. "Hey now," I cooed in his ear. "The trials are a good thing, Finn—"

"NO THEY'RE NOT!" He lurched away from me, trembling harder. "I…I saw things today, Scarlet." He shook his head, tears now streaming down his cheeks. "Things I don't think I can live with so long as I'm in this hospital."

My brows pulled together in confusion, Finn loved this hospital. It was his home. He was different than the rest of us patients, he liked his cage and never seemed to mind a life in this ivory tower.

Finn was one of the 64 in-critical-condition kids that were plucked from orphanages all across Ontario about 13 years ago—the year 2027. There are only 25 kids remaining, the rest of them taken by their diseases.

I'm one of the 25. Only 11 get to go on to the trials.

"The trials only seek to cure, Finn." I explained as gently as I could. "I'm sure whatever you saw can…can be explained."

Finn narrowed his dark brown eyes, this time he was the one fuming. "You don't seriously believe that? Come on, Scar, you're the one that's always telling me we can't trust the MD's!"

"Yeah well that was before I found out that that if I get on the trials, I can finally be normal!" I crossed my arms defiantly over my chest. But Finn was right—before one of the MD's came to talk to me about the trials last month, I didn't trust a soul. I was just a tad paranoid—stealing patient charts, taking out my IV's, refusing treatments…yeah I was paranoid.

Finn shot me a sympathetic look, but the anger in his eyes didn't go away. "Scarlet, I know you're sick, probably sicker than the 24 of us, but I saw things in there—" He paused, unable to finish.

"Like what, Finn? A needle penetrating a place in the skin you've not seen before? A different color antibiotic, what?"

He shook his head at my theories and inhaled a shaky breath before answering in a traumatized quiver.

"Monsters."