Agent Zero saw the girl fall to her knees, and sighed as Wade and Stryker left the room to go and check on her. Zero watched as they entered the floor below. John approached from behind and stood next to him.

"Hey, you okay, man? I seen you flinching every time Wade turned that dial."

Zero glared at the floor.

"I'm absolutely fine, John. I just... I just hate it when he uses those stupid, screeching, animalistic torture devices."

John nodded.

"I hear you, man. But it's what we do. It ain't all sunshine and rainbows. Never was. Never will be."

"Yeah, I know that John. It's just getting harder and harder seeing Stryker torture all these kids every day and not even blink an eye."

John sighed.

"I know, Zero... I know."

John turned and walked through the door, closing it slowly behind him. Zero put his hands on the table in front of him, watching as two guards picked up the girl and carried her out of the complex, Wade and Stryker not far behind. He closed his eyes, breathing deeply, before taking his hands off of the table and walking towards the door, turning the lights off as he exited the room.

Amber felt as if she was asleep. She knew she hadn't felt this way a minute ago, and as her brain started kicking back into action, she suddenly felt aware of something. What was it? Everything was dark, and the dry, stale taste in her mouth opted out taste. She couldn't feel anything, and nothing was catching in her nose either. So what had woken her up? All of a sudden, she heard a tiny voice speaking to her softly.

"Hey, can you hear me? If you can, open your eyes."

She wanted to call out, "I can hear you just fine, thank you very much!", but it seemed as if her voice had disappeared altogether. She tried to open her eyes, but they were glued shut. The only way she'd be getting them open was with the help of her hands. Which she couldn't move. Great. She tried with all her might to move anything. An eyelid, a finger, a toe. Anything would do. She gave up for the time being and tried to focus on what was being discussed around her. There seemed to be two voices talking to each other in hushed whispers, almost as if they were afraid someone would hear them. Were they afraid?

It was a boy's voice that spoke first.

"Shh! If they figure out that we're trying to help her, they'll stick us in that god awful machine!"

A girl replied, "Oh, calm your quarters. No one's going to hear us. There'll all asleep right now except for John, who doesn't really give a damn about what we do."

The first voice sighed.

"Alright, fine. Just hurry up. I wanna go to sleep soon."

Amber snorted in her mind. He seemed like a nice person. But it seems she did something else as well, as the girl reacted quite hysterically.

"Hey, did you hear that, Remy? She made a sound! She's alive!"

Of course I'm alive. Idiot.

"It sounded gross."

Your mom sounded gross. Last night. Hey, at least she could still be sarcastic.

"Maybe if I talk to her again, I can get a response."

No duh.

"Why are you trying so hard to get her up this early after she's been zapped by that freakish torturing machine? It takes a while for the person to become responsive again. Remember when you first came here? Just let it happen naturally."

... Yeah, whatever he just said.

"Of course I remember, dumb ass. I just wanna be able to fill this girl in before her mind is brainwashed by those jerk-offs."

Whoa, WHAT? Jerking off and washing of brains did NOT sound like something fun to her. She had to wake up and talk to this girl. She tried once again to lift her finger, but it still wouldn't budge. She tried her eyelids. Nothing. She tried her toes. Nada. She had to move. She had to let this girl know she was alright. She had to wake up.

"C'mon Emma, just leave her alone for now. I let you be when you came back, and turned out just fine. Sure, it took about 7 hours for you to finally be able to form a sentence, but it all worked out in the end."

The girl scoffed.

"You are far too easy-going for your own good."

Amber heard a smile in the boy named Remy's voice.

"It's what I do."

Amber groaned inwardly. If these two didn't stop flirting she swore she wou-

"Let me just try one last time."

Silence. Obviously Remy had agreed, and Emma was now thinking of some other way to get her to wake up. All of a sudden, Amber felt tingling crawling up her side, then across her stomach and down her other side. She was extremely ticklish, and could feel her brain sending messages to her legs to kick from the tickling frenzy, but they still couldn't. Next it went to her arms, telling them to try and stop the attack, but still, nothing happened. The next thing said made her giggle inwardly, and not just from the tickling. Remy seemed to be in either shock or disbelief.

"... What the hell are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm tickling her to see if she responds. Our sense of touch is the most sensitive out of the five, so I figured there's a pretty good chance that she's ticklish. I was hoping she'd respond in some way. You're right. It's too early in the recovery period for there to be any kind of response from her. Let's try again in the morning."

Amber wanted to cry out, to tell her not to leave her alone. She couldn't give up, not when she was so close. She had to stop her from falling asleep, or else she'd be stuck not moving her fingers and toes for the next eight hours alone.

W-w-w-w...

W-w-a-a-a...

W-w-a-a-i...

"Wait."

Her voice was raspy and croaky, like if a toad had suddenly felt the urge to elope with an old woman, and they had strange frog/old lady hybrid children together, and their kids were awful singers who had a lifelong case of strep throat and they all of a sudden said the word 'Wait' all at the same time. That's what it sounded like.

She felt her finger finally move, and she smiled. She had broken past a barrier that she was afraid she'd never get through.

Two faces flooded her returning vision as her eyes slowly opened. The girl, Emma, had pure blonde hair, pale skin and icy blue eyes, with a kind expression on her beautiful features. The boy, Remy, was much different. He had longish, dark hair and dark, beautiful eyes. He had a beard (if it was even long enough to call it that) on his chin, and his skin was slightly tanned. Every now and then, his dark eyes would glow bright red, but Amber wasn't sure if it was just the way the light was hitting them. Emma seemed relieved, while Remy seemed confused and slightly cautious. Amber was good at reading faces, which was one of her few non-dangerous hobbies. She smiled at them both. The girl spoke first, seemingly eager to tell her something.

"Hi, I'm Emma. This is Remy."

She motioned to Remy, and he smiled half-heartedly. Amber tried to roll her eyes, but failed.

"We're so glad that you're finally awake. We have so much to fill you in on. But first, what's your name?"

Amber grinned.

"Amber. My name is Amber."

I have no excuse for why this took so long to update, so I'll just apologize and be over it. I'M SORRY. There. :3 This chapter is a little longer than usual, which is great... so I'm not quite sure why I started off this sentence making it sound like a bad thing. LOLZ. Anyways, enjoy! R&R! :)