A/N: Keep reviewing, guys! (Even you, Strawberry Tall Cake.)
Well. Another chapter. The fear experiments really are scary, huh?
I froze. Ivy still believed her mother loved her. We all knew the truth. Both her parents were whitecoats. They only wanted her to be an experiment. Dr. Hinters was pretty, I realized. Her face was heart-shaped, not unlike Ivy's. Her hazel eyes sparkled when she talked.
"Mommy, take me away from here," Ivy said, her small voice ringing across the now dead-silent room.
"Why, Adelyn?" she said.
"I'm Ivy now," she told her. "And they're hurting me."
"You sometimes have to make sacrifices for the greater good. You're helping science, and you're doing the right thing," Dr. Hinters waved her off.
"I don't want to do the right thing. I want to go home," Ivy said sadly. "Take me home, Mommy, please!" she pleaded.
"Don't be silly, Ivy, you need to stay. For the good of science," Dr. Hinters ignored her daughter.
"When did you develop this power?" the doctor asked.
"In January," Ivy answered glumly.
"Demonstrate," Dr. Hinters commanded. Ivy, not moving from her bed, reached down to touch the metal leg of her bed. There was a crackle and it glowed blue, showering sparks. She took her finger off and it stopped.
Dr. Hinters nodded, writing things down on her clipboard. The door opened again, and this time a man walked in. He was a whitecoat. He peered over Dr. Hinter's shoulders.
He looked over at us like he was seeing us for the first time. He smiled pleasantly.
"Hello. I'm Dr. Jameson. This is my wife, Dr. Hinters," he said pleasantly.
"Daddy?" Ivy asked incredulously. The man smiled. He had dark, wavy hair and gray eyes. Other than his eyes, he looked nothing like Ivy.
Both doctors turned to go, clipboards in hand.
"Please let me leave," Ivy begged.
"I already said no," Dr. Hinters said before she closed the door. Ivy's eyes were glistening with tears.
"Who are my parents?" Chase wondered out loud.
"Maybe you don't want to know," Ivy said bitterly, turning away from us.
! #$%^&*
"Test 5 will soon begin," the intercom's voice said. Ivy glanced nervously at Chase. He looked at her and nodded. They would face whatever nightmare they threw at them.
There was a small creak. Suddenly, a square of flooring fell. Ivy got closer to see what was underneath and a spurt of lava squirted out, narrowly missing her face. It burned of the end of a strand of her hair. There was lava underneath the floor.
Another square, this time in a corner, popped out. Chase backed away into a wall, and Ivy followed, a few steps away from him. Pop! Pop! Pop! Three more squares fell, making the hole in the middle bigger.
The room was small this time, as small as with the water test. Pop! A square of flooring fell between the two. They hopped over to the other side, a trail of popping sounds following them, marking where they'd walked by squares of empty flooring. The lava sizzled and crackled below.
In a large noise, the whole half of the room the pair wasn't on fell through. They watched, mesmerized, as the lava spat and fizzed. The bright, oozing liquid reflected off of their eyes.
Both corners fell, confining them to a small strip of floor. It held firm, not bending under their weight. Another long strip fell off, making the division between floor and lava closer to them. More tiles fell off on each end of their small strip, forcing them closer together.
Ivy jumped back just as she felt the tile she was standing on fall. She was now separated from Chase, and more tiles fell, leaving them both on their own little islands. It was barely big enough to take a small step forward. More tiles fell until they were both each standing on one tile. The heat coming from the lava was almost unbearable. She screamed as her last tile fell.
! #$%^&*
Still breathing heavily, Ivy turned to Chase.
"Are you okay?" she asked him.
"Yeah. How do you think all the tiles reappeared so quickly? We didn't even get burnt."
"Maybe it was an illusion," Ivy suggested.
"It was a pretty good one," Chase said. "I can still feel the heat," he muttered.
"Test 6 will begin shortly," the intercom announced. They exchanged a glance.
A door opened in a side of the room. A dozen mutants appeared before they could try to escape. The door closed. Half of them were identical copies of Ivy, half of them were clones of Chase. "Hi Chase," all the Ivy's said together.
"Hey Ivy," the Chase's answered in a perfect imitation of his voice. They turned to the original pair.
"We must destroy you," all the mutants said in unison.
"No," Ivy said. She moved closer to Chase. They just had time to catch sight of their matching evil grins when the lights went out. Ivy yelped a little then tried to find Chase. He was still right next to her.
He grabbed her hand.
"Don't let go, so you know it's me!" he told her. She squeezed his hand, listening for the scurrying noises in the room. She felt Chase's voice whisper, "Over here!"
"Squeeze my hand if that was you!" she said.
"It's me!"
"No!" Ivy felt nothing on the hand still gripping Chase's so she pushed away something to her left. She felt someone tear at her and push her, but Ivy punched the mutant.
She felt a Chase clone jump onto her and latch on, trying to tear her away from the real Chase. She held on harder, but Chase was fighting off other clones. The Chase clone she was trying to push off yanked her away from Chase and flung her across the room. She landed painfully, dazed for a moment, sounds of fighting coming from everywhere.
"Chase?" she called out, still badly hurt, unable to stand up.
"Yes?" at least seven voices answered. Ivy let out a sob and tried feeling around blindly, too scared to fight and hurt the real Chase.
"It's me!" a Chase voice whispered.
"No, it's me!" a voice to her side said. More murmurs from farther away confused her more.
"How did we meet?" Ivy asked, calling out to the whole room.
"In the dumpster," the voice to her side said.
"And?" Ivy asked, still not convinced.
"You said I could be in your flock but you were already leader. I told you that you were pretty and… and…" the voice to Ivy's left trailed off.
"And what?" she demanded.
"You told me to shut up," Chase said with certain amusement. She stumbled desperately to where the voice was coming from and hugged him, glad to have found the real Chase. She gripped him tightly for a while until all sounds ceased, trying to ignore her pain from being thrown across the room.
The lights turned back on and there was only one Ivy and one Chase in the room. "Test 6 is over. Testing is finished for today," the woman on the intercom announced.
The door opened and two whitecoats were there to escort them. They walked through hallways and back to their big, tiled room. Chase and Ivy were pushed into it.
! #$%^&*
Ivy and Chase tumbled into the room. I looked up, bored. They'd really been the only ones doing the testing, while the flock was left inside this damn white room to die of boredom. I'd gotten tired of having Nudge request songs and have Gazzy sing them perfectly, the same as the actual singer. I was really sick of Iggy's sourness like a permanent bad mood.
They both fell to their beds, exhausted.
"How was your day, kids?" I asked with false enthusiasm.
"Falling floor and lava," Ivy said, not bothering to look at me while talking.
"Evil clones in the dark," Chase added. I sighed. I was starting to lose my mind, after doing nothing for three whole days.
Luckily, something more happened to break the monotony. The door opened and in came nine trays of food carried by Erasers. I hadn't had anything to eat since I'd been in the Johns Hopkins Hospital. I got mine and it seemed like the best thing in the world: rice, chicken, a sandwich, an apple and water. Total even got a tray. We started eating happily as the Erasers left.
I smiled over at Fang. He caught it and smiled back, brightening the room. Maybe it was a miracle. Maybe it was because of the food. There was a small part of me that hoped he was smiling because of me.
A/N: Fax. Is. My. Life. (Sorry)
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~greyksy3