C h. 4
I got out of the shower and grabbed the towel off the towel rack, rolling up my hair in it to dry. I opened the door of the bathroom, which connected my bedroom to the next one, and waltzed into my room. I walked across my small room to the closet. I opened it up and peered inside.
"Man, I don't have anything good to wear." I said to myself
I grabbed a simple white blouse. I walked over to my dresser and pulled out a black skirt. I unwrapped my hair and dropped the towel on the floor. I pulled on some of my undergarments then pulled on the blouse and skirt. After brushing my hair I walked over to the mirror and admired my reflection.
Even in simple clothes like this I look good.
Suddenly my stomach growled. I watched my reflection lean over and grab its stomach.
I haven't had dinner last night. Come to think of it I still haven't had breakfast yet and it's already 1:30.
Leaving my room, I walked across the hallway to the stairs. I looked over the rail of the balcony. I looked around downstairs to see if anyone else was in the lounge. I saw something red on the couch. Squinting my eyes, I saw it was a blood red headed boy on the couch in front of the TV. I rolled my eyes when I saw him.
Why is Troy out here right now? He's normally in training right about now. Just my luck he's not in training right now.
I turned away from the stairs, to go back into my room, when my stomach growled again. With a groan of annoyance, I turned back to the stairs and quietly walked down them. Keeping one eye on him, I quietly walked to the kitchen area. I stuck my head in the pantry. To my surprise there was almost nothing good to eat in the pantry.
"Hey, you stupid knucklehead. Stop eating all of the food or I'll beat the playa out of ya." I said pulling my head out from the pantry.
I turned to look at Troy in front of the TV. When I turned to look at him I was surprised to see him sleeping. He was splayed out across the couch with one arm laid across the arm of the couch and the other lay across the back of the couch. One of his feet was on the other arm of the couch and the other foot was on the floor. His head rested against his arm that was on the arm of the couch.
He looks so peaceful.
I watched him sleep for a moment before I grabbed a bag of prunes and threw them at him. It hit him in the face making him jump. Troy winced, slowly opening his eyes. When he saw me crouched by the pantry, glowering, he smiled at me. I glared at him accusingly.
"You ate all of the food, again." I said, rolling my eyes at him in annoyance
"Well, Wendy, a man's gotta eat ya know. And why did you have to wake me up so violently." He said grabbing the bag of prunes and tossing them back at me.
He slung his foot off the arm of the couch and sat up, rubbing his eyes tiredly.
"Well now there is nothing to eat. I'm starving over here." I snapped at him
"I ain't the only one who eats a lot of food. Sean does too." He whined
I folded my arms up against my chest and turned my head to the side looking away from him dramatically.
"Fine. I'll go ask someone to go to the store for us." He said
I unfolded my arms and smiled at him. He turned the TV off and gave me a sweet smile.
"Wha- What's up with that look? Go ask someone for food already!" I stuttered
He stood up, softly shaking his bowed head with a smile on his face, and walked past me into the hallway. I listened to the sounds of his shoes in the empty hallway as he wandered off in search of someone to go buy us food.
What the heck was that about?
I shook my head and walked back to the kitchen. I opened the fridge and grabbed a carton of milk. I opened it and took a huge swing of it. I grabbed the last cheese stick out of the bottom of the fridge. I opened it up and took a bite in between swings of milk. It suddenly seemed really quiet in the building.
Someone is here. I can sense them behind me.
I turned around to see a girl in a night gown standing a few feet behind me. Her blind grey/black eyes stared right through me. Her long black hair hung, tangled, from her head.
"Kirua! You scared me!" I said, jumping in surprise
"Sorry. I was scared. I heard a strange noise." She said
I didn't hear anything.
I looked around a little bit, straining my ears for any noises.
"What are you talking about? I don't hear anything." I replied, confused
"I heard people coming in the back entrance. " She said
Huh? Then that means that there are new people here.
"Should we go check it out?" I asked her with a mischievous tone in my voice
"Yeah." Kirua said, her dull eyes lighting up slightly with excitement
"Lets go!" I said grabbing her hand
A chill ran down my spine as my hand touched her cold hand. I looked at our joined hands for a second before I lead her down out of the lounge. As we ran out into the maze of hallways I looked at her out of the corner of my eye.
I'm surprised that she was able to walk down the stairs by herself. She could have tripped and fallen. And she hasn't had an awakening attack in about a week. I wonder when the next one is gonna be.
"Do you still hear the noises?" I asked, trying to take my mind of the fear in my mind
We ran down the main hall and turned left into a new hallway. We ran down the hall quietly then we turned right. I slowed us to a walk in that hallway.
"Yes." She replied
I stopped us and listened. I heard the door opening and closing and I heard people talking urgently to each other.
"I hear it now too." I said with a smile
We walked down to the next corner. I stopped at the corner and peeked around it. I saw the nurses running into the building, pushing stretchers. There were people lying limp on the stretchers. One nurse pushed in someone with blonde hair. Another pushed in someone with brown hair. They turned out of the hallway and into the infirmary. Then the last stretcher came in. A rancid barbeque like scent filled the air. I covered my nose with my hand and turned away from the smell. Kirua started to gag beside me.
The smell must be twice as strong to her.
I turned back to the people. I saw a charred wrist as the stretcher turned out of the hallway and into the infirmary.
What the hell happened to them?
Kirua tugged on my arm. I turned and saw that she had stopped gagging but still had a disgusted look on her face.
"Hey Wendy, what happened?" she asked
"They brought in 3 new people. 2 of them looked like they were just unconscious and beat up a bit but the last one had burns all over him." I said wincing as I thought about his wrist.
"We should go now." I said grabbing Kirua's wrist
I dragged her back to the lounge. I walked her up the stairs slowly and took her to her room.
"You should get some rest now." I said to her
"Ok. I will." She said with a smile, blindly staring up in my direction
I closed the door behind me as I left. I went back to my room. I opened the door and stood there for a little bit, staring into the room. Just as I was about to step into my room my stomach growled. With a groan I spun around on my heels and walled back downstairs to the kitchen.
"Food…food…food" I said sticking my head in the fridge again
Just as I pulled my head out of the fridge with a sigh I felt strong arms hug around my waist. I jumped up with a screech, whirling around to see who had grabbed me. When I turned around I saw a familiar face.
"Troy!" I yelled grabbing his hands and flinging them off of my waist.
"What?! You looked so cute and vulnerable I just had to give you a hug." He said with a hurt expression on his face
I looked at him in disbelief. He knows I'm the complete opposite of vulnerable. Shaking my head fiercely I looked at him and said
"Don't do that."
I rushed around him when he grabbed my arm, forcing me to a stop. I turned to look up at him in surprise. He had a serious look on his face.
"Did you see that they brought new people today?" he asked in a quiet voice
I nodded my head, grimacing as I remembered the last boy's burnt arm.
"They got three this time." I said sadly
We stood in silence for a minute
"They normally only manage to get one or maybe two at a time. Those kids must have been easy." I said trying to lighten the mood
Troy let go of my arm and I slowly walked to my room. I noticed my arm hurt. I looked down at it and saw that it was red where Troy had been holding it.
He seems to be getting stronger without noticing it. Oh well. That's bound to happen when you train for hours every day.
Rubbing my arm, I walked to my room. My hunger was completely forgotten. I remembered that Lisanna and some of the other officers haven't come to train us all day today. I guess that they were all out today to get those new kids. I plopped down on my bed and looked up at the ceiling.
I take back what I said earlier. If it took them all day to get them they must have put up quite the fight.
As I started thinking about it I remembered when I had been caught. I was about six years old at the time. I was living with my dad. Er… I thought of him as my dad but I guess he was just my creator. Anyway, he was always acting funny around me. It was like he was scared of me or something. I didn't know what I did wrong. I didn't have a mom but dad had told me that his wife had died when I was about Two years old.
He always told me what I wanted to know and gave me what I wanted but if I tried to do get close to him he would become even more terrified looking and beat me. Then I remembered one day he made a long phone call he kept looking at me as I played with my horses on the ground. I made my hands ride them. I remember that I was terrified of Barbie's. I would destroy them every time I saw one. I don't remember why they scared me but they did.
But while I played with my hands and horses I saw my dad looking at me while talked into the phone. He had an unrecognizable expression on his face. One that I had never seen on his face before. He looked half scared and half….happy.
"Thank you so much! You saved me!" He said before hanging up
Whatever fear had been on his face before was gone and replaced by unending joy.
"They are on their way. Yes. Finally, you're out of my life, forever." Dad said turning his eyes toward me.
That familiar expression of hate crossed his face. My eyes welled up with tear just like they did every time he had that look on his face. He started pacing back and forth.
He's sending me somewhere again. I hope it's not to that mean man who hurt me with the blue light. It burned and tickled and he wouldn't let me sleep cause he kept hitting me with that blue light over and over again as I laid on an uncomfortable metal table.
"You're not gonna take me back to the mean man with the blue light are you?" I asked him as he paced back and forth with a crazy look on his face
"No. I don't know where these people are gonna take you. But they are probably gonna do more than electrocute you." He said with an crazy excited look on his face.
"But I don't wanna get hurt again!" I said crawling across the floor over to my dad
When he saw me crawling over to him he kicked out a leg with a furious look on his face. His foot caught me in the right temple. I remember my eyesight going white as I flew across the room. I lay on the floor as he walked a couple of steps closer to me. As my eyesight returned I saw a finger being pointed at me.
"It's your fault!" he said pointing a trembling finger at me.
"You killed my wife!" He said.
I pulled my eyes away from the trembling finger and slowly looked at his face. His eyes were filled with the rawest hate I had ever seen.
"All I did was leave you with her for a little bit and when I come back you have some metal tail sticking out of your back and you were covered in blood! I look around wildly for my wife only to find her mauled body being flung around the air on your tail!" He screamed at me
I stared blankly at him absorbing his words slowly.
Huh? His wife is dead because of me.
All of a sudden there was a knock at the front door. My dad jumped and ran to the front door. He opened it and I saw a young woman around 16 years old at the door. She saw me and walked in looked down at me with cold eyes.
"Hi there." She said
"My name is Lisanna and I'm gonna take you to a new home. A place with more people just like you." She said
A man walked up behind me and leaned down to grab me. He picked me up in his arms. I was turned to where I could see my dad. He was laughing like a crazy person. Lisanna took one look at him and raised a gun to him. She shot a couple of rounds into his face. I looked at him fall in horror. I returned to my scenes as the horror filled me. All of a sudden I needed to get away. He was my creator and he hated me for killing his wife but I still loved him at the time now that I think about it I hate him now.
But at the time filled with love for him I screamed and shot metal stakes out of my back. I could hear flesh tear and bone crunch as the stakes pierced the arms of the man holding me. He dropped me with a scream and I ran around the shocked Lisanna and leaned down next to my dad.
I keeled over and start crying.
"Honey, I had to do it. He was insane. I had to do it to keep other people safe." Lisanna said
I looked up at her.
"I don't care!" I screamed at her
Filling with fury, I stood up. I felt anger and power filling me but I also felt joy filling me. As the joy began to mix with my fury I felt my eyesight glaze and all the noise around me disappeared. Everything suddenly began to feel very far away. A strange calm fell over me all of a sudden. I was floating in emptiness. I stood, frozen, staring straight ahead but I couldn't comprehend anything I saw, almost like it wasn't right there in front of me.
Whatever I was seeing I felt like I was looking through someone else's eyes or like I was watching TV. I didn't feel anything. I remember distantly seeing a horrified look on Lisannas face. Then I saw the world flash past my eyes as I flew towards the ceiling. I saw out of the corner of my eyes that I had metal wings sprouted out of my back.
I landed on upside down on the ceiling, sticking to it with metal claws that replaced my fingernails, and saw metal bullets shoot out from me at the people. I saw an older man behind Lisanna push her out of the way of a bullet. He shot something at me. I looked at my arm and saw something metal and fuzzy bounce off of it. There was armor covering my body. I looked back at the man and distantly felt my face contort into a twisted smile. He shot another fuzzy thing at me. It hit a spot in between the armor.
I remember feeling really heavy. I felt my metal claws loosen their grip on the ceiling and the world swirled around me as I fell to the floor. I stared numb straight ahead for a moment before I felt my vision return to normal. I no longer felt far away from my own body. I felt my fury fill me again and just after that I felt pain fill my body. The armor fell off of me and my claws fell out of my fingertips.
I writhed on the floor in pain as my wings detached from my body. I looked at my body and saw that I was covered in blood. My leg was swollen and twisted in a funny position. I let out a bloodcurdling scream. Then I felt a sharp prick on my arm. I looked up and saw the man who had shot me with the fuzzy object had shot me with another fuzzy thing. I saw Lisanna looked horrified when she saw me.
My pain began to ebb a little as I grew numb with exhaustion. I stopped being able to move and stared numbly in front of me feeling completely limp and tired. I can just remember the exhaustion. It was over whelming. As my eyes closed I remember feeling someone pick me up in gentle arms and then there was nothing.
Just as I was trying to remember what happened after I woke up I heard my door slam open. A female officer stomped into my room and yelled
"What do you think your doing?!"
"We didn't get the order from Lisanna to go to the training room today." I said jumping up from my bed.
She stared at me expectantly for a second before rolling her eyes and yelling
"Well, Get your ass downstairs and go to the training room!"
I rushed around the lady, ducking my head in case she decided to smack me. As I ran to the training room I started thinking about those kids again. Remembering the burned one I figured he must have been like me and awakened when they tried to capture him.
I hope they are ok. I hope he's ok.