Animal Spirits Season 2

“Here. Your essay prompt is Should Mars be made into a human civilization, or should we preserve Mars’ environment?” Ulva gives me my laptop.

“Why do I have to do college level curriculum? I’m only 7 years old,” I pout. Ulva sighs. “You’re almost done, sweetheart.” The door opens.

“Dad!” I smile.

“Hello sweetie. Today’s your lucky day! Your studies are done today,” Dad pats my shoulders. My mouth spreads into a smile so big that my cheeks started to hurt. I sneak a glance at Ulva, surprised to see a nervous and sad look in her eyes. Even if she was smiling, it was easy to tell what her emotions was by looking at her face, because she was like my mother to me. I’ve known her since I was born. Even if I don’t know who my mother and father is.

“Read this. This will be-your classmates, let’s say,” Dad hands me a packet. I look through it.

Last Update 2019

Person #1

Name: Zakaria

Age:13

Sex: Male

Abilities: Advanced White Blood Cells (Advanced Healing Process)

Person #2

Name: Isaac

Age:9

Sex: Male

Abilities: Cannot Die Permanently (Can die for a few minutes, but will come back to life)

Person #3

Name: Myles

Age: 9

Sex: Male

Abilities: Flexibility of cells (Can bend to any shape, but takes a long time

Person #4

Name: Sala

Age: 7

Sex: Female

Abilities: N/A

“M-Me? I’m person number 4? I can get super powers?!” I gush.

“Now, now. No. They’re not superpowers, but while I was experimenting, their cells somehow developed differently,” Dad explains.

“Experimenting?” I wonder.

“You’ll learn about it soon enough,” Dad smiles to me. “Get ready to meet your new playmates.”

I happily nod, dismissing my questions and went to my room to get to my ‘play’ clothes. My room was made out of metal and had a bed, closet, and a desk. Light filtered through a dirty windows on the top of my room. I wasn’t allowed to go outside, so I always thought that we were underground. I go to my closet to find two pairs of identical pajamas and everyday clothing, and one pair of ‘play’ clothes, or clothes for if visitors come. I’m about to change when Ulva comes into my room with a strained smile on her face.

“Ulva?” I ask, clutching my clothes to my chest.

“You can stay in your normal clothing because you’ll see your playmates in a daily basis.”

“Will I see you?” I clutch my clothes tighter.

“I’m not sure, sweetie. Maybe just once a month. You’ll still need to study a little bit for review or to learn new things. Unless you want to learn something new.” Ulva reaches in for a hug and I hug her.

“I don’t know if I want to learn anything particular yet. Sorry,” I say.

“No, no. You’re 7 years old.” Ulva shakes her head. “Most 7 year olds don’t know what they want to be and how to even write a paragraph. Take your time. You’ll find something you want to learn when it comes to you.” Ulva cocks her head to one side and smiles to me.

***********************************************************************************

I cautiously open the door to a place called the Waiting Room.

“Hello?” I ask, when I go in. A tall boy sits at the corner reading a book. He shifts his glasses and looks at me.

“You must be Sala. I’m Zakaria.”

“Uh. Nice to meet you.” I respond, but he was already back in his book. Another boy bounced towards me.

“Hello! I’m Myles. I hope we can be friends” he smiles.

“Yes. I hope we can.” I respond politely.

“Jeez. You’re just like Zak. So formal and nice. We’re all getting tortured here. No need to be all goody-two-shoes.” the last boy sits at the far corner. I squint and gasp when I see that he had been sharpening a knife.

“You’re so mean, Isaac! She’s probably hadn’t been experimented on yet!” Myles slaps Isaac. I realized that Myles looked similar to Isaac.

Zakaria, or Zak, clears his throat to get Myles and Isaac’s attention.

“Tortured? Expermented?” I ask, confused.

“Oh, it’s nothing. Just this idiot over here is obsessed about being a doctor and stuff.” Myles rolls his eyes. He doesn’t look me in the eye.

“You’re lying.” I say a matter of factly.

“Whatever. Let’s just go eat.” Zak gets up from his chair.

“Eat? We get to eat? YAY!” I cry in happiness.

“We get to eat everyday.” Isaac rolls his eyes.

“Really?! I’ve been only hooked up to IVs for some reason my entire life. Well, except for my birthday and other celebrations.” I think. “I had oatmeal and it was so good!”

“Eww. Oatmeal.” Myles wrinkles his nose.

“It’s yummy!” I cry.

“It’s also the only thing you’ve ever eaten besides using IVs, isn’t it?” Zak puts his book down. I nod.

“Lunch time, kids!” Ulva comes into the room.

“Hi Ulva!” I say to her, grinning from ear to ear.

“Hello, dear” Ulva smiles back. We enter the cafeteria that’s actually meant for twenty kids. There’s only four of us, so it’s silent. No one dares to break the silent, but it was sort of awkward because I’ve been living by myself and I only got to see Ulva. Another lady comes toward us with trays and gives us our meal.

“Hot and sour soup with fish, tofu, and assorted vegetables.” she tells us. I look at the bowl, surprised to see steam coming out. I take a sip and gasps.

“Mmm!” I smile, forgetting about the silence. I finish my meal in no time.

“Dessert, dear?” Ulva asks.

“There’s dessert?” I happily cried out. Ulva nods and goes to get a plate. She comes back with a slice of apple pie. I take a bite. I seriously almost died in happiness. I’m on my last bite when Dad comes in.

“Dad!” I go to hug him.

“Hello, sweetie. Hello, kids!” Dad waves at the others, but even energetic Myles stays silent and looks down. Isaac, however, wasn’t.

“I hate you! YOU EVIL--” Ulva clasps her hand around Isaac’s mouth and he calms down a bit.

“Sala, I want you to come with me.” Dad takes my hand.

“O-Ok.” I say.

“Already? Wasn’t she done with her studies today?” I hear Zak say. Dad pulls me along, so I don’t stop to ask what he was talking about. We enter a room full of medical tools, and computers. One of the computers are on with some code on it.

“What does that code do?” I ask Dad.

“Shush Sala. Change into these clothes and when you’re done, lay down on that table.” Dad hands me a hospital gown and points to a metal table in the middle of the room.

“What are we doing here?” I ask before Dad leaves.

“Sala, just do what I say.” Dad sternly says, closing the door behind him. I change and lay down on the metal table. It was hard and cold. I squirm to find myself a comfortable position. Soon, Dad was back.

“Dad?” my voice quivered. “I’m scared. What’s happening?”

“Here. Wear this mask.” Dad ignores my question and puts a transparent mask-like cover on top of my nose and mouth.

“Huh? What’s happening? Dad?” soon, my eyes fell and everything went dark.

***********************************************************************************

When I wake up again, I was in my bed. I tried to get up, but when I started moving, pain jolted through my body. I scream. I look down at myself and realize that my stomach had bloodied bandages on it. Was my stomach opened and stitched up again? I notice that my chest was also sore, and I see that my chest also had bandages on it. It seemed to me like my chest was opened bigger. I couldn’t move, so instead, I started screaming until my throat wouldn’t let my scream anymore. I cried until my eyes were dry and I could no longer cry. I just sat there, wondering about what had happened. I wondered if Dad was really who I thought he was. I thought about what Isaac, Zak, and Myles told me before. I sat like that for a week, and finally, I could move a little bit at a time. I mostly just moved to my computer and back to my bed. I started learning coding and soon, I taught myself to hack into our security cameras in my room. Ulva came to my room two times a day to give me food, but usually quickly ran away right after. I was alone most of the time. Soon, a month has passed and I was fully healed. Ulva told me that my recovery was fast compared to the others. My ‘playmates’ were really the other experiments that Dad was working on. Dad cut me open again every month. I would heal, then be sliced open again. Before I knew it, it had been five years. My immune system built up and I healed in a week. I could do anything other than running my the next day. Dad started to experiment on me every week, but since I could walk during the healing process, I was handed chores. I would go with the other boys sometimes, but other times, I would have to do chores by myself. We were underground, and the plot of land above us was a regular meadow, but we had a small place for flowers and other farming. I decided to grow some flowers of my own and the garden was full of lilies and poppies after that. I visited the garden everyday and it was where I could really be happy. I would never really see the other boys after that, because with all of us getting experimented on and doing our own thing, like gardening and coding, we couldn’t see each other anymore. I didn’t really know what the experiments were all about, but some of us had powers, like what I read before when I first met them. I didn’t know my power yet. Maybe I was that one person that wouldn’t get any powers. One day, when I was watering my purple lilies, I saw Isaac come up.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“Ulva told me to help you.” Isaac looks away from me.

“Oh?” I stifled a laugh. “Here. Help me water then. I wanted to plant some more sunflowers anyways.” I give him the water hose. I plopped myself down and started digging the dirt for a space for the flowers.

“Hey Sala! Think fast!” I turn around and a blast of water hits my face.

“Agh! What the hell, Isaac!” I scream, checking my bandages. Luckily, it had already been five days since I was last cut open.

“My wounds! I have to put new bandages on now.” I sigh. Isaac runs over.

“Ah, sorry. I should have thought about your wounds.” Isaac comes over, his eyes worried.

“Since when have you been sorry?” I grimace as I get up, feeling a drop of blood come out from my stitches.

“Shit! My wound opened a little.” I mumble to myself, quickly getting up and going to the elevator.

“Your wound opened up? Crap. Let me help you.” Isaac drops the hose and helps me walk down. My wound stings with every step as we walk to Dad’s lab.

“What is it?” Dad looks at us when we come in.

“Her wound opened up.” Isaac pants. Dad pales and sends me on the metal table that’s now a sickly shade of pink. By this point, I’m hardly conscious and slowly blacking out. Isaac has to help me get up to the table which isn’t even that high. I lay down and a jolt of pain sends me screaming. Isaac lets me hold his hand and I grip it, trying to drown the pain.

“What the hell?” I hear Dad say.

“What is it?” Isaac turns his head to Dad.

“H-Huh? Oh. Nothing.” Dad quickly goes back to work to restiching my wound.

“I-I really need to pass out.” I manage to say. Isaac sends back a worried smile. He grabs the anesthetic mask and puts it over my mouth. I breath for what seems like a year in the mask, and I finally close my eyes and drift off. When I wake up again, I’m in my bed. I thought that I was done with a regular experiment, but quickly remembered what happened. I groaned and realized there was someone next to me on my desk sleeping. Isaac. I sigh. Isaac is one weird kid. He hated me, yet helped me yesterday. Well, I guess he would because he’s also human. As if on cue, Isaac lifts his head up and looks at me. After a few seconds, he jumps in surprise.

“Yo-You’re awake!” he gasps.

“Yeah. What happened?” I ask. Isaac looks away from me.

“Dad didn’t tell me. He’s being such a dic-”

“Ah-hem.” I clear my throat loudly.

“He’s being such an idiot! Can’t you know what’s happening to your own body?” Isaac sighs and hits his hand on my table in frustration.

“Do you think it has something to do with my abilities? I mean, you all knew your abilities when Dad first experimented on you. I should have known my abilities five years ago!” I wonder.

“Maybe Dad doesn’t know yet”

“Maybe Dad doesn’t want to tell me. Jeezus. This experimenting is so wrong.” I sigh, smashing my hand on my pillow. Isaac looks away from me.

“Why do you hate us?” I remember when Isaac first met me.

“Don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate you because we’re getting experimented on. That wouldn’t make sense.” Isaac nervously plays with my pen on the table.

“Then?” I raise my eyebrows.

“It’s- never mind” Isaac gets up from my chair and goes to my door.

“Tell me!” I snap at him.

“Just get some rest.” Isaac doesn’t look at me as he leaves. Well jeez. I sigh. My head started throbbing, so I go back to sleep.

***********************************************************************************

I wake up to see Ulva next to me.

“Ulva.” I greet her.

“Hello, sweetheart.” Ulva smiled back at me.

“So? Today I have to be cut open right?” I ask.

“Oh! No. Your father told me that you didn’t need to be experimented on for a month or so. To heal. He wants you to bond with Isaac for some reason, so he’s not going to be experimented on either.” Ulva shakes her head.

“Isaac? Why him? Why not Myles? Or Zak?” I down, surprised.

“Zak-Zak’s dead.” Ulva quietly says.

“WHAT?! But-But he has advanced healing white blood cells!” I yell. I quickly clutch my stomach. That scream hurt. Ulva quickly comes over to me and lays me down.

“Your father thought Zak might have gotten the same things as Isaac because their abilities are similar. He went to far on Zak. Now, he’s working on Myles.” Ulva whispers.

“N-No,” I feel tears forming in my eyes. “He-He was quiet and reading all the time, but he was still my friend. My brother.” I turn over to the other side.

“I’ll give you some room. I’ll come back with food.” Ulva reads my mind and goes. She comes back later with food and puts it on my table, but I pretend to be asleep and she leaves quietly. For the rest of the night, I cry.

***********************************************************************************

By the next couple days, I was allowed to do my gardening again. I was scared that my plants and flowers were already dead because the past days were really hot outside, but I was surprised to see thriving flowers when I went outside.

“How?” I ask myself in disbelief. I look around and find Isaac standing in the corner with the hose.

“Wanted to help you. You love your plants, don’t you?” Isaac rubs his neck, his cheeks growing pinkish.

“Aww. Thanks!” I smile at him.

“Well, I want to have a good relationship with you because I have to be with you for the entire month.” Isaac shrugs.

“Well, gee thanks.” I groaned. “You know Zak’s dead, right?” I try to say it quietly, but it ends up too casual.

“WHAT?” Isaac drops the hose on the ground, almost spraying my feet, again.

“You didn’t know? Apparently, you ability is similar to his so they tried killing him. He really died.” I whisper. Isaac freezes and just looks at me, his eyes watering.

“It’s- It’s my fault.” He only says. I only watch him, unsure of how to comfort him.

“You want to know why I hate you?” Isaac stares at me, his blue eyes glinting from the sunlight. I thought he was joking or was really mad at me, but I notice that he was really determined, so I could only nod.

“Fine. Let me tell you me secrets.”

***********************************************************************************

Issac and I clean up the garden and the hose and go inside to the recreational room, which was the free room. I look around, but find no one there.

“Myles must be in the Operating room or in his own room recovering. He’s usually always here.” Isaac says, reading my mind. He sits on one side or a long couch, and I go to the other side.

“So?” I break the silence among us. Isaac takes a deep breath.

“I’ve never told anyone.” He says shakily. “Do you know why we’re in a research facility getting cut open? I know you’ve read the books and studied about life outside of here. They don’t do that. So why do we? There was a time. A couple months after I started getting cut open. I was really interested in the medical equipment, so I snuck into the room. I ended up getting lost and found myself where Dad and some other person was talking. They were talking about a sacrifice of making us.” Isaac stops for a minute, letting me take all the info in.

“Making us?” I wonder out loud.

“There were over 7 billion people on this planet. There’s 4 of us. After we were born, Only a city was left that contained people. Seattle.”

“And?” I raise my eyebrows, confused.

“We were not born, Sala. We’re part of an experiment called the AHB. The Artificial Human Body. We’re not real. We were made. But it took more than 1 billion people to create each one of us. The whole world pretty much died to make us alive.” Isaac finishes. I blink.

“This is a joke, right?” I muster a smile. Isaac shakes his head grimly.

“It all fits now, right? The experiments. The visitors that sometimes visits and don’t leave. Ulva looking scared and nervous at us.” Isaac fits the pieces for me. I fall from the couch, onto my knees.

“No! That can’t be true! No, no, no, no, no!” I cry. I look up at Isaac, and get back on my feet again.

“I-I need some time.” I mumble as I run into my room.

***********************************************************************************

I stay cooped up in my room for a week before deciding I needed to take care of my plants. Ulva had given me food at every mealtime, not knowing why I was in there for that long. She tried to comfort me, but I told her I needed to be alone. I walk up the steps and into the garden, where I was met by a spray of water. Again. I look around, ready to be mad at Isaac, but instead, I see Myles.

“Myles?” my eyes arch in surprise.

“Isaac told me everything. The AHB were trying to make artificial humans. The Universe didn’t allow that. Wow. I’m sounding like a nerd again.” Myles turned around and yelled for Isaac. “Help! I’ve turned into a nerd again!” Isaac took one glance at Myles and shook his head and rolled his eyes.

“Your cells can turn and shape itself into anything. Just go back into being Myles.” I grab the hose out of his hands.

“Oooh! Good idea!” Myles starts shaping himself.

“It was a joke Myles.” I slap him and Myles goes back into his original shape.

“Godammit! Just water the fucking plants!” Isaac snaps at us.

I blink and look at Myles in confusion. Sure Isaac yelled at us and was a jackass, but I never heard his swear that much before.

Myles just shrugs and goes back to work on my plants.

I smile at myself when I look at my garden, but the smile turned into a frown when I notice some weeds coming in from outside the gate. The gate was electrified for goodness sakes. How did the weeds even come in? I groaned. It would be such a pain to get those weeds out without getting electrocuted. If only I could get to the other side.

“What if we run?” I blurt out.

Isaac doesn’t stop his hose, but glances at me for a few seconds before focusing on his work again.

“What do you mean?” Myles stops his hose, oblivious of Isaac’s glare at him.

“Why are we so obedient? Why shouldn’t we run. Out! Out of this stupid facility!” Plans pop in my mind as I thought about going to the city and having all kinds of food. Myles, Isaac, and I having normal lives. Going to school, going shopping. My dreams were knocked into reality when Isaac bursts out laughing.

“Do you think it would be that easy? This is a government-assigned experiment, Sala. If we run, you’ve gotta be prepared to be always on the run. Seattle is a big city, but the government can find us in minutes. It would physically impossible. Do you think our lives would be perfect once we got out? We’re not even real humans. Our lives aren’t made to be like the others.”

“Damn. What a reality check” Myles comments on what Isaac said.

“Don’t you think it’s better than staying here? I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of getting cut up.” I snap back at Isaac. He glares at me without saying anything.

“She has a point, Isaac. And a brain. Unlike you.” Myles nods.

Isaac was so mad, I could pretty much feel his anger, rippling in the air. I glanced at him, but his face was surprisingly calm.

“I want to agree, but-”

“Please agree.” Myles cuts him off.

“I’m going to not agree if you keep on doing that.” Isaac snaps at Myles.

“So?” I ask. I was scared. If he said yes, I would still not know what to do. Heck. Maybe Ulva poisoned me into thinking this. She was the one sending me food. If Isaac said no, however, I knew Myles and I would be devastated and probably try to run out by ourselves.

“Fine.” Isaac finally says. I release a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Myles was pretty much jumping from excitement.

“I’ll check Dad’s schedule and see when we can leave.” I offer. I really didn’t know what to do, so I gave myself a job.

“You can access his schedule?” Myles asks.

“I hack way more than just his schedule. I can turn off the security cameras too.” I brag.

“Great. That’ll help us. Meet here tomorrow. Same time. This is the only place where we can talk freely.” Isaac nods. “For now, keep watering. We need to act normal.”

***********************************************************************************

After tending to my plants and having a nice warm dinner, (tomato soup-It was great) I went to my room, saying that I was exhausted from that day’s work of watering. Really, I was ready to run a marathon, but I needed an excuse for anyone to not come into my room. I’ve asked Dad to put a lock on my room before, but does he listen? No. He always comes in at the times when I’m getting in trouble. I do not want him seeing me hack his schedule.

I go into my room and shut the door with a satisfying click. I change into my sleeping clothes, so if Dad or Ulva comes in, I could pretend that I was asleep. I go onto my knees and under my bed. There’s only about two inches of space, but it’s enough to hide my laptop. The laptop was a present from Ulva two years ago, when I was ten. Dad doesn’t even know it’s existence.

I flip it open and unlock my twenty number password and face lock. You do not know how much security I put in this thing compared to Dad. I don’t think he even knows what insurance or security means.

I easily hack the security cameras into thinking I was going to bed by putting yesterday's video and deleted any trace of me getting my computer out or doing any suspicious things. Dad’s schedule was a piece of cake. I could have hacked in there with my eyes closed. I expected myself to have only viewing access, but I forgot who’s schedule I was hacking into and got editing access too. Of course Dad lets anyone with his link have editing access. If it was me, I would have put a viewing or comment access.

I smiled. There was one day where no one was getting cut open and when Dad had meetings all day. I was about to get out of there, but I decided that we needed a bit more time.

***********************************************************************************

“So? What’s our plan?” We were meeting at my garden again. We made sure that we pretended to be working on my plants, but after about ten minutes, I couldn’t stand waiting anymore.

“When is a good time?” Isaac doesn’t even look like he’s saying anything.

“In two days. Dad has meetings and a client coming over.” I keep my head down and try to follow Isaac’s lead. I don’t even know why we’re doing that. There’s no cameras out here.

“R.I.P client.” Isaac and I stare at Myles. His smile was still on his face. It was like he never said anything that was dark as hell.

“How much time do we have?” Isaac ignores Myles and keeps going with the questions.

“I altered his schedule so we should have about two hours.” I smile. I should thank Dad for having horrible security.

“Bring all your extra clothes. I have a backpack I made with some of the cloth from my bed. Someone needs to get some food from the kitchen. I’ll do it.” Myles’ serious tone makes me pause.

“Guess who’s finally in the game.” I snort.

“Then we have a plan?” Isaac shuts off the pipeline.

“Yup. Also, can I bring my laptop?” I pour the last trickling drops of water on the last of my plants.

“No! Dad can find us!” Isaac yells at me.

“Would it help for you to know that he doesn’t know it exists? Ulva gave it to me for my tenth birthday.” I roll the pipe onto the pipe holder cart. “Anyways, Dad knows nothing about coding or hacking. He has the weakest firewalls in his computer and cameras. How do you think I could hack into those?”

“I think her computer is a factor we need to be able to escape, Isaac.” Myles agrees.

“Fine. Be careful.” Isaac first leaves.

“Jeez that guy’s such a mood killer.” Myles rolls his eyes.

“We’re trying to escape our so-called home. I’m actually wondering why you’re so goofy.” I say back.

“Well, if I was serious, I would be wondering if I was okay.” Myles shrugs.

“Good point.” I snort.

“I’m going to see if anything I have is worth bringing.” Myles waves as he leaves.

“So we shouldn’t bring you because you’re not worth bringing?” my mouth curves into a smile. Myles laughs as he leaves, leaving me and my thoughts alone in my garden.

My smile quickly disappears when Myles leaves. I was scared. I didn’t know if I was ready for this. Earlier, I acted like it was the most normal thing in the world, but really, I was freaked out. Running away? That seemed like something out of a book! Would we really pull this off?

***********************************************************************************

On the day that we were supposed to run, I counted every second until it was time to go. I had my clothes folded and ready, hidden on the bottom of my closet, and my hand itching to get to my computer. When the time came, I was pretty much jumping on my toes. I didn’t know what I was feeling. Nervous or excited?

With my laptop tucked under my arm and my thin stack of clothes in the other arm, I quietly tiptoe up to my garden. Isaac was already there with his own stack of clothes and three guns. I stare at the guns. Isaac notices me staring.

“We need to protect ourselves. The government will come after us. We have to kill them if necessary.” Isaac explains. I hear my heart bumping. I am definitely more nervous than excited.

“Got some canned soup and crackers.” I jump from Myles’ voice.

“Great. Sala? Do your thing.” Isaac puts his clothes in Myles’ bag. I do the same and flip open my laptop. In seconds, the security gate clicks open. Myles walks ahead, but pauses behind me. Isaac sighs and goes in front of us, cautiously opening the door.

“It’s not electrocuted or anything. That’s just for scaring us. Just go.” I snap at them. Isaac goes to the next door, which I also open from my laptop. We go through the two doors, one by one, silently.

“We’re out!” I whisper. I look gleefully at both of the boys, but they don’t look as happy.

“We’re not out of trouble yet. We have to get to Seattle.” Myles points to a bunch of tall buildings in the distance.

“We gotta WALK all the way there?” I cry in disbelief.

“Better get going.” Isaac interrupts us.

“Oh boy.” I grumble under my breath.

***********************************************************************************

We walk until it is completely dark except for the stars that light our path and the city lights.

“We should take a rest here.” Isaac finally says. I pump my arms up with a cry of relief.

We find a patch of grass and lay down. Isaac all the way to the right, me all the way to the left, and Myles in the middle. Isaac easily falls asleep, but I couldn’t. I put my hand up like I was reaching for the stars.

“Beautiful, huh?” Myles turns his back towards Isaac and turns to me.

“Yeah. Reading about it is so boring, but who knew stars were so….so…..”

“Extraordinary?” Myles finishes for me. I nod, marveling everything. I trace some of the stars, making the constellations. Myles’ arm brushes against my arm and glance at him, surprised. He looks at me right in my eyes and I do the same. His blue eyes glinted in the moonlight. Our hands find each other and entwine with each other. Involuntarily, our heads move together and soon, his lips were on mine. His tongue brushes against my upper lip and dips into my mouth. A new feeling explodes inside me. A longing.

“Oh, just stop sticking your tongue down each others throats. I’m still awake” Myles and I immediately move away from each other when we hear Isaac’s voice. I glance at Isaac and back at Myles uneasily. A grin stretches at Myles’ mouth which makes me smile too, and soon, Myles and I were bursting with laughter. I swear, Myles is the only person that can make me laugh in this situation.

***********************************************************************************

In the middle of the night, I jolt awake when I feel something prodding my arm. I cautiously turn to the direction and shriek when I see what’s lying on my arm. A cat pets my elbow lightly, but I know it isn’t just a cat. There’s something about this cat. It’s eyes were pink and glowed everytime it pet my arm. I quickly moved it and jumped up.

“The hell?” Myles rubs his eyes and squints at the cat. Isaac wakes a few seconds later, but jumps up as well as if he knew exactly what was going on. The cat purred and walked straight towards me. I back away from it, but bang my head on a tree. As if on cue, the cat jumps on my arm it was petting and bites a bit of my flesh.

The pain shot through my arm like needles dipped in alcohol was stabbed in. I cringed, my vision going white and a dizzying ache pounded in my skull. I blink, trying to get my vision back, and when I do, I race away from the cat, but he had already walked away, not caring that he had just bit off a piece of my body. When we couldn’t see the cat anymore, I collapsed, swearing on the top of my lungs.

“Jeez. Calm down.” Isaac grabs his Pack of Health (as Myles calls it) and opens a bottle of rubbing alcohol. “Hold her down.” Isaac commands Myles and he nods, pinning me down. Isaac pours some alcohol onto my wound, which me scream. I mumble a bunch of swear words under my breath.

“Knock me out, please.” I panted, struggling under Myles’ hold. The next few minutes were a blur of pain, but soon, my arm was bandaged and had already stopped bleeding. Myles gets off me, but I stay there, heaving in breathless sobs.

“Hey, calm down.” Myles gently pats my head. My arm throbbed, but the pain was slowly going away.

“What the hell was that though?” Isaac grits his teeth.

“It seemed like a mutated cat.” Myles responded, shrugging his shoulders.

“Sounds about right.” I groaned, sitting myself up.

“Well, whatever it was, let’s get out of here. It might come back.” Isaac grabs his stuff and stuffs it in our bag.

“Y-Yeah.” I winced as I get up, using Myles as support.

“I have a bad feeling about this. Like a really bad feeling. Something’s off.” Myles struggles to hold me up.

“Yea. That’s what we just said.” I roll my eyes. I shoo Myles off. My arm was injured. Not my legs.

***********************************************************************************

Seattle must have been closer than we thought, because by the time the sun sets, we were at the border of Seattle. Gates surround the whole city, so I immediately reach into our bag for my laptop. The gate shouldn’t be too hard to hack, right? My uninjured arm trembles, trying to hold all the weight of the laptop.

Isaac’s hand stops me from hacking anymore when I reach the code. I glance up in surprise.

“Let’s not get in to trouble now. Let’s see if we can go in legally.”

“Damn Isaac. Shouldn’t you be a lawyer instead?” Nobody laughs at Myles’ joke besides Myles, and he quickly stops when he realized. The awkward void of silence swept throughout us.

“Kids? Whacha doing outside the gates?” A guy, wearing a jacket saying DGO, presses on a switch inside a tiny room. The gate creaks open, causing me to jump in surprise. Myles and I glance at Isaac, but his eyes were straight ahead at the guy. I look back at the guy, but he was busy putting some sort of stick with a flame at the other side into his mouth. I grimace at the sight.

“Ahh. Don’t mind me. Go back home kids.” the guy beckons us to go in. I timidly take a step towards the gate, stopping and looking back at Isaac and Myles, but Isaac was already taking rapid, but cautious, steps inside. I follow him with Myles right behind me.

“Umm. Don’t we need some kind of ID or something?” Myles breaks the silence. Great. Myles and his amazing brain.

The guy laughs, saying, “As long as you’re a human you’re fine.”

“Human?” Isaac curiosity gets in front of him, and I see him visibly frown at his own question.

“The animals are getting worse and worse these days.” The guy smiles at Isaac, not noticing how much we didn’t know about anything.

“Animals?” this time, Myles asks the guy the question.

“You kids can’t be serious. You don’t know about the animals?” now the guy was starting to get suspicious.

I awkwardly laugh. “So what’s the latest news? My friends don’t really know what’s happening around them.”

“Oh. You could have just said so. When us humans started- Oh sorry. You don’t want a history lesson do you?” the guy blushes. “I really love history.”

“No. We would like for you to rephrase our boring school stories.” Myles nods for the guy to continue.

“O-Okay. So when us humans started to die off, animals started going crazy and killing all of us. If the animals didn’t do anything, scientists say we could have our population be three times of this. Animals have gone really crazy these days. They even scaled our second wall!” the guy opens his arms wide, excited.

“Wall?” Isaac echoes.

“Yeah. Yah know? The five walls? So our human population doesn’t die? Yeah.” the guy finishes.

Isaac nods, deep in thought.

“Um. Thanks-”

“Reauben.”

“Reauben. Thanks Reauben.” I say, waving goodbye to him.

“Do you guys need a ride?” I pause. I looked at Isaac, but Isaac was preoccupied with the information we had just gotten.

“S-Sure.” I nod. I was sort of scared because I’ve heard of the dangers of going into a stranger’s car.

“I’ll take you guys to a train and get you going from there. Do you have money?” Reauben picks something up from his desk and moves it around, making some kind of jingling noise.

“M-Money?” I ask nervously.

“Aye,” Reauben gets something from his pocket and hands it to me. I look at it. It was a stack of paper. Paper bills. Money. Stacks of money that said $1 on it.

“It’ll be enough for your ride home. Unless you live in 1st Wall. Dang filthy rich if you live in the 1st Wall.” Reauben leads us to a blue car. I gasp at it. I’ve never seen a car before.

“Yep. This is my baby. The newest BMW!” Reauben boasts his new car. He opens the door of the car, so I timidly climb in, with Myles and Isaac right behind me.

The entire ride to the train station was quiet. I stared at the city with the tall towers and lights as we pass. The actual beautiful places were inside the first wall, but some apartment building even inside the fourth wall was tall and huge. When we got to the train station, we got train tickets toward the second wall district with Reauben’s help, and waved at him when he left.

“Our train isn’t here yet, so you want to get some food?” Myles was the first to break the silence.

“Of course you were the first person who thought of food.” My stomach grumbles as I envision a bowl of warm soup.

“There’s a cafe there. It opens twenty-four hours” Isaac point at a small shop nestled in between a magazine booth and a travel necessities shop. Myles bounced towards it, saying something about a cheese sandwich.

The cafe actually had only a couple sandwiches and drinks, so I picked a ham and cheese sandwich, while Isaac chooses an egg sandwich.

We ate our food in silence, too hungry to talk. Shortly after finishing our meal, our train arrived.

***********************************************************************************

“Hey. Sala. We’re here.” Myles nudged his shoulder, bouncing me awake. I had laid my head on his arm, so that little movement with his shoulder jolted me awake. I groggily stood up, wincing. The pain killer had worn off and my arm was throbbing all over again. Myles steadies me as we walk out of the train doors.

“Here,” Isaac tosses me another packet of Advil. I swallow them with a gulp of water from the water fountain.

“Where do we go now?” I wince as Isaac changes my bandages in a dark alley, because everything happens in a dark alley.

“We blend in. Like ninjas,” Myles makes a weird posture with his hands up in a praying gesture and one leg bent like a flamingo.”

“Surprisingly, he’s right.” Isaac taps my shoulder to tell me that he was done.

Where do we go now?” I repeat my question, nodding both of the boys to keep going.

“Somewhere we can sneak in. A place where no one lives in.” Isaac closes his Pack of Health with a satisfying click.

“How are we going to find that?” Myles opens our bag so Isaac could put his Pack of Health away.

“I-I don’t know.” Isaac sighs. I groan.

“Are you kidding me bro? You didn’t think of this?” Myles practically screams.

“Well I have to do all of the planning because you two lovebirds won’t do anything!” Isaac snaps back.

Myles stops, his words on the edge of his tongue. I bite my lip. Isaac stops short, noticing that he had gone over the edge.

“You know what? We could live in this alley?” I say, trying to lighten the mood. Myles and Isaac stare at me, eyes raised.

“I was just trying to help!” I shrug helplessly.

“Why don’t we just go there?” Myles points to a building behind me. I turn around and see an apartment building that looked all broken down. It looked a bit black like it was burnt, but it looked intact enough for us to stay there until we found another permanent home.

“Any cameras?” Isaac nods towards me.

***********************************************************************************

It’s been a week since we moved in here. The three of us sit on a couch that was once dusty, but now cleared out from Myles’ jumping-routine.

“Something’s off. I swear, we haven't even moved locations. Shouldn’t they have found us already?” Isaac swears under his breath.

“We’re ready when they do find us though.” Myles loops his arm over my right shoulder, placing his hand on my left shoulder. I feel a warmth creep up to me.

A couple of days ago, I had found a car that I was able to hack into. Myles had amazingly learned how to hotwire it and drive it without the key. We had put extra supplies and items there, in case we had to make a quick run out.

I sighed, “We need some more food. I’ll go out to the market when the sun comes up.”

“Yeah. Let’s go get some rest for now. I’ll be the first person that’ll be on the watch.” Isaac volunteers. We had a different person to be on watch every three hours so we could get some sleep.

***********************************************************************************

“Sala!” Someone shakes me awake. I groan, rubbing my eyes.

“Sala! Wake up! They’re here! Dad’s agents!” I immediately pop open my eyes and got up, almost whacking Myles.

“What!” I whisper-scream.

“They’re here! We gotta get to the car!” Myles pulls me out of bed. I stagger as I land on the cold floor. I run after Myles, silently like the ninjas he was imitating before. We go to the back door, quietly opening it. I cold blast of air makes me shiver. The air was still misty from the rain, and it felt like it was going to rain even more soon. I run to the grass, my foot freezing to the numbing point. When we get to the car, Isaac’s already there. I get in first and sigh happily from the heat of the engine.

When we start moving, Isaac tosses Myles and I a gun each.

“Uh.. How do we work this?” Myles stares at the gun like it was some magical wand.

“Switch safety back and pull the trigger,” Isaac says calmly. It was like the gun was some sort of toy to him!

“Hopefully we don’t get to use it,” I say, tugging it into the band of my leggings.

“Yeah. I’m going to head over to the Third Wall. There’s a lot more people and run-down buildings. We could blend in easily,” Isaac swerves as we get closer and closer to the wall.

“How are we going to get through the gates?” I ask, unconsciously twirling my hair with my finger. It became a habit. For the past week, I had been nervous about the slightest things.

“You can go out as many times as you want. It’s about going back in.” Isaac reassures me.

When we get to the wall, some DGO Officer stops us. He gives us a little lecture about the dangers about going outside and then lets us through.

He probably thought we were some moody tenagers that wanted to escape home. He’s not wrong.

We drove for an hour more in silence, and when we were absolutely sure that no one was following us, we stopped at this run-down house that looked like it was abandoned decades before everyone moved to Seattle. I check for any security cameras in case though, and when I found none within a mile radius, we came out of the car and into the house.

***********************************************************************************

“I’m tired of this.” Myles murmurs to himself the next morning.

“What?” I stop mid bite into a piece of toast.

“I’m tired of running. Being scared of everything.” Myles bites his bottom lip.

“We can’t help it.” Isaac casually eats a slice of fruit.

“Well, when we were at home. Or facility. Or whatever it is, it was fine. We actually had a good life.” Myles stirs his oatmeal around with his spoon.

“You can’t be talking about going back to the facility, can you?” All this food was bought from a nearby market with the extra money we had gotten before.

“Why can’t we?” Myles shrugs. On that, everyone falls silent. A drop of oatmeal echoes through the house.

“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?” Isaac bangs the table so hard that my piece of toast flies out of my hand. Isaac grabs Myles by his collar and bangs him against the wall. I flinch as Myles screams in pain.

“We already escaped and you want to go back? Dad won’t treat you the same anymore. You know that, right?” Isaac growls, centimeters from Myles’ face.

“Get- Get off me.” Myles kicks Isaac’s chest, causing Isaac to release Myles and fumble back a bit. Myles looks at me before bolting to his room. That moment, I saw something I never seen in Myles before. Anger. He was angry. But I knew it wasn’t him. Something was wrong. Those ocean blue eyes weren’t Myles’. It was someone else. I just wished I noticed it sooner and told Isaac.

***********************************************************************************

I fingered the edge of the couch. The house’s plumbing system wasn’t working well and stopped working when I was in the middle of a shower, so I was still dirty. Not like it mattered much when you’re surviving.

“Crap. We’re out of money. What are we going to do about food?” Isaac murmurs to himself as he walks down the creaking stairs. I don’t get why he still wanted to go up there. The fire had started upstairs and the wood planks were damaged. Myles and I stayed downstairs, but Isaac begged to stay upstairs, so we let him.

“What happened?” I asked, as Isaac sits next to me, making the couch squeak.

“We don’t have enough money for food.” Isaac sighs, rubbing his temples.

“You’ll figure something out.” I say.

“That’s reassuring.” Isaac bits his bottom lip. I sit in silence for a few minutes, thinking about our plan of survival.

‘Bang! Bang! Bang!’ The door slams down, not even giving enough time for Isaac and I to run.

“Hands up!” A familiar voice yells at us. Isaac and I do what we’re told. I gulp down the sudden urge to cry for Myles. Hopefully he had already heard and run out the other door.

“Myles? I’m here little brother.”

My breath gets caught in my throat.

***********************************************************************************

“Z-Zak?” I gasp.

“Hello Sala. Isaac.” Zak smiles. I jolt of emotion passes me.

“Zak? What’s going on? How are you alive?” I choke.

“Sala.” Isaac stares at Zak. “That’s not Zak.”

“What are you talking about?” I screech. I had a sudden urge to punch Isaac.

“Look at him. Look into his eyes. That isn’t him.” Isaac starts shaking. I look at Zak. It’s true. His eyes had a vacant look. Like there wasn’t anything inside.

“Ahh! Zak!” I whip my head to the side. Myles.

“Myles! Get out of here!” I scream. Myles only looks at me and smiles. I freeze. Myles’ eyes had the same look as Zak did.

“M-Myles?” I shiver.

“Let’s go home brother. Without the traitors.” Zak smiles at Myles.

“Yes.” Myles’ grin spreads wider.

“Good job. Dad’ll give you a reward for telling us your location.” Zak licks his lips. “While these traitors are getting a punishment.”

“Fun!” Myles steps towards Zak. I bite my lip to stop my urge of crying out. A drop of water drops down my cheek. I was crying without noticing.

“Myles.. You-You were pretending to be on our side?” I tremble, taking some time to find the words I needed.

“No. Silly. Zak really did go through experiments and died. We just put another consciousness in his body. As for me, we had escaped the lab while I was half way through the entire thing. This experiment. This certain one. It makes you feel so good. I see things so much more clearly. You should go through it too. Zak’s still in there. He feels good too. So really, you don’t die. You see things more clearly. It’s really confusing, but that’s that!” Myles gasps for breath.

I blink. That was really him. His eyes looked vacant, but it was actually Myles that was talking. He was serious.

“Myles..” I blink tears away.

‘Bang’

I jump at the sound.

“Run!” Isaac screams. I glanced back at him to see him holding a gun. I sprint towards the exit. I hear a couple more shots behind me and shut my eyes when I heard them. I pump arms to make myself run faster, but end up tripping over a loose floorboard. I quickly got up, but by that time, Isaac was already next to me, pulling me up. I hear another shot ring out and pain spreading my upper right shoulder. A wet substance dribbles down my arm. I cry out in pain.

“Sala!” Isaac pulls me to keep running. I run behind him, opening the back door. We run towards the car, and somehow get inside and out to the city.

I panted, pain exploding throughout my body. I blink. My vision blurred.

“Shit.” Isaac swore under his breath. He turned a couple blocks and we were soon at the Third Wall downtown.

“A-Are we losing them?” I pant, clutching my injured arm.

“I hope…” Isaac grits his teeth as we turned different directions.

Minutes that felt like hours passed. I turn behind me.

“I think we lost them.” Isaac says.

“Yeah.” I flinch when another burst of pain goes through me.

“We gotta stop.” Isaac looks at my arm. He goes to a dark parking lot and parks. Running out of the car, he looks around us to check for any suspicious cars, and grabs his ‘Pack of Health’ and brings it to me.

“Close your eyes and hold onto this.” Isaac hands me a piece of cloth.

“Why?” I take it from him.

“To help you take away at least some of the pain.” Isaac says, ripping off my shirt sleeve.

I screech in pain.

“Good. It’s only a graze.” Isaac examines. “This will hurt a little bit.” Isaac pours some alcohol on my arm.

“A little bit, my ass!” I scream in pain. I clutch on the piece of cloth.

Isaac quickly wraps my arm, pinning the bandages in place.

“Done.” Isaac backs off, looking at the blood that was all over the car now.

I panted, out of breath. I closed my eyes.

“Get some rest. I’ll find another place to stay tonight.” Isaac pats my hair.

I nod, slowly drifting to sleep.

***********************************************************************************

I wake up a couple times, but the only memory of those moments were pain. When I finally woke up without any pain, we were in another building with peeled off paint on the walls. My head rested on Myles’ jacket that he left behind, filling me with a sense of lonesome all over again.

“Argh.” I groan.

“You’re awake.” Isaac climbs up some steps to where I am.

“Where are we?” I ask.

“A warehouse. We’re in a hidden storage place so you could hide here if they came.” Isaac digs a piece of bread and bottled water from his bag.

Taking it from him, I ask “ Where did you get this?”

“This guy owns a market that he doesn’t watch very well over. Don’t worry. There’s no cameras.” Isaac says nonchalantly. “Are you in pain anywhere?”

“No. Surprisingly. What did you give me?” I skim over my bandage with my fingertips.

“Found some pain killers. Took me a long time to find a pharmacy with no cameras or security.” Isaac hands me a pill. “You should take another one.”

I swallow the pill with a gulp of water. The water felt so refreshing as it fell down my throat.

“How long has it been?” I ask, after a moment of awkward silence.

“A week.”

“That long?” Myles was probably gone by this point. I don’t know what it was, but that experiment had put another whole conscious in him. It’s him, but not him. A jolt of alarm passes through me.

“Isaac. I-I don’t want another person in me. I don’t want you to go either.” I feel tears gather in my eyes.

“Hey. No one’s going anywhere.” Isaac comes to sit next to me.

“Thanks, but do we really get to choose if we go or not?” I hug my knees into my chest with my good arm. God Damn. My right arm was close to being all bandaged with no skin shown.

“I guess not.. I’m sorry. I’m not good at comforting people.” Isaac laughs.

“You’re pretty cute when you laugh. Do that more.” I frowned. Isaac’s eyes lit up when he laughed or smiled. I also realized he had dimples.

Isaac’s smile evaporated.

“Did you hear that?” He looks out a small dusty window behind me.

“Are they here?” I ask, biting the inside of my cheek.

“Yeah. Stay here. Try to hide behind some stuff. I’ll go check it out. If I don’t come back… I’ll come back. So wait here.” Isaac grabs some stuff to hide me in and quickly goes down the steps.

Ugh. I hate not being able to do anything. I look around me for a tool or weapon. My eye catches on something shining next to me. A gun. It was probably an extra one. Isaac had brought two with him so this one was mine. I clutch on the gun’s handle. When we were walking to Seattle, Isaac had taught me some basics. I click on the safety. I flinch when I hear the sound of a gunshot. I hope Isaac’s okay. The grunts and shooting go on for a few minutes. Hurried footsteps echo beneath me. It all happened within ten minutes, but it felt like years. When I was sure that no one was there anymore, I crept out of my hiding spot. I tiptoed to the stairs and opened the small hatch.

Silence.

I step into the step that led me out.

Silence.

Every step down gave me a heart attack. At the end was a wall. I push on it. It opened. A secret attic? I kept walking, observing my surroundings.

“Found ya!” A voice made me jump. A gun presses on my head.

I shriek.

“Found the last one.” Zak speaks to his walkie talkie.

“Last? You got Isaac already?” I pant.

“Yep. Quite a hard one. He always was. Sala, however, was always obedient. Quiet. Too nice. Look at what that brought you.” Zak smirks.

“Where are you taking me? Are we going back to.. home?” I stammer as Zak drags me to their cars.

“Yep. Home. We’re going home Sala.” Zak smiles, his eyes glinting with something that wasn’t human.

***********************************************************************************