[size=7pt]Come on, bend..
God damn it, bend!
My gaze flickers from the steel bars, as I’m distracted momentarily by the faint sound of approaching footsteps. I can’t believe this is happening. After managing to break open my cuffs - not only releasing me from the corner of solitude I’ve come to know too well, but also returning my S.A, my ‘Supernatural Ability’ - after all that, our escape plan is going to fail because I can’t bend some measly iron? I won’t let the others down. I can’t afford to.
So, returning my focus to the iron bars of the small cell, I force myself to remember. To remember how they tore us from our families years ago. To remember how they tortured us, injecting us with vile after vile of some rancid, green liquid. To remember how my body convulsed atop the cold, surgical table, hours passing before I could feel my limbs again.
And it works.
The steel bars in front of me bend in opposite directions, creating a doorway to escape, and I leap through without a second thought. I’m free. After two whole years.. I’m finally free.
My euphoria is cut short, however, as the footsteps from before become more and more distinct. I swear inwardly, forgetting that the bars would creak, but I’m not too worried. What they have been testing on me, is about to back-fire.
I wait in eerie silence for the guard to turn the corner, my body, a coiled spring, refusing to breathe because I’ve made too much noise already. My ears catch his whispers; he’s calling for back-up. All I can do now is hope that the others are ready, because they’ll need to take care of the extra guards. I’ll take down this one.
His footsteps are deafening now, he’s so close. Then the world around me blurs. I catch a glimpse of his face. It’s him. The one who took me from my family and left our home burning in his wake. The one who brought me here. The one to blame for my two years-worth of suffering.
Rage tears through me, consumes me, and my body begins moving of its own accord.
I sprint towards him, closing the five metre-gap between us, in the blink of an eye. Looks like element manipulation wasn’t the only S.A. they gave me. My hand fly to wrap around his throat. He struggles, but I overpower him with ease, another unexpected S.A. Wow, they really should have thought this through huh? Fear begins to cloud his bulging eyes as he realises that this might just be the end for him. But I’m not like them. I would never take another man’s life for the fun of it. I release my grip, and instead, take to my original Supernatural Ability, controlling the air around him and throwing him into the white-marble wall of the hallway. He’ll be out for a while.
It’s been two years since I’ve walked these halls last, but memories of them are fresh in my mind. Or nightmares, I should say. I remember the day like it was yesterday: when they brought all ten of us here. They had chosen us, because we were the ‘top scorers’ in the exam we thought would direct us to our most suitable career. Turns out it was all a lie. The country’s best students didn’t go on to become world leaders, we went on to become lab rats. Our Government is a lie. Our whole system is a lie.
What exactly is going on? And how long has this been going on? I know our world isn’t in the best state, many countries have been wiped out by a slew of natural disasters: rising sea levels, a sudden plague epidemic, you name it. But why do they need to test magical power-giving injections on people? The questions were endless, and I was becoming more and more determined to get answers to said questions. There’s no way they’re getting away with this..
Turning the corner, I come face to face with a girl. She’s around my height, with dirty blonde hair and wild blue eyes, her skin pale and fair, contrasted to my dark. I realise she’s one of the ten, one of the voices that have been keeping me company since we were granted the Telepathy S.A. Relief swells in my heart, but I know better than to revel in it, we don’t have time for that. We have to get the others and leave.
I take a step past her, but her hand finds my wrist and pulls me back. Her explanation comes in my head, her voice clearer than it has ever been.
Cole, not that way.
So that’s what Elina looks like? I match her voice to the girl right beside me before her words register. She must have just come from there. We turn quickly, and hurry in the opposite direction, but what we see at the end of the corridor stops us dead in our tracks. Four others, of the original ten, stand with their backs facing us, each of them taking timid steps backwards. It takes me a second to realise what’s driving them back, and when I see it, my old cell starts to seem a safe haven, with it’s steel bars.
Something not quite human, yet not quite animal either, skitters toward us, its metallic legs clinking on the white marble floor. I’m rooted to the spot with expected fear, and surprising curiosity, while the others continue to inch back. There’s a certain familiarity to the creature, a certain air that makes me feel like I should recognise it. My gaze flickers to two dark shapes on the floor, at the very end of the hall, but when another creature, identical to the first, emerges from behind the human-animal hybrid, it hits me. It’s them; two members of the original ten, or what’s left of them anyway. Whether the mutation was because they reacted differently to the green stuff we were injected with, or intentionally caused by the people who keep us here, it’s undeniable. It’s no longer them. Their humanity has been wiped away.
A voice, one I remember as Jorra’s, sounds inside my head, almost as if one of my own thoughts.
We have to go, now!
My eyes snap to the newly-formed group around me, seeking the voice’s owner. A guy, around my height again, with shaggy black hair and piercing green eyes, hastily steps forward, apprehension colouring his face. I shoot him a questioning look, as my eyebrows come together in confusion. We all know there are ten of us, and if my Math was correct, we were still missing two people.
Where’s the rest?
The telepathy comes naturally, strangely, seeing as the last time I used it was days ago, when we formulated the plan.
Dead.
The single word rings in my head, as my brain makes sense of the dark shadows at the end of the hall. They were corpses. Two of us are dead, and another two are mutated creatures responsible for those deaths. If it’s true, and those creatures really did kill the others, then there’s nothing our S.A’s can do for us against them. Fear clogs my throat. We have no other option.
Let’s go!
My voice booms in everyone’s head, as I turn around and dart toward what I hope is the exit.
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