(Her)
I could already tell I was dying. In a way, I knew it before they stuck the needles in my arms. And back. And legs. They didn’t tell me what it was for, just that they were legally allowed to do this, since I failed to pay the tithe. Again.
Last year, when I couldn’t pay it for the first time since I turned eighteen, I would have gotten a few years in the Prison. Or decades if the court was feeling particularly nasty. I couldn’t afford that, though. My brother needed me. He still does. If I had let them find me and gone to the Prison, he would have been as good as dead. Kind of like I am now.
My job in the Underground only kept me hidden for so long. It wasn’t even good money. It was enough money. Or just barely. The problem was saving up enough to pay off that year’s tithe and the one I’d missed, plus my brother’s medication. None of which was cheap.
It didn’t matter now. My brother has probably been wondering where I’ve been for the past two weeks. He’s not old enough to know how to administer the medicine we salvaged. He’s not old enough to understand where I am or what happened to me. He’s not old enough to die. Maybe he will before I do. At least then, he won’t be able to see how I failed him.
I winced as another wave of pain went through my body. My skin was paling, my mouth and eyes drying, and my hair, once a vibrant red, was becoming brittle and graying. I should have been at least eighty years old when this finally happened. I should have been in my bed (or my sorry excuse of one) in my home with the only two people I loved next to me. But here I was, dying, alone, in a bleached white room with a drain in the middle of the floor where I was curled up.
I didn’t know if I cared what they were trying to turn me into. Or if this was the right choice. Looking back, maybe I should have accepted the life sentence in the Prison instead of partaking in this experiment for the chance of my debts being paid if successful. Now, I was just another statistic. Another failed attempt. Just like I was to my brother.
(Him)
I was alive.
Too alive.
Noises were too loud. Scents were too strong. Lights were too bright. The air was too light. I couldn’t hear my own footsteps despite my enhanced hearing—strong, solid objects cracked upon my lightest touch. I was no stranger to drugs, but the feeling of invincibility was usually supposed to fade after a while. Instead, it lingered to the point where I couldn’t sleep. I could barely even think anymore, with everything surrounding me making its presence known.
Two days. I only knew that because now, I could remember everything. I could remember my parents selling me to work in the Underground, where I eventually found my friends, my new family, and the love of my life. It wasn’t until the government finally raided us that I saw her for the last time. Her bright red hair flashed in my mind like a stoplight
When they took me in, I was given a choice: life in the Prison or a way out through this experiment. I have no clue how many of us they have here; how many are alive, how many are dead, if she were here or in the Prison.
The doctors have come back. I can hear everything with crystal precision, but I don’t listen to a single thing they say. Nothing that comes out of their mouths could be of interest to me. I just sit there silently, feeling my nails dig crescents into my umber skin.
They guide me out of my seat on the bench I used yesterday to keep from keeling over when the injections had settled, and lead me into the hall. Along the walls are windows into the other test chambers. I see people with all different types of bodies, voices, and probably minds. They all have one of two things in common: they either worked in the Underground or owed the government.
I was guilty of the latter. She was guilty of both. Even now, I can remember bonding over that. I remember her telling me about how her brother was sick, as I confided in her that my parents had thrust me into this life for a way out. For them, I hope it was worth it. But not more than I hope she is alive.
(Her)
My vision got blurry in those final moments. So did my hearing. The rest of my senses were gone hours before. I guess that was why I couldn’t feel anything as broken glass shattered in front of me, making a few stray pieces slice open my graying skin. Whatever caused it must have either been very quiet. Or maybe my hearing had already abandoned me.
I wish I could have heard it, though. I wish I could have felt the cold, sharp glass tear into me. It might have reminded me, even if it was only for one more minute, that I was alive.
It wasn’t until my blurry vision made out a figure, kneeling beside me in the glass. My body was numb, but I could tell they were holding what was left of me. Their voice, though muffled, appeared to have sounded out my name. No one had called me by my name in weeks. I had always been addressed as “Subject 2785B.”
It hit me in my final moment. It was him. The only person other than my brother whom I truly loved. He was here. He came for me. He was too late, but he came for me.
I saw a tiny sparkle of light, and then something cold dropped on my cheek. His tear or mine, it didn’t matter. Because he came.
In that final moment, I so badly wanted to ask him to look after my brother, but I already knew he would. He always knew how to help me. And even if I was practically dead in his arms, he still saved me. It was because of him that I remembered who I was. It was because of him that I died unalone.
(Him)
The hallway got longer and longer with every step I took. There was always another ten feet of white tile, mirrored windows, and silence.
I stopped caring where they took me about fifteen minutes ago. They would probably just throw me right back into the cell afterwards. It makes sense that they would want to continue monitoring me. After all, I was such a “long-awaited success” to their agenda. I can let them use me, use my body. Maybe I could make a bargain to see my friends again. To see her again. They were all probably dead or on the verge of it, but trying wouldn’t hurt.
There’s a shift in the air.
I can feel a pull in my chest.
It tells me to keep moving.
Less than twelve paces later, I see it. I see the red hair that I had run my fingers through so many times. It’s her. She’s here. She’s suffering.
Curled into herself next to the drain on the floor, my love, my best friend, was gray and frail compared to the strong and radiant woman I loved. Her hair was brittle now, losing color at the tips and not the root like it was supposed to. Like how it would have looked when we finally grew old together. We would never have that now.
They took that from us.
They took her from me.
They did this to her.
And they would live to regret it.
I reach for the power that had stolen sleep from me for all those nights. It all happened so fast, but before I could fully comprehend it, the guards who surrounded me were on the floor. Good. Let them lie there.
Though my steps thundered through the corridor, they felt light to me. Lighter than the touch I gave to the glass, making it shatter. I don’t even feel the shards digging into my hands and feet as I climb through the window to her.
My knees hit the floor one at a time. I have never knelt for anyone, for anything. Not even God on the two or three times I bothered to attend a Church service. The exposure would have been dangerous, but sometimes, you just feel that powerless. Like the world is so out of your control that you end up asking for help from something you know you don’t believe in.
God can not possibly exist if He brought me here; if He brought us here. If He brought upon us the government that uses His scripture to validate bringing hell to us before we even get the chance to meet Him. But she believed in Him.
She always had hope that the world would turn out the way it was supposed to if we worked hard and had faith. One day, we would see the world He wanted us to have because of our devotion to following His will and not the government’s. It changed nothing. He still made her brother sick; He probably had His hands on him, too, and it was obvious this was the last place we would be before we met Him. But she was not His yet.
Gently pulling her onto my lap, I hold her head in my hand and reach for her hand in my other one. Her breaths are shaky, eyes barely open. Through the tiny slivers between her eyelids, recognition washes over her hazel irises, like the tears that begin to gather at mine. A spark of light shone through the one that manages to escape and land on her cheek.
Almost a second after it makes contact with her skin, the light in her eyes went out. All her breathing ceases and muscles go lax. Everything stops; time, my heart, my will to live.
Though, it resurfaces as something new and dangerous. They might have said they made me to protect them, but I knew I was really a weapon for anyone like I used to be. Weak in the body but strong in the mind. People with enough willpower to set the world on fire.
If I was to be the match, her death was my kerosine. And it would drive me to burn them down. One. By. One.
