“If things go south, run. Just run.”
Thousands of paces later, the fatigue began to take over. With every stride, the distance between them grew, every footstep heavier than the last.
He didn’t stop. Like an ant crawling into an abyss, he kept running on the platinum white snowfield. The white never seemed to end, an endless winter. He thought that maybe if he kept running, the guilt would eventually be gone.
A forest! There’s a forest in front! Far away, amongst the white of the snow plain, he could see a dark silhouette that seemed to cover the horizon. He finally felt hope in this endless white. He ran towards it to get some cover. Suddenly, he felt a pang in his shoulder that caused him to fall forward. Whiteness dripped from the place the bullet penetrated, revealing the reason he was being chased. he writhed in pain but stood up, held the wound to try to stop the blood and continued to run towards the forest, where he was hoping he could find some cover. “The forests are always your friends.” his mother told him before she passed away.
He was nearing the forest when his last hope suddenly burst out in flaming red and orange. They had burnt it! His friend, his last hope. Watching the red and orange flash in front of his eyes, he suddenly felt nauseous. He coughed and whiteness came out of his mouth and landed on his palm. The more he looked at the white, the more he felt sucked into it. Finally, the hate and guilt consumed him and he fell once again into the whiteness. Before he fainted, he heard a voice coming closer, “You’ll be alright.”
Beep. Beep. Beep
He stirred awake but could hardly open his eyes due to the blinding white walls. An attempt to breathe had him clutching his chest painfully, as if the white space had been doused in bleach, resulting in an overwhelming chemical smell that burned his lungs.
He was back. To the life of captivity. To the life of never-ending tests. To the life of medications and injections. And worst of all, back to the room right beside the one where his guilt radiates strongest from.
Beep, beep, beep, beep. The heart rate monitor went frantic and faded into the background as he trembled and bit hard on his lower lip. Tears stung his eyes and the pain in his lungs dulled in comparison to the ache in his heart.
He snapped his head around. Footsteps. They’re coming. Run!
He tried to leap out of bed but little did he know that his legs were totally numb. BAM! He toppled over, pulling the bed and the heart rate monitor attached along with him to the ground. He winced in pain but immediately felt blood drained from his face. A pair of white shoes and the white hem of a lab coat came into sight paired with the voice, “You’re being disobedient again.”
“We were in fact very astounded you made it past our indomitable gates, not just one of them, all five of them! Fascinating, very fascinating. Many have tried before, of course, but none who had as much as success as you. Give yourself a pat on back.”
![she]("We were in fact very astounded you made it past our indomitable gates, not just one of them, all five of them! Fascinating, very fascinating. Many have tried before, of course, but none who had as much as success as you. Give yourself a pat on back." Halting midpace, The Scientist smiled wryly, glasses askew, hair disheveled. "The world has gone to complete shit, survived by our little community. We all have to play our part to get humanity back on track. These experiments are necessary, x-62." 62 was about to pass out from the chemicals burning up in his lugs. "And if you're wondering what happened to her, she's still alive.")
Halting midpace, The Scientist smiled wryly, glasses askew, hair disheveled.
“The world has gone to complete shit, survived by our little community. We all have to play our part to get humanity back on track. These experiments are necessary, x-62.”
62 was about to pass out from the chemicals burning up in his lugs.
“And if you’re wondering what happened to her, she’s still alive.”
https://500px.com/photo/245360627/photo-by-aj-sacil?ctx_page=1&from=user&user_id=15997501
He had once wondered why he had been born. He watched as the tube on his arm transferred his blood into the plastic bags. “for the greater good” as publicized by the organization. He was living a life even worse than livestock. He felt the dizziness overtake him.
He woke up hearing someone say ” not bad, x-62 hads produced a large amount of blood after the experiment today. we could probably sell enough to sustain ten days of life.”
“Heard you ‘went out for a walk’ yesterday, mate. More energised now?” snickered x-13 aka Greg.
“Mind your own business, no-luck,” x-62 growled as he moved on down the canteen line along with tens of others in full white attire, just like him.
Piak, blech, boop. Piles of white mash in different shades were piled on the metallic tray.
He sat down at his usual spot, the extreme right corner of a table (it doesn’t matter which table as long as it was at that position). He never had much appetite during meal times as he reminisced the times when he last saw coloured food with solid shapes. Meal times would usually be slightly more bearable with her around, cracking jokes and sharing ideas.
He wondered how was she now.
The plan was to escape together, to try and seek the forests together. Covered in endless sheets of snow, the world was plunged into eternal winter decades ago. The last remnant of civilisation was here in this government made building, built exactly for doomsday situations like this.
Lives weren’t lived out anymore. They were harvested. An advancement man developed in his most trying times. Everybody fell into a caste, the upper class being the ones who benefitted from the life supply, supplied by none other than the ones at the bottom.
When the window opened up to tear through the gates of the community, x-27 got tangled in the resisting force.
“Run!” she screamed.
Thinking about her made him very worried. He wants to see her. H want to know she was alright. “Hey, hey man what are you thinking about staring at the Food Brian?” an annoying voice sounded by his ear. A handsome face appeared infront of him. “I know he looks like a girl but you’re not that desperate are you?” He waved annoyingly in front of his face. “go die.” He told the annoying guy x-01 who was supposedly the only person who would talk to him without looking down on him.
“Naw sweetie, you’ll get bored to death if I really died,” x-01 winked as he sat himself down beside x-62. x-62 hated to agree with x-01 on anything but….he’s right.
“You look like a real mess by the way if you hadn’t have time to look into the mirror, although you already look like one every other day,” x-01 continued poking fun at x-62 while poking at x-62’s plate of piled mash.
“I’ll still win you in a model competition even at this state alright, you’re just jealous. Let’s go ‘get our medication’,” x-62 sneered back as he pushed back his chair. x-01 shrugged and followed suit.