14 Days, 7 Prompts, 1 Story

Entry Six - March 26th

Entry Six





We reached the fifth floor with no problems. Everything was going as planned. Get in, get Tori, and get out. I was expecting something to go wrong any second, and I didn’t like it. At the top of the stairs, I stopped.


“Calm down, Kaia,” Molly said quietly. “You’re practically buzzing with nerves.”


I sighed and tried to slow my beating heart a little. “Three years is a long time,” I said.


“What are you afraid of? Do you think she will blame you for leaving her? That she won’t want our help?” Molly asked.


Memories of times I had spent with my sister, after our parents disappeared forever, flashed through my head. Even though she was seven years younger than me, she had always been strong. Sometimes it had felt like she was the one keeping me going, when it should have been the other way around.


I shook my head and went up to the door in front of us. It looked like a door they would have in a hospital. In fact, the whole place looked like a hospital. I shivered.


The door opened easily, like Alice had said it would, and we went into another brightly lit corridor. This one was lined with windows, and through the windows were small rooms. I knew they were basically prison cells, yet they were all richly furnished and filled with toys and games. The color I saw looked welcoming compared to the bleached walls of the hall outside.


Inside each room was a child. None of them looked at the window, which made me think it was one-way glass. Some of them looked scared and a few looked angry, but most of them just looked tired. The exhaustion I saw in their eyes made me want to comfort them, help them, and I had to force myself to look away and walk past. All of these children had given up, they had no more fight left in them.


The room they had Tori in was different. The walls were lined with machines and there was a metal chair like the one in a dentist’s office in the center. My sister was strapped on the chair, hooked up to various machines with wires. She was unconsciously straining against the supports, her eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. I could see her mouth moving rapidly, but from outside the room we could hear nothing that went on within. Two people in gray uniforms stood around Tori, watching her and the screens around them.


“What are they doing?” I snarled, my hands clenching into tight fists.


“They are using her. Digging through her brain to get all the information she has by force,” Molly said. “Let’s get her out of there.”


“I couldn’t agree more,” I said.


The door hit the wall with a loud clang as it slammed open, and the two doctors stopped what they were doing and turned towards us.


“Play time’s over,” I said, drawing my gun and zapping one of them with enough power to drop an elephant. Molly got the other one, which made the room smell like burnt hair and flesh. The man lay smoking on the floor next to his companion.


“Nice,” I said, before going to my sister.


“Careful, Kaia. You have to make sure you don’t hurt her when you disconnect those wires. Let me help.”


As she pulled away wire after wire, I gently brushed the hair out of my sister’s face. She had closed her eyes, but she was still whispering something softly, over and over again. I leaned in close to hear what she was saying.


“No, no, I can’t let them see her. No, no…”


Then Molly pulled out two small needles on either side of Tori’s head. Her eyes instantly opened and she looked scared.


“Tori, it’s okay, we’re here to help,” I said.


She looked at me as if she was seeing a nightmare. “No! I didn’t let them see! They could not have found you!”


“No! It’s okay! We’re going to get you out of here, Tori. They did not find me. I’m fine!”


Suddenly Tori took a deep breath, closing her dark purple eyes as if in pain, before opening them again.


“Kaia. You’re in danger here. You have to go,” she said to me.


“I won’t leave you, if that’s what you’re saying. Not again, Tori. Let’s go, come on.” I pulled her from the chair and she wobbled slightly as her bare feet hit the ground. I would have carried her, but she was much bigger than she had been the last time I’d seen her. In fact, she was almost as tall as I was.