LJ Idol Season 8: Week 37; Broke the Mode
"Delia, follow me!”
The plan was perfect. Watching everything carefully, knowing when people would be where. When you live in a lab, and your life revolves around having schedules for everything, you begin seeing patterns everywhere. Knowing when the shifts changed out, when the halls were most likely to be empty, all proved useful.
Climbing out of the elevator hatch, onto the roof and into the brisk night air, I reached down for my sister’s hand and pulled her up. We climbed down to the ground and took off for the woods.
The shift change meant we had another ten or fifteen minutes before the night nurse would step into our room to check on us. When she found us gone, she’d set off the alarms and the search parties would be looking for us.
We had to run.
**************************
Several Years Later
"They have her." I clenched my eyes shut, hoping the pain in my head would fade.
Liam reached over and took my hand, letting out of a muffled grunt as I squeezed too hard.
"I'm sorry Daphne..."
"I have to save her."
He nodded but then looked to the floor, "I don't think you can sweetheart... If it's who we think it is, we can't save her."
"But I have to. She's my sister."
"They know you'll come."
"I know."
"Then what?"
I pulled my hand away, stifling an agonized moan as the pain shifted from my head to my fingers. The feeling of tiny blades slicing through my skin intensified, making me scream. Looking down, I was half-surprised to see my hand was in one piece when it felt like every finger had been shredded to the bone. The pain finally let up, allowing me to speak.
"I don’t know, but I can’t keep living like this,” I said. “And I won’t let Delia live that way either.”
**********************
"How do you know where they have her?” Liam followed me out as I gathered me things, “They have facilities all over this planet... She could be thousands of miles away...”
“I just know.” I knew he wouldn’t get it, “It’s the same place they kept us as children.”
“But what if you’re wrong?”
"I’m not.”
“Well at least let me come along... You can’t do this alone...”He grabbed me by the shoulder to make me stop, to make me look at him.
“You know you can’t...” I placed my head on his shoulder, my voice barely above a whisper, "It’s hard enough to sneak one person in, much less two.”
"I can go in instead.”
"And have them kill you? We both know they wouldn’t kill me. I’m too valuable to them.”
"But they could keep you again...”
"That’s a risk I have to take, isn’t it?”
***********************
My plan wasn’t much of a plan. I realized much too late that besides a crude knife and some rope, I really had nothing that I could defend myself with. Part of me wondered if I wasn’t lying to myself and simply turning myself in just to make it all stop... Though would it really stop or only get worse?
I wouldn’t know until I got there.
I drove out of our safe haven and on to the blacktop road. Once there, I checked my speed and eyed the street signs carefully, watching for any law which I could be accused of breaking. Speed traps were common and I hadn’t spent the last several years in hiding for nothing. I couldn’t afford to draw attention to myself. Not now.
I listened to my instincts. My body would tingle, pulling me one way or another just as I’d reach a turn in the road. Having been away for as long as I had meant that I wasn’t exactly sure which way to turn or how to get there, but my body knew. It either remembered on its own or I was being drawn by her “presence” “life force” “energy”… something like that. I wasn’t sure which.
I felt it again and grimaced. The pain in my fingers moved up my arm. I fought the wheel as I tried to fight back the screams and keep my eyes on the road at the same time. Struggling to keep moving, it sometimes got too intense, forcing me to pull over where I’d cry to myself, begging for it to end.
The closer I got, the more it hurt.
I saw street lights up ahead and knew I was close. A sign bearing the words, "Welcome to Innovation Park” greeted me as I drove past.
Not only did my hands and arms hurt like hell, but a pain that felt like jolts of electricity in my chest radiated throughout my body. If I closed my eyes, I could feel her, touch her... Sense her. I knew she could feel me too. She knew I was on my way.
Parking the car away from the lab, I started the walk up the hill and toward the delivery dock at the rear of the building and the back doors. While I still knew the layout of the place like the back of my hand, I wasn’t so sure about the perimeter. My heart fluttered and I tried to calm my nerves. I didn’t know if they had guards or any sort of motion sensors or surveillance cameras in place. They hadn’t back then, but no one had ever escaped before either.
My body was seared by a sudden pain and my skin felt like it was on fire. I knew I was getting closer.
Taking a deep breath, I darted across a parking lot and up the service ladder that led to the roof, hopeful that I’d been unseen. The elevator trap door was unlocked, as to be expected. Not like anyone breaks into labs these days, where’s the fun in that?
Climbing down the ladder, I remembered the same trek Delia and I had made all those years ago, only in the opposite direction. The thick heavy air of the elevator shaft made it hard to breathe as I pried the elevator doors apart on the floor my senses told me she was on.
Filing past the empty offices, I saw names on the doors that used to mean something to me. Names attached to faces that I would never forget. In the darkness, I carefully made my way down the hall, letting the flood of memories wash over me, still feeling the sensation inside me that told me I was getting closer.
Past the offices were the labs where we’d spent so much of our childhood being poked, prodded and stabbed. And sometimes even worse. I held the knife in my hand, hidden beneath my coat sleeves, but ready just in case. Muted voices and footsteps drifted down the hallway, making me pause. A moment later, a door closed and I was left in silence again.
I rounded a corner to see his name plastered on a door. Doctor Gus Van Dorn. Sounds and images overwhelmed me and I had to steady myself to keep from hyperventilating.
"Dr. Van Dorn, the subjects are ready.” The assistant spoke softly, eyeing the both of us cautiously.
"Thank you.” I noticed that he never addressed his assistants by name.
The doctor made his way over, leaning over my sister and I who’d been strapped down to the table. The device on my head was heavy and uncomfortable. The wires poking into my scalp itched but I couldn’t move to scratch.
"Button 1 please. Delia only, not Daphne.” The assistant hesitated, but a firm look from the doctor urged him to push the button.
My sister shook on the table next me, violently convulsing. I screamed a moment later as my body was cramped and convulsed and a the feeling of razor blades ripped at my insides. We cried together, begged for the pain to stop.
"Always interesting...” The doctor took some notes as the electricity stopped pouring through her body and thus into mine.
"I’ve never seen anything like this before.” The befuddled assistant stared at us as if we were going to reach out and bite him.
"I have… But there have been very few cases around the world. One in a billion or something to that effect.” Looking up from his clipboard, he flashed a predatory smile at us, “It’s why I’ve paid a pretty penny for these two.”
"But why… I mean, how does it work?”
"They’re connected somehow. Anytime something happens to one twin, the sister feels it too. I don’t know why or how but it is a riddle that I need to figure out. Think of the possible applications for that sort of knowledge.”
With a nod of his head and one last look in our direction, Van Dorn stepped back behind his station and prepared for more tests.
"It’s all very curious indeed…”
Coming back to myself, I listened closely, alert and aware but heard nobody. While some of the labs were not in use at night, the lack of anybody from the technicians to security didn’t add up in my head. I couldn’t help but think that Liam had been right and that this was all a trap. They were using Delia to draw me in to complete their set once more.
One lone light shone from a room at the end of the hallway, on the left. I made my way toward that. I couldn’t know for sure that Delia was in that room but I listened to my instincts. And when I came to my sister, they were always right. Hoping beyond hope that I could see her before they caught me, I made my way to the end of the hallway. I needed to be in the same room with her, if only for a minute.
Drawing closer to the room, I bit down on my tongue to stop myself from crying out. Stabbing pain, like a thousand needles being shoved into my skin moved up and down my arms and legs. I wasn’t sure what they were doing to Delia inside that room but I needed to make it stop and get her out of there.
Pushing open the heavy door, I saw her. Tied down as I expected, the ropes biting into her skin. Needles protrude from her body and her hands were wrapped in blood soaked gauze.
And she wasn’t alone.
"We’ve been waiting for you…”
I just stared at Delia who silently stared back at me as tears streamed down her face.
"How does it feel to be back home at last? We have missed you…” Dr. Van Dorn taunted.
"I haven’t missed you.”
I felt them behind me before they ever stepped into the room. Dr. Van Dorn’s guards stood in the doorway, blocking my only route of escape. I had nowhere to go and even if I fought, I was no match for their stun guns and tranquilizers.
"How kind of you to return to me. After all, you do belong to Van Dorn Enterprises. I have the paperwork to prove it.”
"We don’t belong to anyone.” I looked over at Delia as I gripped the handle of the knife in my hand. She nodded and closed her eyes as if she knew my plan.
I acted quickly, moving before anyone had a chance to react. Raising my hand, I put the blade of the knife to my throat, shuddering as the cold steel touched my bare skin. A feeling of satisfaction spread through me as the shock registered on Van Dorn’s face when he realized what I intended to do. His voice, screaming for the guards to stop me sounded so distant as I looked at Delia one last time. Her eyes met mine and a small, sad smile crossed her face. My heart fluttered and I felt a hand grasp my shoulder the moment I pulled the blade across my throat. The blade sliced through my flesh but I barely felt it. Warm waves of blood cascaded down my body and pooled at my feet.
The sound of my sister’s screams filled my ears for a moment before silence and darkness fell over us both.