Spaced Out

by Korissa Allen

  Bang! Her eyes get bloodshot and she grips my arm even harder than she once did. My mother, who I love so dearly, crumbles at my feet in a pool of blood. I scream, but no sound comes out. I cry, but no tears fall down my face. Then I look up and see the face of her murderer. I’m not shocked to see Chris standing behind her, gun slowly lowered back down to his side.

  “You should have listened to her,” he tells me. “You shouldn’t have left.”

  I charge at him, but before I can make contact with his jaw, everything goes black once more. I try to reason with myself that she’s not dead, as far as I know, in real life. This was just a dream, more of a nightmare, but still just a dream, one that my brain, along with Chris’s serum, made up.

  I slowly come back to consciousness, the women in white robes still working overhead. Chris’s voice comes over the loudspeaker, but I can’t make out what he’s saying. Then moments later, his face appears in front of mine, blocking out the blinding lights behind him. He says something, but I don’t hear anything. I try to respond, but I don’t know if any words are coming out. Then I realize he was talking to the women in the white robes.

  “How are you feeling?” His voice is sickly sweet. If I didn’t have restraints over my wrists right now, he surely would have had a black eye by now.

  “You killed my mother,” I say through gritted teeth.

  “Yeah,” he says cheerfully. “Pretty cool right?”

  “If I didn’t have these restraints on,” I start, “you would be dead.”

  “And that’s why you have the restraints on,” he says, smiling the whole time.

  “Let me go,” I say.

  “Then bring your father back here,” he says tauntingly. He knows I won’t.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because I can,” he replies. “Because the fate of the galaxy depends on this. You are helping a lot of people by doing this. Don’t you think one life traded for millions is worth it?”

  “I don’t understand why you have to kill me for this to work,” I say.

  “I have to see how much pain and fear someone can take,” he tells me. “And besides, I don’t want you running around telling people my secret so they can use it for themselves. I can’t have that happen, so I need you to stay here.”

  “Who would I tell?”

  “You probably have friends in high places, people that could ruin me if given the chance.”

  “What are you trying to accomplish here, because I see no progress.”

  “Domination of the entire galaxy,” he says like it’s no big deal. “I’ve been trying to do this for years. If all the leaders went insane, like you’re going to be, then who would run the galaxy? Everyone would live in fear. Until one day, I come out on top, seeming like the cure for this disease which we call home. They would make me their leader because they have no one else to turn to. Then I would impose my new laws on them and make the galaxy in my image.”

  “I think you’ve gone mad,” I say. “Besides, you said they wouldn’t want an insane leader, so obviously you wouldn’t be their first choice.”

  “Careful with what you say,” he taunts. “I can end your life right now if I wanted. I’ve tried to prolong it in case someone came back for you. Then I would have another prisoner.”

  “Do whatever you want,” I say. “No one is coming back for me. If you kill me now, no one will know, but you also won’t have a test subject. Remember how much work it was bringing me here? I don’t think you want to go through that again.”

  He mimics me in a childish way, something that Kyle used to do, but he doesn’t say anything more. He knows I’m right; he knows he can’t kill me yet. He returns to his viewing room as the nurses plunge yet another syringe in my neck. This time, I don’t fight the darkness.

  “Zandrea,” a voice calls. I look around and find Kelton standing behind me with a gun pointed at my head.

  “Shoot me,” I say. “I don’t care.”

  “I’m not going to shoot you,” he says soothingly. “I’m going to shoot them.” He points his gun over at a small group of people consisting of my mother, my father, Kyle, and Daniel, their faces pale with anticipation.

  “No! Don’t shoot them,” I say.

  “If I don’t, you have to,” he tells me. “And don’t worry. Only one of them has to die. You get to choose which one.”

  Now my face goes pale. I have to choose between the four people I love most which one I have to kill. I take the gun from Kelton’s outstretched hand, but I’m smarter than the simulation. I point it at Kelton’s head and fire.

  I don’t wake up in a cold sweat this time. I didn’t kill anyone that I loved. Chris comes into the room, shock registering on his face. He starts yelling at some of the women in the robes, and they begin moving faster, scrambling to fix whatever mistake they made.

  He runs up next to me and gets close to my face as he says, “You won’t be so lucky next time.”

  “We’ll see about that,” I say before getting hit with another syringe and fall asleep.

  It’s the same dream as before. Everyone I love stands in a group and Kelton holds a gun out to me.

  “Which one?” he asks.

  I take the gun and fire it at his head like before. This time, however, it ricochets off his head and lands on the ground. I gulp, realizing that the only way to get out is to shoot one of them. Somehow, I tell myself that this is just a dream, not reality, and that they are still alive in real life. So I point the gun, turn around, and fire, not knowing which one I killed.

  I wake up again. Chris is still yelling. I can’t imagine how hoarse of a voice he has at this point. I know that this is driving him crazy. He can’t get through to me. Somehow, I’m still conscious in my unconsciousness.

  Before I drift off again, the woman who plunges the syringe in my neck shakes her head at me. Her eyes look sad, thoughtful. She looks almost like she feels bad for me, but she gives me the shot anyway.

  I’m on the front step of someone’s house. The house is bigger than mine, nicer than mine. The door opens and a rush of heat blasts me. A woman, who looks about my age, steps in the doorframe, blocking the golden light from inside. She’s laughing and doesn’t notice me right away. When she finally sees me, she goes pale.

  “You need to leave,” she tells me.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing here,” I respond.

  “Don’t play dumb,” she says. “You know he doesn’t want you around.”

  “Who?” I ask.

  “My husband, who else?”

  “Can I talk to him please?”

  “You guys haven’t spoken in years,” she tells me. “Why start now? He doesn’t want you in his life.”

  “Just tell him it’s an emergency,” I explain.

  “Fine, I’ll tell him you’re here, but I don’t make any promises.”

  She walks away, leaving the door ajar. I open it slightly, allowing more light outside. Two children sit on the ground in the living room next to the entrance hallway. They play with metal cubes and spheres, stacking them and knocking them down. One of them squeals loudly as the cubes fall to the ground. I imagine Kyle and me where they are, playing peacefully, with no cares in the world. I wish life was that easy.

  Footsteps pound on the ground and I step back from the door so I don’t intrude. A man steps around the ajar door and glances at me.

  “Daniel?” I say incredulously.

  He glares down at me and then begins to shut the door.

  “Wait,” I say. “Can I talk to you?”

  “Why would you want to?”

  “Because I love you,” I say.

  “I think you have the wrong person,” he retorts.

  “No, I don’t,” I say. “You’re the only person I’ve ever truly loved.”

  “That’s not what you said last time I saw you.”

  “Remind me what I said.”

  “Right before you shot me in the leg so you could go live with your fiancé?�
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  “What are you talking about?”

  “Did you lose all of your memories or something? You and Kelton got engaged. You pushed me away, remember? I kept trying to get you back, but all you thought about was you and Kelton. To keep me away, you shot my leg, hoping I would back off. I realized that any feelings we used to have for each other were gone. Do you not remember any of this?”

  “No,” I say. “And I don’t believe any of it either. You were the first person I loved, and you will be the last. Whatever I said, whatever I did, let it go. I didn’t mean any of it.”

  “I have a metal leg now because of you,” he shouts. “How can I just forget a metal leg?”

  I look down at his leg and tears begin to form on my bottom eyelid. “I’m so sorry,” I say.

  “You should be,” he spits. “It’s changed my life, and not for the better. Now, leave, please. I don’t think you want a metal leg as well.”

  I walk down the steps but turn around before I get to the bottom. “Kelton and I aren’t together anymore. I hate him, in fact. I’m not asking for you to love me again, just a shot at being friends.” I realize he asked me something similar back at the Corps’ headquarters before we got in the ship that exploded. I know this isn’t real, but my chest aches at the thought of what happened between us in this scenario. I shot him to be with Kelton? What kind of person would do that? I continue walking down the stairs, down the street, not sure where I’m heading.

  Tears pour down my cheeks, the cool air freezing them. I pull my jacket tighter around me trying to keep the warmth inside. All of a sudden, a wind comes and blows my jacket off me, leaving me to shiver my way back to the landing pad. Rain and then sleet begin to fall from the sky, weighing me down.

  I wake up shivering. The lights blind me. Chris stands over me, nodding to someone behind him. He leans in close to my face, pulling my eyelids apart with his fingers. He examines each eye before reporting his findings to whoever is behind him.

  “You aren’t as shaken up as I thought you would be,” he says almost disappointed. “But I’m hoping we can change that.”

  Darkness. I’m so used to being injected with this serum that I barely notice any difference now. The blackness lessens and reveals a room decorated with pictures of a family of three: a mother, a father, and a little boy. I pick up one of the frames and stare at the happy family. The little boy is smiling the biggest, his arms wrapped around his parents’ necks. Something about the boy, maybe his eyes, makes me think of Kyle with my mother after I left. The boy does look familiar though, but it’s not Kyle.

  A gunshot. Loud. Right behind me. I spin around to find the source of the noise. A woman, being held by her neck, crumples to the ground, a bullet wound in her head. I look to the left of the woman and see a little boy, the one from the picture, standing in front of her. Shock registers on his face but is immediately replaced with horror. He screams a blood-curdling scream loud enough to wake the entire neighborhood.

  The man who killed the woman looks at the little boy. “She’s told me a lot about you,” he snarls. “Daniel.”

  I drop to my knees as I realize this is the moment that haunted his sleep. This is the moment he woke up screaming to every night. This is the moment that changed everything. Daniel’s younger self doesn’t know it, but the man who murdered his mother is slowly killing me too.

  Chris disappears as I run over to Daniel to try to comfort him. It doesn’t work. He doesn’t know I’m here. This is all a dream, but at one point it was a reality. Sometimes, dreams can be your reality, Daniel once told me. It hurts me to know how accurate that statement was for him. Chris knows this memory scarred Daniel, and when he told me, it scarred me too. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have one of your parents murdered in front of you.

  It hits me like a bullet. Daniel said that his mother and Chris were laughing and talking before it all went downhill and he killed her. My mother was laughing and talking with Chris right before I left. I scream.

  The darkness fades physically, but not emotionally. I have to get back home. I scream until my throat goes dry. The room is dark, and everyone has left, including Chris. Only two guards stand by the entrance to the room. I know there are more on the other side of the door, guarding the room from the outside.

  Suddenly, I hear a gunshot, and think I must be dreaming. But no, I’m not. I’m in the same room I was before when I got my numerous injections. I turn my head in the direction of the sound. One of the guards lies on the ground, while the other hoists the dead guard’s gun over his shoulder. Then he runs in my direction.

  He stops next to the table I lay on and points the gun at me. I scream again. “Don’t worry,” he tells me. “Just take the gun.”

  “I can’t,” I say wiggling my hands.

  “Oh, right,” he says and pushes a button on a panel across from the table. “There you go.”

  The restraints release with a hiss and I sit up. “Why did you do that?”

  He pulls off his mask.

  “Rowan?” I say incredulous.

  “Fancy seeing you here,” he responds.

  “What are you doing? Are you helping me? Why are you helping me? We’re going to get caught.”

  “I know,” he says. “That’s why we have to go. Hurry, I’ll explain on the way.”

  “How do you plan to get us out of here?” I ask.

  “Lie on the table, and act dead or something,” he explains. “Then I’ll tell them Chris gave me strict orders to take you to another room.”

  “Where is Chris, by the way,” I ask.

  “He’s in his other office, on the seventh floor,” he says. “Now hurry. We don’t have much time.”

  I jump on the table again and loosely put the bands around my wrists. Then I close my eyes and breathe in small breaths as Rowan pushes the table toward the door. I glance at the guard he killed, who now lies limply on the ground by the door.

  Rowan pushes a button on a panel to the right of the door and it slides open. The guards on the outside stand at attention, except for one who looks like he’s in charge.

  “What is your reason for bringing her out of the lab?”

  “Chris asked me to,” Rowan responds. “He said he was going to do some experiments with her in his seventh floor office.”

  “I would have received a transmission first,” he says. “She’s not going anywhere until I get a transmission.”

  If we wait any longer, he won’t let us go for sure. Something has to happen. He’s not going to be getting a transmission, and Rowan will probably be put in my shoes after they’re through with me.

  Something in me, survival instinct maybe, fires up. At first, I don’t even realize what I’m doing, and then I understand. My eyes fly open, my arms rip from their restraints. I sit up, almost in a wired, mechanical sort of way. Rowan’s eyes grow huge, but I give him a slight nod as if to reassure him. Everything happens in slow motion. No one moves. The guards stand in awe, as if me waking up from a deep sleep is something they’ve never seen before. If I wait any longer, they will come out of their shocked trances and fire, surely killing Rowan and me.

  I punch the head guard square in the jaw and knock him off balance. What happens next is a blur. Rowan throws me the gun he grabbed from the guard he killed. I catch it and fire at the unsuspecting guards. Rowan does the same. The guards fire back, so I duck behind the operating table and fire from the ground. They come so fast.

  I hit one guard in the arm and another in the stomach. Then a bullet catches me in the shoulder and I fall back. Black spots dance around my vision, but the mission is not over yet, so I’m not over yet. Rowan hits many of them in the heart or the head, something I’m guessing he learned in training. I hear one of the guards laying on the ground whisper something into his communications device. I shoot him dead before he can finish his sentence.

  Rowan gets hit and stumbles back, clutching at the table. I shoot the guard in return and rapid-fire others until most a
re either dead or wounded. I run over to Rowan, who clutches his side, blood spilling out.

  “You’ll be fine,” I say, trying my best not to sound panicked. “Can you walk?”

  “The mission isn’t over,” he says. “I’m coming with you.”

  I help him to his feet and shoot the half-dead guards once again to make sure they don’t follow us or send backup transmissions. Rowan limps down the hall, one arm across my shoulders. I wince with every step, the bullet wound sending a piercing pain through my body. I check around each corner, my gun positioned to shoot at a moment’s notice. I finally see the elevators where I said my goodbyes to Kyle, Daniel, and my father. I thought it was going to be my last. Not anymore. I’m more determined than ever to get out of here.

  I press the ‘up’ arrow and the doors to the elevator slide open. Once inside, I press the seventh floor button, but nothing happens.

  “Here,” Rowan says, handing me a card. “It only works if you have an ID.”

  “That’s not what happened when we first showed up,” I recall. “It moved automatically for us.”

  “That’s because it was a trap,” he explains. “Everything seemed so easy to get through, the security on the outside of the building, the front desk, and the elevators. You thought you were wandering free, but we were watching you the whole time.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say. “Why?”

  “We wanted to see what you were going to do,” he says. “We had to single one of you out so we could do the experiments. So we chose Daniel. He seemed the strongest, the best person to test things on. But he wasn’t. He broke down almost immediately.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I say flatly.

  “It’s true,” he says. “I can show you the videos if you want.”

  “No, it’s fine,” I say. “Continue.”

  “We discovered we needed someone better to test, so then we tried singling you out,” he continues. “We realized you were the person we needed to experiment on. That’s why Kelton stayed around a little longer. We thought he was able to keep you here so eventually we could operate on you. It worked for a while until things went south. You wanted to go home, but we couldn’t let our test subject get away, so we had Kelton blow up the ship to get you by yourself. Remember the parachute? We were planning on either letting Daniel and Kyle go or kill them.”