I stop to think about this. The question throws me off guard because I haven’t really found a specific answer except for the fact that they split my family apart and ruined countless others. But I tell him, “Because they’re bad people. Bad people set out to do bad things.”
“Are they bad because they do evil things, or are they bad because their views don’t align with yours?”
“I-” I stop. I don’t respond. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I believe they’re evil because they do the opposite of what I do. Maybe I’m the bad one, corrupted, evil. I can’t come to terms with this though.
“Everyone was raised to believe they are doing the right thing,” he says. “Everyone believes they are good and they are doing things for the good of others. No one ever stops and thinks they are doing evil until someone else points it out. I’m not saying you’re an evil person. I’m saying that you need to open your eyes. Don’t be so narrow-minded that you can’t see something right next to you.”
He pushes past me and continues pulling his cart to the entrance of the room. Before he reaches the door, he looks back and smiles tiredly.
“You’re brother was right,” he says. “You only see what you want to see.” Then he disappears around the corner leaving me speechless.
My brain is tired from information overload. Sleep, I think. I need sleep. I find an office cubicle pressed against the wall and curl up under the chair. Hopefully no one finds me. I slip off to a sweet, well-needed rest.
The darkness of my eyelids fades and I’m in the mirrored hallway again. I stand up from my lying position on the ground and brush myself off. Then I look ahead and find a face staring back at me. But it’s not my face. The girl in the mirror looks like me in a way but at the same time completely different. When I turn my head, she turns hers the same way. Her pale blue eyes reflect mine, but hers seem to sparkle in a way my eyes never did. She’s older but still looks my age. I look down and notice she wears a clean dark green shirt and tight black pants. Compared to my ratty pullover and muddy pants, she looks beautiful.
I put my left hand up against the glass as her right hand goes up to meet mine. Her hands are fresh, and her nails are filed to a perfect roundness. My nails are dirty and rough. I look to my left and then to my right; she copies me. Then I put my right hand up. She puts up her left, but I notice something else different about her. She wears a beautiful, sparkly ring around her second to the left finger. I glance at it closer and she does the same. Then she breaks our synchronizing rhythm by looking from my finger to my face and back.
“He did not propose?” the girl in the mirror asks.
The question takes me by surprise because I didn’t say anything. “Who didn’t?”
“You know exactly who I’m talking about,” she replies.
I do know. I know it, and I almost say his name, but I don’t want to burst into tears.
“It’s okay,” she says. “I know how you’re feeling.”
“You know nothing about me!” I scream, tears threatening to spill over my eyelids.
“My dear, there is still so much you need to learn,” she says, her voice angelic and sweet.
“You can’t and won’t teach me anything,” I say sternly.
“Of course not,” she says. “Everything you know, I know.”
“Then how am I supposed to learn anything from you?”
“You aren’t,” she says. “Look around you, Zandrea. Your mind is like a tunnel, you can’t see anything except what’s in front of you.”
“What’s your point?” I ask flatly.
“These people, this organization, they’ve been playing you like a fiddle,” she says. “You don’t know left from right, right from wrong, light from dark. Be a bridge, not a tunnel.”
Then she disappears and I’m left staring at my real reflection. I look to my left and then my right. I place my right hand on the glass and her left hand follows. This time, there is no ring. Only dirty, hollow fingers that I know belong to me.
The door that leads out from the mirrored hallway opens and reveals a light so bright I have to shield my eyes. Some force, a feeling in my gut, pulls me toward the light. A voice repeats my name until I am out of the hallway and into a clouded kingdom. The voice gets louder and more persistent. I keep walking to where I believe the source of the noise lies.
An alarm. It sounds overhead. How long has it been going off? How long was I asleep? I try to stand up but realize there’s a desk over me. I scoot out briefly from under the desk; that is until I see about 100 Corps’ guards running through the room. I scoot back under the desk until they leave the room through the same door Gregory did. Then I wait until the coast is clear before making a run in the same direction as the guards.
Most of them are too far ahead to catch up to, but there are a few stragglers who seem very out of shape. One of them slows down to a jog and then to a fast walk. I could easily catch up to him without any strain, but I don’t know what side he remains on. Could he be a spy? Probably not, but it’s always nice to hope.
I come up with a plan to join the group and find out what they’re running for. I run up next to the closest straggler and tap him on the shoulder. He jerks and aims his gun at me, but I point mine at his head and pull the trigger slightly. He throws his hands up in a surrendering sort of way, and I point to a room behind him. I poke him in the head with my gun, and he moves into the room. I follow behind him, checking to make sure no one saw us.
As we enter the room, I find the door and shut it closed. “What’s going-”
I pull my trigger and he falls back toward the ground. I slip off his helmet and uniform and pull it on over myself. I hide his gun in a storage closet opposite the door and then leave and catch up with the rest of the group. They jog to somewhere on the opposite end of the building. The alarm overhead is piercing, but the beat of my heart and the thump of my footsteps pounding on the cement floor help me tune it out.
We reach the area a little later; almost everyone stops running as soon as we get to the site and pants like they’ve never ran before. I’m in better shape than some of the people here, but I’m still worn out. Whatever it is we ran for, it better be worth it.
A guard, who I assume to be the leader, stands on a small podium in front of the crowd. He yells some things about this group being the laziest bunch of nobodies he’s ever met and how they should try harder if they want to stay alive. I tune out for the most part; none of this applies to me. Instead I walk over to the big picture windows that line the side of the building.
The view is pretty in the daytime. It’s the same view of the runway that I got to see before we left the building and our ship exploded, except now, it’s a few stories higher in the air and it’s daylight hours. The lake shimmers with the source of light reflecting off of it. The lake goes for what seems like miles in every direction. I can faintly see the shore where Daniel landed. It looks peaceful, beautiful, and not at all menacing like it was the first time I saw it.
The leader of the group yells a few more commands and the group disbands. Some go back the same way we came, and I can tell by their body posture that they aren’t happy. The leader looks down at his list and then turns his head to each direction in turn to watch the groups depart. Then he turns toward me. He eyes me carefully. I gulp. He’ll know I’m not supposed to be there. I wait as his look decides my fate. He opens his mouth to speak, but all he yells is for me to get moving and there’s no time for sightseeing.
I run in the direction of one of the groups toward an area I haven’t been yet. I catch up to them pretty easily; they jog so slowly I could run to the front of the group and be ahead of them in an instant. I decide not to though and slow down to a fast walk.
The hallway is long, narrow, and dark. The windows are tinted a dark color and allow in very little natural light. The hallway gets darker quickly, and some of the soldiers turn on lights on top of their guns. I find the switch and activate my light. I point it at the walls and find lig
ht writings scribbled all over. Some of the scribblings are legible, while others are just drawings or carvings. One reads: Kelton is crazy. Then below it: Don’t trust him. Then another below that: David was here. I tap one of the soldiers on the shoulder and lower my voice.
“Do you know who this David is?” I ask, even though I’m pretty sure I already know the answer.
“I think he was one of the recruits that got to work alongside Chris’s son. I heard he died recently in a ship crash.”
“How did that happen?” I ask. “I thought the Corps’ ships weren’t supposed to crash.”
“From what I heard, it got hijacked by some spy who also died in the crash.”
“Hijacked?”
“Yeah, the pilot hijacked the ship, crashed it, and took off unharmed. I think he had a parachute with him because you don’t just fall from the air and come out unscathed.”
“Was there anyone else in the ship?” I ask.
“I’m not sure,” he replies. “Maybe. The guy who told me said he heard from some other guy that he saw two people with parachutes, but it could be incorrect information.”
“Right,” I say. “Of course.”
We walk a little longer in silence. My mind wanders to Daniel and Kyle. I have more hope now than I did before about seeing them again. Maybe when I get back, Daniel and I can finally have that wedding I’ve dreamt so much about. I can picture the dress my mother wore for her wedding. She looked gorgeous in it, and I even remember as a little girl asking her if I could wear it when I got married one day. She told me yes, that when that day came, she wanted to be the first to see me in it. One day she let me try it on. It was big, but it made me feel special, high class. I didn’t want to take it off, but my mother had told me it would get ruined if it stayed out of the box any longer. I would sometimes take peeks at it when she wasn’t around.
Once, she caught me. At first she scolded me, but then she explained the story of when she first wore it. It was the day before she has planned to marry my father. Her mother was helping her try it on, making sure it fit.
“You look so beautiful,” her mother said. “Jordan is a very lucky man.”
“Thanks Mother,” she replied. “I hope these are the best years of my life.”
“They will be,” she assured her. “They will be.”
She got married the next day at the House and kept her dress tucked away safely. When I was old enough, she told me it was going to be mine someday. I’ve waited forever to wear the dress for real. Hopefully that day comes soon.
The hallway is long, very long. My feet start to ache, and I slow my pace down until I’m almost at the back of the group. I notice more writings on the walls, some of them tallies reaching into the hundreds. One of the soldiers catches my gaze and points to one of the tally charts scratched into the wall.
“These used to be prison cells before they relocated them to one of the higher floor levels,” he explains as if reading my thoughts. “The tallies were left by prisoners.”
“Interesting,” I respond. Then I point to a single scratch on the wall. “Why is there only one?”
“Chris took the prisoners to his lab and did experiments on them,” he says. “Something to do with dreams becoming nightmares. Whoever was here was probably brought to his use pretty fast.”
I look closer at the walls. Underneath one of the scratchings is another scratching, this one reading a name. Jcrdan Kncules, it reads. I can tell, even though some of it was not scratched very deeply, that this is my father’s name. He was in a cell in this spot probably not too long ago. I count the marks next to his name. Two-thousand marks, roughly. I shiver.
“Did all of the prisoners in this area get relocated?”
“For the most part, yes,” he says. “Unless Chris needed them for his experiments.”
“Do you know where the prisoners were moved to?”
“Some cages on the higher levels of the building,” he responds. “I heard most of them escaped though. Not sure how, but the Corps let them loose.”
I know, I think but I keep my mouth shut. I study more of the wall, trying to find clues of anyone else’s escape. Nothing. I keep walking down further until the wall changes color from an off-white to a light brown. The scratches become infrequent and then stop altogether. I shiver.
“Are you cold?” the soldier asks.
“No, I’m fine,” I say. “Just thinking about what it would have been like to be stuck in one of those cages.” I know though. I’m too familiar with the feeling.
“It probably wasn’t that bad,” he says. “They bring you food and you can sleep whenever.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s all fine and dandy in there,” I snap.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to offend you,” he says. “Did you know someone in there?”
“Why do you care?” I ask.
“Well,” he starts. “I care because I knew someone in there. Someone I was close to.”
“What happened?” I ask flatly.
He turns away from me and swipes at his cheek.
“What happened to them?” I ask quieter.
“Nothing,” he says. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Over the years,” I say. “I’ve learned that when someone cries about something, it’s because it’s significant. Nobody cries for the fun of it. You don’t have to tell me, but don’t lie to me either. I’ve been lied to enough in my life.”
We walk a little longer in silence, except for a few sniffles coming from my left. Finally, he turns to me.
“She was my best friend,” he begins. “We told each other everything, never lied to each other. She was like family. One day, and I don’t know how this happened, but one day I started liking her as more than just a best friend. I eventually told her this, and she told me she had felt the same way for a long time. We got married that summer and had two children, two years apart.”
He glances at me to see if I’m paying attention. I am. This story sounds like my own.
“Anyway,” he says. “We didn’t have much money, so I left and joined the Corps because I knew they were hiring and paid good. But what I didn’t know was what they expected of us. They said that anyone who didn’t believe in what the Corps stood for was to be tortured and killed. If they found out, and they always would, they would kill us and our families. I couldn’t do that. Well, as fate would have it, my wife didn’t agree with the Corps to any degree. I was forced to beat her so she wouldn’t die. I hated it. We fought so often. Of course, I couldn’t tell her anything or she would be killed. One day she snapped. Knowing that the Corps could see everything that happened, I had to report her to protect her.”
My eyes grow wide. His story reminds me of one I’ve heard before. I can’t think of who or what it was.
“The Corps came and took her away along with my two beloved children. I cried for weeks straight. When I finally returned to work, one of the group leaders took us through this hallway and showed us all of the prisoners they captured. As I was walking, I saw my wife and children huddled in one of the cages. I put my hand on one of the bars and told her someday I was going to break her free. She shrieked and told me she wanted nothing to do with me, that the children were hers, and if she ever got out she would never allow me to see them again. I cried even more after that.”
He teared up again and swiped at his eyes.
“I was relieved when I heard that some enemy ship came by and helped the prisoners escape. By that point, most of the prisoners had been relocated to one of the higher levels of the building. I tried going back to see them but she had moved far away from the Corps and its evil clutches. If I knew where they were, I would fly there immediately and apologize for everything that I did.”
“I’m sure you’ll be able to find her,” I say. “The Corps have so many fancy gadgets; I’m sure it wouldn’t be too hard to locate them.”
“I’m just, afraid,” he says softly. “Afraid I’ll find her but she won’t listen to my apology. Sh
e’ll shut the door in my face and tell my children that I’m nobody to be concerned about. They were so little when I left; I doubt they would remember me.”
“You’d be surprised by what kids can remember,” I say quietly. I remember every last detail about the day my father left. He was calm and controlled but sad. He picked up his bag, kissed each of us in turn, and told us that he loved us with all of his heart.
I wonder what my mother would have done if my father came back before me. Would she have slammed the door in his face or be delighted to see him? What if Chris had been there? Would she break up with him? Or would she be too afraid? He could kill her. Maybe he would. And then my father would be next. Or maybe he would force her to watch him die. Would he have killed Kyle too?
“My children mean the world to me,” he says, interrupting my thoughts. “I just hope that my wife took care of them all these years.”
That’s when it hits me. I know who he’s talking about. The woman and her children in one of the first cages I saw when we first arrived here. She told me that she and her husband had a fight and he worked for the Corps and turned them in. I gasp.
“She’s fine,” I say.
“How do you know?” he says.
“I saw them leave. Your kids were in good condition. Your wife, well…”
“How do you know it was them?”
“I just have this hunch,” I say. “They got on the ship. I don’t know where they went though.”
“Just as long as they’re alive,” he says. “That’s all that matters to me.”
We walk awhile more in silence as I stare at the wall for any other signs of scratchings. He catches my gaze again.
“You never told me who you knew in there,” he says.
“Nobody,” I respond. “Just forget it.”
“I won’t force you to tell me, but I’ve found that sometimes it helps.”
I continue staring at the wall. This guy, this soldier, I don’t trust him. It’s not that he’s suspicious, but I’ve learned my lesson about letting my guard down with people who work for the Corps. I can tell he’s waiting for me to say something, but I can’t. It hurts too much to bring it up.
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