Antidote Trilogy: The Complete Box Set

by Taylor Hondos

I touched it and felt a surge within it. It felt like a magnet. I remembered how confused I was by the necklace, and now I knew I was connected to it because my family gave it to me. Jared turned away from me but I was transfixed on the necklace. The necklace moved upward to my hands. I jerked back and it followed. I threw it out of my hands. What is this?

  Jared didn’t notice my discomfort as he continued with his back to me. “You were loved by many people and still are.” I didn’t know what he meant. I stared at his back intently, and I knew he felt me staring. “You need to know the truth of the world right now. I know you wont believe me because Dr. Ravana can be convincing. I can give you proof if you just come with me. You have all the answers. Your father left them for you.” He said and I was struggling to answer.

  He looked back at me and smiled. “Come.” He said simply and I didn’t know why but when he reached out for my hand, I took it.

  ***

  He led me to the house that I had seen him in so many times. It turned out we weren’t far from it. We walked down a road and were there. The trees swayed in the wind and it felt like something was changing within the world and within myself as well. The wind picked up and my hair whipped all around. He looked over to me and smiled while he moved my hair from my eyes. I shook all over and it wasn’t from the cold wind anymore.

  He grabbed my hand and I tried to be calm. I felt a little shaken by the things he had told me so far and I didn’t know if I should believe him or not. It was not like Dr. Ravana had hurt me in any way. Yet.

  “This house is very important. I want you to take everything in that you can.” I nodded and he led me inside the house and down a hallway. He turned slowly to a door that was left ajar. We walked in and I realized we were in some sort of lab.

  “I leave this open now and it’s probably not wise, but the world is crap already and there are no answers in here except for when you are here.”

  “Me?” I said in shock. “I don’t even know where we are.” He smiled at me and looked back down the hallway.

  “Go to the door to the right. This is your house.” I shook my head furiously. This must be a trick.

  “My home is where Dr. Ravana is. He told me that you’re a liar. Should I believe him?” He just stared at me for a long moment.

  “See for yourself.” He said finally. I turned on my heel a little frightened to have my back to him but I reached the end of the hall. I almost passed out when I saw that the door read “Lena.”

  “Did you put this here?” I asked calmly. He didn’t answer so I opened the door and let my senses take over. My heart sped up as I glanced at all the lights hanging in my room. They belonged to me and I knew that I had done this. This was my home. I didn’t want to believe that Dr. Ravana had lied to me but I had to face it. This was my room. There were books tossed in all directions as well as a journal. I picked it up and held it to my heart. A giant L was on the cover. There were posters of my favorite book quotes. I didn’t remember much about myself but I did remember books that touched my heart.

  “So this really is my house?” I asked Jared still clutching the journal.

  He nodded slowly. His arms were crossed over his chest, making him look more intense. I didn’t like the flashes of memories crowding my mind. He stood like this often in my mind.

  “Now, may I show you what we are here for?” he said calmly. I nodded, and we went back to the lab. I sat down the journal on the seat beside the door. I wanted to take it with me but decided against it.

  We reached the computer that was toppled over, the one I had watched him destroy. I reached the globe system as he stood in front of it. He leaned over it. “This system is yours. Please try it even though you’re not yourself.”

  “What do I even do?” I asked hesitantly.

  “That is for you to figure out because I have no idea now.”

  I closed my eyes and reached the large globe. I touched it out of instinct. I jumped back when a voice spoke out.

  “Name please.” I looked a little curiously as the strange voice ran out of it.

  “I don’t know my name. Other than Lena.” I said to Jared.

  “Tell her that.” He said.

  “Uh. Dear computer globe.” I laughed at myself. “I am Lena, no last name.”

  “Access Denied.” My face fell and I leaned forward pushing my forehead against the glass. I couldn’t do anything. My necklace grazed the top of the glass. I didn’t know what to believe. A part of me wanted to believe Jared and the other part believed Dr. Ravana already.

  I jumped back as the computer spoke up as I leaned away. “Access Granted. Welcome Home.” The voice told me. I looked back and Jared clapped his hands together with a huge grin. I could not help but feel happy. He wasn’t lying to me; so far at least.

  “What next, Mrs. Alona.” My heart skipped a beat. Alona. It sounded right to me. That had to be my last name.

  “Uh. Show me what to do to save people.” I said confidently. Jared gave thumbs up.

  “The truth lies in you. Not me.” The computer said and I grunted along with Jared.

  “Well, I don’t know how. Show me what is happening to people. Who is doing this?”

  “I need approval by Dr. Alona to respond to these things. Insert approval.”

  “I don’t have approval. This is his daughter.” Jared shouted to the machine.

  “She has the approval. Do not shout.” The computer told us.

  “I don’t have approval. I barely have any memories Jared.” I turned to see his disappointment. “I am sorry. Maybe I am the wrong person.” I said sadly.

  “No you are the one. I know first hand.” He told me.

  “I don’t know who I am.” I muttered darkly. “Is there anything I can reach?” I asked the computer.

  “Yes ma’am I will get those files running. And please, call me Polly.” The computer told us. I smiled and she seemed to disappear before she spoke again. “The files I have reached have been hacked. Someone else has received them but you are the only one who may understand them. One is a letter from your father.” A hologram appeared before us, and I saw a graphic of a note.

  It read, “Trust him, Lena.” I didn’t understand it but I told Polly to continue. Was him Jared or Dr. Ravana?

  “The rest are files that describe the disease making plans that your father had. Your father created the disease but not to kill anyone. Dr. Ravana took it to the extreme by giving it to people.”

  “Polly, that can’t be true. Dr. Ravana told us that he was protecting people from the disease.” I said confused.

  “Yes. That is what he wants you to believe. So you shall. Your mind is not your own anymore. He controls it and he may be watching you now. Beware Lena.”

  “Wait.” I shouted before the system shut down. “Polly, why am I so important?” the question seemed out of place but I asked anyways.

  “You are the antidote, Ms. Alona.” She hesitated. This computer sure had its own mind. “Maybe not you, but you possess it. You have the true cure because.” The sound was cut off. I slammed my hand on the screen.

  “What?” I screamed. Before she could respond, the window behind us shattered. Someone slammed something against my head. I screamed in pain and before I could react, I was being drug from the room by my hair. The girl with the burnt hair, Kaley, had returned for me.

  Chapter Thirteen: Trapped

  I DIDN’T SEE Jared, as I was being dragged out so I assumed that he was with them and was part of the reason they captured me. I told you he would betray you.

  Kaley’s red hair was the only one I spotted before I was hit in my forehead and was blinded. The crisp air was harsh against my bare arms. I felt my shirt being ripped from my body and I felt the urge to cover myself up. I was thankful I wore my bra as well as a tank top. There were hushed voices as I was led into the night. Before I knew it, I felt cloth being shoved into my mouth. I assumed it was my own shirt, I prayed it was. I wanted to fight them but I felt weak. I didn’t know
why but when they hit my head, I could barely feel my limbs any longer. I was a zombie walking.

  I didn’t know what I was going to do. I began to gag a little on my shirt. There were too many things conflicting what I knew. Dr. Ravana was bad and he had manipulated me. Or was Jared?

  All my thoughts were muddled in my head.There was my name on the door and the familiar things in my room. Could it really be my home? Was I really the key to curing the world of the disease?I didn’t know where I belonged now. I wished that I really had taken my journal. It had secrets of my past life and if they didn’t trigger any memories, I would know if Jared was being truthful or not.

  As I walked, I tried to think of my past but I didn’t see much. All I recalled was his face, and it filled my memory with happiness. I saw myself laughing. I knew I had been sick because there was sickness when I saw myself in a mirror. My forehead was rotten along with my arm. I saw him yelling at me, and I watched myself as an outsider, being carried out by a foreign figure, I couldn’t see his face. I was being sent away.

  I knew that I was okay now because when I looked at myself in the mirror, I was healthy and beautiful. I was once sick so Dr. Ravana hadn’t been lying there. As I stepped, I felt something stick to my shoe. I felt as if I were walking on some mushy ground.

  That was when I smelt it. I sniffed burning flesh all around me but I did not know why until my vision returned as well as the pain I felt from the hit to my head. All around me was people in chaos. There was screaming and fatal sounds all around me. I was gaging from the smell and wanted badly to spit the shirt from my mouth. I was being led to a house up a hill. My legs treaded up the hill slowly but I felt a prick on my back as someone stabbed me up the hill. I groaned through the cloth and felt tears trying to reach my eyes.

  The people around me were cutting their limbs off. One by one, they took turns sawing at their legs, or their arms and throwing their rotten limbs into the fire. I heard their screams as the most repulsive thing happened. As soon as their limbs were gone, a new one began to grow, more rotten and sicker than the last one. Just like Dr. Ravana warned us. I shielded my eyes away and took a deep breath; I could speak just a little now “Help them!” I screamed in a muffled way to the insolent girl.

  “I can’t help them. This was their choice. They would rather be this than something as disgraceful as you.” She spat at me and rolled her eyes. “You choose the easy way out. The beautiful way out. Look around you. This is death. This is the real beauty. Embracing their circumstances.” I wanted to spit on her as she shouted in the air.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked her again through my cloth.

  “A few weeks after Dr. Ravana showed the chip, you disappeared. The media fell through. A girl and squat boy came on the TV all around the world and explained what was happening. They take dying creatures and destroy their will. They turn them into you.”

  I was confused. “Me? What am I? What did I turn into?”

  “A mindless robot.” I gasped. I was not a robot. “Knowing you, you probably went there willingly to be more significant than me.” She sneered, and I felt my eyes roll. She was such a delusional thing.

  I spat my cloth to the ground. Hands tightened around me to hold me in place. “I don’t remember anything from the past but I don’t think I did anything like that.” I derided back.

  “I know you did. You’re sickening. You are a monster now. You held fire and threw it at me.” She screamed. “You burned my hair, Lena.” I looked to her scorched scalp with happiness now. The left side of her head still held the beautiful red waves but her right side was burnt all the way to the scalp.

  “You tried to burn me alive you’re the monster!” she slapped my face hard and I felt my head whip to the side. I felt my temper rising but I couldn’t move my arms. I was weak and I felt my eyes glaze over as I stared deeply at her. I knew the damage I could do, and I would use it on her. Even in my memory, she didn’t seem like a good friend. She began to scream and fell to her knees. I bore my eyes into hers and she rolled on the ground.

  The man behind me hit my head before he let me go as I collapsed to the ground. Kaley rolled over and crawled her way to me as she ripped my head up by my hair. “You’re a selfish bitch and you have to live with it.” Before I could respond to her audacious comments, she reached over and grabbed something red. I saw the brick rise before I could move. I felt the brisk pain before I blacked out.

  Chapter Fourteen: News To Me

  I LIFTED MY head wearily off the ground and groaned as I felt the excruciating pain of my wound weigh down my head. It clouded my vision with a red haze, and I laid my head back down. My eyes peeked around to see the world as it was. Aside from the men and women cutting off their limbs, blood spilled everywhere; there were a few others around me, sitting. The building was disgusting. I was laid on a concrete floor. There was dampness everywhere and when I found the strength to search myself, I was covered in redness. Blood. I was covered in blood; half my own, but half of the people before me that died or were dying at this very moment.

  The people that sat all around me were watching me with sadness in their eyes. They were like me; I knew it because some of their eyes glowed while we sat. I spotted it out of the corner of my eyes that some seemed furious. There was fire all around me and I knew that their anger was causing it. Some of them had cloths of their clothing in their mouth. Some even held blood and dirt. Each time they scowled, I could hear a creaking in their faces. Maybe Kaley was right. We were robots. I tried to lift my arm but realized an iron rod around my arms and ankles was constricting me from moving.

  I closed my eyes slowly to slow my breath and suddenly jerked them back open when someone kicked my leg sharply. I didn’t feel pain but I felt the pressure. I glanced up to see Kaley walking past me with a smirk on her face. “No sleeping.” She spoke as sinister as she could muster, and I scowled up at her.

  She continued on to circle us all again. I had a plan to hit her back and as I sneered, flexing my arm muscles ready to break out, I was jerked by the hair by an unknown person. I felt anger and jumped as I saw a fire begin from across the room. Either I started it, or someone else felt angry. I sat up the best I could through the headache and looked to see the girl beside me nodding her head towards the left. I looked on in confusion and shrugged my shoulders to say what? But she had turned away.

  I peered down at the chains and heard someone hissing at me to get my attention. I whipped my head up to look to my right but then the hissing came from my left. I poked my head up again to see the girl beside me still moving her head furiously towards a girl with waves of blonde hair glancing at me. She whispered for my heightened ears only. “They have really trapped us. I don’t know what they used but we are trapped.”

  “Can I trust you?” I asked calmly. She nodded and her eyes began to glow. I smiled to her as I showed her my glowing eyes as well. “Do you know what is going on?” I asked quickly.

  Kaley saw my lips moving and came over quickly to slap me, my head hitting the concrete wall in the process. I felt my vision blur. “No talking. Or I will have to eliminate you sooner.” She screamed this time as she turned to face the crowd of prisoners. “You hear that? I will kill each and every one of you. I can find others to test.” She laughed as she turned back to me and it sounded like a shrill. She squatted down and leaned into me. I didn’t budge from her and leaned closer to her.

  “Kill me then. Try to and I will kill you.” I shrieked back. The room stayed silent. No one moved a muscle.

  “No one would miss you anyways.” She said and smiled in a sick kind of way. I wanted to look away but I didn’t. “Pick her up, Holland.” She demanded as a new figure had entered the room at her command.

  I glanced up and looked into the bright blue eyes of a gorgeous girl. Her face shape was an oval and an unusually thin shape for an oval. She looked as if she hadn’t eaten for weeks. She had strawberry blonde hair that reached her back and she swiped a piece from
her face as she bent over. She showed her white teeth as she beamed down to me. “Let’s go.” She yanked me up but before she moved her eyes from mine, she winked.

  I felt my body freeze, I knew her. “Holland?” I whispered through a closed mouth quietly.

  “Sh.” She shushed me quietly. “Where do I take her?” She turned to Kaley with angry eyes once more. Her smile had faded completely. I felt my blood boiling.

  Recognition flowed through me. Holland was my friend just as this Kaley girl once was. I thrashed about and felt my face get hot. I screamed as loudly as I could, this girl was a fake, and Holland slapped my face. Hard.

  “Shut the hell up.” she screamed. I froze and glared at her. I felt the anger coming quickly through me and reaching my eyes but I didn’t unleash the pain on her. I wanted her to suffer more than that.

  “I hate when they act like this.” she spat out to Kaley. I felt the rage inside me and I felt myself release the pain behind my eyes but it was as if there was a shield, blocking herself from me. It caused me pain to not convert my anger onto her like I had on Kaley.

  “What are you?” I shrieked. Why couldn’t she feel the pain I caused so many others? She smiled down at me and I could have sworn her eyes turned a different color. I blinked quickly and realized they were sapphire once more.

  Kaley didn’t look up but instead threw a hand up towards a door as if she were bored. I felt a sharp jerk as Holland lurched me by the hair to the room Kaley showed Holland.

  Inside I saw a machine. People were standing before it as it reached its claws out. As soon as the claws came into contact with flesh, it jerked itself. Before I knew it, I was watching hands being ripped from people. I watched as legs were ripped off while guards held the prisoners up to the machine. Vomit gathered in my throat and I hunched over as I felt my stomach finally give up. I smelt the fire and watched as each limb was thrown into a pit of fire.

  This was my fate, to be torn apart and then thrown into the fire as if I were a worthless piece of clothing. I knew I was afraid but I would die with dignity. “I thought you were my friend.” I said angrily to her. I didn’t look at her and felt the vomit on my cheek. I cleaned my face furiously with my tank top.