by C. S. Nelson
Kevin threw the doors open and the three of them stumbled through. Before the lights flickered on, it was the smell that made Annie feel nauseated. Like death and decay surrounded them. Once the room lit up, she realized that she was standing in a nightmare. There were cages on both sides of the path down the middle. To their right were soul suckers, void of life. They lay in twisted piles on their prison floors. Not even the lights turning on seemed to make them rise. But even more sickening to her were the cages filled with humans. They were battered and bruised, and looked as though they hadn’t slept in weeks. Some of them, Annie grasped, she recognized from her school class. Some of them couldn’t be recognized at all, with wounds so deep that skulls were visible and jaws were broken. These were the ones who hadn’t been chosen for a career. This was their fate.
“Annie?” one of them asked hoarsely. She slowly crawled forward, grasping two bars of her cage. She reached through with one weak arm towards the three of them. Annie dropped Zed’s arm, leaving Kevin to hold him up, and flung herself towards the girl. She grasped her hand, holding it tightly. Annie felt horrible; she couldn’t even remember the girl’s name. She had always been so quiet, so average. She had never really made herself stand out in any way. That was probably what the administrators had seen in her as well.
“What’s happened to you?” Annie asked, trying to keep her voice from quivering.
“Annie, we don’t have time,” Kevin barked.
She didn’t care. He may have been used to seeing humans locked up like prisoners but Annie wasn’t. “They’re…experimenting on us,” the girl said. She coughed into her arm, trying to clear her throat, and Annie saw specks of blood when she raised her head again. The girl was dying. “Sucking out our souls every day, then forcing them back inside.”
“The experiments stopped,” Kevin said from behind them. “No one is doing anything to you.”
Annie turned and gave him the darkest look she had ever given. Was being tortured what had caused him to be this angry? How could he possibly justify being so cruel to a dying prisoner? “Why are they doing this?” she asked the girl.
“Looking for a cure. But there is no cure. Only death.”
Annie pulled her water bottle out of her belt, handing it to the girl. There wasn’t much left, but it didn’t matter. She licked every last drop out in a matter of seconds. “We do not have time for this. Zed is dying,” Kevin reminded her.
Annie stood up, slowly letting go of the girl’s hand. The other prisoners were awake now, their faces pressed against the metal. “I’ll be right back,” Annie told all of them. “I’ll do everything I can to get you out of here.”
She stepped back, flinging Zed’s arm over her shoulder once again. He was no longer conscious. “Straight ahead towards the medical supplies,” Kevin said.
Annie didn’t response. She was so disgusted with Kevin’s behavior that she didn’t even want to look at him. He had only been demoted a few weeks ago, and this was who he had become? Unsympathetic, offensive, and angry. The Kevin she had known as acting commander had been the only reason she had retained hope over the last few months.
They walked past cages upon cages, each filled with a body of a human or a soul sucker. As they approached the end of the room, Annie saw that the entire back wall was filled with cabinets and medical supplies. They placed Zed in the only chair next to a lone desk in the room. It must have been where the breeders created with the sick experiments that were taking place in the basement of the hospital.
Kevin began pulling open cabinets, and Annie followed. She got angry, the more doors she opened, the more medication and medical supplies she found. The scar tissue on Annie’s arm that shimmered in the fluorescent light was a brutal reminder that the president and Summer Henderson thought less of the rangers than they did of the soul suckers that they had caged up. Annie didn’t get medical supplies. They did.
She was careful while looking through the cabinets, trying to keep things in place so no one would know that they were down there. But the more cabinets Kevin opened, the more manically he began throwing medication aside. “Kevin, quiet!” Annie hissed. She wasn’t sure that anyone would be able to hear them from outside the hospital, but she didn’t want to take any chances. If anyone caught them, all three of them would be dead.
“I found Ibuprofen,” Kevin said, ignoring her request. He threw it to her from across the room. “Give him a few pills and hold onto the rest.”
Annie ran back to Zed’s side, who was hunched over in the chair. He still hadn’t regained consciousness. Annie put her hand on his cold cheek. “Zed,” she whispered. He didn’t stir. She twisted open the medication and opened his mouth herself. “Do you have any water over there?” Annie asked.
Kevin dug through a couple cabinets, pushing glass bottles to the floor, which shattered on impact, and pulled a bottle out for her, tossing it to her. She didn’t bother asking him to be quiet again. He was in his own world. Very gently, Annie put the pills in Zed’s mouth and poured some water into it. She then walked over to Kevin and pulled out every water bottle from behind him. “What are you doing?” Kevin asked.
Annie stepped back down the hallway, handing a water bottle to every person that had been left dying in the cage. “Thank you,” they repeated over and over again as they grasped for the water bottles. “Bless you.”
“Annie, stop. We can’t mess with the experiments.” Annie ignored him. She knelt down in front of a cage where the prisoner hadn’t come forward yet. She put her arm through two of the bars to hand them a water bottle before realizing that the person laying in the fetal position at the back of the cage was dead. Annie covered her mouth, slowly standing up. The other prisoners didn’t seem concerned about the body. It must have been a common sight.
Annie handed off water bottles to the last couple of prisoners until she found herself back at the entrance to the room. She still had an armful of bottles. “Hey,” she heard from behind her.
Annie turned around to see one of the soul suckers pressed up against their cage. “Yes?” Annie asked. She wasn’t fearful. In fact, she found herself feeling just as horrible for the sucker as she did for the humans.
“Can you spare any more of those?” He gestured to the water.
“Annie…do not...” Kevin commanded from across the room. He sounded desperate, as though even conversing with the creatures was enough to kill her. He was a coward.
She eyed him. “You do not control me,” she said, tossing the water bottle to the creature, avoiding their arm’s reach. “There was a time when I wanted you to be my teacher. There was a time when you were the only thing that kept me going. But I don’t think you’re that person anymore.”
Kevin didn’t look upset. He didn’t look anything. He just watched her, straight faced, as she threw water bottles to the suckers. “Thank you,” one of them whispered hoarsely, ripping open the water.
“These are beings, Kevin,” Annie said, walking back towards him. “They may be different than us. They may believe different things. But they deserve respect all the same.”
“Would you be handing water to the one that slaughtered Anthony?” Kevin asked.
That was a low blow. “I’m sure he was just doing what he needed to do to survive. If he was being kept in a cage, being tortured, being starved, then I would. Of course I would.”
Kevin chuckled as he pulled a body brace out from a cabinet. “Listen to yourself. They aren’t ‘he’s’ or ‘she’s’. They’re its. They’re creatures. And they’re disgusting.” He spat on the ground in front of Zed.
“I hope you aren’t talking about my people.” Zed had woken up.
Annie nodded. “I think you should go.” She grabbed the brace from Kevin.
“Are you kidding me?” Kevin asked, his eyes wide. “I’m the one that got you in here.”
“And I appreciate it. Truly, I do.” Annie slowly helped Zed take off his shirt. “But now I think you should leave.”
She
wrapped the brace around his body, and then pulled his shirt back over. Zed let out a long sigh of relief. “Thank you,” he said. He stood up, and although she could see he was still in pain, at least he was stable now. “I should be completely healed in the next couple hours.”
“Brother?” One of the suckers called from the cages. Zed’s face fell. “Why are my people in cages?”
“Ours are as well,” Annie sighed. “Some sort of experiment that took place down here.”
“Every day,” one of the suckers in the cage growled. “Every day they bring us into that room.” He gestured towards the locked door next to the desk. “They bring us a human. They force us to kill them. Then they make us give their soul back.”
Zed cried out, covering his mouth. Annie had never seen him so upset. She thought about all her own people, having their soul stolen from them. Every single day having to go through the pain and disorientation that she went through when Zed had done it to her. It would have been unbearable.
“They starve us, brother,” the creature continued. “Even though we know we must go through the pain, every time…we’re so hungry. So weak. Those few seconds when we get our nourishment. It’s worth it. Keeps us going.”
Annie then remembered how weak Zed had been. He could barely move. She realized how horrible the experiment was for both person and soul sucker. “But they stopped the experiment?”
“A couple days ago,” one of the humans piped up. “We overheard them. The ship is coming and they decided to give up. They were trying to find a cure. Some sort of treatment, so that we would be immune to the aliens.”
“But there is no cure. There’s no way to protect us.” Everyone knew that. There had been experiments when the Shields first went up. But they had been abandoned hundreds of years before.
“There are rumors. Someone is immune.”
Annie looked at Kevin, who shrugged subtly. “I think they were just telling you that to give you some sort of hope,” Annie said. There was no way. If someone had been immune, every citizen would have known it within a day. “They’ll come back for you, right? When the ship arrives?”
“They’re leaving us here to die,” one of the humans said. None of the trapped beings seemed overly surprised by this. They had already accepted their fate.
“I’m not going to let that happen,” Annie promised. “Kevin, where is the key?”
Kevin shook his head. “Are you kidding me? I’m one of the only people that has access to this room, other than Summer Henderson and some of the breeders. If the prisoners go missing, I’ll lose my life.”
Annie was getting angry. “Well the water bottles have already gone missing, and they have a tracking device in you. So they’re already going to know that you were involved somehow. Nothing left to lose, right?”
Kevin began laughing, which made everyone else in the room go quiet. “Do you ever feel like our lives on this Earth are just one giant cosmic joke?” he asked. “Like the people on Mpho are entertained by watching us suffer and die? Like nothing we do here matters?”
Annie swallowed hard, watching him intensely. His eyes had suddenly lit up. He couldn’t stop laughing, tears streaming down his face. “Kevin…” she warned.
“I’m going to be tortured every day until the ship arrives,” he continued. “I don’t care. My life is worth nothing. I dedicated every day to keeping this Shield going and I accomplished nothing.”
Annie’s heart dropped into her throat. That was it, she realized. Kevin was not the same person that he had been. It had only taken him a few short weeks of hell to change into someone unrecognizable. They both stared at each other for a few moments. “It will be over soon. The pain and torture will be over soon,” Annie reassured. But she could sense it, she had already lost him.
“You aren’t always right,” Kevin said. He stopped laughing. His face fell. “I should have told you something when I ran into you.”
“What…” Annie swallowed hard. “What should you have told us?”
He stood very still for a few moments, his back turned to her. He was looking at the mess he had made digging through the medical supplies. There was no fixing it. “They’ve been monitoring me, every moment of every day. Summer knows I’m high risk. They know I’m down here. I shouldn’t be down here in the middle of the night. They’re probably on their way over here right now.”
Annie looked at Zed, who was now fully conscious, but was sitting very still attempting to refrain from injuring himself further. All she needed was for him to snap back into reality. “They’re sleeping, Kevin, I’m sure we’re okay.” But she wasn’t sure. They needed to get out of there, and quickly.
Kevin chuckled. “That’s what I mean, Annie.” He turned back and stared at her, his eyes glossed over. “You know nothing. I know nothing. We will always be controlled by those above us. Whether it be Summer, or the president, or the people on Mpho. We will never be free.”
“What are you talking about?” Annie pulled at her hair in frustration. He wasn’t making any sense.
“They’ll be here any moment now. To kill us all.”
Annie turned around and looked desperately at Zed, at the prisoners, at the soul suckers. Zed was still too injured to move quickly. If Kevin’s threat was sincere, she had no idea what to do.
“We need to find the key to the cages,” Annie said, running to the desk that Zed was sitting. She opened the drawers and began clawing through. She threw whatever was in her way onto the floor. There was no point in being careful now.
“The only key I’ve ever seen has been one that Summer carries on her person,” Kevin said. He was standing by the cabinets, completely still, with his hands at his sides and his head lowered to the ground.
“There must be a backup key somewhere,” Annie replied. “Zed, help me look.”
Zed quietly reached up and placed a hand on her shoulder. She turned and looked at him frantically. “Annie, we have to go,” he said.
“I’m not leaving them.”
“We can come back for them,” he promised. “But if we’re captured, no one will be here to save them.”
“Just give me time,” Annie muttered anxiously. “Just let me look for the key. Just for a minute.”
“We’re already dead,” Kevin mumbled.
One of the prisoners began rattling her cage. “Please don’t leave us,” she cried.
Then the rest of the prisoners, including some of the soul suckers, began joining in. Annie felt like she was going insane, listening to the desperate cries of dying souls, and unable to do anything about it. She swiped every item out of every cabinet, breaking glass and sending papers flying. She dug through every drawer of the desk. There was no key.
There was no key.
“We have to go. I still need to move slowly.” Zed stood up awkwardly from the desk, his brace preventing his upper body any movement.
“I’m not leaving them like this,” Annie said over the wailing noises.
She stepped past Zed to check the other side of the desk and he pulled her into him. Close. He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her tightly. “We aren’t leaving them. We’re coming back for them,” he promised.
The blood on his clothes had now dried. His body temperature had risen since they had been stuck in the cold winter air for so many hours. He was warm. He felt nice. The kind of bear hug that Annie had been hoping to receive from the man that had meant so much to her. But she didn’t mean enough to Kevin anymore.
She felt herself beginning to cry and bit her lip, forcing the tears to stop. It had only been today that she had promised Zed she wouldn’t cry anymore. “I’ve never felt so helpless,” she whispered into his shoulder. It still smelled like blood, even though he was dry now. But it wasn’t the normal, metallic smell of blood that Annie had grown accustom to in her time with the rangers. It was sweet smelling, warm, inviting.
Kevin was staring at the two of them with hatred in his eyes.
“You are the strong
est being I know,” Zed spoke into her hair. He had calmed her. Even while the others were yelling and screaming, begging for help, she felt more relaxed now. All she had needed was to be brought back down to reality. No one was coming to save her. Not Dustan, not Kevin, not anyone. She had to be her own hero. And now, while he was weak, she had to protect Zed as well.
“Okay, let’s go.” Annie nodded, releasing Zed and stepping back. “We’ll come back for you all. I swear it.”
But they didn’t get a chance to leave. As soon as Annie had finished her statement, they heard beeps as someone typed in the code to the door from the other side. The room went silent. The cries of the prisoners ceased almost immediately.
“They’re here. It’s over. It’s all over!” Kevin screamed.
“Get in the cage,” Zed said quickly. Annie wasn’t even sure she had heard him right.
He spun her around and pushed her into one of the few open cages on the human side of the room, closing the door just enough that it looked as though it were locked without actually trapping her inside. Before the last number of the code had even been typed in, Zed had stripped himself of his clothes, removed the brace and thrown it across the room, and entered a cage of his own across from Annie. No wonder the soul suckers had been such a threat to the human race. He was ten times faster than any human she had ever seen.
As the door slid open, Zed changed back to his silver person form. Without his bloody clothes, he looked identical to every other one that was sitting next to him. Summer Henderson entered the room along with the same breeders that had been plotting to murder Annie earlier that night, Dustan included.
Summer’s heels clicked against the stone floor as she took a few slow steps into the room. “Kevin? What have you done?” she asked.
He hadn’t moved from in front of the cabinets when Annie and Zed had scrambled into the cages. He stood amongst the supplies he had destroyed, and the cabinet doors all thrown open. He stayed silent.
