He chuckled quietly, grasping the top of the sheet tightly.
“Go on…” Dr. Saeed prompted him.
“I don’t remember the rest of the dinner. I must have fallen asleep. I woke up and found myself in a lab, just like this. Yes, yes…I remember now. There were people around me wearing hospital masks. I tried to say something, but I couldn’t.”
“Do you remember what they were saying?” Dr. Saeed asked.
“Nothing. No one was talking. I thought that was strange. I tried to get up, but I couldn’t move a muscle. Then they all left the room, leaving me alone on the gurney. That’s when I felt the room shaking. My body started convulsing violently. I felt the air being squeezed from my lungs. I wasn’t scared though,” he said, half whispering.
“Why weren’t you scared?”
“It almost felt like the first time when we almost succeeded. I felt myself slipping out of reality. The atoms in my body were pulling apart; the room was spinning around me. And then there was a flash of white light. Then blackness, like I was falling into a deep endless pit.”
Dr. Saeed frowned, nodding his head as if he was picturing what Aaron was saying in his mind.
“It seemed like I would fall forever, horrified and worried that it would never stop. After what seemed an eternity, I felt all my atoms rush together like a magnetic wave pulling all my cells towards the core of my body.”
Harry was puzzled by Aaron’s words. What was he talking about?
“And then I felt as if a bus had hit me. I thought I was going to die. Then I was stumbling in here,” Aaron said, his eyes opening.
He looked around. “Looks like you have upgraded a lot of things, since I’ve been here.”
He’s been here before? What the --?
“Like I said, it has been five years. Harry and I were trying to continue the work that you started. But this lab, I’ve kept secret. I don’t want GN sticking their noses into our work. I also wanted to protect Harry.”
“Ahhh, Harry. How is my boy?” Aaron asked, smiling.
“He’s not a boy, anymore. He’s a man now with a doctorate. A true genius. Just like you said he’d be,” Dr. Saeed replied.
“Yes, we succeeded in proving my theory. Inducing the chemical changes in the cells of a genius—one whose soul is pure of mortal sin. That was the secret to it all.”
I can’t believe you both used me.
Dr. Saeed stood up and leaned over the bed. “But that doesn’t explain how you time travelled here.”
Aaron’s voice melted into a nostalgic lilt.
“You’re right. We did try altering the general chemical composition of my nucleic acids. Nothing seemed to come of it, except for my sudden hair loss.”
Dr. Saeed chuckled. “That wasn’t sudden, Aaron. It’s just that you hadn’t seen the top of your head in a really long time.”
Aaron scowled and turned away.
Dr. Saeed seemed to ignore him. “In order to time travel, you had to be near the vicinity of a black hole, and there had to be enough power or energy to enable you to transport to here—the future.”
Aaron rolled his eyes, saying, “I told you, the energy was coming from inside that room. It seemed that those masked persons turned on the energy when they left the room.”
“Similar to an X-ray technician going into a booth before powering up the machine on a patient,” Dr. Saeed said.
Despite marveling at the idea that such a machine capable of time travel existed, Harry was seething with anger. He and his mother had trusted Dr. Saeed. But he was just using them both like lab rats. Suddenly, he could hear Cristal’s voice in his head saying those same words to him not too long ago.
His mother’s journal had mentioned how much she trusted Dr. Saeed, because he had helped prescribe the medication she needed to cope with the loss of her husband. He had driven her to the GN psychiatric visits. But now, Harry doubted Dr. Saeed’s intentions. Harry didn’t know what his mother, Bina, had said to her psychiatrist, but he was certain that she never told anyone about her secret journal.
“And Bina? Is she safe? Did you manage to test our theory on her?”
“Bina is fine. She finally got over your death,” he started to say, but he paused and corrected himself. “She finally got over her loss of you. The tests I conducted on her were a success, just as we had hoped for.”
Tests? On my mother? Did he kidnap her?
The phone in his pocket began vibrating, followed by the text notification alert. Crap. He fumbled to turn it off.
He glanced up to see Dr. Saeed frown and tilt his head. He stood up and started walking towards the closet. His face had a deathly calm expression, as if he was about to capture his prey.
I’ve never seen him look like this before.
What was more odd was the fact that his eyes seemed to be glowing a fluorescent shade of yellow. Harry wasn’t sure if the shadows in the closet were playing tricks with his mind, but he wasn’t going to wait to find out.
“Harry? Is that you?”
Harry shook his head in confusion. He acknowledged in his brain that it was the voice of Dr. Saeed, and yet it wasn’t. The tone was much deeper with a reverberation that sounded like nails scratching across a blackboard.
Now, I know I’m not imagining things.
He stumbled backwards, bumping into the boxes of supplies behind him. Quickly regaining his balance, he turned and ran out of the closet and back into the lab. He had to get the hell out of there.
He ran to the doors, flinging them open. Behind him, he swore he could hear a weird “wooshing” sound.
Holy crap. Don’t look back.
He sprinted down the hallway, rushing past the security guards. They both called out for him to stop. No f’ing way!
He made it into the stairwell, picking up the pace as he sped like a bullet down two flights of stairs to the bottom floor where he reached the emergency exit doors. Power reading a sign written in Hebrew that was pasted on one door, “Alarmed. In case of fire, push to open,” he slammed his body against the handles, shoving the doors open.
The clanging of the alarms rang into the air.
He bolted towards the parking lot. What the hell am I running from?
The rational side of his brain told him he was being paranoid. But his natural instincts told him to run even faster.
He reached the parking lot and saw that his car was one of only three left in the lot. He ran towards it, ripped open the driver-side door, and jumped in, slamming the door behind him. He jabbed the button to lock the doors while he shoved his foot on the brakes and pushed the button to start the engine.
Why I am so frigging terrified? It’s just Dr. Saeed, for crying out loud.
Out of desperation he called out, “Mom, if you can hear me, please help.”
He couldn’t believe that he would resort to calling out for his missing mother. He must be losing it.
Check your phone. The answer is there.
“Mom?”
He whipped his head around. He was certain that the sound of her voice was coming from the back seat of the car. But his anticipation was replaced with a sad disappointment. No one was there.
“Freak, I must be hallucinating.”
Hurry, Harry, there isn’t much time.
He spun around again. No one else was in the car. I must be going nuts. Why is my mind playing tricks on me? Something inside him made him pause and reach for his phone. When he swiped the screen to unlock his phone, he saw that he had a text message waiting for him.
He wondered if his mother was trying to communicate with him.
Text message received.
Graphix: Update: We picked up Lioness from airport. Mist and Shadow are here in Akko. Sending you video of Shadow talking to Raffe. Looks intense but u need to translate. Awaiting your orders.
There was no time to psychoanalyze the situation. He shoved the gear stick into the Drive position and pressed the gas pedal to the floor.
In the dista
nce, the sound of the sirens from the fire trucks was approaching fast. He breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever was after him, if there was anything, was gone.
Hearing a “wooshing” noise again behind his head, he glanced into his rearview mirror to see what it was. His heart started pounding fast and hard; fear surged through his veins.
Something was staring back at him in the mirror—it resembled Dr. Saeed’s face, but from the yellow glow in its eyes, Harry was definitely sure it wasn’t human.
***
About the Author
Anne-Rae Vasquez is currently writing Resist – Book 2 of the Among Us Trilogy. Among Us is a book series about a group of outcasts (online gamers) who band together to investigate who or what is behind the catastrophic events happening around the world. Among Us will attract fans of the TV shows Fringe, Lost, and 4400. Doubt, Book 1 of the Among Us Trilogy was released in November 2013 at the Raindance Book Festival.
Anne-Rae also freelances as a journalist for Digital Journal, an online news magazine. Her previous work includes writing the novel and screenplay for Almost a Turkish Soap Opera, an award winning feature film and series. Her other projects include: Salha’s Secrets to Middle Eastern Cooking Cookbook, Gathering Dust – a collection of poems (published by AR Publishing Inc.) and Teach Yourself Great Web Design in a Week, published by Sams.net (a division of Macmillan Publishing).
To find out more about Anne-Rae’s work, visit her blog.
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