Rendering Flames

Three days had passed and there has been no tests done. It’s been health check ups, blood tests, questions about my scars, screenings of all sorts. I was worried they’d see the writing in Jaden’s DNA and kill him. It was doubtful that Kruger would release something like his DNA in the open but still, the risk, it had me nauseous. The conjoined room really mean a steel wall between us with a door that didn’t open from either side. There were two way mirrors on opposite sides of the wall. One where I would see into an area of his room and I’m assuming the other one would see into mine since I could peer through it. Only hidden privacy in the room was where the small bathroom was. Hidden behind a ninety degree angled wall away from the mirrors and the doors. I’d hide in there sometimes to have a few moments of peace. I was sure they could see me anyways. There was always that feeling of being watched.

It had been quiet until about noon today though. I had just finished my traylunch of a rather good sandwich and salad. When the worker came for the pickup, he only grabbed me. There weren’t any courtesies of explanations. I was just grabbed by my wrists, the tray forgotten.

“Where are you taking me?” I questioned, there was no response through as another worker came in with a stretcher. Restraints hanging loosely off of it. “Stop!”

My struggle was pointless, they were both twice my size. I didn’t understand why there was such force, I had said I’d be compliant with the test. Maybe it was to scare me, a reminder how easily I could be forced to do what was going to happen. I gave up my resistance and let them strap me to the table. I wondered momentarily if Jaden was watching. But then again, I couldn’t hear a sound ever coming from his room.

I was rolled down the hall and through a corridor. Then onto an elevator that held another person besides me and the workers in it. She was in a wheelchair, her head hanging lifelessly down onto her chest. Her hair hid her face from view but I could see a thin rope of saliva pooling down onto her hospital gown. And then the elevator came to a stop and she was rolled off onto a floor of unanswered screams, wailing fists against doors of imprisonment, and probably dulled people like her.

After another thirty seconds, I was rolled off. It was into a large room and it held many stations. I tried to look around, seeing some people being injected with unknown medications. Some were passed out or looking around like I was. Then there were people who were quiet but held fear in their eyes. A few that made eye contact with me had pity in them. I knew I was about to find out why. And then I saw Eugene, waving to me as we approached him and a tray of medical tools.

“I told you hacks that she didn’t need to be restrained,” he coolly told the workers.

“Yeah, you say that and then we get bit or hit again.” One of them replied as they left me there.

“Terribly sorry, it must seem like I’ve betrayed our promises to each other.” He unbuckled the restraints and I sat up as soon as I was free enough too. I looked around and only saw little things before a privacy curtain was pulled around us.

“They wouldn’t answer my questions.” I told him.

“Of course they wouldn’t. I just told them to bring you here, my girl.” I looked away from his smiling gaze. “You’re getting you first vaccine test today.”

“Against what?” I questioned.

“A little something against organophosphorus compounds, little things popular in nerve agents. It’s to see if protein rich sheaths can develop over your nerves from a faster reaction for acetylcholine. It’s all very complicated but all you need to know if that you may feel a tiny pinch.”

“Oh,” I sighed, feeling confused. And then I saw him pull a gas mask over his face, noticing that his hospital coat was thick and covered all of his skin. “Wait, why are you dressed like this? What aren’t you telling me.”

“Again, just a pinch, dear.” And before I could try and pull away, a thick needle was shoved into my arm.

I immediately knew then what had just entered my body. My chest felt as if it was being stitched tighter and tighter, pulled into tight little seams of tremor inducing pain. I couldn’t breathe. Each gasp for air was heavier and thicker, like trying to breathe through wet sand. I started to convulse, losing all sense of my surroundings. I could make out being laid back down onto the stretcher. I was in a rapid cycle of heaving and lurching, my eyes rolling toward the back of my head. It had to be sarin. There was no other feeling like it. No hell close to it.

And then I heard talking. Eugene’s voice was faint and far away. The ceiling moved above me in streams of light. I was unable to focus on anything singular. It all just a mist around me, some things popping into clarity of full resolution until it was gone. And then I felt like a rock hitting the ocean floor. I was suffocating and I couldn’t claw to the surface. My hands were restrained until I was in a bright space, familiar seeming. I dry heaved as I hit the room’s floor but then I was manhandled upright.

Something flowed through me that cradled me into my first clean breath of air. I coughed and spit up a good ream of blood. I was on my hand and knees when they left me alone in my room. Things became clearer. I wanted to be in my bed but my legs were shaking and weak. I could only lie through the fits I was falling in and out of. And then my head pounded heavily, taking me out of everything for one second.

I heard pounding on against a mirror. I squinted over, seeing it vibrate from the force. And then the door handle that separated Jaden and I was being rattled violently. The beating against the door continued for about another minute before there was a buzz over head and Jaden came storming towards me, sliding down onto the floor next to me.

“God, they’re just going to leave you like this?” His breath was heavy as he hoisted me up in his arm, carefully setting be down on my bed. He jogged back into his room, coming back with a cup of water. Before he helped me take a sip, he took a cloth from his back pocket that was folded up small, shaking it out and wiping the blood from my lips.

“Thank you.” I told him hoarsely, taking a sip of the water. I was sweating profusely, shaking and twitching still, but whatever they had injected me had worked. I was feeling better and better as the minutes passed.

“Here, you still have some blood on you.” He brought up the cloth again, wiping along the edges of my jaw. As he pulled his hand away, I caught a look at it. I grabbed his hand, stopping him.

“Where did you get this?” Black with blue stitching. It was just like the one I had found on the edge of the woods that one day, the one I kept under the dresser on the side of my bed because something smelt so familiar about it.

“It’s mine. I have a good few of them.” I grabbed it with pale hands, trying to sit up. “Careful, Dahlia. You’re still not well.”

“I have this.” I studied it, every inch of it. “You-is this really yours?”

“Yes.” He told me confused.

What was the inconceivability that it was Jaden in the woods that day that I saw, who was watching me? He wouldn’t keep something like that from me but he also wouldn’t be there without showing himself.

“I must be hallucinating.” I whispered to myself.

“What’s wrong?” He inched closer, his hands resting on my legs to steady himself in his kneeling position.

“Jaden, is there something you’re not telling me?” I asked him, looking at him cautiously.

“What do you mean?” He still seemed bewildered by my questions.

“I have this exact same bandanna back at Orson’s. I found it one day, it was at the edge of the woods.” I saw it then. The recognition and the averting of his eyes told me everything that I needed to know.

“I forgot about that.” He barely said it but I tossed the bandanna back to him.

“You saw me. You saw Millie and I, you knew where we were for months before we crossed paths?” He wouldn’t keep something like that, why would he?
“It was during a time that I just happened to be around Orson’s and I heard voices and I just...I’m so sorry, Dahlia. I had people to get back to. I was in the middle of so many things then.” He defended and I shoved him away in anger. He landed on the floor, but got up as soon as he saw me aiming to go on the move around the room.

“How selfish! I-I-how do I even put into words how pissed I am right now?” I felt like I was about to throw up. “And not even because you saw me but Millie.

Jaden, Millie was right there. Your sister! We thought you were dead or captured, who knows! And you left because you had other people to get back to? What utter goddamn bullshit, Jaden.” I leaned against the wall once I started to shake again, but I didn’t know whether it was from anger or the drugs.

“I’m sorry, Dahlia. I had reasons back then that I didn’t have later.” He came towards me just I gave him a warning look to come any closer to me.

“You didn’t come back either, Jaden. I guess you were just too settled in your new paradise with your new friends and such to give a shit about us.”

“It wasn’t like that. Peter’s friend had a friend who was killed way too close to his house for comfort. I was focused on that. And I didn’t even know how to approach going back to you guys. Just out of the blue? Just like that?” He looked regretful.

“Yeah, that is just about how it would happen. It would have been fan-fucking-tastic. Maybe even would have Millie not have nightmares anymore or have her mourning anymore. I mean, sure, she eventually swallowed it but it was stuck there with her, I could see it every so often.”

“I don’t know how much I can show you how sorry I am, Dahlia. By the time you and Orson showed up, I had become preoccupied again. I-,”

“Preoccupied? From seeing your family that you hadn’t seen in two years, the one that you didn’t know if they were dead or not?” I scoffed, “get out.”

“Dahlia, come on. It was a long time ago.” He tried to reason.

“Get. Out.” I seethed. “Go.” He sighed, heading towards the door and I followed closely behind him. “Enjoy the poison, it sucks.”
And the I slammed the door behind him.