I could hear the klaxons from the Dark. The Dark was meant to separate me from the rest. To 'keep me safe.' But I wasn't any safer here than when I was in my cage. I could still hear everything. I could still tell you where I was in the building relative to my kennel. I could feel the sun and the moon and stars arching their way through the sky. So I don't know why the Dark was supposed to help me.
Sagen and Fi were in the Dark with me. They were my friends. They couldn't handle the Dark as well as I could. They didn't like the cold. Or the silence. Or the darkness. But maybe I was just used to it.
Sound got swallowed up in here. You could make as much noise as you wanted, but the sound always vanished in seconds. Sometimes you would forget what was said, or who said it. Sometimes you could scream, and no one else in the Dark would notice. Fi always thought the Dark was alive; Sagen knew better. They were sort of 'trouble-makers' here in the labs, but all that really meant was that they didn't do as well in the tests as the scientists would have wanted.
There used to be more of us: me, Sagen, Fi, Zek, Ashes, Torpid, Phillipe, Scrayn... so many. Even though Fi was delirious half the time, she still noticed. First went Zek. Then Scrayn left us. Next was Phillipe, the poor boy, and then Torpid.
Fi would say they 'succumbed to the numb of the Darkness...' but I knew. I knew where they went. In a way, it was the Darkness that took Zek’s life... but a different kind of darkness.
Even though I'd been here - in the Dark Room - the longest, in and out over the course of... well, however long I've been here... the effects hurt me worse, and hurt me less.
I knew what was happening. What they did here. How they used air against us. I mean, we all have to breathe; if we didn't, we wouldn't be in here. Sometimes there would be hissing and loud spewing noises and then I knew that things were going to get worse because the air would be gone.
Because even though the big chambers were pitch-black sometimes, there was a soft glow. The glow gave me comfort. It was what made me not as scared. Shane would always tell me to focus on the light, to pretend that it was my life and that as long as it was on, I'd be okay.
But... when the hissing came? The light would go out.
And then I'd be alone. And the monsters would come. And then I believed Fi when she said the Darkness was alive, growling and shaking and flashing sometimes even, it just... I couldn't. I couldn't do it. Sagen was fine - he hated the Dark, and he hated to be separated from people, but he didn't mind the noise.
Fi would scream and then we could hear and they would echo so loud and I couldn't take it I just couldn't and then I'd cry make it stop because the sounds and the dark and the lights... Even thinking about it made my hands shake and my breath start to hitch.
But there was no gas today. Fi and Sagen had been here for - what the people in the white coats called 'dve nedelje' - two weeks. They were given bare minimum food and water to survive on. They made it by working together with their symbiosis. I don't know how they did it.
The longest I'd ever lasted was 3 days at a time... but they were so frequent, I... I don't know how many days I'd been in here for...
I say all of this because... well, because. Because why? Because we shouldn't be able to hear anything outside of the Dark Room. It was supposedly sound proofed. So that meant one of two things: 1, they were sounds caused by the air - the air they pumped into the room to make us crazy - or 2, something was so wrong, so unauthorized as they said, that even in the Dark, people were supposed to know how wrong it was.
Fi and Sagen hadn't moved for hours. Like I said. They were tired. So they slept. They didn't ever twitch a muscle. They hadn't spoken for days. And I mean, not even tried to speak - because even when they couldn't hear me, I could always hear them, constantly murmuring to themselves, whether they knew it or not.
I could see them now, in the absence of light everywhere, for they had extinguished the lights - even the floor light and the glow, the glow that was my life, and I was getting scared.
Marina, the doctor responsible for the wolf-men, usually sent Shane for me after my time was served... He was supposed to train to be a wolf-man someday. He had been in training for a long time.
Where was he?
I was scared, and what do I do if he doesn't come? Fi and Sagen aren't awake, and something's wrong so why isn't he coming?
While I was worrying, the sirens grew louder and then I shoved my hands over my ears but it didn't help and I could feel the tears coming because Shane -- where is he? --and the noise, it hurt, and the dark it was so dull and the air stunk but I don't know why and--
Through my tears, I stopped to listen and press my ear against the cold metal door that was thick so that no one was supposed to hear out of it, but I could, and I heard the footsteps. I could hear them. They were coming, they were wearing boots, whoever it was, and they were coming fast, marching, marching...
The round door handle that was fastened to a lock began to crank and I tried to move away from the door, but I couldn't, my arms wouldn't move and I was shaking because it was still cold in the Dark, and they hadn't fed us for awhile, and I couldn't move and the sirens were so loud--
"Aw, Brooke sweetie... C'mere," came the honey-smooth voice. The voice that washed away all fear and took care of my my worries and cut through the nightmares.
Then arms were around me and I could smell Shane's spicy scent, like the forest, and honey, and juniper, and pine needles. I loved his smell. It smelled like home.
"We have to hurry," he whispered softly, cradling me against his chest. I was shivering and couldn't respond. I could think fine, but after being in the Dark for so long…
“Wha’s goin’ on,” I mumbled into his shirt, eyes sliding shut after so long, so cold… His arms tightened around me, and he reached down to pick up a heavy pack.
“Something escaped. We have a chance to leave,” he whispered. He grunted quietly and swung it on his shoulder, switching the arm he held me with as he looped the other strap around his arm. I sniffled quietly and buried my face in his neck. I couldn’t help shivering, and his skin was so warm.
Even after he’d strapped on his bag of tricks, as he called it, he didn’t leave right away. He lifted up a flashlight and peered into the Dark room. With the arm he held me with, he kept a firm hand on my head, turning it away so I couldn’t see in the room.
I heard him sigh quietly, and when I tried to look at his face, all I could see was one half of it. His eyebrows arched upward, looking sad. His gold-colored-eyes that I loved were glimmering. His jaw kept knotting out of something-- fear? anger? worry?
A quiet shuddering noise forced its way out of Shane’s lungs and he shook his head softly, slowly closing the door on Fi and Sagen.
“Sh-Shane.”
“Yeah, Princess?” His voice was forced, sounding fake-cheerful as he turned his back to the door and started walking the other way, me in tow.
“What about Fi and Sagen?” I asked quietly, confused.
“They… Uh… They’ve gone, Brooke.” Why did he sound so sad?
“No,” I mumbled, shaking my head slowly making it ache and hurt. “They were just in there…”
Shane stopped and knelt in one smooth motion, dropped the bag he carried and pulled me away from his shoulder to look me in the eye. He looked so sad… I hated it when he was sad.
“Brooke, honey, you have to understand,” he whispered, looking torn as he frantically switched his gaze from me to the door to the glowing amber warning lights over our heads.
He fixed his eyes on me again: “Their… Their bodies are in there… but they are gone, Princess… I’m so sorry,” he whispered, reaching forward to plant a kiss on my forehead before frantically picking me back up again, hauling the bag up over his shoulder and scampering down the hallways as the wolf-mens' footsteps began to echo. He didn’t seem to notice them, but I flinched at the harsh sounds.
“N-No, they aren’t! They’re sleeping!” I protested quietly, covering one of my ears with one hand and clutching Shane with the other to hold on while he ran down the hall and ducked inside one of the storage rooms.
Shane let me cling to him with both legs and my arms while he began gathering supplies with both hands and stuffing in his bag - first food packs, then the medkits, then a case of fluid-filled injections I didn’t remember seeing before, and other things he moved too fast for me to see.
“They’re not asleep, Brooke… They… They’re gone the same way mom’s gone,” he said, his voice breaking so softly I don’t think he even noticed.
“I know what you mean, Shane,” I mumbled. “They aren’t dead.”
Shane zipped the bag shut with finality and looped it crossways over his chest, wrapping his arm around me again and looking me in the eye. He looked torn between confusion, disbelief, and anger… Was he angry with me?
My face must’ve changed, because he just hugged me tight and muttered an apology. I couldn’t tell if it was because he was sorry he doubted me, sorry that he looked mad, or sorry that I didn’t seem to understand.
Mommy died a long time ago. I knew what ‘gone’ meant. What I didn’t understand is how he didn’t hear their heartbeats, or their slow breathing, or the blood flowing in their veins and through their hearts.
What would happen to them?
~
Moments later we were in one of the cell blocks. It was completely empty, and all the cages were left standing open. “What happened?” I mumbled, rubbing a hand across my face.
There were stains on the floor. They smelled sharp and acrid and like burning metal… like iron… blood. It was blood, and I wrinkled my nose and buried my face in Shane’s shoulder to hide from the smell.
“It’s okay,” he mumbled, but I could feel how tense he was and I knew he was breaking a lot of rules. “We just have to get through here and to the next set of doors… No one will be here, because they’re still chasing that experiment down,” he mumbled, almost as if to himself.
Shane risked a lot. He’d promised me forever that we’d get out, ever since we got here and they killed Mommy. He’d been a tester for as long as we’d been here, and he’d finally been accepted into some new thing.
They called it ‘Gumica Taktika Trening.’ Shane told me it meant ‘Eraser Tactics Training. It was supposed to help him get out, he said, but he looked scared whenever he talked about it. He was supposed to be shipped to a different country soon. And that made me scared.
I didn’t want to leave him, I couldn’t! I had to stay with him. We’re family, he always said, and family sticks together. But how could we stick together when we’re countries away?
“Brooke, are you okay?” he whispered in my ear, jolting me out of my train of thought. I blinked up at him, sniffling and nodding. He looked worried, so I braved a smile, which made him smile back a bit… and that was worth the act I had to put up.
“F-Fine. Cold,” I mumbled into his shirt sleeve, closing my eyes again.
I couldn’t tell him about the panic attacks. If I did, he’d freak out. He’d done it before, and I knew he just wanted to protect me, but something that the science people had done to him made him… different… when problems like mine came up. So it was best not to worry with it.
Besides, sometimes he didn’t freak out, like if he hadn’t been in for ‘tests.’ I just had to wait awhile. I could tell he’d been through some recently, because he had a dried line of blood on his arm, and his eyes were ringed with black. He had a new scar on his neck, and I cringed because it was fresh and bright red.
While I worried for him, Shane crouched down next to the only other entry point in the room. He was listening, so I listened too. We waited. For seconds, then a couple of minutes. Nothing.
“Hear anything?” Shane whispered, his voice almost unnoticed in my concentration. I shook my head silently. He nodded and stood, suddenly running smoothly for the door, hardly disrupting the grip I had around his shoulders.
He flung the door open and stepped through it in one smooth motion, just trying to cover as much ground as he could before he’d have to sneak around. Moving from one point of the shadows to the next, his movements were quick, precise, with no more motion than necessary. It was a side of him I didn’t think I’d ever seen before.
I tried to make myself as small as I could, to give him less to carry. If I hunkered down in his arms, I doubted he’d have to make very many extra movements, since he seemed to want to stay stealthy.
It took longer to go down this hall than it had the other one outside of the Dark room. It was longer, and it angled upward, like we were below ground. I was nervous about escaping. I’d heard from some of the other wolf-men that there were more guards outside than in, and that if anyone tried to escape, they’d… they’d be blown to bits by mines.
I’d asked Shane about it before, but he’d just set his jaw and told me not to worry about it. I still worried, though. How couldn’t I? Shane was the only one of that was semi-free. It scared me, to think that he was trying to escape in full view of the scientists and their attack dogs…
And what scared me more was that to escape, my big brother had to become one of their attack dogs.
~
The end of the hallway came up quicker than I would have thought. I was set on the ground, and I tried to keep up as Shane moved back and forth along the farthest wall. He kept running his hands up and down, first at the very top, then at the bottom, then along the sides, like he was looking for something.
I could see a small line of light in a rectangle-shape far along the left. Next to it, a square was set into the wall, so small that I doubted if Shane could see it.
I moved towards the wall, and towards the rectangle. He didn’t notice me until I was at the wall, pushing the button: “Brooke, what are you doing--?” He cut off his words when the door moved to the left, letting the sun shine in.
I squeaked and backed up, falling face down as the full light of day struck my eyes. “Oh! Oh, no…” That was Shane’s voice, running forward and falling on his knees as I frantically scrubbed at my eyes, trying to get the burning sun out of them, because it hurt, it hurt so bad! I wasn’t used to burning light, only the Dark, and why did it hurt? It didn’t used to burn so…
“Oh, Princess,” he mumbled, gathering me up in his arms and then I heard a rip! and then he was tying something over my eyes, and then the sun didn’t hurt so bad if I kept them shut tight. “How long has it been since you were outside?” came Shane’s voice. He sounded hurt, maybe broken. He kept stroking my hair and hugging me close as he walked forward.
“Long time,” I whimpered as a particularly bright beam of sun shone directly in my face. I face planted into his shoulder again, the added protection helping somewhat.
All he said in response was, “Aw, Brooke,” over and over and over until we’d gotten to the fence.
~
“Now. Outside this fence, there are land mines," Shane intoned once we'd gotten outside the gray building.
“What are those…?”
He explained quickly: “Land mines are like bombs underground. They should be buried not too far underground, but far enough that I can’t see them. There should be slightly-disturbed dirt, or maybe a small mound where they’ve been placed.”
“Why can’t you see them, Shane?” Didn't he know what small mounds of dirt looked like...?
“Because, my eyes aren’t as strong as yours are. You can probably see them--” Oh.
“Probably?”
“Definitely. I trust you, Brooke. We just have to get to the edge of the forest, and then we’re home free, okay? I already have a shelter picked out for us, sweetie. We just have to get there before the alarms are sounded.”
“But… won’t I have to take off my blindfold for that?”
“Yes, but the sun isn’t as strong over here. It’s already setting, and it’s behind the treeline, okay? Plus, it’s dark in the forest. Do you think you can make it?”
I nodded slowly. I could already tell that the light wasn’t as bright as it had been at first. I held Shane’s hand as he led me to the most shaded area before the mines.
“It’ll be quick, I promise,” he mumbled, before nodding slowly to the hard, rocky ground.
~
Two times the mines were set off, but both times they weren’t us.
I’d led us right to the forest, and there wasn’t any complications. Shane was right - they were easy to see for me, just like the door. But for the wolf-men who followed us… They didn’t last long.
Shane told me not to look back, but once I did, and the flash was so bright that I couldn’t go any further because my eyes burned. I was gathered up right before the forest’s edge. I protested quietly because there were still more mines, but all Shane said was: “Just tell me as best you can where they are, then I’ll figure the rest out myself!”
He had to shout to be heard over the explosions, and the chain reactions it set off. Howls echoed behind us, hurting my ears. “One three paces to the right, the other one in front,” I sobbed, feeling the heat wave from the mines flood over my face.
Shane hesitated for a moment before I heard him grit his teeth and leaping as high as he could. We were almost airborne for a few moments before the ground shuddered upon his impact with the ground. My teeth jarred and then Shane was running, and I could hear his bag hitting against his hip with every stride he took.
He grunted a couple times when branches slapped him in the face, but he kept running and running. Once we heard the sounds of a chase behind us, but they were lost quickly… I didn’t know how, but all I cared about was that we were free…
At least, for now.
