Authors: Abigail Collins
Dori turns his head until he’s looking up at me. The streaks of moisture on his cheeks seem to shine in the sunlight streaming in through the windows, and his eyes are rimmed red and puffy.
“I’m sorry,” he says; “About calling you an orphan. I didn’t even think about what that meant. My parents are still alive; I have no right to be upset.”
“You do. Everyone here has something holding them back. That’s what you told me, right? That we’re all here because there’s nowhere else for us to go.”
“That’s not true, though.” He takes a shaky breath and closes his eyes. “Not for me, at least. I have a family, and back home I had a job and a house and a
life
. It wasn’t always perfect, but I was happy. I would give anything to have that back.”
“Then… why are you here?”
“Because I don’t have anything to go back to anymore. Everything is
here
.”
I have no idea what he means by that. If his family and his
home
are somewhere else, then what’s
here
? Did he choose to come here, or is there something the Digits want from him that they can’t get from anyone else?
So many questions are swimming through my head that I feel dizzy. I blink hard and rub my eyes, letting my nails scratch along my cheeks as my hands fall.
Sighing, I begin my first question, “Why are you here, if you don’t – ” but I am interrupted before I can finish.
“Dori! We have to talk about this. I’m coming in!”
The door slides open with a groan and Holden wheels himself up the low ramp and into the cabin. His hair is messy and his eyes look almost as blood-shot as Dori’s, with a little more shadow underneath them.
When he sees me, he starts and stiffens in his chair. I don’t know why he looks so surprised to see me here. After all,
somebody
had to check on Dori if he wasn’t going to. Although, if Dori hadn’t been in our cabin when I came back I don’t think I would have gone out of my way to look for him. But that’s just because I assumed Holden would have been the one to do it. They
are
still together, aren’t they?
“I’m sorry, Everly, but could you give us a moment, please? I don’t mean to be rude, but…”
I shake my head. “No, no, I understand! You guys need some time. Just let me know when you’re done, okay?”
Holden nods, and I quickly sidestep his wheelchair and squeeze myself out of the half-open door. It creaks shut behind me, with a shuddering sound that isn’t quite loud enough to cover the anger in Holden’s voice.
“Why did you come here, Dori?” he spits. I can’t even picture what his face looks like right now; he has such a gentle resting expression that I can’t imagine him being as upset as he sounds right now.
I know that I should leave – it’s not right to listen in on the private conversations of other people. But something in Holden’s voice pulls me back and roots me in my place. I feel like Dori and Holden know more than I do about this place, and about the Digits that created it; maybe if I listen to them enough, I will eventually be able to pick out the pieces of information I need in order to get out of here.
But I’m also curious. The chemistry between Dori and Holden reminds me so much of my parents that it hurts. Did my parents ever fight like this? I want to know, but I am also afraid to find out.
“You know why,” Dori says shortly. “That’s why you’ve been avoiding me since the lab, right? Because you think this is
your
fault.”
I stand up straighter and press my back against the wood of the cabin’s wall. There’s an open window just a few inches above my left shoulder, and I can hear what they’re saying almost perfectly through it.
“Isn’t it, though?” Holden asks, his voice softening as his anger ebbs. “If it was the other way around, you’d say the same thing.”
“That’s because I
chose
this, Holden! It doesn’t matter why, just that it was
my
choice.”
I can hear Holden’s breath rattle in his throat as he inhales sharply. He pauses before he speaks again, and when he does, his voice is hoarse.
“I came here knowing how painful it would be,” he says, and I wonder if he’s talking about the simulation, or his situation in general. “I didn’t want you to have to go through it too; that’s why I left without you. There’s no reason for you to be here. You’re getting hurt for nothing.”
“
You’re
not nothing.”
“Yes, I am. I don’t have a life worth living outside of these walls. You do.”
A tight sob echoes out from the window. I can’t tell if it’s Dori, or Holden, or both of them.
“Not without you, I don’t.”
Holden is silent. I wish I could see their faces, but I also know that I am intruding far too much already just by listening to their private conversation.
So that’s why Dori is here – because Holden is. He must have found out that Holden wanted to ally himself with the Digits and knew that the only way they could be together was if he came with him. And Holden is upset, because he believes that Dori deserves a better life than this; he knows that Dori is suffering here, and that it’s only going to get worse. He blames himself.
They’re not really fighting each other – they’re fighting
themselves
. I wish I could just kick the door open and tell them what they should already know. They love each other so much that they’re hurting because of it, and instead they should be holding onto whatever precious few moments they have left with each other before their chance is over.
I envy their love, but I do not covet it. I’ve had more than enough experience with the people I love being hurt because of me than to ever want to get close enough with someone for it to happen again.
***
The next morning, I awake alone in my cabin. I look around, half expecting to find Dori hovering over me, but I am greeted by silence and stillness. Stretching, I haul myself out of bed and change into the first pair of clothes my hands grasp towards the top of my bag. It’s a good thing there’s nobody here I’m trying to impress.
I stopped listening shortly after Holden and Dori’s argument died down yesterday. I ate lunch on my own, and by the time I got back to my cabin Holden was gone, and Dori was acting like nothing had even happened between the two of them. Of course, I didn’t tell him what I heard, and I don’t plan to. Some things need to stay between just them.
We had some time to kill yesterday afternoon, so Dori took me on a tour around the compound. Most of the buildings were either private – like the cabins – or off-limits – like most of the smaller labs on either side of the central building. But I learned that the showers are located on the ends of both rows of cabins, with one side for men and the other for women. I also discovered that, when the Digits let them have free time, most of the people who chose not to remain cooped up in their cabins hung out in the cafeteria – the ‘mess hall,’ as Dori referred to it.
There are no clocks here, so I have no idea how much time has passed since my arrival. At least a day, but more likely closer to two. The only indicator of the time is the crowd of people lined up outside of the cafeteria at meal times. Otherwise, the sun is out when it’s daytime, and hidden at night.
Judging from the harsh glare of light filtering through the slats in the windows, it’s already close to mid-day. I don’t usually sleep this late, but my experiences yesterday left me drained both mentally and physically. I expect that if I had slept through another session in the Main Lab a Digit would have come to get me, but I can’t tell if that’s good news or not.
I am halfway down the ramp leading up to my cabin’s entrance when a loud, metallic-sounding voice startles me. I jump, barely managing to regain my balance, and it takes me a moment to realize that the voice isn’t coming from any of the people around me. It’s coming from
above
me, from a speaker that reminds me of the intercom that the teachers sometimes used to relay messages throughout the entire school back home.
I assume that this voice belongs to a Digit, too, but the message is a little different than what I expect.
“Due to the results of yesterday’s experiment,” the voice says, static surging underneath every other word, “our newest arrivals will be sectioned off according to ranking. The meaning of this will be made clear to you all at a later time. For now, your groups are posted in the Central Hall, and you are expected to join them in the Main Lab this afternoon for training. That is all.”
There are so many things about what the speaker says that I do not understand that I don’t even bother trying to sort through the individual words just yet. What she said about
groups
piques my interest, so I focus on that. I wonder how we could possibly have been ranked according to how we reacted to our own
fears
; I didn’t even know that I was being tested. If I had, would I have done anything different?
I join the cluster of people making their way towards the Central Hall, which I assume must be the large entrance hall of the building in the center of the compound. I look around, and notice that Dori is walking a few paces in front of me, pushing Holden’s wheelchair along by the metal handles on its back. I am tempted to run up to them and say ‘good morning,’ but I don’t want to interrupt them. I don’t know if they made up or not, but they look comfortable right now, and I think that, for them, that might be just as good.
There is a large bulletin board erected in the middle of the Central Hall, with a line drawn on it that divides it in half and names written on either side. It doesn’t say what the rankings are or what the sections represent, but I immediately scan the list for my own name.
I am in the first section, though I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. Three names below mine is Holden’s, and I search for Dori’s name in the same list, but I don’t find it.
I find it in the second list, though. That means that Dori has been ranked differently than Holden and I. At least one of us – and though I hope it isn’t me, I also do not wish for it to be one of my new friends, either – has failed the first experiment. I wonder what the consequence will be.
Chapter seventeen
“Get up, and do it again.”
I blink tears out of the corners of my eyes and stand on trembling legs. My vision is starting to blur, but I wipe my eyes with my palms and it clears.
A gunshot rips through the air, and I duck just in time. I can feel the bullet whipping past my ear, and hear it whistle like an echo, but the sound of impact never comes. The first time it happened, I expected it; I waited for the concrete wall behind me to split and throw its shrapnel over my back, but it never did. When I look around, the lab is exactly as I remember it – though only half of the sections are occupied now that our group has been split in two.
The Digit in front of me smirks and holds up both hands, each of which is wrapped around the barrel of a gun. He fires twice, and though I manage to move out of the way of the first bullet, I am not so lucky with the second one. It hits my left shoulder and buries itself deep into my skin, and I am barely able to bite back a scream. Instinctively, my right hand moves up to grip at my injured shoulder.
The pain fades quickly, and when I pull my hand away it is clean. I am not bleeding, because I am not really injured. It feels so real, it’s almost impossible to tell that it isn’t.
The Digit who shot me isn’t real, either.
“You need to
focus
. Again,” the Digit monitoring me barks in my direction. He is sitting behind me at a desk, typing commands on his keyboard and watching me flail around like an idiot inside of my circle. He is the same Digit who oversaw my simulation yesterday, but today he is communicating with me more. I liked him better when he was silent.
Today, I am faced with another simulation. But unlike yesterday, when I was forced to look on as my loved ones died without any way to stop it, I am a part of it. I am
inside
of the simulation. The same headband I wore before is now causing me to see things that don’t exist in a way that feels so real I almost forget it isn’t.
The Digits don’t explain much to us here, but they did tell me that I’m being trained for something. I think that maybe that means Tesla has found the monsters responsible for me parents’ deaths and I’m being taught how to fight so that I can take them down; but that doesn’t explain why the rest of my group is being trained in exactly the same way.
The simulation I am in right now is meant to teach me how to fight against Digits – particularly those with guns in their hands who are out to kill me. Why would the Digits here want me to learn how to fight their own kind? I vaguely remember Tesla telling me something about us having a common enemy, but it still feels strange to me to think that two groups of the same species could hate each other enough to wage war over it. Have humans ever fought each other? If they have, my teachers haven’t mentioned it in school.