Young Writers Society

~The story of Eli (@Craz) and Joseph (@Wolfare1) from the SB Dream of the Stars~

Eliezer Aleshire stepped out of the terminal with his black headphones propped over his ears and his silver phone in his hand (both of which were relatively new), and his eyes downcast to its screen. Those seemed to be the only articles with a resemblance of pristineness to them - everything else, including the dull backpack casually balanced on his shoulder, had the rubbed, frayed look of things that had seen their share of days. Even the boy himself appeared worn, with subtle bags and lines etched halfheartedly around his light eyes and pursed mouth.

After walking a safe distance from the flow of commuters, his gaze glanced briefly over the signs hanging from the ceiling, and he began to walk casually in one direction. His demeanor displayed no rush or edginess compared to the travelers that whisked to and fro, their hands anxiously fretting over their luggage; but instead he seemed to have the familiarity of someone who knew exactly where he was going and was in no hurry to get there. He shifted and gently tugged on the neck of his black overcoat, ignoring the curious glances of people better equipped for the warm weather.

If Eli knew of the apparent difference in attire, he either did not care nor could not bother. As he slipped onto one of the many escalators, he pocketed his phone and sighed. His faintly audible music blended into the noise of people chattering and multiple steps on a polished floor and the indistinct static of someone on the intercom.

He approached the luggage claim with the same leisured amble. His eyes scanned the boards and flight numbers then sought out the one he needed. He waited, standing next to a cluster of people composed of businessmen and growing families. He checked his phone, then pocketed it again.

Tingles, careful pricks of apprehension, ran down his left ear and arm, and he looked down. A boy, one hand still held loosely by his mother, stared up at him. Eli looked at the boy, and the boy stared at him. Eli raised his eyebrows. The boy, with his free hand, scratched his nose and then rubbed his thumb over its bridge - back and forth, back and forth.

Eli's raised eyebrows fell into a scowl. The boy's hand dropped and he resumed to stare with an unblinking rapture at Eli's jagged silver scar, which arced over his face in a powerful slash. Finally, the movement of the conveyor broke Eli's attention, and he fixed his focus onto it, ignoring the boy next to him. He caught sight of his duffel bag and waited as it inched towards him, then he grabbed it and slung it over his other shoulder.

When he noticed the boy still staring, Eliezer dropped onto the back of his heels in front of him and whispered, "Monsters."

The boy's eyes widened and his mouth opened in horror. The mother noticed Eli seemingly for the first time, and, with a look of alarm and indignation, jerked the boy closer to her hips. Eli looked up to her and smiled forcefully before taking his leave.

He waited on the blue bench in front of the pickup lane, an espresso in one hand and a cigarette balanced carefully in the fingers of the other. He watched as people passed by, quietly inventing his own conversations that they were having, his music thumping over any outside noise. He tossed his arm over the back of the bench, then slowly trailed his hand over its knots and holes. When his palm ran over a jagged chip in the bench's plastic, he paused.

Etched roughly onto the bench's seat were a set of initials, then two notches underneath it.



He looked at it and sighed in resignation, and then he zipped open his duffel bag, dug inside, and pulled out a small pocketknife. He pressed the knife into the bench and made another notch, then quietly slipped it back underneath his rumpled clothes.

By the time his phone vibrated, Eli had gotten comfortable on the bench, with his duffel bag supporting his head and his book bag resting on his stomach. He waited a few moments before he lazily clawed it out of his pocket and held the screen over his head. As he did so, the rumble of a car slowly came to a stop next to him. After scanning the screen, he sighed and turned his head to the familiar navy blue Mazda.

Eli could distinguish two heads, two persons turned towards him through the windshield. He sat up with a huff and shoved the backpack strap onto his shoulder. The back trunk clicked open obligingly. He shoved both bags inside, slammed the trunk shut, and slumped into the backseat.

"Good to see you again, Eliezer. How was your summer?" A carefully affable female voice says from the driver seat. Eli scoffed.

"Little wet, little deadly. But I just can't wait to get back to the lab cage, Doc!"

She sighed. The Mazda pulled out of the pickup lane.

"What about you, Josie?" Eli said, resting his arm on the seat in front of him, where the boy in question tightened his jaw. "How'd your summer go? I know not looking at those pasty white walls can make you nostalgic. Finally got a girl? Or are you still as stale and stagnant as ever?"

He breathed deeply. "I told you to stop calling me that."

"Still unrequited, I see."

"Can you shut your mouth?"

"Both of you, can you not start right now?" The Doctor huffed exasperatingly.

"Me?" Josie said.

"Yes, you, Joseph." She sighs and briefly rubs her forehead.

Finally, after looking between them, Eli thumped back against the seat with his mouth quirked up in satisfaction, and he slipped his headphones back on. He gazed at the Californian landscape outside of the window. Slowly, the smile slipped away, and a troubled look once again took hold of his sharp features. He looked tired, older, warier. Sleep pulled at his eyelids, but he fought it off - like he had been for the last three days.

For a brief moment, as the rich landscape danced past him, he caught sight of something he knew did not belong - a tall man in a black suit lingered by the window, close enough that his gloved fingers could touch the glass. Instead of a human head, a bull's dried skull stared at him with vacant, burrowed holes.

Eli squeezed his eyes shut, and when he opened them, it was gone.

The ride was particularly calming when silence invaded the space between each of the occupants. In fact it was so peaceful, Joseph fought to keep his eyes open and thoughts moving. The window was no help; image after image – after image after image – raced by as the vehicle sped down the highway.

Now, “calming” was a relative term to Joseph. There were only the extremes of life to him: tense and not. Worrying about getting murdered while sleeping? Definitely tense. Worrying about an obnoxious little boy picking fights and pissing off Sandra? Significantly less tense in relation.

The flashing images making his head spin did ruin the relaxing aspect. Why did I let her convince me this would be good for me?

He leaned his head back against the seat, closing his eyes to the sea of green that filled the passing scenery. He could almost drift away as a newfound tranquility passed over him. If you didn’t count the noise blaring from the back.

“Could you turn that down?” he asked as civilly as he could. He glanced halfway into the backseat, enough for him to catch sight of Eli looking out of the window. When he didn’t respond, Joseph sighed and stretched his neck around so he could stare harder at him, and mentally whisk the younger boy’s attention forward. Then, he finally saw his expression.

He wasn’t so much as just looking out of the window as he was asphyxiated to it, or to whatever looked back at him, with the wide eyed glare of terror. He had seen that look on Eli only once before - years before.

Joseph’s movement must have disturbed the delicate bubble of isolation Eli was in, because the look only lasted a brief moment before he turned his head to him with a startled look.

“What?” he said, his voice his usual timber of sharpness, though it pitched nervously. In that moment, he looked utterly exhausted.

With the new moment came the slipping of the old, the consuming fear a short lived, fleeting memory. One that brought a smirk to Joseph’s lips as he answered back, “Headphones. They’re too loud.”

To the surprise of the car’s company, there were no snide remarks or protests, even pleas for the boys to behave. Just compliance and a fresh blanket of silence settled down around them, which was odd. Especially since it was Eli, the boy who never misses a chance to antagonize.

There was the “peaceful” aspect bubbling up again, placing an impossible scenario right in Joseph’s lap. Why, then, was it not blissful, triumphant even? Perhaps it was that the snark was put through a filter in Joseph’s’ mind so often it was just normal.

He sighed a deep sigh and folded his arms across his chest. As he leaned back again, he tried not to be too unnerved, because it wasn’t like he missed it. Or that he would do anything about it. It was just mere observation. That’s what he wanted to convince himself, at the very least.

His gaze inched back towards the window, like the landscape entranced his vision as his mind wandered through fields of thoughts. Either it was that or there merely nothing left to occupy his vision. The first sounded more poetic, so he went with that.



The entirety of the trip was quite dull, too quiet and tense for his liking. Comparatively speaking, of course. Still, it was enough reason for him to breathe in relief when familiar territory soon rolled by, which of course meant close to the school, close to the lab.

Close to home, as he came to know it. Since, well, there wasn’t really much else for him to know about this place, nowhere else to know. He never really went anywhere either... but that was beside the point. The point was that he back in his “own domain” where he could distance himself from any person as he pleased.

The first beacon of home was, without a doubt, the trees. It was like a horde of them migrated across the great Northern California plains in the area and to all plop down in the same space right here in Kingswood. The school was like a gateway to them, parked right on the outskirts with territory within them.

Even though the normal students were forbidden from just thinking about entering. Ah, the glorious strictness and secrecy of the program. But also safety, because without knowing the area, it was a given you would get lost. Those trees were enormous, tower over the school like a catastrophe on a string, waiting to be plucked and send all the children inside to their demise.

(Strangely resembles the program. And their dreams. Hmmmmm.)

Aside from the unmissable, looming trees, there was another great sign that the party had arrived when Joseph saw... the literal school sign that said "Andrassy High School - We welcome all returning students and staff!" He also kept a slight chuckle to himself, thinking there was nothing like dropping hints like Captain Obvious.

As if those two cues alone were not enough, everything about the area just felt right, a sight for sore eyes, one could even say. The familiar landscape, buildings (even the one hidden far back behind the thickest tree trucks), even memories that washed out all other thoughts in his head.

Soon, Sandra turned towards the steep road the welcome sign prefaced. The design was interesting, and perhaps not the best planning for the school, but it's unique.

Placed atop a great hill out in the country side, the school looks down upon any vehicle to pass below it. The sign is placed out on the bottom of the hill, specifically next to the steepest part, which often struggle to clear. Having driven this road for years, Sandra had no trouble in making it onto the long plateau that broke the massive hill in half by stretching around it.

The road winded up and around the school, making it to the back where it split off into two roads: the "scientist" area for which Sandra reserved for the program, which was left and the other normal parking for regular students and staff straight ahead. Without having to think, Sandra's hands moved for her and steered the car towards the redwood forest.

It was fascinating to watch, really. Joseph saw the sun glint off her glasses as she stared straight ahead at nothing in particular. Her mind flew away while her brain kept her on track without effort. It only reminded him of how much time she's spent in this program to "cure" the dreams, with no avail.

Even some malfunctions in between.

With a shake of his head, he moved his gaze off his professor and out the window behind her. Right behind the mountain the hill rested on was massive expanse of land, stretching for what seemed like miles around the forest that suddenly jutted out of the land.

The car soon pulled to a gentle stop right in front of a path that led deep into the woods. Hanging from a chain blocking the path, a sign read “No Trespassing.” It only stretched across a paved path, leaving the brush area of the woods still exposed to any intruders.

“Ready for a hike?” Sandra said as the engine was cut by a swift pull of the key.

“Dying for it,” Joseph replied, flinging the door open without care. He jumped from the car and stretched his arms, enjoying the humid air that stuck to his skin. Being outside was far better than being inside that car.

Eli, on the other hand, was not as pleased. The scowl on his face was embodied in his words as he muttered, “What a fantastic idea. Have a building you have to walk back and forth from four times a day roughly… two miles away from the school.”

There was the normal Eli again.

“We like to encourage physical activity, here at the program,” Joseph replied.

“Along with death, injury and more death,” he muttered. As he climbed out of the car, a wave of sickness momentarily replaced the expression on his face.

Joseph snickered. “Might want to take off that coat before you get a heat stroke.” Eli only shrugged, the only sign that he even bothered to hear Joseph’s words.

With keys jingling in her hands, Sandra gave him a “don’t you dare start this now” look before saying, “Joseph, why don’t you help with the luggage?”

A smug look crept onto Eli’s face. As Joseph passed to get to the trunk, Eli whispered, “I guess you serve better as a pack mule.”

Even with Sandra breathing down his neck, there was a spark of confidence, a sort of chance Joseph’s mind. So he went for it. “It helps to be able to lift more than three pounds.”

“At least I’m not a slab of meat waiting to get slaughtered.”

“Joseph.” Sandra said in her warning tone, as if everything was his fault. Of course was, knowing she’d since given up on Eli.

He clenched his teeth but said nothing in response, moving over to the trunk opened ever slightly. How easy would it be just to toss the bag into the woods somewhere and let him search for it? Even if that were to go against everything Sandra had ever expected of him, it would be entertaining.

Still, he merely threw the duffle bag over his shoulder before slamming the trunk down and marching after Sandra and Eli. The two stood by the chain, muttering something back and forth to one another.

When Joseph joined them, they all began their trek through the woods to the secluded building.

I remember the first time coming along this path. It was terrifying since it was almost dusk, intimidating even. I wonder how these newbie’s will take it.

As if Sandra could read minds, she announced to us, “Now, you two keep it in check. I’m hoping that having you both mentoring this year can occupy your time more.”

Eli straight up laughed. There were no mocking words that would take a jab at Joseph, only the laughter to haunt his mind. The words were just left unsaid.

|Eliezer Aleshire|

"Please, Eliezer, at least wait until after their tests to cause any major trouble. I won't ask any more of you for the rest of the day."

"Fine, whatever. Let's just make this as painless as possible for the both of us."

The place he abhorred the most appeared before him abruptly through the gentle curve of a paved path and the relinquished curtain of monstrous redwoods. The faded crimson bricks and the distinct style of the Victorian age paired smoothly with more modern interpretations, like the Tuscan pillars framing its impression of an actual porch and the neatness of its windows. It had been made to match the main school building, whose ancient wooden floors has long since been stripped and replaced with cement and tile and whose once white accent stone has faded to a soft beige, in its simpler essence. Eli would have enjoyed the architect a little more if he hadn't known of the lifeless white walls and the fake cheeriness in the presence of artificial plants and stock art that was built inside. So now it resembled an asylum to him, with a fresh batch of paint.

Before he entered the front door, he sucked in a breath and held it. He let it out slowly, already tasting the bitterness of chemicals in the air. Even the pressure of the front room had a distinctly different aura, as if a hand had cut off the stirring life outside and made the air stagnant. It made his chest feel stiff and cramped.

He frowned at the receptionist, who looked up at them with a pasty smile that glistened with gum drop lipstick. When the plump woman saw Eli's shock of angry hair duck through the entrance, her smile faltered, and her round face pinched like she had tasted something sour and didn't want to be rude. She pursed her lips, made a smacking noise, and smiled with as much civilness as she could muster.

"Mr. Patel, Ms. Merkel, welcome back. Mr. Aleshire, I hope that your trip back from New York was pleasant."

"As pleasant as your company, Mrs. Sugarcakes." Eli popped a mint from her desk into his mouth. The woman looked pointedly offended by the action, but covered it by fussing over multiple the pink and purple pens that rested parallel on her desk.

"Now now, Mr. Aleshire," she began with her proper scolding, "we have went over this before. Please call me Mrs. Pennington."

"Whatever you want, Pumpkin."

Behind him, Joseph sighed, and Eli heard the thump of his luggage being deposited on one of the decorative couches. "Hello, Mrs. Pennington. Have any of the newbies arrived?"

She visibly brightened. Joseph was her favorite, along with most of the stingy staff. "Why, yes. I directed them into the small conference room. Their luggage is being taken care of."

Eli's skin tingled unpleasantly. He glanced down the side hallway, a dark little indention deviating from the main room, with a condemning scowl and thin lips. As they continued their polite conversation, the hallway suddenly began to warp and blur, and he put a steadying hand on the receptionist's desk. No one seemed to notice, and by the time he had regained his whereabouts, the meaningless prattle was coming to a close. Eli abruptly marched to his baggage and heaved it over his shoulder, glaring daggers.

"I'm going to my room." All three of them turned to him in surprise, and the receptionist looked at him stupidly before finally sliding a small card across the desk. He swept it off of the table and quickly stalked to the elevators.

When the polished doors, big enough for a stretcher to slide through, closed behind his dark shadow, Mrs. Pennington huffed.

"That boy must have been raised by some certain kind of uncultured folk."

The Doctor and Joseph only sighed.



Eli paced.

Stay awake. Stay awake. Goddamn, stay awake.

He didn't like to say that he was scared, but to say that he wasn't was a blatant lie. It had been three days since he had slept. Three days before he had stepped on his plane in New York, and now he could say that he was broaching on four. He could still remember the dream - the taste of metal as it was forced into his mouth, the feel of his arms twisted behind him, and the sensation of the earth shuttering beneath him, and then disappearing all together. He started to free fall, which seemed to go on forever - until the chains caught up with his falling body and jolted taut. The bull man watched him as he writhed for freedom, as he screamed through the gritty chain in his mouth, and as his bones were jerked from his shoulder blades.

He had awoken with his body glistening with perspiration, panicked and salty tears streaming down his face, and his left shoulder dislocated. He had taken a strip of leather (which he had cut from an old shoe earlier in the summer) and put it in his mouth as he put his shoulder back in place, a process which required him to slip onto the fire escape and ram it repeatedly into the brick wall. He had shuttered with the effort to keep his screams down, as to not alert his grandfather, a tediously light sleeper.

Now his arm was an alarming shade of purple - a reason why he wore the heavy drench coat, and a reason why he had been secretly relieved that the Doc had commanded Joseph to carry his bags the annoyingly long distance from the parking lot, because he hated questions and hated the thought of Merkel hovering over him, eager to figure out why the sudden violence. Usually, psychological torture was his subconscious way to go. Physical things were not his cup of tea.

Suddenly, as if frightened of the consequences if he didn't do it quickly enough, Eli used his long legs to cross the distance of his dorm room to the other wall, where an impressively sized but noticeably cheap stereo sat with a film of dust. With the quick movements of his long hands, he had it plugged into the wall and pulsing with angry rap music. It jarred his nerves enough that he felt safe sitting down on the edge of his bed.

He stared intently at his bookshelf, composed of a collection of history memoirs and philosophy.

He wasn't aware of long how he stayed in his room.

When he blinked, and finally moved his stiffened limbs, it was an hour later. Cursing, he hefted himself up off of his bed and swept out of the room, pausing long enough to turn off his speakers. When he emerged out of the elevator, the hallways were void of the usual Doc cronies scuffling to and fro. He knew exactly where they all were. His stomach pooled with dread.

The simulations had begun.

When he threw the door to the small, bleak room open, most of the upperclassmen were already under. An anxious, mouse-like woman wearing a bleached white lab coat instantly scrambled to him, exclaiming, "Mr. Aleshire! You're late!"

He did not recognize this woman. When he turned his attention on her, she flinched.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, showing up late?" Joseph was seated on the hospital bed, his feet propped up, needles and shimmery clear liquid ready to plunge into his veins. He already had the wires suctioned to his skull. He gripped the bars on the side of the bed, as if restraining himself from leaping and swinging at him. The sight sent a spark of fire running down his spine. Eli gave him a dangerous sneer.

"I'm here now, aren't I?" Eli watched the color rise from his neck. "Careful, now. You might not be able to succumb if you're so hot and bothered at the sight of me."

As he sputtered and swore, Eliezer spotted the empty and expectant hospital bed and strode towards it. The woman followed, fretting and upset. He laid across it and allowed the woman to apply the suction cups and wire, but when she approached his left side with the needle, he said, "No. Do it on my right arm."

She paused, but with a leveling look, she moved obligingly.

"If you wanted to be so picky, you should've shown up earlier," Joseph mumbled from his side of the room. Eli sighed and chose to ignore him, instead turning to fluff the stiff pillow placed on the bed. He allowed the woman to carefully inject the simulation's serum, and when he laid down, he shifted until he was better nestled in. He took another deep breath, crossed his arms over his chest, and exhaled through his nose.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Hold it in.

It was his little trick to skip the whole inner-peace nonsense the Doc always prattled on about. Instead of waiting for his heartbeat and brain activity to slow down, he simply held his breath until he forced his body into unconsciousness. Soon enough, he felt the telltale signs of dizziness, tightening of his chest, and the prickling sensation in his fingers.

He shifted and his hands formed fists unconsciously. He heard a rustling sound, and the pricks he felt turned into pine needles, dry from long days under the sun. A brightness surged upon his eyelids, along with a friendly warmth, and Eli cracked his eyes open, his golden pupils narrowing. When he sat up, pine needles crunching, he was in a field of tall, pale grass. They swayed with an amicable impassiveness, light glinting off of them in silver scales of brilliance with a gentle, motherly breeze. In a perfect arc around him, bowing grass pressed against the scorched pine needles that he sat on, and he could see the grass trampled underneath.

He stood, dusting them off of his back. He wore his trench coat still, and his shoulder no longer ached. When he looked around, he saw that the field stretched forever in all directions. It was almost too picturesque to him, with the world bathed in a balmy light, the foliage bursting with life just so, and the wind brushing his fiery hair over his forehead. A peaceful nothingness, where the mind could wander.

He scowled, huffing in annoyance. Of course, of course the Doc would have them play treasure hunt for their trainees. Of course.

He began to trample through the grass, which brushed against him, simulating the comforting brush of a friend or lover. After a moment of stomping aimlessly in one direction, Eli paused and scoffed at himself, narrowing his eyes.

Slowly, the friendly grass in front of him began to stiffen, then wilt, hissing as ghostly flames nipped at them. It spread quickly as it brushed amongst its brethren, turning black and then into ash. A path of scorched dirt, a dramatic slash from an artist's brush, unfurled before him, never spreading further than he wanted it to.

There were some perks to spending three miserable years of his life at the Academy.

He swaggered down his path of black, which stretched the further he walked. His coat billowed in the wind, and ash laced into the air, which lightly caressed him as it floated past. He didn't mind it.

He wasn't completely sure how long he had to walk until the Doc decided he should finally meet the poor soul she tied him to for the year. Longer than he liked. Eventually, he noticed, the grass shortened, now barely reaching the back of his calves. That's where he spotted a hunched, frail figure, honey-orange hair as straight as a board falling over pale shoulders.

When one of his ashes curled towards her, landing and snagging in the crook of her elbow, she started and stared at it, as if she couldn't believe it was real. Then, her head snatched up, and her pale, shining eyes met his, tears streaming down her childlike cheeks.

What. The Fuck. Is this.

Merkel gave him this to deal with?

With a squeak, she started as if to stand, only accomplished in stumbling, then rose shakily to her feet. She stared at him like a savior and a menace. He guessed he had to be both.

"Wh...wh... who..?" Is all she managed to sputter out. Eli's brilliant eyes narrowed with irritation, and the girl hiccuped.

"Eli." He replied shortly, curtly, with chill. "Stop your fucking crying. It's annoying."

In reply, she cried more, though she wiped messily at her face. "Wh-Where are we? I-I-I was a-at the school, and now I'm h-here, and I don't know where here is-"

She started sobbing.

He was going to make Merkel pay for this.

He wasn't even sure how he was going to test her. Not if she kept babbling and sobbing and looking like an utter pathetic mess like she was now. Maybe he could shout "boo" and she'll scare herself to death.

"What are you afraid of?" He asked coolly. Ash swirled between them.

She look at him, a bit startled, but then said hesitantly, "Everything."

Holy shit. She had to be fucking kidding him.

She looked at him again, with that same hero-or-villain look. He groaned, then pinched the bridge of his nose. When he opened his eyes again. she was still looking at him, except more... hopeful.

Well, Eli couldn't have that.

"Everything, you say? You like puppies?" His mind was already swirling, stitching detail upon detail, layer after layer, creation upon creation. She nodded.

The wind picked up, battering the playful blades into quick violent waves. As if simply spurred through the bow of grass, four slim figures parted from it, their black skin streaking with the reflection of the sun, so much like the glisten of the home they came from, and so brilliant that it was hard to tell that their fur was black at all. As they rose further, strong slender leg after strong slender leg, their details sharpened, forming pointed ears, soulless eyes, and a wide gaping maw, a pink tongue licking between shining white teeth. Their full bodies emerged into view, and they immediately broke into a pace, all of them circling the teary-eyed girl. As they padded around in a perfect circle, they seemed to grow, their powerful shoulders graceful shifting humps, their jaws snapping.

She cried out, falling to the ground in a terrified crouch. The wind snapped down again, no longer the playful breeze, and more sleek bodies parted out and through the surrounding field. They joined the current wolves' ranks, circling, some daring to close in a bit more, others intertwining the circle of the quietly snarling mass in the opposite direction, making Eli only see the girl's petrified expression in glimpses. Her watery eyes begged him.

"Do something about it, then," he urged, willing the wind to carry his voice to her. She continued to stare at him in horror. "Think about what you want to be done, and will it to happen."

She stared at him blankly. He tried to calm his frustration.

Let's move this along, then, he thought.

The wolves began to close the circle as if from an unspoken command. Soon they were close enough, that if she lunged to one side, she'd brush upon their silvery hides. She had folded herself up into a small ball, sobbing. Eli grunted, and one of the wolves broke from the innermost circle to stand before her. He was noticeably larger than the others, his large cunning eyes glaring down on her in hunger, his massive shoulders shrugging closer, his powerful body beautiful in its sheer predatory gloriousness. She found as little reprieve in the animal's eyes as she did in the older boy that watched from the sidelines, his smoldering gaze like sparks in the dark.

"Focus," he urged once more, "control your fear, and project it into the wolves. Make them go away."

But she could not hear him. Her body went rigid with fear, and she was transfixed to the wolf in front of her. Finally, Eli sighed in resignation. His focus narrowed on the wolf, and it snarled; in a swift, single movement, the wolf crouched, bared its teeth, and leaped towards her, teeth ready to shred skin and flesh.

Another gust of wind, warm and not his own, swept down upon them, and the grass around the girl opened up. She was gone a split moment before the wolf crashed into the ground, and it and its brethren were dispersed into the wind, no more than the flakes of ash he had forged them from.

Another wind, this coming from the opposite direction, tasted of Merkel's disapproval. Eli snorted. As the ground opened up beneath him, he gladly slipped back into the real world.

Coming to was slow and clumsy, like fumbling around in the dark. For a minute he felt like he was finally waking up, until an uneasy swirling darkness settled around him, and he sat and waited for something more to happen. He was annoyed, though he couldn't fathom why or to whom. Eventually the black world turned varying shades of grey, until suddenly they swirled away, and an array of oranges and yellows flushed in like watercolors to replace the scenery. He squeezed his eyes together, and the colors burned and shifted. Finally, he blinked, and the white speckled ceiling came into focus.

He grunted, and stretched. The hospital sheets crinkled beneath him. A nurse, the nurse that greeted him in, appeared by his side, leaning over him to check his state of health. He was intact, and she quickly worked on removing the various dream gizmos attached to him. He stared vacantly at the wall, blinking and remembering.

No one ever said it was easy watching a kid a few years shy from his age drown to death.

Across the room, past a curtain, he heard a shuttering gasp as someone inhaled desperately, then fell into a violent coughing fit as his lungs are bombarded with an excess of air. There must have been nurses over there as well, more than how many were on his side of the curtain, because he could hear them shuffle and coo their calming words. Joseph remained on his back, mulling over his thoughts numbly. Then he sat up.

He then recalled why he felt so annoyed. The answer leaned against the wall, hands stuffed into his too heavy coat, looking pissy and like he was itching for a cancer stick. His dark eyebrows scowled over his flashing eyes, his mouth pressed into a thin bloody line, and his wicked scar stretched into a hellish smile over his face. To Joseph, Eliezer always looked like some sort of sulking, angry demon. His personality never contradicted his comparison.

"So, you think you can show up to these things any time you want?" Joseph snapped.

Eli quickly looked at him, as if Joseph had startled him out of a profound line of thought. He looked confused, as if he didn't really hear him, then his face fell into its usual snide. "Yes," he replied simply.

Joseph felt his blood pressure rising. If he would have been still hooked up to the heart monitor, it would have been going off. He heard more people waking up, both from the other side of the curtain and on his. Quick like his training, Joseph was on his feet and stalking towards Eli.

"When are you going to get over that self-righteous attitude of yours, huh? You think this is all a game?"

Instead of backing down, like a normal person would have done when faced with a pissed off guy of Joseph's size, Eli's eyes seem to glow at the challenge, despite being more willowy than remotely muscular.

"Before you try to use big words, sweetheart, at least figure out what the fuck they mean. You're the most self-righteous hypocritical asswhipe I ever goddamn met. And I've had to waste two years with Merkel, too."

Joseph stopped in front of him, his throat burning with spite. Not an inch less or an inch more than a foot stood between them. As if to taunt him more, Eli smiled, exposing his white teeth. Joseph wanted to smash them in.

"Now, kiss."

Both boys turned their heads. Jules came in from a side door, where the doctor's screen monitors were, and sat languidly on a hospital cot, as if it isn't a hospital cot. She must have arrived during the test and decided to watch the mentors at work instead of waiting in the cafeteria, where the rest of the returning non-mentors were assigned. Her blonde hair was piled messily but stylishly on the top of her head. Her clear eyes shone with amusement behind her large, black-framed glasses. She grinned mischievously.

Eli gave a mirror image smile. All the aggression disappeared from his stance, and he replied, "Well, looks like the cat dragged some roadkill in again."

"Looks like Hell ran out of room."

"Thank you."

Joseph took a half step back, still irritated but under control now. He sighed, and it was then that he heard the hysteria coming from the hallway.

He instantly went to investigate. In between sobs, he picked out Sandra’s voice, desperately trying to console whoever was crying. When he peeked his head out, he saw a young girl crumpled against the wall in a fetal position. Her pale orange hair swamped over her face, and her nearly white skin shuttered like a scared rabbit. Whenever Sandra’s hands nervously fluttered too close, her sobs keened louder. The professor looked around for help.

Joseph instantly ducked back into the doorway. Behind him, most everybody was awake, all peering at him in explanation. The newbies whispered to each other, the crying freaking them out more. The mentors waited for him to speak. All except for one, who still leaned casually against the wall, as if it doesn't sound like something was dying around the corner.

Jules seemed to come to the same conclusion, and she looked at Eli, pretending to look patronizing while a smile tugged at her lips.

"Hey, Eli," she said.

"What?"

"What'd you do for your test?"

Eliezer shifted to leaning on his other shoulder. Not out of guilt, Joseph bet. "Just some... puppies."

Of course. Joseph shouldn't have assumed that Eli would be above terrorizing before teaching the poor girl anything. He realized then that Joseph himself was the second mentor to wake - Eli had already been up and moving. Awake before Jules had even gotten a chance to see what horrors he invented for the girl.

"- to her room for now." Sandra’s voice floated in from the hallway. After a terse minute, the sobs began to echo from down the hallway, until it was nothing but a distant moan.

After another pause, Sandra swept into the room, her smile a little too placid, even for Joseph. She rubbed her hands against her shining white lab coat as she surveyed the room of eyes. With a sharp clear of her throat, she began.

"That was your first dream test," she said to the room, as if they all were ignorant newcomers. "It was done to assess your dream manipulation skills. Don't worry - it was just a simulation. None of you were in harm’s way."

At that, a forbidden memory surfaced. Joseph violently shoved it back into its little hole in the back of his brain, even if he was sure Eli was staring daggers into the woman before them.

While Joseph fought to keep his own mind in check, Sandra continued her well-rehearsed speech that covered all the biggest aspects of the program she recruited the group in. By now, he was convinced it was a memorized ritual rather than the easy, improvised introduction she claimed it to be. Quite frankly, everything was the same each year, down to the dramatic hand motions Sandra resorted to as she sculpted figures out of the air.

He would know; he did have to listen to the speech five years in a row. Perhaps he could even perform it as well as her.

“The details of the facility and this organization will be revealed shortly along your tour and afterward,” she said, the words signaling to Joseph that the spiel was coming to a close. “In the meantime, I feel proper introductions are due. I am Sandra Merkel, head director and scientist of DCI. Surrounding you are members of our medical team; you are extremely safe under their care.”

At her hand motions, all the newbies – even those still sitting on their hospital cots – turned and stared at the many nurses swarming around them. Each of them stared back, giving reassuring nods and smiles in an attempt to weaken any intimidation. It never seemed to work.

“And finally, your mentors.” Sandra took a quick step to the side, gesturing towards the group collected close to the door. Joseph found himself standing closest to the middle of the room, and thus closest to the stares of the young, new minds. As they all scanned the various faces, puzzling over why they seemed familiar, Sandra continued. “That strange person that appeared in your simulated dream is your assigned mentor. He or she will be the one who will guide and train you to overcome the demons that will haunt your dreams.”

A second of silence ticked past in the tiny white room, or as silent as it could get with the constant whirl of machines in the background. Joseph took in and held a breath as he scanned the crowd of six for his own pupil. The scrawny, white-haired boy found him without problem, grabbing Joseph’s gaze and hold it in a trance of bitterness. Hatred flickered across his face, almost as intense as Eli as he progressed in his newbieness.

He prayed for not another Eli. Anything but another Eli.

The forbidden thought snaked its way up his head again, whispering its broken song in his ears in the seconds it was free.

Finally, Sandra took a dismissive breath and waved away the mentors. Then that was it. Most of the silent communications between mentor and student were cut off as the former turned and left without haste. Joseph spun around to watch the rest file out, already starting to whisper to one another in between hushed steps.

Eli and Jules, both having no newbie to share the silence with, slipped out first, picking up a conversation the instant they left the lab behind. The other four followed. That left Joseph as the last to file out, who slightly dragged his feet in an attempt to finish out the speech – it was like Sandra was welcoming him back home with the prepped words rather than reassuring stressing new members.

Instead he forced himself out the door to move on to greeting the rest of the program’s population, even if most of it was mentally. With one swift push, the iron door flinched away and flew open, giving Joseph passage to the back hall. Outside waited another boy, an insane smile claiming his face.

“Rohith,” Joseph greeted him, mimicking the smile in almost every fashion. “You look more excited than a little kid with a puppy.”

“Nice analogy,” the other boy said with a chuckle, nudging Joseph with his elbow. “But seriously! I’ve finally got my own little newbie to torment.”

“Now don’t have too much fun,” Joseph said. “You wouldn’t want an Eli would you? You have to at least let them grow a little before stepping on their hopes and dreams.”

“Please!” Rohith retorted. “My mentor hardly waited a day before he killed me like six times in our first training session.”

Joseph laughed, remembering the utter vile expression that would arise whenever his friend spoke about his own mentor. Being unable to relate to the violent experiences in Rohith’s simulations, it became an often disputed topic between the threesome of the two boys and their other friend, Ally.

“I think it was more like fifteen,” Joseph finally teased back after a moment. He lightly tapped his friend’s elbow before setting their course to the cafeteria down the hall.

“Wouldn’t doubt it,” Rohith muttered. “Damn, I hated that asshole. But I do have to give him some credit; I’m not dead yet.”

Surrounding the two boys was an artificial luminescence stretching down the length of the tiny hall. To anyone else, the blankly gray walls would have crowded in on the visitors, holding in the stench of laboratory and experiments. But to Joseph, it was home. The tight space was warm and cozy, along with the scents reassuring him with every scent. He could be safe here.

The boys talked, filling the slightly empty space with a touch of light topics, agreeing in a silent pact to hide away the topic of death looming over their shoulders. To some, this building was a constant reminder of that, but the pair moved on to other topics and turned the elephant in the room invisible.

Before long, a rouge shimmer of sunlight lighted on the black floor and it melted away into a lighter gray. The crammed back hall sharply rammed into another pathway, one much larger and open, with actual windows inserted in the walls instead of barred, metal doors.

Joseph took a deep breath and said, “Smell that?”

“Yeah, it’s chlorine and all kinds of bleach staining the floor.”

“That’s the smell of a new year!”

“Goddamn it, Joseph. You say that every fucking year.”

Joseph gave him a cheeky grin, turning to his friend with his hands on his hips. “Can you believe it’s our last one? Where will we go? What will we do?”

“I don’t know about you,” Rohith said, taking Joseph by the elbow and dragging him further along, “but I want to focus on surviving this year before I think about after it.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Joseph protested, righting himself and falling into the step with Rohith once more. The other boy gave him a withering look, as if the answer was obvious. Which it was. There wasn’t much “fun” in the life they lived in the program.

Eventually they reached the window walls separating the grand, gray hall from the cafeteria and all the students inside. There were at least thirty of them sprawled across the gathering space, seemingly louder than even a crowd of a hundred. A couple of people strayed around as they migrated from across different bubbles of people. There were even some that kept to themselves in the corners of the room, some who weren’t yet comfortable with the whole of the program.

Joseph pulled open a glass door and motioned for Rohith to proceed. “Ladies first,” he said with a wink.

“What a kind gentlemen,” the friend replied in a mock high-pitched voice.

Ally was already waiting at a table for them, drumming her fingers impatiently on the top of the circular table’s surface. Her other hand was tangled in her mess of black hair that shielded her shoulders from all around.

Rohith approached her first in a sneak attack of the ages. Before she could turn, he wrapped his arms around her chest and heaved her up out of her seat. She yelled out a stream of curses, kicking back and attacking Rohith’s shin.

While the two reunited for the first time since they left for the summer, Joseph hung back a second.

Inside, everything was magnified by ten, including the thoughts running through Joseph’s head. The voices drifted all around the massive room, echoing ever so slightly back to them to add to the commotion. While it felt like a bit much, Joseph still forced a smile on his face and pushed into the true world of the program.

"You're jittery, Els."

"I'm always jittery to you."

Eli leaned back, and the bricks pricked at the wool of his jacket. He was sweating and he could feel the cold clamminess slide down his back and cling to the notch in his shoulder blades. He kept the cigarette close to his lips and he urged the sweet smoke to still the slight tremor in his hands, and his fingers tingled as he exhaled, the smoke curling and temporarily blocking his feet in a white haze.

"A little cush can ease the mind."

"We've went through this before."

"Gives a better buzz than cigs."

He glanced at her, the languid limbs, as pale as polished bone; the long black hair, shining like the skin of a cat and framing her shoulders in shallow waves; the black tank top and dark grey sweater tied around her cocked hips, the red lips parted slightly to make room for the blunt, and the circular glasses that were undoubtedly to hide the pinkish tint that muddled the whites of her eyes; and he scowled and sighed.

"Your loss."

"How's the family, then?" Eli asked bluntly, casually.

Beside him, she stiffened, shifted uncomfortably, and sighed musky smoke at him. "Not much can change when the only modern entertainment is an old radio that's broken half the time and the only other things to do are to fight, drink, smoke, and have sex, but sadly the neighbors are getting uglier by the year. How's the old man?"

"As benevolent as ever."

She snorted.

At the click of the back door, both Deanna and Eli quickly battered the smoke into existence and dropped their respective sticks to the ground, smoothly stepping on them and grinding them with their toe. Their fingers smoothed over their clothes and they blew the lingering taste from their breath as the back door opened on heavy metal hinges. Both of them turned, careful indifference in their expressions, as the person partially through the door opened his mouth to speak and then fell into a fit of surprised coughing.

"Are you-" cough. "Jesus, how much did you smoke?"

Both of them smiled, Eli like the devil and Deanna like a lazy cat.

Felix held his mouth into the crook of his elbow for emphasis, coughing some more, the sun playing upon his honeyed hair. He waved the air enthusiastically.

"The Little Man isn't too happy about ya'll skipping the meet-and-greet. He'd be out here instead of me, but cha'know, the Merk pulled him aside to do something. He told me to find you guys and tell you that you both need to go be buddy-buddies with the newbies. Say, Eli, that redhead isn't yours this year, is she?"

Felix's eyes twinkled, and his brow twitched, showing that he indeed knew full well she had been put under him. He pushed the door open wider, waving at the smoke that dared waft inside.

Eli mirrored his expression. "Why, oh dear, is something the matter?" he said.



He laid on top of his slightly wrinkled but otherwise untouched bed, angry and fast-paced music pulsating through his skull, where a migraine bloomed. In his hand he held a fat, well- worn book, its yellow paper cover aged, folded, and cracked to the point where the title was difficult to read. His eyes darted across the page with a mildly contained frustration. His other hand at his side tapped erratically against his hip. Suddenly, he jerked to a sitting position.

He tossed the book aside and stood to resume his fervent pacing from an half of an hour ago. His steps were angry, but he managed to keep the noise of his stomping feet down, lest someone became nosy. Realizing he still had earphones in, he ripped them out and then gripped his head as he paced.

He was so, so tired.

He let out a muffled scream and then slapped his bruised shoulder, using the pain to ebb away his sleepiness.

He will not fall asleep. He will not fall asleep.

Just as he turned to pace the other direction, his peripheral vision caught upon something in the window - some momentary flash of something pale against the inky blackness of the trees. He paused and squinted, forcing his eyes to focus.

He nearly started screaming.

He knew it when he saw it the first time during the ride to the school, but he had to doubt. Just in case, Eli gripped his upper arm, and dread filled him as pain shot up to his skull. That meant that he was indeed awake, and that this was not yet a dream.

Eli had named him Jersey when he was younger, for some odd reason. He'd barely been a kid then, and hadn't understood what it was. It hadn't done anything to him then - it would just appear randomly, sometimes only for a quick moment out of the peripherals of his normal dreams.

Its bone head gleamed from the faint light coming from Eliezer's window, and its horns stretched outwards like two thick arms before narrowing into immaculate points. Its neck, black as the forest behind it, was partly obscured from its extended jaw and nostril bones, which were slightly tilted down so it could watch Eli through its eye sockets. Darkness coiled in them with its own consciousness.

Eli was on the third floor.

He stumbled against the door behind him, half considering running out to the hallway or bolting towards the large red button by his bed that was protected behind a clear case. His eyes darted between the emergency button and it. His good hand, slick with clammy sweat, clawed at the door handle behind him. It watched.

And slowly, ever so slowly, it raised a gloved hand. Eliezer was struck immobile, unable to look away, as its palm neared the glass. In the back of his head he reminded himself that the window was locked, goddammit Eliezer the window is locked what are you doing run for it, and what are you doing Eliezer you're awake it is just a hallucination, but he remained stuck to the floor.

It's finger neared the glass.

Tap. Tap tap.

It lowered its hand, and watched him for a moment, before backing away into nothing.

Eli remained on the floor, watching as the first signs of light finally raised up from the woods through the window. On the floor, he could faintly hear his music still playing, now roaring some death metal song. As the sky lightened he could make out a dark smudge on the glass. Almost like someone had held a lighter against it.

Distantly, he heard screaming, and for a long moment he thought that it must have been in his head. That is, until he felt the vibrations of feet thundering down the hallway behind him in his tailbone, and then the shouting started.

Eli stood and slipped out of his room without a second thought and followed the commotion.

There was so much noise. Too much noise, and he found his fingers jerking and twitching as some odd side affect, his ears ringing, and his breaths a bit too short. He documented his symptoms for another time in the back of his mind as the rest of him worked his way forward slowly through the swarm of faces that were a bit too blurry for him to fully recognize. It didn't matter anyways, because no one seemed to be paying much attention to him. As he neared closer to the front of the crowd, where the chattering seemed to be significantly less, he perceived a clearing made through the center of the room to the elevator. Across it, faces peered out of their dorm rooms.

There was static and the distant sound of someone talking on a walkie talkie, and two men Eli knew he hadn't seen before walked down the clearing, one of them with a clipboard and the other bending his head down to murmur back into the talkie at his shoulder. They wore pale navy uniforms with strips of reflective silver strapped across their chest and shoulders, and through his muddled consciousness something about them clicked into place. The crowd watched them pass by, turning to each other in incertitude.

"Everyone, go back to your rooms. There is nothing to see here," Eli heard the Doc say somewhere out of his immediate vision, her voice like a clanging bell. She appeared through the clearing, and her slightly misshapen state sent further alarms through him.

"What's happening? Is someone hurt?" Someone asked from the back of the gathering.

"No one is- I will update everyone in later in the morning. All of you, please, go back to bed."

"That's Ame's room," Jules said, suddenly at his side. Eli turned down to the other end of the clearing, where indeed Ame's dorm room door was open and more of the uniformed men and women shifted inside. And just past him, Eli could see the lip of the bed...

"She's dead, isn't she?" Eliezer stated out loud.

The chatter tittered out and attention turned to him. His shoulder throbbed.

"Eliezer," the Doc snapped, taking steps in her black heels towards him, her face some in between metamorphosis between anger, panic, and a forced pleasantness. Her clothes were rumpled and heat flashed high on her cheeks. Horror struck Eli and he shoved himself into the clearing.

"She's dead, isn't she?"

"Eli-"

"She's fucking dead and there is nothing you or your flunky scientists can do about it and we're all going to die exactly like that because you've trapped us here like lab rats and tricked us into believing that there's hope to be normal but in reality you don't even know what you're doing and we're all going to die because of you-"

"That is enough!"

Eli was thrown against the wall as Joseph rammed into him, pinning him with his forearm. Pain lanced up his arm and he gritted his teeth. When he opened his eyes, inches from his face was Joseph, tears beginning to stream down his blotchy red cheeks, a vein pulsing upon his forehead, and every wrinkle emphasized.

"You think you're the only one in this shit situation? You think Merkel is the cause?"

"And how dare you defend her. Are you so far up her flat middle-aged ass that you can't even find the will to formulate a shit-fuck opinion for yourself without having her asshole's approval? You are nothing to her but a clingy kid that has mommy and daddy figure issues-"

Agony exploded in Eliezer's face, and sizzling warmth slewed down his neck and arms. Eli felt his jaw reverberate against Joseph's knuckles and he felt his skull knock and bounce against the brick wall behind him, and his tongue became trapped between the crushing of his teeth. Eli fell, his hands reaching to touch his face to already assess the damage. His ears rang.

"Joseph!"

"Medic! We need a medic!"

"Holy fuck, Joseph, get off of him!"

"Fuck, dude."

"Bring him to the infirmary."

Eli shook the invading hands off of him and stood, one hand still touching his jaw and the blood that flowed from his mouth and nose. He turned to Joseph, who stood behind a safe barrier of three people. Eli's eyes burned with malice.

Around him, people's expressions had twisted to pain, horror, and thinly stifled hysteria - all frenzied emotions jumbling together like static from the news and from the blood suddenly spilled before them.

"Eli." Eliezer started at the sudden voice at such close proximity to him. Jules' hands were hovering in the air, scarcely a few inches from his skin, but she was not looking at his face. Instead, her eyes were upon her shoulder, which stood stark and discolored, the deep crimson and purple lesions shining with a light sheen, his jacket now hanging down to the crook in his elbow.

"What happened to your shoulder?"

"You are nothing to her but a clingy kid that has mommy and daddy figure issues-"

A crack sounded in the hallway, followed by a momentary silence. Joseph’s knuckle had split where it first connected with Eli’s jaw so small drops of blood bubbled out. But at that point, he didn’t care. Adrenaline screamed through his veins and his heart pounded along with it. Every muscle in his body felt tense as he glared at Eli’s crumpled body, Joseph’s face flushing with the heat of his anger.

Time started again and voices cried out into the pounding silence. They sounded too far away for Joseph to recognize them, let alone make out their message. He thought he heard his name several times. Hands were grabbing at him, first pulling his arms and then moving to dragging him away by his shoulders. He didn’t bother to fight them off, instead training his stone-cold stare on Eli.

As Eli pushed himself off the floor, their eyes meet momentarily. His burned with as much, if not more, fury as Joseph’s while he kept his now bloodied hands on his face. By then, a barrier of bodies stood between the two suns, but Joseph reasoned the worst had already occurred. As opposed to the sureness in the moments before contact, the seconds their gazes touched felt blurry to Joseph.

The adrenaline was already fading and sense was crawling back into Joseph, as well as the feeling returning to his hand. It stung, it throbbed, but it felt right. Tears of rage slipped past his barrier, probably burned down by his anger. Jules approached Eli. More worried cries sounded through the crowd for the fucker. Merkel probably said something too, but he didn’t want to hear it.

Joseph turned and stormed off before he could hear what any of them had to say – and none of them stopped him.

Blood and pain were building in his knuckles like the ever stronger pressure he felt in his chest. He knew what was in store from him, it had already dawned on him just what he’d done. For now, he could push it out of his head without guilt and continue on the path his bare feet had determined for him.

He didn’t know where he was being taken. His room, as well as the Control Panel, was far behind him, left on the other side of the commotion. He thumped down a flight of stairs and found his face inches away from a glass door. His fingers rested on the bar across the center for a second, the longest he allowed himself to hesitate, before pushing it.

The door chimed as he went out and rattled as he left it behind.

In the early dawn sun, Joseph could scarcely see farther than a few trees ahead of him, but he moved fast, having since memorized the terrain after countless treks into the woods. The ground underneath his feet was damp with the morning’s dew, the soft dirt sticking to his toes as he walked. Around him, the air was thick with the strong scent of pine and a soft breeze infused the smell in his boxers and the thin shirt he slept in.

A minute or two passed before his stride slows. The already dim light had all but vanished from the forest floor and the idea of going further seemed less and less appealing. Finding the tree nearest to him, he slammed his back against the trunk and slowly slid down. Every single ridge etched into the tree’s bark pulled at the thin cotton and jutted at his back before he reached the ground.

He let out a strangled sigh as he clutched his knuckles in his free hand. His right hand throbbed and ached and clawed at him with pain. A few tears had pricked at his eyes before but he finally let the rest loose. Ame was dead, Eli was likely in the infirmary already, and on top of it, Joseph had gone and done this.

A lot more hurt than just his hand.

~ * * * ~

Joseph couldn’t say how long he was in the woods. Shortly after he cried himself out, he pulled himself up and went for a run, despite hardly being able to see his own nose. By the time he got back, it was light enough to see out and his feet were scratched and bruised and sore from the miles covered without any kind of support. The last thing he wanted was a confrontation from Sandra.

As he approached the building once more, he was suddenly thankful he’d memorized the access codes to the building the first year he was here. He really did not want to explain what had happened to the receptionist.

”You see, Mrs. Pennington, I may have hit Eli and then ran out into the woods. Please don’t tell Sandra I’m here yet! I’m trying to sneak back to my room.”

The black number pad was bolted to the bricks beside the door and the numbers trilled as Joseph punched in the ten number pin. As he tapped the “enter” button, a green light flashed causing the door to click. He tugged it open and sprinted up the stairs, hoping that everyone was either somewhere else or tucked away inside their rooms.

Everything was eerily silent as he half limped through the dorm halls. There weren’t even muffled voices behind any of the doors he passed. Perhaps everyone had already gathered downstairs? Joseph’s gut wrenched. If he was going to miss the morning’s session on top of everything else, Sandra would be sure to kill him.

He hurried the rest of the way to his room. It was exactly as he left it, bed sheets thrown to the floor from the panic of running into the hall. Yesterday’s clothes were collected in a small pile in the corner as well, just from the day’s exhaustion and his laziness. He grabbed a towel, a bottle of soap, and the pile of clothes, assuring himself no one would notice he wore the same thing twice. Not after what had already happened.

To avoid the Control Panel, Joseph took the longer way around to the showers, passing Ame’s door – which was still left ajar – for the second time. Once again, he didn’t encounter anyone, anyone, as he snuck through the halls. For the first time since he’d first arrived four years ago, Joseph felt like an intruder inside his own home. No one was around to greet him, and if they were around, he reasoned they wouldn’t be so friendly right now.

With that fresh in his mind, he entered his shower in the empty bathroom and sulked. He lathered his hair with the soap and thought his hair was growing out too much. It had since left the buzz cut he’d had as a kid, but he still liked it just as short. After he’d massaged the dirt from his skin, he let the water scald his back for another few minutes before exiting into the now steam filled room.

His clothes clung to his hot skin as he exited the showers. His feet still ached as he walked back to his room, but he could wrap them up before heading downstairs. There he would have to face everyone, and he wasn’t sure what he would say when questioned. Would Sandra be there too? Would she reprimand him in front of all his peers?

A sense of dread pitted in his stomach. He couldn’t be sure of her reaction, and he feared the worst.

When he reached the door to his room, he noticed that the door was cracked open ever so slightly. It was … odd. Joseph thought he remembered to close the door gently so not to alert anyone around, which turned out to be no one. He nudged the door open the rest of the way and peeked inside.

Sandra caught his gaze. “Good morning, Joseph.” There was no pleasantness in her voice, or her face for that matter. She sat at his messy desk with her arms crossed over her chest, having moved the chair to face him in the doorway.

“Um, good morning…,” he started. Unsure of what to call her at this point, he didn’t dare finish the statement.

“Have a seat.” She motion to the pile of sheets tangled on top of his bed. At least she was nice enough to take them off the floor for him. He threw down what was in his hands from the shower and sat on the very edge of his bed, sitting with his back straight and rigid.

“Where have you been?”

Joseph fumbled with his hands, struggling to maintain eye contact with her. “I went out for a run.”

“You’ve been gone for almost two hours.”

“I… didn’t know the time.”

She let out a long sigh, narrowing her eyes at him. Finally, she said, “Joseph, what’s gotten into you?” There was a second of pause as she took a breath, as if she was waiting for him to explain, but as he opened his mouth, she cut him off. “Provoked or not, that was a poor way to escalate an already tense situation. Not to mention running off like that.”

Joseph looked down at his feet, ear burning, before bouncing his gaze back up to her. She continued in his silence.

“Eliezer is enough of a problem; I don’t need you losing your sense around that boy, too. I have told you countless times to behave yourself, compose yourself, pretend he’s not even there – he’s not worth the effort! Punching him in the face is clearly going against everything I’ve told you. I don’t care how much you think he ‘deserved it’, it was not only immature but poorly timed. I expect more from you, Joseph.”

She launched into a spiel about Joseph and his role as a leader, a role model, someone meant to be revered for their good deeds and ability at handling especially difficult people. She often looked down at him, tensing her jaw before spitting out a phrase in his direction. All and all, it certainly made Joseph feel worse.

Joseph didn’t say a word.

“I can’t continually keep both of you apart. You’re part of a tight-knit community designed to overcome the same goal. It’s just become ridiculous how often you go at it. Joseph, it can’t go on like this. I refuse to let it go on like this.”

He looked down at his hands. “Well, what can I do about it?”

“You can start by being the role model,” she snapped. “Interact with him in a pleasant manner, learn to make nice something. You two are not toddlers anymore. I don’t want to babysit you any longer.” As she finished, something felt unsaid, like she had a breakthrough but held back on it. Her glare stayed strong, though, boring into Joseph as he sat before her.

She continued. “For the time being, until I deem your lesson has been learned, I’m suspending your accessibility to the labs, the research area, and the Control Panel. Your attempts to enter will be deemed as any other student and may prolong the suspension, do you understand?”

Joseph nodded. Any words he could say in his defense eluded him.

With that, Sandra stood and pushed the ruffles out of black skirt. “Oh and Joseph? I’d like to meet you in the Simulation Room within the hour, to make up for the morning’s session you missed.”

Joseph flinched.

She then turned and exited the room, her departure signaled by the click of her heels on the wooden floors outside. The encounter left Joseph feeling particularly hollow, and not even for his punishment. She was of course fair, but that fact alone twisted his gut. It was so hard for him to do wrong and the moment he stopped thinking, it happened.

A few minutes passed as Joseph sat on his bed, his face buried in his hands. He still had no idea what time it was, but as his stomach growled, he hoped there was still breakfast downstairs. Only that meant facing the rest of the crowd, all of which had watched him at his worst.

"Don't... Stop touching goddammit!"

He shoved the medic's hands away from his face, the sting of his touch reverberating through his already pulsating jaw. He blinked rapidly, his eyes struggling to focus upon the man's face in front of him. He waved his hands in front of him to ward all of them off.

"I'm fine."

"Eli, the paramedic says you need stitches."

"Fuck that and fuck your needles - they aren't going anywhere near my face."

"Stop being such a priss. You only need two."

"No. Fuck off."

Jules sighed exasperatingly. "Let the nice man stitch your face back together so they can go do their jobs."

"No. No needles. And don't patronize me, Juleanna. Shouldn't you be in your dorm or something, blogging about the sunset or some other bullshit?"

"He doesn't even have a needle out yet, Eliezer. It's just the anesthetic."

Eli huffed, but then flinched at the splitting pain of his headache. It spiked against the crown of his skull, where it beat at the bone with spiked fingers of hard metal, rising and lowering at the erratic beat of his heart. He squeezed his eyes shut, a motion that both relieved and amplified the agony that was now tingling down his spine.

"Fine," he spat. The medic warned him to hold still as he began to rub the foul-smelling medicine onto the blooming of bruises right at the cut of his jaw where Joseph's knuckle had met his mandible. The medic had said that it was lucky that there were no obvious fractures; Eli had strongly disagreed with them when they had advised that he went to the hospital just to make sure. Hospitals reeked of sickness and regret, glazed with the apathy of a sociopath. He refused to be willingly trapped in such a place more than he already was.

He could feel his cheek growing warm and then numb as the medicine spread through his skin. He tried not to shiver at the feel of the paramedic's gloved fingers touching him, the sensation of the latex as his senses slowly faded away, and at the feel of only a distant pain alerting him to the whereabouts of medic's touch without looking out of the corner of his eye.

When he was done, the medic pushed back with his wheeled office chair to better reach the stainless steel counter nearby. There, even though his back was turned, Eli was aware that he was threading the needle. His stomach plummeted.

"Never would have guessed that Eli would be scared of needles."

Eli's attention swiveled back to Jules, suddenly remembering that she was still there. He gave her a withering look. "I'm not scared of needles. Being wary of a complete stranger sticking a thin metal toothpick through your face repeatedly is pretty fucking justifiable."

"I'm sure it is."

The medic spun around in the chair and wheeled back in front of Eli, looking at his face doubiously. "I'm going to need you to hold still for this," he said.

Eli swallowed, the motion also somehow painful. He stared at the needle carefully pinched between the man's fingers, imagining it puncturing his skin, pushing through his still thrumming and alive flesh, forcing itself back through his skin, and then plunging back in...

He was going to be sick.

"Can't you just... bandaid it?" He said. The medic shook his head. Jules' eyebrows rose.

A muscle flexed in Eliezer's jaw, and he instantly regretted the reflex. He winced, and regretted that too. Today, he thought, is a day of regret.

Grunting, Eli swiveled his head to the side, offering his purpling jaw to the medic. His hands gripped the table, his knuckles growing white, as the man neared him. He tried his best to swallow his flinch at the slight sensation of something touching him, of something pressing and pushing through...

Ame's face flashed through his mind, her rumpled bed and the paramedics standing over her...

When the medic was done, Eli tried his best to swallow his bile and resisted the urge to immediately rip out the small stitchings. The medic sighed was about to stand when the door opened, a bit hesitantly out first, and then jerked open with some final decision. Everyone in the room turned at the whining squeak of the door.

The Doctor walked in, and Eli immediately straightened. Gone was the slight sick flush of his expression, instead replaced with the stoic countenance that accompanied the dark seed of hatred and anger that had years of being well fed. He stared hard and long at the Doctor, searching her painted face for anything - remorse, sadness, disbelief - but only found weariness and a fake smile pastered on her face. Snake, he hissed in his mind.

"Hello, Eliezer," she said, her voice tilting upon being pleasant. Eli continued to stare, forcing her mask to shift slightly under his scrutinizing gaze. His lips peeled upwards in a sneer.

"Juleanna," the Doctor said with surprise, turning to the girl still in her pajamas hovering by Eli's side. "You should be in bed."

"Yes, ma'am," Jules replied, immediately abandoning Eliezer's side and heading toward the door with her head bowed low. At the door, she glanced furtively between the two. Eli's eyes narrowed further, his pupils fervent in color, contrasted by the surrounding darkness under his eyes.

The Doctor paused, then said to everyone else in the room, "May you please let us speak in private for a moment?"

Feet shuffled as the medics and other various people exited the room, glancing between them with morbid curiosity. Finally, when the two of them were alone, the Doctor sighed and rubbed her forehead. Eli waited.

"Nothing is fractured, correct?" She continued to rub her forehead. Eliezer took his time, contemplating whether to completely ignore her or reply. He opted the latter would make this go quicker.

"No. Why do you care?"

"Because it's my job to care," she snapped, and sank into the chair in front of him. He glared at her, the answer riling up a special sort of spite within him.

"Did you care that Ame died a few hours ago, or did you start to care when people could see you?"

"Stop it, Eliezer," she snapped again, her voice sharper. Eli clenched his fists, but she plowed on before he could reply. "Tell me how you bruised your shoulder like that."

"It's none of your business," he snapped back, every syllable louder than the last.

"Then, since you won't tell me, tell me when the last time you've slept."

Eli paused, suddenly taking notice of the exaustion in his limbs. It had always been there, but the adrenaline of the last few hours had made him forget about it. The events of the previous night roiled through him, and a newfound wave of fear and dread hit his chest. He opted to not speak this time.

"Well," the Doctor said after a long stretch of silence, when it became obvious that Eli was not going to respond. She glanced down at her watch. "Wait another hour or so and see if your concussion progresses. I'll send a doctor to check up on you then. After that, please go to sleep, Eliezer."

And with that, the Doctor stood, and left the small medical room without another word.