“November…I believe it is the twenty-fifth of twenty-thirty-eight? No, possibly the 10th. I’m not sure. I’m going off of my previous logs. Are those dates even correct? I believe so… yes they should be. Who cares. These logs are just…therapy. I’m just talking alone to myself, hoping all of this might make sense one day.
“I found the body. Sorry, to clarify, Imelda’s body was in the cell with that boy. I suppose Ellie took it upon herself to finish the job behind my back. When she had locked me in that room, I stayed there for at least a couple of hours. I didn’t question what Ellie had done to her, but then again, it’s not like she lied to me. I just never asked, and she never mentioned it.
“I vomited in the hall the moment I saw her. Fuck I-I-I just couldn’t bear to see such a lovely woman decay in a place like this.
“I can’t sleep. The medication doesn’t work anymore, no matter how much I take. I’ve taken much more than prescribed. Maybe…maybe I was hoping that I wouldn’t wake up. I’m desperate, but I know sleeping medication wouldn’t do that. And I wouldn’t ask one of the 09s to…well, there’s only one 09 left. There’s no easy way out of this. How many more victims were there? How many more bodies is she hiding from me? I knew this project meant a lot to her, but she’s lost her mind.
“And that offer she gave to me the other day when I was talking to Imelda. I don’t know. Even though I don’t know the extent of this mess Ellie made, no one would believe me if I said so. I’m already too deep. What do I do?”
“Oh my goodness, wh-what are you doing here?” Lily yells, tugging on the zip tie. “How did you get out? What are you doing in our flat?!”
Imelda’s joy buzzes in the back of my mind, allowing a slight sigh of release to escape my mouth. Could they be considered friends? Focus! I ignore her questioning as I scramble to find some sort of way to get her out. Nothing in the room could be used as a weapon or help me get Lily out of the ties. Maybe if I break the bed frame, I could slide her out of the bar.
With a quick kick, I try to break the bedframe’s bar. It obviously doesn’t snap; I forgot to consider it’s metal. Lily grabs me by the arm as she stutters with haste, “I hid a scalpel in my drawer!”
“Which?” I sign.
She scans the drawer for a bit, trying to re-trace her memory, but stutters, “I-I don’t remember. It’s been a while”
I attempted to hunt through the drawers for the scalpel, but whoever put their clothes in here was clearly not too organized, as they filled this drawer with balls of shirts to the brim. Some t-shirts with the lab’s logo at the bottom are neatly folded, while others are messily stuffed in; I can barely open the drawer more than a couple of inches. With quick tugs, I pull the knots of clothes out of the tight furniture and begin to pile them on the floor. The first drawer, now emptied, only shows itself to be wrinkled clothing. Nothing here that could help.
With all my force, I yank open the second drawer, and the clothes again hold it shut. I don’t have time to reorganize their clothing or go through and pull out every t-shirt, Malva can be here any moment! I put my foot up against the drawer and again tug it with full force. The drawer comes off the railing, and the compartment shatters on the floor. I roughly cycle through the clothing, finding nothing useful once again.
I reach for the third drawer, expecting the clothing to hold the compartment shut once again. The drawer opens with a violent jerk, and I lose my balance as it flies off the track. The inside is filled with nice blouses and pants, mainly business attire with suits and ties. I flip it over and dump the clothes on the floor, kicking them around to ensure nothing is hidden. Large and petite suit pants and jackets fly around the room and collect with the other piles, but nothing is found again.
I open the last drawer with haste but not nearly as strong as the first two drawers. It’s just an underwear drawer with large cups and padless sports bras. Rummaging through the clothes, I toss underwear onto the rest of the pile.
A cold metal glides over my hand as I continue tossing them on the floor. I whip my head around and look down to see something silver shining in the cloth mountain. Digging my hands in, I pull out the hidden scalpel.
“Yes, yes, yes! B-but I don’t understand! What are you doing here? Where’s Dr. Malva?” I fumble my way over to her and cut the ties off her wrist; Lily’s perplexed look slightly eases with relief. “Thank you!” she exclaims, rubbing her slender wrist. Her face drops in pure terror; grabbing my shoulders, she yells, “Jada, please, you need to tell me right now! Where is Ellie?!”
“Ellie?” I sign.
“Ellie! You know!” her words stammer around, she tries to hurry her train of thought, “Dr. Malva! Where’s Dr. Malva!?”
“On her way,” I sign.
“She’s what!?”
“She’s coming for me,” my head begins to go light from the blood loss as I rush through my sloppily done signs, “I ran from my cell, and she was chasing me. She’s close.”
Lily’s face drains of color as she whimpers, “Oh dear.” The room spins around me as I rock in place; my head begins to pound. Lily’s fragile hand takes some of the blood off of my head, gasping, “What happened? My goodness, you’re bleeding from the head! Malva can’t see you like this.” She grabs a t-shirt from the mountain and places it on my head; guiding my hand to it, she presses the wound down. My brain pulses against my skull in a blistering headache, and my sight makes Lily’s frightened face appear double. The room’s dim lighting becomes blinding.
“Jada, s-she’s going to kill you!” her voice is distant in my right ear and silent in the left, “I don’t know how you got out before, but you got lucky. Now get out of here! Here!” She pulls out a metal key from her lab coat, it has a green dot of nail polish messily streaked on the top. “I was going to use it to get out, but I believe you need it more.” She grabs my hand and puts it in, closing my fingers around it, “This is for the elevator. Put this in the panel and get out of here! Get some help!” She grabs my wrist and begins to tow me towards the exit.
I pull out of her grip, questioning, “You’re coming?”.
“Jada. I’m sorry,” Lily chokes, once again gripping me and towing me by the wrist, “I can hold off Dr. Malva on my own, but she is going to try to kill you any chance that she gets. I’m not leaving you here with her; you need to take this chance to get out while you can. I’ll do my best to come back to you.” My thoughts are too scrambled to process what is going on. Is this a goodbye?
“I can’t leave her behind,” thinks Imelda, “She’s lying. Malva tried to kill her in the hall, and she’ll kill her here when she gets the chance.”
That’s not true. Malva hesitated to kill Lily for a while, but she didn’t think twice about putting a hole through my leg. I hate to have to leave her behind, but I don’t have a choice.
We stop in the middle of the living room as it falls silent, allowing the room to fill with the noise of an all too familiar heel just outside the hallway. Lily’s gentle hand turns into a lake of sweat, and my entire body goes stiff. My heart drops as my head throbs harder than ever. It's too late.
She’s here.
“Jada,” Malva rumbles and heaves from just beyond the door. It glides open, framing Malva’s mutilated body while she stands still for a moment that feels like an eternity. She catches me in her gaze, and holds me in a stare with her hand clamped around the gun. The trail of blood leading down the hall puddles underneath the gaping hole left in her foot, her knee shaking on the verge of collapsing in on itself.
Malva’s mangled fingers hold open the door, twisted and snapped in every wrong direction. The knuckle of her middle finger bends backward, and a half-broken nail points toward the ceiling. Her pointer finger’s nail peels off of the skin, revealing the raw flesh bleeding underneath. The bone between her knuckle and nail crookedly bends outward on the verge of penetrating the skin, adding an additional third knuckle to her finger. Tears build at the edge of her eyes from the excruciating pain, but rage keeps her standing.
Malva stares me down, “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? How long it took to perfect that series?”
Lily steps in front of me, covering me with the arm she had previously torn to shreds through the glass window. “Keep pressure on your head Jada,” she mumbles.
Malva looks Lily in the eyes, “Oh, it seems like you’re out of your room. How surprising.” Malva’s hand grips the gun even tighter, and disappointment smears across her face, “And now you’re protecting the experiments?” She stumbles her way in, trying not to drop weight on the foot that previously held in the iron. A trail of blood seeping behind her is accommodated with the blood dripping from her disfigured hand. “God, will you ever make up your mind?”
“What happened to you?” Lily groans.
“What happened?” Malva questions back. “I think it’s obvious what that bitch did to me.” She raises her gun, taking aim at me and commanding, “Move.”
“Enough!” screams Lily, Malva jolts. “That’s enough!” Lily continues, “I’m not going to let you hurt her! This needs to stop now!”
I’ve always known her as Malva’s sidekick, following her orders and walking two steps behind her at all times. What changed? Something in her eyes screams that she has had enough. Even Imelda sees her as unrecognizable with this newfound confidence. A weight lifts off of my shoulders hearing Lily speak up against Malva like this, and some part of me wants to believe that maybe this risk was worth it.
Her act of heroism is futile; hidden under a cold stare, Malva’s rage burns even worse. Her hand is just itching to fire that last bullet through my head, but I know she can’t, not without seriously injuring Lily. “Please,” Lily chokes up, “I don’t want to die, you don’t want to die, none of us want to die like this! Please just let us go, at the very least, let her go,” she points at me with her other arm, “you still ha-”
“Coroz?” Malva interrupts, her teeth grinding in pain.
“Yes! You still have him, please just,”
“Coroz betrayed me too,” Malva says, tightening her grip on the gun. “He has been playing his own game this entire time, toying with us right under our noses. Right under my nose! I caught him trying to escape with that brat you’re defending.”
“Did you…did you kill him too?” Lily cries.
“No. No, I can’t. He’s successful, and we need to keep those two alive. But Jada-“ Malva stares straight into my eyes, “- that fucking experiment you’re hiding behind your back. She destroyed series ten.”
“What?” Lily gasps, her voice slightly breaking.
“Jenny. It’s gone.”
“I-I-I,” Lily stutters, looking back at me.
These last couple of hours, maybe days, I’ve always thought about how my actions would affect Malva; but I never thought about how destroying those chips would affect Lily. Imelda clouded my judgment and made me focus so much on Malva that I forgot Lily is also a part of this. As much as I hate to admit it, Malva hardly ever worked alone. I didn’t stop to think how this would affect our allyship. Tears fill the edge of Lily’s eyes as she second-guesses her decision, hesitating to keep her arm up. “Is series nine all that’s left? Aren’t there other chips?”
“She destroyed them all!” Malva snaps as her cold, emotionless stare fades to anguish. “Years Lily! Years down the drain because of that ignorant brat you choose to defend! Every day you chose these test subjects over me. You forget what we did…together! Fucking pretending like it didn’t happen!”
“It’s not like that Elli-“
“Of course not! Because it’s clear how you see me. You pretend you’re the hero who is going to save everyone, and I’m just the villain you have to deal with.”
“Ellie,” Lily whimpers.
“Am I wrong? After all we’ve been through, you’re going to tell me that I’m wrong?”
“I’m sorry, alright!” Lily snaps back. She puts her arm down to push me further behind her lean body. “I’m sorry for what I did, but you must understand my intentions. You have to understand tha-”
“Your intentions to kill us?” criticizes Malva.
“N-no,” stumbles Lily, trying to keep a grip on her newfound confidence. “It wasn’t that. It’s just, I,” she stutters, wondering what won’t get either of us killed. “Please, let’s just end this.”
The room is suffocating, and the gun clatters with the beat of her heels as Malva begins to step closer to us. Lily and I slowly back up, my blistering head causing me to nearly trip on my own feet; we try to keep our distance from her, but she slowly closes the gap with every bloody stomp. “Ellie, please stay back. I truly don’t want to hurt you. Please!”
“You said you would stay till the end,” Malva says in a calm manner, her voice breaking at the verge of tears. She's not releasing Lily from her stare.
“I-I know what I said but-”
“‘Till the end, Jenny!” Malva bursts out in the rawest display of pure misery I’ve ever seen. A tear of frustration runs down her face and drops into the trail of blood.
“I know what I said!” Lily repeats back, “but that was before-”
“Before what?!” Malva interrupts, “Before I ‘lost my marbles,’ as you say? Well, guess what, Jenny! I’m not the one who chooses to bury their past by blaming someone else! You pile your baggage on me to make you feel better about yourself, and that’s not right! Do you want to know why? Because I wasn’t the only one, Jenny! You know that, don’t you?! I wasn’t the only one who started this, and you can’t hide what you did. What we did!” she begins to laugh maniacally as the last bit of her sanity she held slowly slides away from her. “I wasn’t the only one!” Malva continuously slips in between her laughs, tears streaming down her face. Malva forces out more laughter to cover up the sobs, doubling over while still holding the gun at our heads.
“Please, Ellie, look at yourself! You’re sick!” cries Lily. Malva’s eyes swiftly shoot up at us, causing us to gasp and jolt.
“Oh, I’m sick? I’m trying not to get us a life sentence! Or better yet, death row!” Her stumbles grow faster and crooked as her knee begins to give out. “We have no chance out there, and you know it. That’s why you made your choice back in December, wasn’t it?” Lily remains frozen in her tracks. Her previously held confidence completely slips away, allowing fear to lock her frozen in place. I tug her lab coat to get her to move, but it's no avail.
There’s no more hope left in her heart for Malva; the partner smiling in those photos all those years ago is gone. She’s been gone for a long time now, but it’s only now that Lily has finally realized who Malva is. The psycho she’s been dealing with for too long gradually limps forward.
Malva completely closes the gap between us and grabs Lily by the neck, making her gag while fidgeting to get out.
“I’m not the only villain here!” Malva yells, clenching her throat even tighter. Their height difference allows Malva to force Lily to look up as she maniacally laughs, “You’re just as ‘sick’ as me. You started all of this with me! So if you’re going to go against me like you’re the hero you pretend to be, fine! I’ll play my part too. I’ll kill you,” she growls, her laughter fades away, “I’ll kill both of you. But I need to get rid of the pest first.” Her eyes slide to meet mine.
I’m in no condition to fight her; I can barely stand still without nearly falling back and cracking my head more; but I know if I just stand here, I’m dead meat. Lily was a good guard for how hard she tried, but she can no longer protect me. I let go of her coat and run around to the back of the TV for shelter.
Malva releases Lily’s throat with a violent toss, causing her to gasp and cough for air. Malva attempts to follow me, but Lily pulls herself together and grabs her by the ankle. She flails to the floor, and the gun flies from her grip towards me. I need to get that gun away from her if I want a sliver of a chance to get out.
Stumbling my way back around the TV, I kick the gun across the room and watch Malva furiously limp and get on her feet. I freeze in my step as she locks me in her stare.
Her fist clashes against the side of my head in one quick swing, causing a ring in my ear. The key to the elevator, as well as the blood-soaked t-shirt, flies out of my hand; I try to fumble after them but trip over my own feet and find myself leaning against a wall. Overwhelming drowsiness dawns over me, and the room’s dim lighting burns my eyes as though I am standing in front of the sun. I try to stand without leaning against the wall, but my feet take two steps one way only to trip four steps in the opposite direction. My knees collapse under me while my back grinds against the wall. Without even realizing it, I’m once again sitting on the floor, unable to get up without falling to my knees again. I try to push myself up with my arms, but every muscle in my body gives out when I try to use them.
Through the blinding light, I watch as Malva lunges for the gun, Lily following soon after. They both get a good grip on it, wrestling for a couple of seconds before the gun slips out of their grasp. Blow after blow, Lily tries to keep Malva bound to her, pulling and punching to keep her close.
“Jada!” Lily yells, “Go! Get out of he-” Malva delivers a devastating punch to Lily’s thin cheeks, sending her spiraling. I can't see the key to the elevator anywhere nearby. Maybe it slid under the couch or a table? However, I see the gun two feet away from me.
I crawl over, my vision still doubled, and grab it off the floor. I aim for the turmoil between Lily and Malva but accidentally grab Lily’s attention.
“Jada, put down the gun,” Lily commands. My vision begins to straighten out, Malva turns around but shows no signs of fear.
I aim at her. Once again, I can’t help but be hesitant.
“You wouldn’t.” Malva says, stern but cautious, “You couldn’t do it with the blank. What makes you think you can do it now?” She takes a step forward, and I jolt. Her movements stop as she’s frozen in her step. “Or is Imelda finally going to take control?” Malva questions. “Do you think either of you have the guts to pull that trigger?”
She's right. Back then, I stopped Imelda, but that was only because I thought I was doing something right by not killing her. I thought, maybe, I could’ve been better than everyone else by being a pacifist in a building full of tormentors. Come to think of it, am I truly any better? I betrayed Coroz, leaving him for dead. I stabbed Malva in the foot after destroying as much of her life’s work as possible. I may not have killed someone, but that doesn’t make me any better than them.
Imelda’s hand presses down on my shoulder as her presence reappears behind me. Her hand lightly wraps around my own, lightly pulling down on the trigger. The choice I made in the cafeteria wasn’t a mistake in hindsight. Shooting her would have led to me getting shot and proved how low I would go to get out of here. Listening to Imelda’s advice would have got me killed at that moment. Over and over again, Imelda has pushed me to do tasks that could have killed me. Trying to kill Malva, running out of the cell, and even destroying the chips in the lab have come back to bite me in the ass. Time and time again, it’s my choices that have kept me alive. As I feel the trigger getting weighed down by her finger, I once again contemplate if this is the right choice. For once, I finally know that this is the real deal. For the first time, a clear choice is to be made. No tricks, no questions. There are real bullets in this gun, and I can kill the person in front of me.
By killing Malva, I would be able to finish everything Imelda couldn’t. I would be able to avenge her death. But is revenge worth it? Blood would be on my hands, and for what? An eye for an eye? No, this is no time to try to be the bigger person. I need to throw morals out the window in a place like this. I don’t seem to have a choice. I never do. I need to go through with this.
Imelda’s voice reappears next to me, “Shoot.”
I just need to shoot the damn gun. Malva tries to get closer with caution, but I keep a death grip around the trigger.
“Jada, stop!” yells Lily. “Please don’t do this! W-We can figure something else ou-”
“Oh, will you just shut up!” commands Malva. She steps closer and closer; I begin to second-guess myself again. Do I really want to shoot? Lily’s right; this is just cold-blooded murder. Can I live with myself knowing that I took someone’s life? But then again, it would be the life of the person who destroyed me mentally and physically. She’s tortured me for an agonizing couple of months, and too many people have died in her lab. It’s also the person who murdered Imelda, forcing her to live in misery inside my chip.
How long will she continue this if I don’t end it now? How do I know that there are no other chips that I could have missed? That was one lab out of how many?
Imelda begins to push down on the trigger aggressively. I brace for her to merge her hand into mine again, but nothing happens. The hand on my shoulder tightens, and so does the one on my gun, but neither takes over. Her heavy breathing gets muffled out by my deaf ear, but she restrains herself from taking over my body.
“This is your choice,” she whispers. “I won’t force you.”
This is my choice—something inside my head clicks. Everything I’ve done…they were all my choice.
I chose to listen to Imelda. I chose to stab Malva in the foot. I chose to crush her hand in the door. I chose everything.
The only time I didn’t choose was when Coroz tricked me, but I did make a choice even then. I decided everything. I can choose not to shoot; maybe there’s a better choice.
“You don’t have the guts to actually kill me,” Malva says, “You know that just as well as I do. Neither does that poor scared woman stuck in your head. How sad-“ Imelda’s grip slightly slides into my hand, but she quickly pulls herself away. “Come on Imelda. An eye for an eye, isn’t that what you want?”
My hand is quivering, and I can’t think straight when it feels like my brain is pouring out of my skull. Come on! I need to pull myself together, just kill this psycho. If I don’t shoot, Imelda will, won’t she? I just need to shoot the gun! I can’t do it, can I? Yes, I can. I can just shoot.
I try to force myself to pull the trigger, and as much as Imelda adds pressure to the gun, something about this feels wrong. No, no, I can’t. I don’t want to live my life with the guilt of a merciless kill, but this place has no room for morals. I need to throw morality in the trash if I want to survive, just like Malva did. But if I do, am I any better than her? Killing without mercy, that’s what she’s been doing this entire time.
I wait for her hands to take over me with full force, bracing for the fight, but nothing occurs. The pressure on my shoulder and the gun release. Malva’s hand reaches over like a missile, “I knew you couldn’t.”
She grabs the gun's barrel and tries to rip it away from me, but naturally, I keep my clammy grip locked onto it. The barrel spins between our hands as we struggle; one moment, the singular bullet is facing me, and the next, it’s facing her. We both lose our grip, and the gun flies out of our hands.
We watch in shock as it slides across the floor over to Lily. She struggles to pick up the weapon but eventually firmly grasps it with both hands. She couldn’t possibly do it.
“What do you think you’re doi-?!”
Bang!
Lily stands paralyzed in shock as Malva’s lime green shirt bleeds into a dark red. Her wheeze fills the silence of the room as she curls up, covering the ever-growing red puddle on her shirt. Malva raises her hand to inspect the blood soaking her arm.
“You…you shot me?” she weeps as she falls to her knees.
“No!” Lily cries. She catches Malva in her arms, staring at the bullet wound. “No, wait! I-I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” She places her hand on the wound, “Oh god!” she sobs, scanning her quivering hand, covered in the blood of her old partner. Tears stream down as Malva begins to cough and wheeze. “I didn’t want it to end like this,” Lily says between her sobs. “Please, it can’t end like this! Please! Malva talk to me please wh-what can we do? I can take you to level five an-”
“Stop,” Malva mumbles. Lily’s blood-soaked hand covers her mouth, smearing her face with a red puddle; her sobbing is incomprehensible and grisly. She holds Malva’s dying body closer to her, letting the pool from the wound cover her shirt and coat.
I gradually try to get up from the floor, walk over to the t-shirt that previously held my head together, and press it against my wound as Lily recommended. It releases some of the pressure, but not enough to say that it’s alleviating the pain.
Malva looks calm, almost sorrowful. I look back at the wall of photos where her blood had splattered across the wholesome moments captured in the framed pictures. The residue from the brutal murder mainly covers their selfie as the droplets slide down their bright smiles. Lily’s sobbing hasn’t stopped; I’m afraid she will hyperventilate and maybe even pass out. I try to get close to comfort her, but Malva’s haunting eyes force me to keep my distance. Malva’s face shifts around as epiphany pops into her twisted head, and she pushes Lily’s shoulder with the energy she has left.
“Jenny. Imelda survived,” Malva wheezes.
“W-what?” Lily gasps, her head shooting me up and catching me in eye contact.
“She survived. Two consciousnesses can live inside one chip. Inter-Interpolation works, Lily.”
Lily wipes her tears with the side of her coat sleeve, “Right…interpolation.”
Lily tries to reject the idea out of her head but this may be her only choice.
“But we don’t have a tester. Do you have one?” Lily asks.
Malva nods her head, her eyes struggling to stay open. She reaches into her pocket and gasps, “Where is it?” I take a subtle glance into her pocket from a distance, only to find there’s nothing in there.
Lily looks up at my pants pockets, and her face lights up with hope; the long cord of the testers I picked up in the lab are sticking out. “Jada, what is that?”
I pull out the testers, and Lily reaches up to pull it out of my grasp. Without a second thought, I step out of her reach. I don’t like where this is going. Is she planning on reviving Malva? If that’s what she needs it for, I can’t give it.
“Please!” Lily begs. “I just need you to help me, Jada. I-I know you don’t want to help her,” I make eye contact with Malva, who’s staring me down as though she’s begging me to spare her, “but I would never, ever do anything that would hurt you on purpose. I promise you, if you help me, I’ll get you out of here. I’ll keep her under control, and she won’t ever hurt you again. Please give me the tester.”
I’m not exactly sure what this thing is capable of, but then again Lily has done nothing but care for me; even when she was under Malva’s foot, all she wanted was help.
I pity Lily. She’s trying to save her old partner from dying, but at the same time, her friend has tried to kill me multiple times. I know she has said it already, but I want to be sure. I sign, “Can she hurt me after this?”
“No,” Lily sobs; every second we spend talking is another second Malva is closer to death. “Please Jada! Trust me! She can’t hurt you after this. Please just help me!”
If I don’t give it over, I may as well have shot her myself. I don’t know much about these chips, but I am willing to trust Lily if it means I get out of here. If we get out of here.
For once, Imelda’s on the same page as she urges me to hand the tester over. However, something more sinister lies under her intentions, but she strays away from saying anything. This isn’t to save Malva. This is for revenge.
Two consciousnesses in one chip, just like Imelda and I. She wants Malva to be stuck in the same position she’s in: alive but not living. It’s a miserable hell and a better punishment than death.
I fall into Lily’s pitiful begging and hand the tester over to her. She stares at it for a few seconds, contemplating whether this is the right choice. Something is telling her not to go through with this; she switches between looking at the small devices and looking at me. “Please, I don’t want to die,” Malva cries. She wraps her bloody hand around Lily’s white coat sleeve. “Not like this.” She gently puts her hand on Lily’s face, crying, “Please don’t do this to me. I-“ she chokes up, and cries, “Don’t break my heart again.” Lily’s eyes widen, shock plastered on her face. Malva whimpers, “You moved on. I didn’t. I-” she coughs up some blood, “-I never lost that feeling. Please. I don’t want it to end like this either.”
“Alright,” whispers Lily. “Jada, go into my room and grab the tablet on top of the table.”
I enter the packed room where I found her and find a small tablet on top of the emptied-out wooden furniture.
It glows when I pick it up, with the message “Good evening, Dr. Lilywise!” and multiple green buttons spread across the bottom of the screen. I go back to the living room to notice Lily take off her lab coat.
She takes one of the testers, gently puts it on Malva’s ear, and gestures for her to sit up. Malva's cries of pain echo through the room as she forces her back to bend, allowing Lily to lift the back of her shirt and expose her spine, piercing out with the movement.
As Malva continues to bend, my skin crawls as I notice a small rectangular object prodding from the bone, pushing against the flesh with jagged edges. With a firm grip on the tester’s needle, Lily smoothly pierces it through her skin before hitting the object, then pushing it with some more force until it clicks into place. Malva releases a deep sigh of pain as she lays back down.
Looking at the second tester, Lily places the earpiece on her own ear and then looks at me. “Could you…assist me?” she asks.
The lump in my throat grows as I walk over to her, placing the tablet at her side. She puts the needle in my hand and says, “You saw how it must be done…right?”
I nod.
“Good. Be sure to aim for the center of the device.”
Lily lifts her shirt and bends over, exposing an even more visible spine. The device comes into view, and I place my hand on her shoulder. As I bring the needle closer to her back, another crawl of disgust flows through my body, causing me to hesitate. I force myself to continue, feeling the needle push the skin before puncturing. It eventually hits the hard device, and the tremble in my hand causes it to slip, gliding across a small hole. I continue searching for it, feeling the point of the needle scratch against the metal while the rest is held in place by the tension of the flesh. Eventually, it slips into the slot, and with a push, it clicks into place.
Lily sits upright and begins tapping choices on the tablet without saying a word. She then puts it down and looks at Malva in her dying eyes. Lily releases a deep sigh between her cry and says, “If this doesn't work…if you do die-”
“Just do it, ” commands Malva.
“I’m so sorry.”
She reaches over to the tablet and touches a button labeled “Begin” As the tablet turns to the loading screen, Malva suddenly falls unconscious. Her body suddenly goes limp, her face goes slack.
Lily releases one more tear and sighs, “Thank you,” just before she loses consciousness as well.
I capture Lily’s limp body in my arms; my heart is pounding out of my chest. Is she dead? I push my head up against her chest to listen in. No, she’s breathing, and her heart is still going.
Malva, on the other hand,. I can't stop staring at the dead body; the puddles of blood spilled all over the floor, splattered on the photos, and soaked in their clothes smell so metallic, I can almost taste it.
I stand alone in a room covered with murdered blood. My stomach turns and twists until I run over to the sink and release all the vomit that’s built up over these last couple of hours.
Malva’s dead.
I choke and gag every time I take a breath in. The smell is twisting me inside out, forcing my stomach to rumble in pain. The tears streaming down my face mix with the vomit pouring out of my mouth; this concoction of bodily fluids is clogging the crusted pipes. Every time another wave of vomit comes down, it splashes back into my face, causing me to gag again; I can’t breathe.
“Calm down,” thinks Imelda, “You’re going to suffocate yourself if you don’t stop.”
She’s right. I need to get a hold of myself and stop before I suffocate myself to death; I didn’t make it this far to die from something as stupid as that.
I turn away from the sink, trying not to think about the wretched smell and sight of my stomach acid spread across the sink. I turn the faucet on and wait for the small stream to push the vomit down the drain. After turning it off, I walk towards the grotesque scene which holds Lily’s unconscious body on the floor. I need to leave this dungeon, but I can’t leave everyone here: Lily, that little girl, whoever else is here. I can’t, but I also can’t get everyone out alone. I don’t know how to open all of the cells. Imelda also doesn’t know either and never made it this far to figure it out. Only Lily does. Plus, I’m pretty sure Imelda is not willing to abandon Lily down here. At the end of the day, she’s both of our allies.
I put down the t-shirt on my head to attempt to pick up Lily. She’s surprisingly heavy for how skinny she is, or I’m getting weaker from starvation and general exhaustion. Eventually, I give up attempting to fully lift her and begin dragging her by the arms until I reach her room. In one large heave, I’m able to lift her high enough to place her down on the bed. I’ll have to wait until she regains consciousness so we can get out of this hell hole.
Until then, I need to rest somewhere to recover my energy. I don’t want to go back to my cell or Coroz’s, and I also don’t want to sleep in the living room; solely because I’m not going to be the one who moves Malva’s body. I’m also not going to enter Malva’s room. The idea of sleeping in a bed she was once in makes me want to throw up whatever is left in my hungry stomach.
There is some room next to Lily on the bed, and I want to stay with her until she's awake. I push her unconscious body to one side of the queen bed and lay my aching body down on the small leftover space.
Even though Lily isn’t awake, she still holds this soft look to her. I wonder if she were awake, would she be comforting me in any way? Possibly telling me that everything would be alright? I put my head in between her armpit to use it as a pillow and wrap my arm around her stomach as though I’m five years old, holding onto my mama after having a nightmare.
Although, this isn't a nightmare. This is my reality. The reality is that I just witnessed a murder and that I’m on the same floor level as a rotting body. The warm blood on Lily’s shirt soaks into my skin; the moist cloth wraps itself around me and clings on when I try to move. My arm trembles in the puddle, and the gunshots ring in my ears over and over again, reminding me of everything that I have witnessed within these past couple of hours: getting my hand burned, that little abused girl, getting shot in the leg, the sick test in the cafeteria, meeting one of my kidnappers, meeting a second consciousness in my head, remembering Imelda’s death, and Malva getting shot in front of me.
Lily’s synthetic hug keeps me bound from having the worst panic attack of my life. The room closes on me, but her fabricated embrace keeps me from breaking down and letting the room collapse.
Something about this feels wrong. I know this hug isn’t real. I made this hug on my own. Now that I think about it, she’s never hugged me once in her life. It’s always been a shoulder hold but never a full hug. I wonder, does she care for me enough to hug me? Or is this just a fantasy I’m hoping is real in this isolated building, disconnected from the world? I hope so. Deep inside, I hope she can give me a genuine hug one day. Not one that is asked for or made up. A hug one friend could give to another. She’s the only person I have physically in front of me right now, and something tells me I can’t let her go. Imelda feels the same way, too. They did hug a long time ago, but it’s been an eternity since then. Am I stupid enough to even call her a friend? Maybe, but would it be that bad of a mistake? I don’t know anymore.
Malva’s face glares towards the door; although her eyes are closed, I can still feel them staring at me. But I’m not going to move it, and I don't want to touch her warm skin. I don't want to look over at her in fear that she would just spring up and try to kill me once more, but for some reason, I can’t pry my eyes off of her. My throbbing head is calling me to fall asleep, but I don’t want to risk causing damage to my brain.
I’m alone with my thoughts and Malva’s body. Now, what do I do?