Experiment Number One
CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The news in question did prove me wrong, but I can’t say it was any less heartbreaking.

When Ren and I got into the lab, he guided me straight back into the meeting room, where Doctor Taylor sat with a grim look on her face. In contrast, my back straightened a little when I realized my siblings weren’t there getting cut into. But I knew that didn’t put me in the clear. Also, the look on Doctor Taylor’s face was scaring me a bit. That was the most emotion I got out of her besides her staring at me like a fantastical element. When Ren sat beside her and me across from them, I noticed they immediately mirrored each other. Slumped eyebrows, droopy eyes, and down-turned lips. How Ren changed from being so happy and giddy just ten minutes ago into acting like he’s attending a funeral, I didn’t know.

Then they began to speak.

When they relayed the news, I felt the same heartbreak from all the times my mother would push me away. When she would stumble home with the moon in her eyes, she could barely stand up on her own. When she would snap at me when I was just trying to help.

It was just as devastating when my father would be gone for hours at a time, leaving me alone with my estranged mother and young siblings. I felt the same heartbreak when my father was home, and he spent the time ignoring his children, focusing his attention on the T.V. When he would get in his moods and punch a hole in the wall, or my mother.

But the worst part was, with all the feelings I held inside from my childhood, nothing was worse than the day I lost my siblings. The pain stimulating my entire body as I was dragged away from them. The hurt in my heart when I realized they no longer trusted me. The agony when I realized I failed them just as my parents did me.

And somehow, what Doctor Taylor had told me felt worse. I felt like I was being burned alive at the stake for my crimes. The village took turns slicing my skin open, each one deeper than the other. All air was stripped from my body, leaving my lungs to shrivel until they folded into themselves and disappeared altogether.

Lieutenant Wallace…

They told me that Lieutenant Wallace was bitten by an Infected at daybreak. He went into the restricted chamber unauthorized and got trapped. They showed me camera footage of him in a cell, lying in a corner, twitching, groaning, and weeping.

The image shattered my being; he was in pain, and it was my fault. It was my fault, and I had to do something about it before he got worse and turned into one of them. But he was already in the early stages. And I knew deep in my heart there was only one thing I could do to save him.

“We developed a method that we believe is going to work to cure the Infected. It’s risky. You might not survive it, but your sacrifice will not only save Lieutenant Wallace but the world.”

I didn’t even have to think about what Doctor Taylor was proposing.

“I’m in.”