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 I have been here for weeks. It's different from the place I grew up in. I have no idea who took me or why. They keep telling me I am special, special how? I miss my friends at the old place, where I got to associate with people my age. Here I have not had any contact since they came for me. 

 

 ?Why am I here?? I asked.

 ?You know why,? the lady responds, she is not in the room she is watching through the cameras. 

 ?Why won't you let me go??

 ?In all due time sweetheart?

 

  It must be night time already, I can hear the guy who brings the pills and food coming down the hall. I know I am not the only one here because I can hear as he opens and closes each of their doors.

 

 One.  Two. Three. Wait. I don't hear the third door. 

Tonight is meatloaf.

?Why didn't the third door get food??  he ignored my question.

 

 

   It has been a few days since I asked about the third door. Every couple days they bring me to a room to run some type of tests for us. The lady says that they are not tests but I beg to differ. The room seemed different today, colder, brighter. I noticed a few differences from last time there was a chair with straps on it. A hat with thirteen wires coming out of it hooked to a computer. 

 

 As I sat in the chair she began asking me questions. The questions were so boring, unworthy of an answer. 

?What happened to the person behind door three?? i could not control myself 

?What person?

?Every time someone brings food or medicine to me I hear three doors open before mine, I only hear two now. What happened to the person?

  Glaring at me she finally replies,? that person? They simply was not special enough to be here,?

 What the hell does that even mean? And why do these people want special people? What the hell do they mean by special? 

?That is enough talking for now, youll go back to your room after they give you a shot.? 

 Two guys started walking towards me, they strapped me to the chair and injected me with something that looked goopy, clumpy, red vibrant.

 

  I woke up a while later in my room again. Something about what they injected me with feels weird, extremely weird. I can barely keep my eyes open.

 

 ?Do you think it will work?? I hear someone in the room with me. I don't recognize the voice.

 ?I hope so, she seems so promising.? I recognize this voice; it's the one who I talk to every few days. I think her name is Mary. yes it's Mary

?You better hope so Mary, this is your last chance,? I felt a needle in my arm and I drifted back to sleep. 

 

 

I woke up to red lights and the siren going off. Mary warned me about the siren. This could only mean danger. Someone was trying to get in. or out i guess.

  I remember mary telling me that if something like this were to happen i should meet everyone in the medical room. This was the first time i was able to go anywhere without an escort though. I noticed the locks on my door were simple. I see the others coming out of door one and two. I know them it's Rake and Mindy. ?Rake! Mindy!? I shouted as I ran to them.?I am glad to see you again!? They were my friends. I thought I would never see them again.

 ?Andi!? they both said excitedly as they ran towards me.

 

 We started to walk to the medical room. As we discovered this is the first time we were able to do anything without being escorted.  I saw the medical room door but what I guess I have never noticed before was the door to the left, it seemed so out of place. Why have I never noticed it? A slight off grey color, with a hint of blue in the color. The doorknob didn't even have a lock. Is that a way out of here?

 

I haven't told anyone except the few friends I trusted. I so desperately wanted to be out in the real world, not a boxed one i am in now. 

 

 ?Andi, if this door leads to freedom i want out? without saying anything other than that i saw Mindy run through the door. 

 

 ?Rake. I don't know what to do here. Do I go into the room with everyone or leave out the same door as mindy? `` I wanted to go with Mindy but I still wanted to find out what happened to the third person.   

 

 ?There is a few questions i want these people to answer before i can leave, trust me Andi there is a few things that are different here then there were at the other place, we will know if mindy is safe, just like with Jay? Rake calmly said as he walked into the room i followed behind.

 

 Jay, why would he mention him. He left the other place months before we did, does he mean that Jay is safe? That he is okay? If he is, I have to find him. I was so heartbroken about him leaving. He was my rock, the one who showed me all the ropes. 

 

  ?Congrats guys, I'm glad you made it. You now have shown me you are trustworthy. Unlike the others.' Mary says, the others? Does she mean mindy? Jay? Was Jay here?

 

?What will happen to mindy?? I asked. 

 

?Nothing for you to worry about. She won't last out there for long.'' Mary sat Rake and I down and we had a talk. 

 

  Now Rake and I are able to come to the medical room together.  They seem to trust us more. She told me we have more ?freedom' . I don't dare question anymore tonight.

 

As we are escorted back to the rooms, ?this isn't the way back to our rooms? I say.

 

?No you are going to the other rooms, less security. More freedom. Like I said ``I did not quite believe her when she said it was more freedom.

 

 

 As I settled into this room I noticed a window, not looking outside but looking into the other room, where Rake was. 

 

 They brought us dinner and medicine. As I went to take the medicine I heard a voice in my head, ?don't take it, pretend Andi please you'll understand' . The voice sounded like rake so I obliged and hid the pills.  After the guy left, I began to eat. Tonight was chicken, not my favorite but at least they fed us. 

 

 ?Andi, i know you can hear me'

 

 ?How?? i said out loud, 

?Don't speak out loud, just think of me, and speak to me in your mind' so I did and he told me everything about the reason we are special. Why wasn't he worried of mindy. Or Jay. 

 If i think of mindy or Jay i can feel their hearts beating i can communicate with them. 

 

 I spoke with Jay and he told me everything that has happened to him. He was the one behind door three. He got out the same way mindy did, only he could do certain things we all can. He made his heart stop; they thought he had died when he didn't. The shots they've been giving us have been each other's blood to see if we can handle each other's abilities. Us four were the only ones who could. 

 

  So many failed attempts so many people didn't make it . 

 

 That night we all came up with a plan. The left could lead to real freedom, but with lots of chaos the right nowhere, but to being trustworthy, and helping the very people who used us for experiments. It became very clear which I should choose. 

 

 Over the next few weeks after all the injections and questions. I quit taking the medicine, everything became more clear to me.  

 

 Jay has grown a lot in his powers. He tells us how to grow ourselves and is training us to fight every night. Sometimes it is scary that I will be caught and forced to take the medicine. Which turns out were suppressants and not medicine at all; they didn't want us to learn how to use these abilities.

 

  It had been roughly two or three months since mindy left and today they brought both rake and i to the medical room.

 

 ?Rake, Andi. we have decided it was finally time for you to learn the truth about why you are here.?   ?don't believe her' rake said 

?You will stop taking medicine beginning now, and in a few days you will come here everyday at dawn to train until midday?  'she's going to let us train though' i said to rake ?for now go back to your rooms.? 

 

 

 ?She is just trying to get you to trust her andi, she must know we have already started to train' rake begged me not to trust her.

 

 Mary was so mice, yea she has been experimenting on us but she came forward and told the truth that  must count for something right?

 

 ?Jay help me tell her not to trust mary' rake pleaded

 

?He's right andi, you can't trust her no matter what' Jay's voice was the last thing I heard before falling asleep.

 

It's been a few days since the conversation. The alarm was going off again. I saw rake and we walked to the medical room which was a little closer this time. ?Come with me andi this is our only chance'

 Rake said,  and he knows i haven't decided on which way to go. 

 

 ?Andi i know you want to ask them questions, you want to know why. We all want to know why. But i rather us be together then apart, i miss you so much andi. You are my best friend, my little sister, please andi ? Jay says I toned everyone out. And they knew it they felt me cover my mind. 

 

 Rake opened the left door and glanced back at me and begged me with his eyes to go with him. I shook my head and he continued through the door.

 

 It seemed like an eternity had passed as I continued to the door, only a few seconds had gone by and I walked through the door. It wasn't what I expected, not that I had expected much. With little knowledge of the world. It was dark, I saw trees everywhere, woods. We were in the middle of a forest and I heard the sound of a waterfall nearby. Up ahead I can see rake, mindy, and ?Jay!? I screamed. There  is someone else? I can't quite make out who it is.

 

  I got a little closer. I could see the red curly locks of the hair, the pale fair skin, the green ivory eyes, her freckles across her nose, it was mary. ?Mary?? I asked as I got closer. 

 

 ?We don't have time, we have to get to the safe house, Jay, get Andi, let's go. Nice to see you again rake follow me everyone. Andi you'll understand soon enough.?  I saw what looked like wings spring from everyone's back, including rakes as Jay carried me to the safehouse.

 

   ?I am so glad you chose this way andi, i am not Mary, I am her sister Beth.? As we settled in the safe house I opened my mind and searched her mind,?you can search all you want i was her first experiment, mary is not evil, just misguided. She was jealous that i had these abilities and she doesn't i was born with it, she wasn't it has been her life's work to get some ability to be equal to me? 

  And on some level it has been made since. 

 

You stand before a hallway wedged between two doors. Another open hallway stands behind you. Do you go: left, right, forward, back?

 

Left

You decide to turn left. There is an empty hall with no windows and no doors. The floor is grass?real grass, with occasional bald patches of soil. The soil is damp and the air smells fresh. Daisies and petrichor and a gentle breeze on your cheeks. You reach the end of the hall, but there's nothing else.

You turn back and return to where you began. The idea of nature inside a place like this, that the room somehow captured sunlight and the way linen sheets feel fresh out of a dryer. You return to the room. It's so pleasant that you are satisfied with the simple pleasures within. But you are forgetting something, aren't you? Something else? Your stomach pains with...something? But if this room cannot provide whatever it is, then it must not be important. This is where you suffocate on your own joy.

FIN

 

Right

What if you'd turned right? 

You decide to try, but your body will not pivot in that direction. However, you are determined, and so you turn in a circle to the left until you are pointed in the correct direction. Here, there is a short corridor with walls painted a pleasant pistachio and you think maybe you will paint your whole house this color when you get back there. The corridor ends with a golden spiral staircase below a stained-glass ceiling. You hear pigeons outside, and you can see their silhouettes as they fly past the stained-glass.

Down, down, down you go. The stairs are buffed and shiny as though brand new, but the lower you go the more the walls show their true age. Soon, it's gone dark. There's a thick, clunky flashlight in a receded hole in the wall. You take it and turn it on. You look behind you but the stairs have disappeared. You must go further down. The flashlight's beam only goes so far. You have no choice but to continue. You must keep going, down, down, down. You hit a stone landing and there is another pocket in the wall. This one holds a key and a map. You think that is horribly cliché and leave them there out of spite. The stairs are now stone like the landing. Two more steps and you turn back to get the key and map, just in case, but they are gone.

 

Do you: sit down and cry to yourself? 

OR

Keep going?

 

Keep going

These stairs aren't going to get the best of you, so you keep going further down. The flashlight begins to flicker, and then cuts out completely. You smack it against the heel of your hand and the sound reverberates. Smack. Smack. Slice. The metal base is old and it catches on your skin. You are bleeding in a strange dark stairway and you turn to go back up but there is a solid stone wall at your back. You continue down, down, down, guiding yourself with your hand on the wall. One more step and the ground drops out from under you. You tumble through the air, and keep tumbling and tumbling and tumbling and tumbling...

FIN

 

Sit down and cry

There's nothing else to do but lament your situation. You go over all the steps it took to get here, all the bad decisions that seemed good at the time, all the advice you should have considered. You fall asleep when the tears run out, clutching the flashlight to your chest like a security blanket.

 

You wake up in your bed five days ago. You step out of bed and trip over something?the flashlight. It rolls under the bed, and when you reach to pull it out, the cover comes loose. You pull it off and inside you find the key and map. Suddenly you're standing in a doorway? [RETURN TO TOP]

 

Forward

The path in front is the most straightforward. The walls are lined with mirrors, and the hall ends in a beautiful cherry wood door. As you walk, you catch your reflection. You are ageing. Slowly, at first, then more rapidly. You think you should run but your limbs are creaking, and your back begins to curl over itself. Slowly, slowly you make your way. 

The door at the end of the hall sounds as though it is singing. Not like there is someone on the other side, but like the door itself yawns and the clearest notes you've ever heard vibrate through your skull. Something waits for you there, something beckons.

The walls are still lined with mirrors but now turning would pang through your neck and down your spine, and you know what you will see. Maybe turning back would have the opposite effect, but you must know what's behind the door. You continue, propping yourself up against the wall. You reach out your hand, skin translucent and paperthin, bruises covering your arm, and reach for the knob. Before you do, the door opens and Death welcomes you in for tea.

FIN

 

Backward

Backwards takes you to your own bedroom. Before any adventure had a chance to begin, you've returned to a comfortable life. You close the bedroom door behind you and return to your laundry, carefully separated by color. Tomorrow you'll make some egg salad and maybe if you're feeling dangerous you'll add extra mustard. Evenings pass in your easy chair, guessing the answers on syndicated game shows from fifteen years ago. 

When you die many years later, you leave behind a library full of dog-eared travel books that never left the house. You woke often in the middle of the night thinking of a room with doors and hallways and choices, and you think about which you would have chosen, given the chance. You like to imagine there was a way to choose them all. You fall back asleep considering what could be on the other side of a closed door. 

Someone finds you after you've begun to decay, destroying the easy chair's upholstery. There is a stone where your heart once was. You are buried in the city in an unmarked grave, still dreaming of choices left behind.