Andromeda

Chapter Five, Norma Correctional Academy

Everything returned to normal, somehow. I attended classes as usual. I ignored Altair's presence as he ignored mine and I tried to focus more. I wanted to commit harder to my studies. Nothing is wrong with me, but if there is I'll be sure to overcome it.

The only thing that's different is that I sat alone in the dining hall. Not that I was excluded, but I chose not to surround myself by the ill-intentioned liars who have harmed me. I refused to speak to anyone that I didn't need to. It was torture, truly, but I can't let their devilish ways influence me.

The familiar yelling of the Headmistress, calling for our rising, returned. The door busted open, a scare to us all. A guard, it was, eyeing the room.

"Evangeline Vega for testing."

My heart's beating was stunted. I unhooked the canopy, shielding my face from anyone who resided on the other side. I curled up and the shaking of my left hand was harsher than ever before.

Mallory never returned.

"Where is Evangeline?" I noticed Charlotte's shadow covering my canopy.

"Evangeline isn't here." She said.

"I see her. These tests are mandatory, don't disobey the Headmistress by trying to get out of them." The guard grabbed my wrist and pulled me from my mattress.

"That's not her!" Charlotte tried to convince the guard.

I began to scream and squirm, I tried to escape his grasp. I bit on his arm, attempting to draw blood.

"She's insane!"

"Stop, don't take her!" Charlotte begged. "Stop!" Guards rushed into aid; I was restricted at each limb as I was taken over to an unseen part of the school. Labs upon labs filled my vision. My body was shaking as they finally let me go and put me down. The moment I was set down, I ran for the door.

"Grab the rope!" It wasn't quick until I got forced back into the chair, only to be tied to it. I was tightly bound; tears ran down my cheeks. Nurses entered, different from the one's in the nursing office. They were older, more serious.

"We almost don't need to do the testing." One said. "She can easily be deemed psychotic."

"Let's not go that far, psychotic patients are rarer around here." Another spoke, she examined my body and wrote on her pristine clipboard. They didn't even talk to me. They referred to me by a number and poked syringes into me without warning. They drew blood, and a lot of it. It filled vials that were stored with many other vials of blood.

'Ruby Castro' One of the vials was labeled. It was larger than the rest.

Glass hit the concrete flooring. I flinched, feeling a newfound sensitivity in my ears. Steam rose from the ground, the scent hit my nostrils, and it was strong. Burnt concrete, this was a sight I had seen before. The shattered beaker in the nurse's office, this was the exact appearance.

"You are only to observe, what made you think you could touch any of the materials in here?" The nurse rose her voice while the other remained unfazed and continued to note my condition on her clipboard. "Second time the elixir has burnt a hole through the floor, and I have reason to believe the first time was your doing."

"I-I'm sorry, I'll fill this right away." The younger, meeker nurse fell backwards at the tone and scurried off. Did she just say elixir? Those substances that burn through the floor is what they make us consume on a regular basis? If it burns concrete, how is it not ripping through human flesh?

I saw the end of my consciousness, not in a well joined by other fallen students, but in the lab. I rose again in my dorm room. The canopy was hooked again since I had last seen it. Waking up in the evening after the sun had set made me feel displaced. I wanted to sleep and not be conscious again until dawn, but it seemed every time I tried to shut my eyes, they would rip themselves open.

"You snore, I'm glad I'm not in this dorm." I rose quickly from my bed. Ruby's eyes shot daggers through mine, but that's just how her face rests.

"What is your business here?"

"Evan, let me finish that urban legend." She felt comfortable enough to give me an unsolicited nickname. Evan, I didn't hate it although it usually would make you think of a boy. The way she said the name was softer than the usual pronunciation of Eh-van, Ruby said Ee-vahn. It sounded elegant.

"What urban legend?"

"The one of Patient 130."

"I don't think I'm curious about that anymore."

"You want out of here, yes?" Ruby's tone darkened; she constantly checked the door behind her.

"Truthfully, yes."

"Then you are curious." I sighed, sinking into the conversation with her. "Patient 130 was the first patient at Norma Asylum, long before it was rebranded as a correctional facility. She, like many students here now, was ripped from her home and brought her to be fixed for an issue she didn't even know she had and didn't even find out in her time at the asylum. The nurses deemed her psychotic and restricted her to solitary confinement where she was left unfed and uncleansed as the nurses were too frightened to approach her. She went insane, Evan. She wasn't psychotic beforehand, but she was now, and she broke free." Ruby's voice broke, causing a long pause.

"Why are you telling me all this?" I ask.

"She broke free and began eating the nurses and other patients." The two of us fell silent.

"Why are you telling me this?" I ask again. "The school is already bad enough with the knowledge of my mental state, I don't need you sending me into terror with a myth."

"I want out too, more than anyone. Patient 130 is a myth, the desire for human flesh in this facility is not."

"Stop lying."

"I've been nothing but truthful to you, Evan. You and I want nothing more than to be out of here. I know you feel as though you have no purpose here. As do I."

"Stop it, Ruby."

"Do you want to see?" Curiosity enveloped me with that simple sentence. The want to see people consuming the flesh of their own species shouldn't be intriguing. It shouldn't. It is though. I responded only by standing up, waiting for her to follow in suit.

The two of us didn't speak after she guided me out of the dorm room, I had never been outside of my dorm after curfew, and it was exhilarating. She walked a fair metre in front of me.

I was guided behind the school. Ruby stopped walking completely and stared off into the trees beyond the horizon. I didn't see anything, and I couldn't hear anything. I didn't question Ruby just yet. I was right for it. Beyond a layer of trees that weren't all that far, lied two figures, a man and a woman both in Norma Academy uniform. A scream escaped the woman's lips, only for a split second before it was muffled by the man's hand as he lifted her blazer and undershirt. He bit deeply into the woman's torso, not stopping until the ripped the flesh from her body.

I met his eyes, and he rose and started walking towards Ruby and I, leaving the woman to bleed out, she was no longer strong enough to scream.

"Run." I said.

"Hold out just a bit longer."

"Run."

I ran through the darkened paths lead by the white pillars, I ran until I could see the moon again. I didn't stop until I was in the hallways of the school building, comforted by the class photos.

That comfort quickly faded though, when I whipped my head around, Ruby wasn't there. I stayed silent and stared at the walls.

The faces in the class photos distorted.