The Loyal Alone

Chapter Fifteen

When I wake up, the world is cold. I am still on the floor. I can smell my blood, I can feel the divot of the caulking between the tiles on my fingertips as I grasp at the cold floor; and the weight of the chains as heavy as my soul. The lights are off, and I hope that they will stay off, and let me die peacefully.

I lay there in the dark for a long moment, not feeling like a person. Not feeling whole. Everything about my body ached, my throat was dry, I could barley make a sound. Just as I thought all sound had left the world, I hear the door open, and close softly. The lights stay off.

"Miss? Mira?" I hear Johnson, his whispers are soft, but they echo in this large empty room the same way it echoes in my head. "I'm only here to help," his voice cracks.

I want to die.

I hear his feet shuffle against the tile like he was walking through fog and too afraid to lift up his feet. I found it funny, how he was so unsure of the darkness that surrounded us, but I was just as comfortable now as I had ever been here. The dark was encouraging, as if each moment spent was a moment my life seeped from me, and those were the moments I relished.

"Please, if you're here, speak. Are you still on the floor?"

"Yes," I croak.

He lets out a sigh, it sounds like relief.

"I've brought food," he says.

"No."

"No? You need to eat-"

"No," I say louder.

"Shh. I'm not supposed to be here, you don't understand. I'm here to help. Eat, to regain your strength. I am getting you out of here."

"I have nowhere to go."

"Anywhere is better than here." He's reached me by now, and I can feel his body heat. I almost gravitate toward him, but the lack of needing anything, including my will to survive, has left me.

"Nowhere..." I whisper.

"Here. Eat." He pushes a plate over to me, I hear the plastic of it scrape across the floor. "We can think of where to go when you've gathered your strength."

"Why are you helping me?"

He's quiet for a long moment. "Eat and I will tell you."

"No."

"I- I don't want to force you. You've been through enough."

"Then don't," I whisper. "Just tell me why."

"I've helped all of them escape..." He whispers so quietly I could barely hear them. "The pain is too much, when it stops being about science, and starts being about power, I cannot stand it." There are quiet and muffled sobs. He breathes deep and clears his throat. "I didn't save you soon enough. You were too weak, too fragile, I thought you'd be able to hold out longer, wait until Olly leaves, but I see now that I cannot. If you want to survive, you must leave now." He pushes the plate closer towards me and it this my back.

I turn, feeling lost in this deep space.

"Why help the others?"

"It's- can you just- I'm trying to help. Do you need to know why?"

"It this a test? To see if I run? To see if I can obey now?" I whisper grabbing the food, it felt like seed bread. "I will obey," I whisper. "Perhaps I will die before then... Hopefully."

"It's always been about the science to me. I need to know why my daughter died, but when I see these women, these strong women come in, and see little of what is left of them leave, there is something in me that tells me this isn't worth it. I know it's not worth it. My daughter died and there is nothing I can do to fix that. I had hoped that I would be able to stop it from happening to others, but what we do here, it is much worse. I was holding out hope, hope that someone would be the final subject, the answer to a question asked for too long. But after last night. I saw what he did to you, it was brutal, I think he's lost his mind, I am afraid I will too."