I stumble out of the elevator. My right leg buckles under me. I am barely able to steady myself.
Strangers envelope me. They stare down at my burned and bloodied figure with wide eyes and pale faces, but no one says or does anything to help me. Michael is talking about the history of the last war and the creation of the Movement. He'll enact his plan soon. As soon as I can bring myself to my feet, I suck in as deep a breath as I can and bellow, "Stop!"
Silence laces the room so quickly and so heavily that I almost think I've gone deaf. I can only hear my heavy, ragged breathing as I scan the room. Everyone stares in horror at my disfigured face. I find Baya's eyes in the crowd. They glisten in the fluorescent light as she rakes them across what she can see of me. She has a large, scabbed cut across her face. I can only imagine what it's from. My gut sinks. I have no idea what's happened outside of my imprisonment; what have my friends gone through?
I don't let my eyes linger on her for too long. Instead, I bring them to Michael. They land on his dark, brooding face. His cheeks are turning a deep pink as he works to contain his anger. He knows if he loses his cool now that he could lose everybody in this room--altered memories can't control emotions. Now that I've risen, I'm in his full sight. He almost looks like he's seen a ghost. In a way, he has--he left me for dead not long before.
I move to take one step forward, dragging my bloody leg after me. As soon as Michael notices me advancing, he shouts. "Grab him! He shouldn't be here."
A bulky man standing just in front of me spins on his heels and shoves me into the wall. My left shoulder aches from being pounded into the metal. He presses one of his sleeved arms against my mouth to keep me from yelling out; the burned skin along my face scalds at his force. His other hand moves to press against my abdomen. I can't even sink down to wallow in how sore I am. I'm left to stare ahead as Michael speaks. He's perched himself on top of a table. I can hardly see his head from where I'm at. Even though I'm pinned to the wall, I'm still sunk quite low from my deep, pained slouch. The large man is hunched to stay at eye level with me, though his are blank. He isn't completely present. My heart sinks. All of these people--they're all under Michael's influence. All their memories are altered. They think Michael is the alpha; they'll do anything he says as long as he keeps up his persona.
"As I was saying," Michael continues. His voice is amplified around the room. Each word echoes off the walls. My mind can't help but absorb them as he speaks. Even though I haven't ingested any of the tainted food, I feel like I've eaten a years worth in a moment. "The Movement has been wrong in the past; but our community was set up to make this wrongness right. We can put all the pieces together to make our world whole again." I try to push the man away, but I'm so weak I'm hardly able to make his arm budge. He presses his fist tighter into my abdomen. My vision is starting to sway heavily.
The distance in his eyes finally strikes a chord as his large body overtakes me. It reminds me of Beau as he stood across from me with a Taser pointed right at my chest, how he was so willing to shoot me. My breathing starts to get heavy and my adrenaline begins to pulse. "And I've finally developed what I need to do this. We can transform the entire Movement to believe what we believe through a mind alteration technology I developed. We can finally end the experiment and start anew with what I've started here."
I bite the man's arm as tightly as my half-numb mouth can. He gasps and loosens his grasp. I try to bring my right arm up to punch his face, but someone else pulls him away. I watch as one of Brody's strong arms connects with the man's empty face. The force is so great that the guy falls unconscious at our feet. Breathing heavily, he turns back to me.
His features are hollow and eyes are sunken. His face is pale and lips chapped. He hasn't been eating the food for as long as I have. I understand how he feels. I've never felt so sick or been in such need of nutrition in my entire life. Between that and my immense blood loss, death seems more likely than to live to see another day.
"You look terrible, Taeo." No one around us notes Brody's voice as Michael's own is amplified around us about the details of his plan. I've become the last thing on their mind. Brody tears my tattered shirt off of me and moves to my leg. His weak gaze is steady on my wound as he takes the clothing and wraps it just above the hole. I can see so much of his father in him in that moment, so much that I almost can't be sure Brody's in front of me. He'd had so many walls up when I met him. Now, they've all been broken down. Brody is willing and strong, smart and kind. A tough road simply made him cover that up.
Someone leans down beside me. I slowly turn my head and a small smile wraps around my face as the familiar, flowery scent rings in over the smell of sweat and blood. Her blue eyes look weak as well, though not as weak as Brody's. She's kept herself healthier; of course she has--she's Baya. Her slim arms wrap around me gingerly, so as to avoid my burns as Brody works on my leg. I don't care for a ginger hug. Even though a large bout of pain erupts with the movement, I pull her to me tightly, burying my face in the crook of her neck. We don't say anything; we don't need to. Brody pats my leg. I slowly let go of Baya and start to rise. She pulls my arm around her neck and helps me stand. Brody steadies me from the other side.
"Save them, Taeo," Baya whispers as her eyes scan the still, watching room. "They need you."
I have a very limited amount of strength and power, but I use everything I have to let go of my friends and hobble forward. I take a deep breath and call, "Don't listen to him!" Michael stops speaking immediately. Every blank eye turns to me again. "These people--those in the Movement--they can be swayed. I was. I know what this community stands for. It's possible to change them without Michael's tactics. Ending the experiment doesn't need to be this way."
"You should just stop, Taeo--"
"No! I'm not listening to you anymore! All of you--you don't know what Michael's done behind your backs. He made me a murderer through deception. He set the bomb off on the fourth and fifth floors that killed your friends and put every single one of you in danger. He deteriorated his own brother's mind for the sake of this experiment. You don't want to follow someone who will betray you and everything you stand for in an instant. You want someone who'll lead you with righteousness. I can do the same thing Michael wants in a humane way. No one has to die for this cause."
The room stays just as silent as when I arrived. The blank eyes stare at me but don't react. I try to find familiar faces. Anyone I might know looks just as blank as the next person. I spot Jeremii and Victor in the back. They look exactly like all the other blank people, but their gazes are more lively as they stare at me, much like Brody had been when he'd started coming to me in my imprisonment. They look as if they're trying too hard to be like the rest of them. Did Jeremii's mouth just move and Victor nod at his words? Behind me, Baya and Brody stand beside each other, smiling at my words. But their gazes waver. They see it at the same time I do.
Michael begins to laugh. I pivot quickly. I clench my fists and lips. The pain in my face runs rampant with my rage. My breathing grows heavy. My gaze--I know it isn't as strong as it should be in this moment. I've given Michael his victory. His shoulders broaden and he smiles at the lifeless crowd around him. "Who is with me?" he asks. His confidence makes tears well in my eyes. In that moment, I know every terrible, life-threatening thing I've done has been for nothing. People have risked their lives and mental stability for me to triumph over Michael. None of it matters anymore.
The room stays just as silent as it had been a moment before. Slowly, Michael's face falls and his eyes find me. I smile a bit as I start to totter where I stand. Neither of us have them, he realizes. Their memories may be changed, but there's something in them stronger than memories. It's the same thing that had drawn me to Baya even though I was programed to forget her. No matter how strong a changed memory is, their emotions are stronger. Part of me always knew this, realized it right from the second I heard of Michael's plan. I hadn't realized it was the answer to all of our problems.
These people--they're fighting the control.
Michael hasn't won.
A noise fills the silent room. I turn to find the doors of the elevator sliding open. Even before they can fully pull from the wall, white figures break into the room, coursing through the crowd of color. It overtakes them. Slowly, the color falls away as more white progresses through the room. White wrapped figures advance on Michael. Just as he's about to leap off his platform, two people grab him around the waist to hold him in place as another steps up to him and places a hand on his pale, exposed neck. Immediately, his head falls slack and his body is loaded with dead weight. The original two men take him on either end and begin to carry him away.
I frantically check around me for a familiar face, but there's so much white I can't make anybody out. The silence moving through the room is so unnerving with all of the commotion going on. Beside me, a white-clad figure causes a young woman to fall unconscious with the touch of a hand to the neck. She falls into his arm without a sound.
I can't find Baya or Brody, Jeremii or Victor. They must have been grabbed and taken away. I step forward to go look for them, but a figure in front of me causes me to stop. I can hardly make out details any more. The pain from my burn, the blood loss, and my hunger have caught up with me. Any moment, I'll go down. For a second, though, I think I'm looking at a friend. The white figure stands just taller than me, with golden, curled hair I've missed these past few weeks. It seems illuminated, like an angel. I pass it off as my fatigue. Angels aren't real; Xander is long dead.
The unidentified figure reaches a hand toward me. A cold, soft hand is placed against my clammy neck. Transmitters pierce my skin.
The world of white falls away; I find my way back to the world of black, where perfection doesn't matter and words....
--
A/N:
Well, that's it.
BUT I promise the world of Unspoken and all of Taeo's adventures aren't ending here--starting NEXT Friday, I'll have the sequal, Blind, up and running. I'll create an extra chapter in here with the link to the sequal! Until then, comment, vote, share, etc. I want to hear what you think about this story that's so near and dear to my heart!
It's not goodbye, it's see ya later,
Ali :)