Soul Experiment (In Editing/On Hold)

Chapter V

The boy standing on the other side of the glass looked like he was about a year younger than me. Messy brown hair, dim blue eyes that held a haunted story, and a blank expression that told me nothing.

 “What are you talking about?” I asked, the panic inside me threatening to bubble over.

 “You. Are. Dead.” Was all he said before turning away, staring off into nothing. His fists were clenched at his side as if he were restraining himself from something, screaming, hitting, anything.

 He couldn’t mean it, could he? I mean I already knew I was dead, but this can’t possibly be heaven, hell, or anything in between. This was… simply a nightmare.

 It sank into me, like a heavy stone dropping into the pit of my stomach. My tears finally stopped and when I looked at the boy with blurry eyes, he was still standing in the same position.

 “What do they want?” I finally choked out, desperately attempting to get him to speak again. To assure me that I’m not hallucinating and he’s not just a ghost of my imagination.

 For a moment I thought it was true. I thought I was truly dead and crazy because he refused to turn, to acknowledge my presence again.

 Finally, he did. Pivoting on his heels as if in slow motion, his eyes locked on me, still in my pathetic position of the floor against the glass. The muscles in his neck seemed to jump out; from anger or stress I don’t know.

 “Why didn’t you just leave?” He growled.

 Definite anger. His eyes slowly narrowed as his hands finally unclenched. “Leave?” I asked, confused.

 He nodded. “Yes, leave. You shouldn’t have stayed. When you die, you’re supposed to leave this world, not stay here,” he paused, seeming to reach an emotional point. “Not like me.”

 It hit me like a truck. This boy was like me, a soul captured by these insane people. “You’re dead too?” I squeaked out, relief almost flooding me. Crude, I know. But it’s somewhat comforting to know that someone else is in my position. Though this boy seems so frightened underneath his hard exterior, just a kid in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 He didn’t answer my question, letting me figure out the obvious answer. “Who are you?”

 “Tessa.” I squeaked out again, my voice cracking from the stress of the situation. “Tessa Washington.”

 His mouth twitched slightly. A smile?

 “I’m Conner Milton.” He slowly lowered himself to the ground to sit cross-legged on the other side to be down at my level.

 Many questions were swirling in my mind, it was hard to sort out my priorities and ask the most important. Though I suppose we’ll have a lot of time in here right? “How are we still,” I paused, trying to use the proper words so he’d understand what I mean. “Us?”

 “You mean how do we still have bodies.” Conner said it as more of a statement than a question, knowing fully what I meant.

 I nodded, not trusting myself to speak without my voice shattering midsentence.

 He paused for a moment, looking thoughtful, but much less upset than before. “These aren’t our actual bodies,” he began slowly. “These are what we think or know our bodies are. I don’t remember what color my eyes were. I just think that they’re a dark blue.” He shrugged nonchalantly.

 I hugged my knees to my chest and rested my chin on them. Conner couldn’t even remember what color his own eyes were? How soon would it take for me to be like that? It would probably be only a matter of time before I forgot what color my hair was, or what my own family looked like.

 The thought frightened me; making me hold on tighter to myself to assure me I was still there.

 “So what do they want with us?” I asked again, though not sure I was ready to hear the answer.

 He paused for a moment. “They want to create a new breed of species. Soulless. Just shells of people; the ultimate army. People that would never feel pain, could just go on and on like a machine, no matter how many times they were taken down.”

 I gulped. “Like… zombies?”

 His mouth twitched again in that glimmer of a smile. “Without all the brain eating. Yes.”

 “Well why would they need souls if they want a soulless army?”

 “They have to see how souls would react. All the weaknesses and strengths. Bodies can only do what the souls will limit after all.  If they can alter the souls into doing willing the bodies to do what they want, they’ll succeed. They think they’re doing the right thing.” He looked out the glass again. “They think this will better mankind… but it’ll only tear us apart even more.”

 Suddenly I felt my body shivering. It was all too much. These people want to create a soulless army… of kids.

 Of kids.

 Then as we sat there, letting it all swirl in our minds, the worst thing possible happened.

 My room caught fire.

~

Serial killer.

 The two words were flying in whispers and through broadcasts. As usual the police tried to prevent the press from viewing the scene, but as usual the press weaseled their way in.

 Body after body had been pulled out of the river. Two children and twenty teenagers. Every body had been weighed down except Tessa’s, leading to the discovery of the rest.

 This was the reason they suspected Jace to have murdered Tessa but not the rest, seeing as Tessa wasn’t weighted down. They believe that her body was with the others only by coincidence.

 Searching since 2006, the Milton family finally discovered what happened to their long lost son.

 His body was hardly intact anymore, just bones and small chunks of dead skin, picked off by small inhabitants of the water.

 Though they knew it was him. The weathered wristwatch was still stuck onto the right arm, though without all the skin and muscle to keep it at his wrist, it’d traveled up to his elbow. Even the DNA samples confirmed it, flashing on the screen that that body had been Conner Miltons’.

 The Miltons rushed to the police station when they heard the news, seeing two teenage boys sitting all alone in two separate rooms, staring at the tables.

 Conner’s now not-so-little sister, Maddie, was now seventeen, just three years younger than Conner would've been. She clutched a picture in her hand as an officer tells them the news, fingers turning numb.

 The picture was of her and Conner when they were small. Conner was only eight while Maddie was five at a birthday party. The one time they actually got along was in this picture, Maddie sitting in Conner’s lap as they grin their childish grins at the camera.

 Now Maddie so much regretted all the times they fought, the pointless pushing and shoving they would always begin over little things. Now all she wanted is to have her big brother back, to tell him she’s sorry.

 Conner’s parents, Abby and Nick Milton, were sitting teary eyed. Abby never gave up her search, always putting Conner’s pictures on websites and hanging up posters for the past five years, Nick on the other hand knew something deep down. He figured out that deep down his son was lost and wouldn’t come home.

 When they both made the discovery, they can attempt to regain sleep, though first they lost more over haunted dreams of their only son’s murder.

 Since they'd now identified the body, they can take down the posters and delete Conner from the websites.

 Now their son had come home.

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Conner on the right - - - - - - - - - - - - > ;)