Antidote for Society

Like A Puzzle

" You did what?" Jared asked, laughing.

" It was all I could think of! Knocking the papers off his desk seemed like a better idea than breaking my ankle again!" Skye defended, but even she couldn't help cracking a smile. She was alone with Jared for almost the first time since they had arrived and she couldn't help hating herself for (what she felt was) abandoning him. She found that they were getting along just as well as they had when they first met; not for the first time she wondered why she found it so easy with him, when she had spent her life melting into the shadows, shying away from anything resembling social interaction.

Now, curled up on the sofa, Skye really got to look at Jared again, his mop of brownish-blonde hair had been cut slightly in the past few days and no longer fell into his eyes. Skye was glad, his colbolt eyes were his best feature as far as she was concerned. " Skye? Are you alright?" Jared asked, concern marking his features.

" Oh...right, yeah sorry I'm fine, when did Bambi say they'd be back? We need to talk about the files. Hell I'd just like to see  them."  Skye replied hesitantly. Bambi had taken Leon, Kayne and Peter to fetch application forms for leave to visit their families. Bambi had ranted at length about the cruelty of keeping children from their families, Jared had hastened to disagree but why, Skye wasn't sure.

" Shouldn't be long now. Hey, listen...Skye, I've been-" Jared was cut off by the door flying open.

" This form is absolutely horrendous! It's three pages long!" Bambi yelled as she stepped into the dormitory. Skye simply laughed as they all swarmed the sofa, the smile fell from her face when she looked at the form Bambi handed her, the questions were ridiculously complex.

" Bambs, I know it's important for us to sort these forms out but I really think we need to discuss the files, Skye hasn't even seen them yet." Jared pointed out. Skye felt a strange pang in her heart when Jared gave Bambi a nickname, not that it was a personal one or meaningful at all, but something about it made Skye uncomfortable.

" Well, I hope no one minds, but I combed through them all last night and picked out all of the similarities, then I figured we could all go through our own and look for...well, I  don't know, weird stuff." Bambi replied, looking slightly sheepish.

Peter was the first to reply, " What were the similarities?" he asked.

Bambi hesitated, pulling a slightly crumpled piece of folded, lined paper from the back pocket of her black shorts. " Alright, well there's the stuff we already knew, the birthdays and the illness. But there are a few other kind of...well odd things." Bambi looked around the faces of her friends, all of them confused but expectant, her eyes lingered on Skye for slightly longer. She broke eye contact and continued, " We all sent three weeks in the hospital before we were taken home when we were born, the school has all of our medical records. There's a different reason given for each of us but I think it's all BS, like some of us were apparently premature, it says Peter wouldn't eat," Peter snorted at the outrageous concept of him not eating, then Bambi continued, " It says...well it says that Skye nearly...died, apparently you stopped breathing at one point for two minutes but then they revived you. Like I said I think they're made up reasons."

They all turned to Skye, who had physically paled at the revelation, Jared took her hand and her eyes flickered over to his and he gave her a reassuring smile, before nodding for Bambi to continue. " The other stuff is all pretty minor, nothing really outstanding, we all had our vaccinations at the same time... hang on, " Bambi ruffled through the files for a few minutes, " We were all vaccinated by the same doctor. Doctor Bradcole, looks like he moved around a lot. He must have been quite high up in the old government, even they didn't like their subjects thinking for themselves." Bambi finished in a bitter tone.

 " Kayne? Are you alright?" Skye asked. Kayne looked slightly vacant, his eyes clouded over.

" My Aunty, she's married to a Doctor...Doctor Bradcole,"

" Do you think she knows something?" Bambi asked, which set of a torrent of questions from everyone else, except Skye, who was thinking about the possible implications of Kayne's realisation.

" Everyone shut up." She ordered, " Kayne, when did your Aunty marry him?"

" I think it was about a year before I was born why?" Kayne replied, confused.

Skye thought for a moment, she didn't want to panic Kayne or give him the wrong impression. " If he'd married your Aunty after you were born it wouldn't be significant, but it was before which means...well however they 'chose us' it could have been connected to him...to your family." she eventually replied.

Kayne bit his lip, thinking and Bambi handed everyone their own files. They spent fifteen minutes leafing through them before Skye found something strange. " I had a twin." She mutters, her voice thick with emotion.

" What...what happened to her?" Peter asked.

" She died, she lived for...God, three hours and then her lungs just...collapsed apparently. We were identical in every way according to this but she just died. She was called Daisy."  Skye felt her breathing become more rapid, why had her mother never told her?

" Does anyone else have anything similar?" Bambi asked. Negative answers filled the small room. " It doesn't mean it isn't significant. See if you can find anything about her when you go home."

Kayne glared at her from his seat on the sofa, "A little sensitivity would be great, Bambi!"

" Nothing about that was insensitive!" Bambi replied, her voice slightly raised.

Then the fight really started, Kayne was yelling at Bambi and Bambi was screaming back, Leon was trying to stop the fight and Peter was shouting at them both to stop.

Jared was the only one to see the tears fall from Skye's eyes and he was the only one to watch her sprint into her room.

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Author's note

Hey,

For anyone whose still reading this, thank you. Sorry if this chapter is a little boring and chatty but there was really no way around it. There was a lot of information that needed to go into this chapter and I think I managed to include it all.

Again, thank you for the support, I hope you're enjoying Antidote to Society so far, it's really fun to write.

-SameDifference