Hacked

enTRy seVenTEeN

I couldn't stop running. I couldn't stop crying.
I just couldn't stop.
My heart and head pounded and I couldn't get enough air into my lungs. I was hyperventilating.
Can't stop, can't stop.
I turned the corner, around the abandoned building, through the streets, and dove straight into Area 8.
I ran through the metal scraps and forgotten machines, ignoring the shrapnel and shards of glass poking at my legs through my jeans.
Every screen, every old device I passed. All of them lit up with red light as I went. I could feel hands, far more than two, all over me. Everywhere. I felt so violated, so trapped.
By somebody that I loved. Somebody I would die for.
But I realized then, that it hadn't been someone I would kill for. But I had. I had killed. Even if it wasn't my decision.
And it was my father.
"Oh god..." I sobbed, still tasting his blood. What had Phil done to me? What had he done to my father that his blood would be in my mouth?
I got through the mountain of junk and kept going and going until I could see Chris's trailer.
My sanctuary.
I ran up to the door and started bashing at it with my hands, screaming their names into the night.
The door swung open and there was Pj, wearing his spaceship t-shirt and boxers. His bandana was gone and his hair rustled in the hot night breeze.
"Dan?" His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and then widened in fear. "Dan oh my god..."
"He's horrible, Pj," I screamed, not able to quiet myself, "so horrible!" The salt from my nonstopping tears mixed with the blood.
I reached out and held Pj's shoulders in my shaking, blood soaked hands.
"Pj, help me. Please, Pj, he's going to kill me. He made me kill...he made me PJ, he made me!"
Instantly, Pj was pulling me into the trailer.
"Pj," Chris said groggily as he awoke, "Pj, what is-"
"Drive Chris," Pj demanded, ignoring the blood I had left on him, "drive now!"
Chris, after taking a shocked glance at me, obeyed and got out. He jumped into the car attatched to the trailer and sped away. I didn't care where we were going. I had to get away. To anywhere.
My eyes fell on two phones on the countertop. I screamed, beginning to cry again.
"Dan, please!" Pj put his hands on my face. "What do I need to do?"
"Get rid of them!" I screamed, pointing at the phones. "He can come! He can come through anything electric!"
Without any hesitation, Pj took both of their phones and mine and bolted to the door. He opened it. I saw the blackness rushing past the trailer as Chris drove at full speed.
With full force, Pj threw the phones out onto the dirt. I heard a faint crunch as the trailer ran over the devices.
He closed the door and frantically looked to me.
"What now?"
I gripped the wires coming from the back of my neck and stood up from the ground, barely an inch away from Pj.
"Take them! Take them out!" I howled, gasping through tears. "It's how he gets inside my head, it's how he lied! He lied, Pj!"
"Shh..." He said, his eyes watering. He gently took my shoulders and turned me around, touching the wires. "Dan these are...these are embedded in your skin. I can't take them out."
"No!" I reached out to the drawer in front of where I stood and grabbed a pair of scissors, shoving them into Pj's hands. "Cut them then! Cut them, please Pj!"
He blinked at me, the sadness in his face almost too much to bear, and nodded.
As he cut each wire in half, my breathing slowed. I gradually became calm until Pj finished cutting each wire. And, still covered in slowly drying blood, I fell asleep on the floor next to him.