Run

Chapter 10

I bite my bottom lip in nervousness, my hands balled up into fists, anxiously waiting for someone to start saying something. I steal a quick glance at Wil. He runs his fingers through his hair, his shoulders tensed. Clearly, he is not at ease either by what Key had said to the both of us merely minutes ago.

“There’s something we need to tell you,” Key’s voice echoes through my mind, constantly leaving me wondering about the meaning behind those words.

I wonder if it is a good thing or not, whether she’s going to deliver good news or quite the opposite. Endless possibilities of what she has to say to us runs through my head. We’ve only just met her – and the twins – and there are only so many things they know about us. But then again, there are a lot of things about this world that we do not know about. Perhaps it has something to do with the common knowledge most citizens should know. Except us. But then again, I don’t know if we are called citizens of this world in the first place.

“Y-Yeah, sure. I guess,” I say, stumbling over my words once I realised that neither of us has yet to reply to Key.

She nods in reply, not uttering a single word. She takes a sit on one of the white seats across from us. She crosses her right leg over her left and places one hand on her lap. Her other hand reaches up to her face and she tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, giving us a clear view of face compared to several moments ago when she had hair creating a curtain in front of her face, obstructing her features. As usual, there is nothing that gives away her emotions. She is calm and collected, without even so much as a twitch to betray her.

I tap my foot anxiously, waiting for her to say something to break the awkward silence that is starting to settle.

She doesn’t.

Wil clears his throat, effectively shattering the quietness. “Go on,” he says, prompting Key to continue with whatever she has to say.

Her eyes are focused on the ground. She blinks and her eyes shift up, staring straight at us. They seem glazed and have a faraway look, almost as if she has a lot of things on her mind, but they seem guarded as well, like she does not want anyone to see through her exterior. It’s as though she has many secrets she does not intend to share with anyone any time soon. She probably does. We all do.

The only question is how big of a secret it is.

I push the thought away from my mind. It’s not in my place to know.

“You know how we are all, in one way or another, linked to the Tree right? As in, the Data Tree.” She pauses, looking at us in such a way as if she is waiting for a response from us. I nod and she continues. “You are also failed experiments, am I wrong?”

My face hardens at the mention of us, as in, experiments. I steal a quick glance at Wil at the exact same time he turns to look at me. Talk about coincidences. Our eyes meet and one lingers in both our gazes. How does she know that we’re experiments?

But more importantly, how does she know we’re failed experiments?

We have not mentioned it to anyone, not even the twins, though I assume that they know about it as their parents are, after all, the persons-in-charge of us and our project. If they bring it up, I’d understand. But Key? Maybe not so much.

“How do you know about that?” Wil asks, carefully selecting his words, not wanting to give anything away. I can hear that his voice is strained, as if he is trying not to burst or break down.

“I just do,” she says, nonchalantly, like it is not a big deal. Well, she’s wrong.

It is a big deal, to us anyway.