Don't Look Back! Part 2

Chapter Four: Something's not Right

Sitting in front of a computer, Lucy sorted shapes and colours, then a few minutes later on another programme organised objects by density and so on until it was time for lunch. As one of the first ones, she headed to the canteen where the other children from group E had gathered, took trays with lunch, and sat at tables. A few tables away from her, Thomas waved, a bright grin on his face, and with the full tray in hands, she headed towards him, had a seat next to him and smiled.

"Hey, looks good, doesn't it?" He asked as he chowed down on the bacon and potatoes.

Lucy on the other hand waited, scanning the children that entered the room for Darian, but after a few minutes, he had not shown up, and she dropped her shoulders, the glance lowered.

"Hey, you'll see him soon, all right?" Thomas patted her on on back. "It'll just take time. There's Stephen, Hey, come here"

A full plate before him, Stephen grinned. "Did you have to do those weird tests too?" He shoved some salad into his mouth and eyed Lucy as she only nodded, not touching her food. "You okay?"

"She's missing Dary" Thomas ate some more of his food and poked Lucy in the side to motivate her. "Come on, you've got to eat"

"Fine" Lucy picked the smallest bits of salad and chewed on them, her glance still on the doors in the hope of seeing Darian at least walk by. "Tastes funny" she exclaimed, lifting up some lettuce to check underneath.

"Really?" Thomas took the fork from her hand and picked up some salad. Shoving it into his mouth, he shrugged his shoulders and handed the fork back. "Tastes normal to me" He spit some sauce onto the table as he spoke, giggled and used his sleeve to clean it up.

Chuckling, Lucy watched him eat until he took the fork once more, picked up some salad and was about to put it in his mouth. However, before the salad reached his lips, Lucy's hand snatched the fork from him and dropped it on the table. "Do you see that?" Her eyes focussed on the small white spot on one of the onions in the salad. "It's moving"

"I don't see anything" Thomas moved so close to Lucy's face, she felt his breath against her skin. "It's just a salad"

Her nose tickled by his hair as she turned to face him, Lucy looked into Thomas's eyes. "They are feeding us something, why can't you see that?" Can you see it? In the corner of her eyes, she spotted Stephen shaking his head ever so slightly. Why not?

I don't know, maybe you're better at this, but what is it anyways?

Picking the bit of onion from the salad, Lucy placed it on her tongue. It had a sweet taste to it, but as she swallowed, it sent off a bitter taste, sticky, as if it tried not to be swallowed at all. Tastes like licorice. Gargling some water, Lucy forced the bitter taste down and ate some potato to cover it. "Disgusting"

"I can see that, your face just went like this-" Thomas scrunched his nose, opened his eyes wide and acted as if he had to throw up. Laughing, he patted Lucy on the back at the sight of her pout. "Come on, you'll survive. After all, you just saved me from eating that"

"Yes, and next time she won't" Stephen threw in, chewing on his lunch.

His arm wrapped around Lucy, Thomas placed his face close to hers. "That's not true, is it? You will save me right?"

Feeling the warmth of his embrace, Lucy buried her face in his shoulder. "Promise"

Right after lunch, the children got divided into small groups and had to sort out a number of riddles, as they had done before, but this time with more difficult tasks. Stephen, Thomas, David and another boy whose name Lucy couldn't understand headed into a great hall, filled with ivy covered stone walls, their mission to find a way out.