Fightclub

twenty-three | broken bonds

"You will be here with me. You always bragged about being able to survive a bullet too. I did it, you can do it too." Lia whispered in her ear.

"It's strange..." she said her voice weak.

"What is strange?"

"This feeling. I always thought-" she paused, and Lia wiped the blood coming out of her mouth with her sleeve.

"It's strange that people fear death. Life hurts more than death." She added.

"D-don't be af-afraid." She caressed Lia's cheek one last time before it fell limp on her side.

Her chest fell but did not rise again.

"NO!" Lia cried out.

She didn't know how long she was rocking back and forth tugging Imani close to her.

She didn't know how long she was crying.

She didn't know when the paramedics came and tried to take Imani's body from her.

She didn't know how many officers were holding her back until a paramedic came and injected Lia with liquid sleep.

She cried Imani's name over and over again like a mantra until the propofol started to kick in. Her brain and nervous system slowly shut down until darkness took over as she felt herself being placed on a stretcher.

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Dec 6

When the fourteen-year-old woke up she wasn't in the alley or at the hospital or at the orphanage.

She looked around and she could only see her reflection.

Lia was on a white bed, in a white hospital robe. But it surely was no hospital.

She walked closely to the wall and taped her finger on it.

It didn't sound like cement. More like a glass.

All four walls were glass. Her reflection was the only she could see.

"Exhibit b4 is awake." A voice echoed too loud in the acrylic box Lia was in. A small red light appeared at the top left corner of the box. "proceed" another masculine voice said.

When the light turned green, she couldn't breathe.

All the air she breathed in made her cough. The gas in the acrylic cube wasn't poisonous but it surely could put anyone to sleep.

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Dec 7

When Lia woke up next, she couldn't move.

Her legs and arms were strapped onto the bed. Not the one in the acrylic cube.

She didn't know where she was, or how many days had passed. She hoped it was a dream and she would wake up and Imani would be next to her.

She was in shock.

And kidnapped.

The only sign she had that Imani was actually dead was the blood under her nails.

All other evidence of that night was gone.

A door opened in the lab and a man, blonde with a white coat walked in. followed by another one clad in a red suit.

His sinister smile told her enough to know she had to find a way out.

"let's begin," the one in the suit said. And the other approached Lia with a syringe filled with a white liquid.

She started fighting and screaming and kicking. But it was in vain.

The bed was bolted to the ground, and she was strapped on it.