Forgetting
It had taken Nadia and me a whole week to prepare for our escape. We had thoroughly discussed it, and it seemed best to leave that night. Initially, we wanted to leave earlier, but there was a change of plans. Namely, halfway through the week, Clancy had started to assign me tasks in which I needed to guard the camp. It had given us an advantage since I could find out more about the security system, but that again also delayed us.
But it didn't matter too much, since we also needed food to survive when we were out. I had seen before what malnutrition looked like. Back when Blaze and I used to travel together I could see how weak she was and how hard it was to keep traveling. As for me, I could count my ribs due to the hunger that was devouring me.
If there was anything we could do to prevent that from happening, we would take it. So we had used the extra time to get our hands on food and we had quietly been trying to take food from the camp that they wouldn't miss. A can of beans from one place, a bag with potatoes from somewhere else. Whatever we could find, we would take.
But that night, it would all come to an end. I had been nervous all day and Nadia was also unable to hide her nerves. The plan was to sneak out after dinner. At that moment, many people would have the task to wash the dishes and it was the moment when the guards would switch. I thought that it would probably be the best moment to escape, and so that day, we were nervously sitting at the wooden table with our dinner in front of us.
Nadia was skipping her leg, making the whole table shake. No one was sitting with us though, so she didn't bother anyone besides me. And I could also not be bothered, as I was constantly biting my nails while anxiously looking around. For some reason, I had the feeling like everyone just knew what we were up to. As if we had written on our foreheads 'We are going to escape'.
So when a tall, older-looking boy with long, black hair stopped at our table and said my name, I instantly felt startled. Luckily, he told me in a grumpy tone that Clancy had asked to see me.
Though Nadia gave me a concerned look, I shrugged my shoulders and shook it off. "It probably just has to do with my tasks," I assured her and I walked away to the cabin that Clancy used.
When I got there, Clancy's door was open, but I knocked nevertheless. It didn't have much use though, as my steps already made the floorboards of the cabin creak, which made Clancy notice my entrance right away. His head shot up from his work and a wide smile spread across his face when he saw me.
"Morgan," he greeted. But something felt off. He was behaving way too optimistic. Though this week I had tried to become a little closer to Clancy so he wouldn't suspect anything, I had never seen him this happy before. But he also had a nervous twitch in the corner of his mouth.
I greeted him back and awkwardly looked around the room.
"You probably wonder why you're here." He scratched the back of his neck. "I wanted to tell you something that I wanted to tell you for a little while."
He stepped closer to me. Though he looked nervous, he sounded confident. "Look, I like you. I feel like I've known you for so long, even though we have only met two weeks ago. So I finally wanted to tell you right now that I really like you."
He came up towards me and almost planted his lips on mine. I was frozen on the spot by his suddenness but eventually managed to move and step away. He stepped with me and said, "I know you like me too."
Maybe he was once a nice kid and he would have been attractive, not only through his looks but also through his behavior. But now, he was lost. Incredibly lost. And that caused him to get broken from within. I could never love someone like him. That only made me realize what situation I was in.
I squirmed away from him. "Wait, what?" My thoughts were a mess. "No," I stammered while putting a step backward. The confusion made me unaware of what Clancy was doing. "I don't... That's not..." I stuttered even more.
I stumbled backward even further until I reached the door. "I'm sorry, but no. This is not... I don't like you." And with that, I rushed out of the space toward the exit of the cabin.
Nadia was leaning against it but stood up when she saw me walking out of the cabin. She immediately saw my confusion and my stress and stopped me.
"Nadia, we need to leave faster. We need to leave now. Right now." I grabbed her arm and almost started to drag her with me, but was interrupted.
"Leave?"
I tensed at the voice of Clancy coming from right behind me. It was a cold voice filled with only anger and rage. The betrayal was visible in his eyes and I felt like he was going to do something to us any moment. So instead of waiting for that to happen, I pulled up my knee to his sensitive area. He bent down and let out a curse, but I already turned around to run away and saw that Nadia did the same.
We didn't even have to communicate with each other to know we weren't going to get the food that we had collected over the last week. We didn't have time for that. We were just gonna have to do it without any rations.
So instead of running towards the cabins, we ran as fast as we could towards the trees and in the direction of the path I had decided would be the best to escape.
Sadly, we heard people approaching from our right. Probably some guards that had spotted us. We quickly turned to our left, which made us slightly bend back to the camp.
And that was what was gonna cost us.
Because quickly after we turned to the left, we saw a lot of other people running towards us from the camp. And because we slightly bent back to the camp, we also came in the borders from where they could see us.
The moment that that happened, Nadia froze in her tracks, her eyes focused on something far away that probably only she could see. "Nadia?" I asked while tugging her sleeve. "Nadia, come on, we have to run."
But she turned around to face me and instead of coming with me, she shook her arm loose from my grip and used that arm to punch me. I only managed to dodge it at the last second, but I lost my balance and fell to the ground.
"Nadia?" I screamed, but her eyes were still focused on something else while looking at me. It was as if she didn't see me at all.
I pushed myself up from the ground, but this time, Nadia kicked me back on the ground again.
It became even more chaotic when the sound of a lot of footsteps got closer and closer. They surrounded us quickly and when I looked up, I noticed I was in the middle of a big circle of guards. A few of them had a weapon aimed at me, but the thing that could only hurt me was Nadia fighting me. And that is exactly what she was doing. She kept kicking me in my stomach, making me gasp for air every time. I yelled at her to stop and to fight whatever had gotten into her.
She stopped for a second, which gave me hope. But that hope faded when Clancy stepped forward from the circle of people. He ordered Nadia to stop and then turned to watch me while I started to sit up, coughing from the pain.
Clancy slowly approached me with the anger clearly visible on his face. His hands were formed into fists that hung next to his body. I saw his fingers twitch and looked up to meet his eyes.
"I thought you understood me, Morgan. You and I are the only ones who know what it feels like to be hurt by the people that are supposed to love you." He sounded genuinely hurt, but still furious.
I furrowed my eyebrows. "I don't know what you're talking about. And I don't want to."
"Did you think that I would not know where the scars on your face come from? I recognized it the second you walked in," Clancy continued. "People like us recognize each other. It was my own father who sent me to the rehabilitation camp. It was him who gave the surgeons at Thurmond the permission to experiment on his own son! So I know exactly what it feels like to be betrayed by your parents. I thought you saw it too."
I shook my head in disbelief.
Clancy walked closer and hung his face right in front of me. His soft voice had a dangerous tone when he said, "You and I, we were meant to be together because we understood each other. But now you go running off with her just to find your pathetic little friends. They don't know what you've gone through the way I know! And certainly not her." He almost spat out the last words when he turned to the stiff standing Nadia.
My anger overtook the fear. Just seeing Nadia stand there in his control like that pissed me off. "Don't you dare talk about my friends like that! You don't know what any of them have been through. You have no right to talk about them."
A flat hand hit my face and my head automatically moved with it to the right. "You can't tell me what or not I should do. I take what I want, and in this case, that's you. And you want me back only you are still denying it. It's because she is still standing in the way," Clancy said while nodding towards Nadia. "But I can solve that problem."
And with that, he turned back to Nadia and told her to forget about me. And to my shock, Nadia echoed with a creepy, monotone voice, "I will forget about Morgan and our wish to escape."
Clancy nodded as if he was satisfied, but I only felt nauseous from disgust. All those children surrounding us didn't even try to do anything! They just stood there while Nadia was being brainwashed. How were they okay with that?
Because of the shock, I didn't notice Clancy standing in front of me again. "We were both betrayed by our own parents. And now you betrayed me as well. You have to make it up to me, but I know you won't. So just let me do it for you, okay?"
He glanced behind him back at Nadia and ordered her to burn the daily logs from the time I was in the camp. He then looked up at me again, who was still kneeling on the ground in front of him. I saw the satisfaction in his face. "Don't you see how ironic it is that your life here, your life that was written down in those logs, will be gone yet your life here only now will start?"
"You are disgusting," I muttered.
"No. No, I'm not. It's the government who did all this. If they just took better care of all the children, none of this would have happened. But instead, they messed up the children of their country. Just look at how broken you are."
He looked so convinced that I almost started to believe it. But it wasn't the government that was brainwashing kids and putting me in this position right now.
"If someone here is broken, it is you," I spat at him.
Clancy ignored me and continued, "But don't worry. I will make you better." He stroked my cheek with his hand and left it there to lift my face. He made sure I was looking at him while he said, "You will be better."
Right after that, I felt something happening. Something was going on with my mind. It was Clancy, who was using his talent on me.
I was struggling as much as I could while trying to build a brick wall between his mind and mine. But slowly, I began failing and I started feeling myself fade away.
The realization struck me. I was gonna forget. I had seen Clancy do it to Nadia, and he was gonna do it to me too. I feared what I would become. How I would start to support Clancy and most likely be a cruel accomplice.
But most importantly, I feared what I would forget. Everything I fought for. Everyone I cared for. Blaze and Raiden would no longer keep me company in my mind. I would never remember the precious moments that we shared. I would forget how Blaze would always lay in my bed to snuggle for comfort with me when my parents were fighting. I would forget how she would always reassure me with her positivity. And most importantly, I would forget how much I loved my little sister.
And Raiden. I would forget Raiden. I would never remember how he proved me wrong that I can't trust anyone I come across. I would never remember how he helped Blaze and me survive. I would never remember how he cheered us up and how he saved us. But also, I would never remember how much I cared for him. How he felt for me and how I never got to tell him that I felt the same way. I'm sure he knew, but I would never tell him that personally and that broke my heart.
A tear slipped down my cheek.
Clancy got a complete hold of my mind again, I could feel it. I felt violated.
"You will no longer think about your past. It holds you back. You better not think about it from now on and focus on East River instead."
And to my own surprise - though I didn't want to - I nodded with my head. Slowly, I felt like my mind was being sorted. Some memories just started to pass, while others - like when Clancy expressed his adoration for me - were becoming more present and pressed the other memories of Blaze and Raiden away.
Eventually, I stood up after which I looked dumbfounded at my wet hand that I used to wipe my tears away. I looked up and saw Clancy carefully smiling at me. I watched the big group of children standing in a circle around us and then looked back at Clancy. Not remembering what I was doing here, I gave him a questioning look and asked, "What is going on?"