Number One quickly stretches the large machine out around my face. He lines my skull up between two cold metal bars as if I'm getting an X-ray done and gently straps me in so I can see perfectly through the binocular-like holes.
"You know, I could just tell you what my vision is, instead of going through all of this," I suggest once the discomfort of the latch sets in. "20-20."
He doesn't seem to care much about what I've said because he continues with the process. "Read the first line, just to see if everything is hooked correctly."
I don't have to squint at all to see the jumbo holographic letters in my field of vision. Nothing in this room is visible aside from the 3D words he's programmed for me to visualize. It's a shuffle of words you'd find on a kindergartener's vocabulary list.
Given the wonderful attitude he's shown toward me, I decide to give him a hard time and make up my own set of words to read. "You. Are. A. Jerk," I answer him, reading what I feel, rather than what I see.
He makes an unsatisfied sound, but I'm not able to see his expression. Still, I can't help but smirk behind the lenses.
"Cooperate, Number Five," he warns. "Think of the consequences. Now read the next one."
What are the consequences? No one has mentioned any. I can't imagine there's much worse than sitting in a cell all day, which is what I do regardless. What more could they do to me? If I'm not mistaken, I feel like I'm important to them. Does it have to do with me being immune?
The words are exceedingly tiny now, but if I squint just a tad, I can see them. Still, I decide to play dirty. "My. Name. Is. Aurora."
Number One is quiet for a few seconds as he juggles the choice of either stopping this exam, finally listening to me, or continuing. Eventually, he flips to another slide and asks me to read a third time.
"No."
"Just tell me if you can see the words clearly," he counters.
"Yup, I can."
Line after line, he doesn't wait for me to actually read the lines, just wonders if I can. That is until the words morph into black specs, which is when the exam comes to an end. I sense his fingers at my neck and tense up as he unhooks me from the machine. He is silent as he does this, and moves slowly, carefully when he's near. When Number One walks around in front of me to lift the machine back up to the ceiling, I feel instant relief. He then gaits over to the back wall with a white slip in his hand and inserts it into some rectangular slot, like a check at an ATM. "The computer is further analyzing your results at the moment." The white paper spits back out at him and I observe his eyes as he reads over whatever it says. "Well..."
"Well, what exactly?" I inquire.
He crumples the paper up and tosses it to the corner of the room. "Your vision is better than Stella's. Hers was the best here. Guess that has changed." He moves over to me and meets my eyes. "Hers reads about 20/10, which is a lot better than average. But you could possibly be beyond 20/5."
My eyebrows raise, a little shocked at the news. Last time I went to the doctor, that was certainly not the result. My vision was never bad, but 20/5 is a little ambitious, am I right? World record worthy. Eagle-worthy.
Hearing is next, and the process is just as tedious and annoying as the vision test, but at least I'm not sitting in my cell doing absolutely nothing. When the results come back this time, he doesn't seem to be as surprised as before. He holds a pretentious grin when he tells me I'm ranked third. Zeriah has the best, then him, and then me. None of this matters to me, so I don't react one way or the other.
"Why are you testing me, anyway? Are you comparing results of all the people immune to the virus or something? Are you all immune? Is that why I'm here?"
He swallows, unsure of how to go about responding. "Technically, yes."
He answered my question! Answered it! "So everyone here is immune? How many others are there?"
He shakes his head, ending the short Q&A. "You're the last. It's time to move on."
"Wait, but—"
Number One meanders over to the controls and switches off the lights. Since there are no windows or cracks beneath the doors, the room goes completely dark. The only thing visible in here is the blue pattern in his suit, glowing bright turquoise. When he steps forward in my direction, the mysterious luminescence gives me the urge to scream. I settle for a gasp.
"Calm down," he orders, and I shudder at his warm touch to my cheeks. Although I can't see, the chill of ice has snuck up onto my fingertips and is crawling up my arms, threatening to consume my body whole. His rubberized gloves are my only source of heat and I strive to embrace them, because out of nowhere, I am freezing cold.
Am I...shivering?
His hands lift off from my cheeks and in a matter of a blink, the teal in his suit shuts off, making his form completely vanish. "Close your eyes," he tells me.
It makes no difference whether my eyes are open or shut, so I close them, my body trembling as my temperature plummets. The skin around my neck and hands are shriveling up from the invisible frost, freezing me down to the bone.
"Hello?" I shakily call out to the darkness.
My body shivers so powerfully that my back tenses up and begins to hurt from the constant quivering. I attempt to get up out of the chair but I'm shaking so much that my legs can't handle the weight, so I topple back onto it. I need warmth; I've got to search for it or things will go south rapidly. My fingers wobble beyond my control as I reach for whatever heat source may lie above me. My jaw chatters ferociously, involuntarily jamming my teeth into my tongue multiple times. I strive to make my body stop shivering, stop moving, but it's impossible. I'm going to snap in half.
"H-H-help m-me," I beg as I frantically reach around the empty air as though I'm intoxicated. "Help me!" I scream. I find Number One's body to my right and I latch onto him and tug him inward, pressing my face and hands tightly against him. Slowly, robust arms wrap around me, snuggling me in, transferring heat to me. Warming me up again.
My eyes open to white light and me sitting in the chair, squeezing Number One's arm. I gasp in shock and hurry to liberate him from my ravenous grasp only to realize I'm not cold at all. He pulls away willingly as if he's been struggling to break free for some time. I huff in and out as emotions worse than mortification strike me. I'm beyond words right now.
What just happened?
While I fight for a steady breath, he stares. Just stares. He must think I'm psychotic. Or schizophrenic. Something. And I've got no explanation other than him being the culprit.
"I...I don't know what—"
He lets out a slow breath. "None of that was real."
That much, I've grasped. I think. "Yeah, but—"
"That was me, tricking your mind," he explains, interjecting again.
It was him. It's always been him. The nails. The heat. Now the cold. It felt so real. The shivers were real, the darkness...but none of it happened.
I glance around the room as if the responses to my questions are inscribed on the walls of this place, but I can't locate a single one.
"Now, that being said, your mind can take you to your own places. I don't always tell it what to do. I just plant a situation into your head and see if you're capable of breaking the trance. Clearly, you were in deep...so I let off," he says awkwardly, his eye contact with me breaking. "Sorry," he says, his voice hardly a whisper.
I frown at him, wondering why he didn't quit earlier on. "Did I speak?"
Number One sheepishly scratches his head. "You...you screamed for help," he admits, keeping his concentration on the floor.
Suddenly I'm angry and yelling at him. "What is wrong with you? I thought I was dying!" I cry, and suddenly my throat is dry and locked up tight, so swollen that I choke. I cough, endeavoring to alleviate the constriction I feel, but it only causes me to cough more, to the point of me not breathing.
I inhale, wheezing. It's not nearly enough air to satisfy me. I exhale, coughing.
Can't he see that I'm struggling? That my lungs are collapsing inside me? Why won't he do something?
At that moment, my eyes go fuzzy and the room spins as if I've been trapped on the Tilt-A-Whirl. I can barely make out Number One as he stands before me, blank-faced. My eyelids slide down to a full close and the white room goes black.
I wake to tingling vibrations in my ear and something pressing on my face. My eyes fly open and Number One is leaning so far into me that I yelp at his distance. His eyes are speculative and penetrating as his hands press against my cheekbones. If I didn't know better, I'd say he looked ready to kiss me. "Are you okay?" he wonders.
I exhale, overwhelmed and mystified to the point of me almost not knowing who he is. "Yeah," is all I say back, except when I speak, the voice I hear in my head is foreign. It's raspy and hoarse, so unlike my own.
Number One moves back a little and analyzes me further, keeping his startled gaze on my face. He inclines my chair so I sit up at a right angle.
"Are you sure?" he asks, quiet again. I almost don't hear him and he's not very far away.
I shudder at his question, but answer, "Yes."
He bites his lip shamefully and stands tall before my trembling body. "Do you feel...how do you feel?" His words enter my ears at a gradual pace as if he is speaking in slow motion.
I'm unsure of how exactly to reply. "Confused," I decide to say. "I feel...confused."
Number One exhales while staring at something far away. "You need to go," he finalizes.
"Go?"
"Don't argue," he shushes me. He saunters over to the wall of controls and clicks the intercom button, instructing a bot to come pick me up like I am an elementary student.
"You were messing with my head," I say, more for confirmation than anything. "It was you. All of it."
He turns and catches my eyes, nodding. "I didn't mean—"
A male bot enters the room and heads toward me, but I'm not ready to leave Number One. I want him to explain what he did to me and why. He can't leave me alone with crazy assertions floating in my mind.
"Finish!" I implore, unsuccessfully rejecting the robot's grasp onto my arm. "Why are you torturing me?"
Number One shakes his head. "I'll see you tomorrow, Number Five."
* * *
All night, or whatever time of day it is, I lie in bed, pondering over the horrible experiences I'd undergone. I touch my throat softly, remembering how tightly bound it felt when I couldn't breathe. I rub my arms, marveling over how Number One instilled an unimaginable coldness within me. How come he chose to do something so vile, so consuming, as death?
Was making me imagine a talking dog too hard for him?
I want to be around normal people. Katie. Travis. My mom and dad. I need them. I wish they were all alive and I was with them in our farmhouse. I want the sun to heat me up and bring a smile to my face. I want to run into the cornfields for hours until my legs can no longer support me. I'd give anything to go back in time. Maybe I can strike a deal with these people and get the hell out of here.
//what do you think of Number One's special power?