I almost killed someone after I awoke.
The words said by the people in the room rang in my ears, only pieces of it made sense in my mind. It was just a blur of sound. It gave me a headache listening to all of it.
"Her enhanced hearing is starting to develop right now," I heard a voice say.
"She's overwhelmed," I heard another.
My hands were placed behind my neck as shots of pain went through my body. Each felt like a jolt of electricity, 100 times worst then accidentally shocking someone. My heart was racing, my head was pounding. For a genetically enhanced human being, I felt as weak as ever.
That is until something in me snapped. Or got activated.
Instantly, I stood up, my skin feeling cold under the thin hospital gown I was wearing. I had no idea how I suddenly had the strength to stand on my own, without any support whatsoever. It just happened.
Like what happened next.
My vision was still a blur, like my hearing at first, yet somehow I knew where everything and everyone was. Probably a new feature in the new-and-improved me.
I held my arm out without exactly knowing why. All I knew in that moment was that I was furious. I was angry. I didn't want to be part of the Institute's games or plans or anything. I just want to be a normal girl.
Is that too much to ask?
Apparently.
I strong force of energy spread through me, coming out of my hand. Telekinesis. I knew that.
Someone got swept off her feet with the force. She screamed, dropping something, maybe her clipboard, and got pinned between the wall and my strength.
I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know how I was doing it.
And I didn't know how strong I actually was until the sides of her mouth and the ends of her fingertips started going from pale to purplish-blue.
They pinned me down then, strangled with me and strapped me to the bed once again. The tubes I tore off my skin were reattached, drugging me instantly, making me feel calm and painless once again.
The woman was surrounded by a bunch of her colleagues, who were making sure she was okay, doing alright after the attack. She refused any help and got to her feet on her own.
Before leaving with the other doctors, she came to me first. She pushed the hair out from in front of my face and sat next to me on the bed.
As I fell back into unconsciousness, she spoke to me in a familiar, kind voice.
"Not bad, sweetheart, but remember who the real enemy is."
-- : --
I refused to do anything in the next couple of days.
I didn't eat anything. I didn't talk to anyone. I pushed away anything and anyone that was here to make sure I was okay and alive.
I knew where I was. I knew my fate. I'm stuck here, at the Institute, until they let me out. Which, if we're being honest, is going to be never. Not until I start doing what they say.
If the doctors here learned anything, it's that I'm not gonna doing anything they say. Anything.
The only things I did do was (a) sleep and (b) pull on the tubes and the IV keeping me alive. Every time I manage to pull them off with my current weak fingers, a nurse decides to walk in at that moment and see what I'm trying to do. Bad timing, if I say so myself.
And then there's her. The woman who gave me life and ruined it at the same time. She tells me to call her 'mom' but she'll always be Dr. Henderson to me. The person who single-handedly ruined everything. She's always the doctor to come into my room, even though I tried to kill her once. She talks but I never reply back.
Until she walked into my room and pulled the covers off my cold-infected - or whatever illness I have - body.
"Up," She ordered, just like that first time, when I was thirteen. Her voice was the same tone of bitterness.
I ignored her and buried my face into my pillow.
"Lauren!"
"Go away!" I mumbled into the pillow. "You can't make me do anything."
She sighed, then pushed me until I rolled onto my side. Her dark, indigo eyes stared right into mine. "You're going to walk on your own today. We're going to our quarters."
"Ours? I ain't living anywhere with you." I shot at her. "Plus, don't I need physiotherapy before I can walk again."
"Two years ago, after you woke up from the coma, you wanted to walk, even after I offered you the wheelchair. You didn't need it then, so you don't need it now."
I sat up on the bed. "Okay, maybe I could walk on my own. I'm not staying wherever you are."
"They what about wherever Spencer is?"
I stay quiet at the sound of his name. Spencer; the only thing I was able to remember, besides my own name, when I woke up from the coma. He risked his life multiple times for me and Aidan.
And there's another name that makes me sick to my stomach; Aidan. Last time I saw him, he was captured by the Institute. By my own father. It was a horrible sight, and worse that he could possibly be dead.
But they wouldn't kill an Evolutian, right?
"Lauren," Dr. Henderson's voice interrupted my thoughts. "Lauren, are you coming?"
Hesitantly, I nodded my head yes.
-- : --
Dressed in black from head to toe, I followed Dr. Henderson through a part of the Institute I didn't get to explore. The trained eyes of doctors followed me as I passed through the halls, eyeing the girl who almost killed her mother.
Apparently, news spreads like a wildfire in here, if they let the story out.
She led me into a large living quarter, meant for a family of four. Our family of four. I stood in front of the door for a full five minutes before deciding to enter.
Dad was on the couch, watching a sport, basketball, on the TV. At the sound of the door shutting behind us, he looked up, looking at me, and gave a small smile.
I knew Spencer somewhat trusted him so I gave a small smile in return.
"Your room is across the hall, you can't miss it," Dr. Henderson said. "Call me if you need anything."
"Alright," I replied, half-heartedly, and started walking towards the hallway she pointed at.
She was right about not being able to miss it. The painted sign with the name LAUREN on it was also on the bedroom door of my actual bedroom. The one I had before all this.
Inside, there was barely anything. The walls of the room were painted blue and the few pieces of furniture in it were all black. A large mirror lined half of an entire wall. I headed there first.
I barely recognized the girl looking back. Puberty obviously had it's effect on my body, even while in the isolation, somehow. I'm pretty sure every other girl would be envious of the figure I had, but I didn't want it.
My dirty-blonde hair was waist length, the old length being maybe only two-thirds of that. It was somehow smooth and silky, while I was expecting tangles every time I run my fingers through my hair.
The last thing that bothered me was my eyes. I remembered them brighter, the same colour as the ocean. Yet, looking closely at it now, they were darker, more indigo coloured. More like Dr. Henderson's.
It would make sense that I grow up to look like her. But, it isn't how I want to look like.
In general, I looked healthy. I looked nothing like I thought I'd look like, with dark circles under my eyes and the outline of bone under my skin. I looked like one of those book characters who magically are perfectly perfect when they wake up.
"That process probably does have some tricks under their sleeves," A voice says. "Sure can work some miracles."
I turn around and there he is, his messy, dark blond hair and ocean-blue eyes just the way I remember them. He has a backpack slung over a shoulder and a small smile on his face.
"Spencer," I run up to him, pulling him into a hug. I'm only a couple inches shorter than him now, he used to be over a foot taller.
"I almost didn't believe it when mom said you were here," He said in reply. Pulling me away, he looked at me straight in the eye. "I missed you so much, Laur. You okay?"
"Yeah, I guess." I look down. "It was really weird. Waking up. Walking again. Looking at myself in the mirror." My eyes look up again. "Where were you?"
He bit his lip. "University. I'm studying engineering."
"You go to university?"
"During the day, yeah. I come back after. Mom isn't exactly pleased with the decision. She wants my life to revolve around the experiment."
I totally ignore everything he said. "How old are you?"
He looks at me oddly at first, but then answers. "Twenty-one."
The number hits me hard in the gut. I'm five years younger than him.
Spencer answers my next question before I ask it. Maybe he knew I was going to ask because of our link.
Pulling out a gold necklace and my gold bracelet, he hands them to me delicately. "Happy sixteenth birthday, sis."
"Umm, am I interrupting something?" A different voice asked. I spin around.
Like me, in head-to-toe black and a messy hairdo, the boy I thought was dead stands in front of me.
"Hey," I say quietly.
"Hey," Aidan smiles back.