DYLAN
"Look it's rolling!" Alison shouts when she finally gets the puppy to roll over. Her hair is full of wet grass from demonstrating to the puppy.
It has been two weeks since they released her and she has changed a lot. She doesn't live in this big house anymore. After the trial, Gina was literally expelled from her own house for the sake of the child. She agreed with that and settled with a small, old apartment not too far from here.
They come back every day to visit Madison. Gina has tried everything. She made every type of medicine that existed, and even got Wen to help. Nothing worked, of course, but she kept going at it. It has come to the point where I think the only reason Gina is doing it is for the sake of trying.
Regarding me... I haven't speak with Madison since the last time I saw her at the prom. I have only seen her from behind the crystal of the lab and she seems devastated. She's losing about twenty pounds per week. She can't eat anything and doesn't want to see anyone but the child that according to Gina, "gives her the energy she needs to keep fighting". I don't blame her and neither do I make pressure. She feels bad and it's totally understandable. But just as I promised to her when we arrived here, I am not going anywhere till she's safe.
"Daddy!" Alison shouts running to Wen's arms who suddenly joins us in the garden.
Watching them together is really confusing. She loves him the way any child would love any of her parents but considering everything he did to her it's unbelievable that she stills acts that way. A part of me believes that Wen loves her in a strange way, but Gina states that he fakes it to make her feel safe and truly believes that he has been doing that since she was born.
"Look, I fell down," she says showing her the wound of her knee when he kneels to reach her. He looks at her and makes a grimace that makes the girl giggle.
"What were you doing?" asks Wen.
"I was playing with Snicker" she says talking about the dog that she named on her own, in honor of her new favorite chocolate. "Look at what it can do," she runs again towards the dog who quickly runs away from her.
"Maybe you should help the girls in the lab," Wen says sitting down next to me on the grass while Alison chases Snicker.
"Is Madison okay?" I reply immediately.
"She was trying to walk," he says shrugging and that makes me open my eyes widely. "I will watch Alison, you can go."
I am not sure at all of leaving the child with him but I ignore my doubts and stand up quickly to open the door. I run upstairs and before I reach the landing, I can tell that Madison and Gina are having a heated argument.
"I would never be able to help you if you don't help yourself first!" I hear Gina right when I enter the lab. She startles when she sees me there but then sighs in relief. "Try talking to her, see if there's something you can do," she says tiredly and leaves.
I get closer to the crystal door which opens fast letting me find Madison on the floor in one of the corners of the room, leaning against the mirrors and crying, frustrated. She's very thin and her skin has a yellow tinge. She raises her eyes as soon as she hears my shoes against the bright and shiny white floor. The green in her eyes seems unsettlingly off. She looks confused and her eyes water as soon as she realizes it's me.
"You're still here," is all she says in a low voice and I nod forcing her a smile.
"I am not planning to go anywhere," I reply sitting down next to her against the mirror and hug her carefully with no reply of her. Her legs and arms are full of bruises.
"You weren't supposed to see me like this," she cries making me let go of her and she grimaces with pain when she leans back on the mirror.
"What happened?" I ask when she gets to stop crying and shakes her head.
"I can't walk," she shrugs, "I can't do anything."
She sounds mad and not with me but with herself. I gulp and think I am useless here. "Maybe if you try again?" She lets out a small laugh at the uselessness of my words which makes me smile at her. She ends up forcing a smile in return.
"Everything hurts," she admits. "I wish I was dead."
"Don't say that," I tell her and tears keep getting out of her eyes. "You are going to get better."
"I won't," she whines. "Why can't anyone see it? I just want this to go away" I pull her back in a hug that makes her leave out a moan and keep crying.
"I really can't do anything anymore," she says.
"Well, you can sleep," I joke in an attempt to change her mood and got it.
"Yeah, I think I am very good at that," she laughs for a moment when I let her go and then grimaces again for the pain that laughing causes to her. The bracelet on her wrist starts beeping. "Ugh, I hate this thing," she says and in less than three seconds her mother enters with a syringe on her hand.
"Can you help me to get her back on the bed please?" she says tired and I nod taking Madison in my arms. She's almost as heavy as Alison--which is not a good thing, as she should be much heavier. I place her carefully on the bed and give her a kiss on her forehead before letting go of her. Her mother takes her arm and injects her something that just seconds later makes the bracelet stop beeping. "How do you feel?" she asks passing her hand on her arm and Madison just shrugs again.
"Useless," she snaps.
"At least that's constant," Gina replies tired . "I'm sick of your attitude," she makes sure to tell her and I just look at them both.
"And I'm having so much fun in here," she replies sarcastically which makes Gina sigh and just leave the room without saying anything else.
"She's doing what she can," I assure Madison once she's gone and her eyes get full of tears again.
"I know," she replies in a low voice. "But it's useless."
"Why would it be useless?" I ask sitting down next to her and she looks away sighing before getting lost in her reflection. "Madison?" she looks at me again and carefully shakes her head.
"Do you remember when you gave me that tour in LA?" she changes the subject but I nod without alternative. "You said you were going to do a movie of me and what I was hiding. Do you remember?" she says with tears in her eyes and I nod remembering my words that day that were meant for nothing more than a joke. I didn't know what she was hiding was so serious. "I want you to do it," she says taking me off guard. "After all, I think I do have something you can talk about." She gets up from the pillow with a lot of effort and I think some pain. From under her pillow she takes out two thick folders. She puts them over her legs and then forces me a smile once she controls her breathing. That single action has beads of sweat forming on her forehead.
"What's that?" I ask and she opens one of the folders. It is full of papers and three photos of a little girl and a woman looking at the camera. She looks at them for a moment smiling a little and then gives them to me so I can see. The woman is Gina, much younger than she is now and the girl has the green and shiny eyes of Madison. They both smile to the camera and Gina has her arms lovingly around the child.
"It's my life," she says, showing me the other photos. "My mother was always with me while I was an experiment," she explains. "Alison had Wen but he wasn't the same as my mother was with me."
"You were just like Alison with green eyes," I say and she nods.
"She's practically my little sister... and our father is Wen," she says.
"Wen? Wen Hoffman?" I say surprised and she nods showing me a paper that represents her birth certificate with the name of Wen Hoffman in the father's place and the mother's empty. "What about your mother?"
"Biologically, they don't even know for sure. According to my mother, the eggs have been frozen for years. People used to donate them for couples that couldn't have children," she explains while she looks for another paper. "But the woman that gave birth to me was called Jane Edwin," she hands me another paper. A confidentiality agreement signed by that woman. "The one who gave birth to Alison was called Delia Vasher." She hands me another agreement, this time signed by Delia Vasher.
"Are they still alive?" I ask and she shrugs.
"Probably. They were young when they got them pregnant; my mother was twenty two and Alison's was twenty four years old," she explains. "My mother told me that they paid them enough money to work as incubators and with being young they guaranteed they were strong and healthy enough to finish the pregnancy satisfactorily."
"You mean they were innocent enough to be manipulated," I correct her and she forces me a smile.
"These files are full of information about us. It contains all kinds of stuff about what happened with us in this place, and even information of before we were born," she says. "Do you know the reason why Alison's name and mine are so similar?"
"Why?" I ask intrigued.
"They named us based on our experiment number," she replies. "Ours is one hundred and fifty which states our range of experimentation and the code is inside our name." I frown not getting it and that makes her take a pencil that I didn't see before from the bed and starts writing in one of the pages. "My name is formed from three letters, m, a, d, then the number one hundred and fifty that replaces the i, s and the o, and then there's a n at the end," she explains letting me see the paper where she wrote it: Mad150n. "Alison's name is practically the same one but with less letters, a, l, then the number one hundred and fifty replacing the same letters and a n at the end" she says and shows it to me again: Al150n.
"Woah," I say and she nods closing the folders to hand them to me.
"This would help you a lot," she says when I take the heavy folders.
"For what?"
"To know much more than what the internet could say about us. You have the power to explain all of this in your movie or documentary... or whatever is it," she says. "Maybe you can try to find my supposed mother and tell her about me. Maybe this is your chance to get that Oscar you want so badly or maybe it would just be an easier way to explain everything to Alison once she's old enough," she says with a gulp and then the bracelet begins flashing again right before her mother enters immediately.
"You have a fever," she says when she gets next to us and gives her a pair of pills and a glass of water for her to swallow them. Madison obeys with no other option.
"You told him your plan," says Gina when she sees the folders and Madison nods.
"No one can do it any better."
EDITED BY: JadeFoliage
THAT'S ALL FOR TODAY YOU GUYS! I HOPE YOU LIKED THIS CHAPTER AS MUCH AS I DO! WHAT DO YOU THINK IS GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT?
MAKE SURE TO LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS BELOW AND VOTE IF YOU LIKED IT!
Read you later.
-MF. Hernandez
Next Chapter: March 8th, 2019.