"Yeah," I said holding my head in my hands.
Why did my life have to be such a circus? An image flashed into my foggy mind. Me in a hospital bed. Another image. My parents, Alistair, and Cade, but with me in a hospital.
"Eve?"
Cade's voice. I heard it but the images kept coming. This time it was like a video. Alistair and a woman, Elder Ryann, they were giving me shots to make me a controlled, aggressive, secret weapon.
I tried fiercely to open my eyes to a now screaming Cade, but an image of my messy handwriting flashed into my mind. In capital letters, it wrote something that shook me to the core.
NONE OF IT IS REAL.
With a gasp, I opened my eyes. I stared at a frantic Cade in shock.
"Are you okay Eve?"
What was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to say? I was anything but okay! I was sad, confused, overwhelmed, and just tired. I shook my head no.
"What did you see?"
I looked at him in confusion, "How did you know?"
He shook his head, "They were giving you this rare medicine called kaivitomalia. It's designed to help people to forget troubling things. Look, don't ask how I know because that's a long story. Just tell me what you saw."
I told him everything. Well, almost everything. I left out the last part. That was probably my mind being dumb anyway.
"Okay," he said," that didn't tell me much I didn't already know. But the parts with regular us in the hospital with you? Is that something they planted in your head? Weird. Well, at least we know that you're important to them. So we should be able to use you to get to them and maybe even-"
"Um, no," I said cutting him off.
There was absolutely no way that was going to happen.
"No, it's fine," he said, "Everyone here knows about everything."
"That's not it Cade. I'm staying here. I'm not going back there ever, not after what I know."
He looked surprised at my response, "Don't you know how many people's lives are at stake?"
"Yeah, and why should I care," I demanded, "Why the hell do I have to be the hero? Can't somebody else do something for once? I hate this world! I hate my life! I wish I were somewhere without a problem, without anything."
"Cade chuckled humorlessly, "Everywhere has problems," he said gesturing around.
"You could go anywhere and still find something that will knock you down. And guess what? It'll keep knocking you down. It doesn't matter if it isn't fair or if the world crushes you until you think you have nothing left. What matters is that you get up. And that you keep going. If you keep blaming everybody else you'll always be miserable. Your life sucks. That's the truth. But so does mine and everybody else's around you. Do you think that any of us want this life? To be slaves to our endeavors? To constantly compete with those around us in materialistic wars of nothing but want and greed? To slowly rot away wondering what could have been? To work a mindless life away not having anything to show but being alive? No! But I'm still here aren't I? Because as long as I am above ground I haven't lost. This game that we call life isn't about having the best things, and the best house, and being the smartest or the prettiest. No, it goes so much deeper than that, especially for us. And that isn't winning. Winning is when you carry through each day knowing that you've been knocked down and got back up. Winning is knowing that you might not be the smartest, the most beautiful, or have the best things. It's knowing that you took the problems you were dealt with and scoffed in their faces. It's looking at those problems and saying, 'you can't break me.' It's knowing what the world is and smiling anyway. It's making the best outta what you got. It's getting up even when you would rather sink into the earth and ride your days out in Hell. Saying God will take care of you is an allusion. You are the only one that will ever take care of you. You need to prove to everybody around you that you are worth it, by first proving that to yourself. But that starts by getting up. So take a long look at yourself and think; will I roll over and lose or will I stand up and win?"
Cade offers his hand out to me hopefully.
I take it.
"I guess it's a good thing I hate losing."
*************************************************
In less time than I could even ponder if I had made the right decision, a meeting was called. A meeting of the exiled. Everybody that had ever been thrown out by The Town was here. There had to have been at least two thousand people. A lot, but almost nothing compared to the fifteen thousand of The Town. We were sicklily outnumbered
The cool thing about this meeting was that there was no one appointed speaker everybody was gathered together. Even young children dragged here by their banished parents. Everybody got a say, I liked that. Cade started the meeting though. He was the one that called it after all.
"I called you all here today because I might have some potentially good news. You all know the situation with The Town. We all were sent here for the same reason. Were not able to fit their mold. Some of us more than others. But what I have here is a loophole to the system. Evelyn come up here."
I moved to the center of the circle. I got some looks and people started talking, but I wasn't phased. I knew that would happen. Somebody that wasn't banished never came here. Most people didn't even know about here. I didn't know about this place until a little while ago.
"Miss Evelyn here is on The Society's radar," Cade said.
He was right, and the people seemed to be curious about where this would lead.
"What do you guys think we should do?"
I looked at Cade with pure confusion. He didn't have a plan? What the heck did he call a meeting for then?
I was about to give him a piece of my mind when an old woman speaks up, She needs to get in close with somebody."
Before I could comprehend what she was saying another younger man joined in, "Yeah! Pretend to be one of them!"
"Okay," Cade drawled, "So then what's her excuse about coming here?"
There was silence. Nobody had a good enough excuse. I sighed as a sharp pain pierced my shoulder. My vision began to get foggy once again.
"What the hell?" I slurred stumbling into Cade.
Chaos broke out as people started making speculations.
My eyes started to droop. The sounds started to morph into different voices, as I got the sensation of lying in a bed. My eyes flew open and I was met with multiple people in loose blue clothing. They were crowding around me. They were holding me down, trying to inject me something.
"What are you crazy people doing to me? Get away from me!'
"I'm your doctor, baby," a beautiful and elegant black woman said, "You're going to feel so much better if you let us help you."
A tear splashed down my face. What was going on? Why was I back in this weird weird place? I saw the woman that talked to me last time I was here.
"Miss. why am I here?" I asked her.
"To feel better. We know that you think you should bein The Town place you told us about, but don't worry, they told us you're safe here."
I looked at her skeptically. If she was a part of The Town I would know.
"You're lying! You're not even wearing-"
"Now!" the doctor shouted.
Before I could do anything, something was put into my IV.
"The antipsychotics should start working soon." a voice said
"I never thought schizophrenia could get this bad," a different voice said
"This is by far the worse case I've seen," the first voice said.
My eyes closed once again.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Annoying voiced pulled me out of my sleep. I opened my eyes and everything seemed clear for a minute. This was my real life.
Those people in front of me were my parents.
"Mom?" I sobbed out.
She ran over to me tears falling down her face, "Yes baby. It's me."
"Is this- real?" I stuttered out.
"Yes baby," she cried hugging me, "my baby is back. My baby is back. The Town isn't real! It's a hallucination, baby. Please fight it, baby! We almost have your medications right, baby please."
My vision started going foggy. I knew I was going back, but this time I knew what was real. Something in my head knew this was real. Something about The Town always felt wrong. But, would I remember once I got there?
"I'll fight mom, " I whispered before blacking out.