• When she woke, her hair had been clipped off, she wore a brown sack with holes cut in it, and she was in a strange room made entirely of concrete. The door was heavy and had two slots in it, one at the top for her captors to look through, and the other at the bottom for her food to slide through.

    A mouse stuck its nose out of its hole and looked at her. Slowly, it came up to her. When she reached her hand out to touch it, it cringed in fear but did not move. Petting it gently, it came to realize that she was no threat and came closer to her until she could pick it up in her hand.

    She did not know how much time had passed before she heard heavy foot falls on the floor and she had to put the mouse back down so it could return to its hole. The door opened and let a beam of light into her dark cell. A voice came from the shadows and a man stepped into the light enough for her to see he was a tall six-foot man. He wore a grey suit, but he kept his face in the shadows. She saw that the man wore gloves on both hands. That is odd.

    She was yanked up by her upper arm and dragged into the hall. The bright lights blinded her for a few moments, and she closed her eyes to the gleam off the steel walls. Dragged along by her arms, she was taken to a room with some others who stood in a line. As each reached the front of the line, they were injected with some thing she could not identify.

    She was shoved into the line and into the back of the person in front of her. When the person turned around, she saw it was a boy, no older than she was. He had light brown hair and a very masculine figure. His baby blue eyes looked down at her and he asked her quietly enough for only her to hear, “Are you alright, these men can be very rough. They have no pity either.” Staring up into his eyes, she gave her soft reply, “I’m fine, but I’m sorry for running into you.”

    “You look like you just got here, are you the person that was captured last night?” he asked, again only loud enough for me to hear. “Yes, but I just woke up. Has it really only been one night, I feel like I’ve been sleeping on that floor for at least three days.” She whispered. A grimace came across his face and he said, “It was not sleeping on the floor that hurt you, it was what they did to you. I doubt you were unconscious for more than three hours.”

    He was almost to the front of the line when he said, “Well, time for our weekly dose of poison.” He turned around and offered his arm out. The woman to a syringe full of a clear liquid. He was hauled out of the room then and it was her turn. After the dose of “poison” was injected in to her blood stream, she too was taken from the room.

    She was pushed into her room, falling on the floor. When the door was locked and the footsteps of her captors faded away, the little mouse scuttled out of the hole. But this time it had a note in its mouth. Dropping it by her, it ran back to its hole. Unfolding the piece of paper, she read what was written on it.

    I never got to tell you my name, and never learned yours. I’m Trevor. The chipped pieces of the wall are an ok writing utensil.
    P.S. The mouse’s name is Beou

    She found the broken fragments of cement. Oddly they were tipped with black were they had fitted into the wall. Placing the paper against the wall, she wrote,

    I’m Rose.
    P.S. What was that stuff they injected us with?

    Calling out Beou, she rolled up the paper and gave it to him to take to Trevor.

    Listening to the scrabbling of the mouse’s claws until they died away, when she could here them no longer, she laid down to wait for another message. Later that day, she sat up with a start. She had screamed herself hoarse and had sweat pouring off her.

    She could not remember any of what she had been dreaming, except for the fact that it was about her parents. Beau came out of his hole holding another note in his mouth. This time it read,

    Rose, are you ok? I could hear you screaming and these walls are basically sound proof. By the way, the stuff they injected us with is some sort of virus. They give it to every one, those who live are studied, those who don’t, well you don’t want to know.

    Finding another black tipped rock, she scribbled her short reply,

    I’m fine; I had a nightmare. And thanks for telling me what that stuff was.

    -R