Schizophrenic

Escapé

My head felt heavy as I tried to lift it. There was a medium sized window high up against the ceiling allowing light to illuminate the room. It hadn’t taken me long to figure out that the furniture was glued in place so that there was no chance of moving it to get out through the window.

 A loud knock interrupted my thoughts.

“Ariella? Can I come in?” a voice asked.

“Yeah, sure,” I mumbled. The door opened revealing the owner of the voice. Mason. “What are you doing here?”

“Jake called ahead. He said he’s stopping by although he might be a little late. I thought it would cheer you up,” he said, smiling.

I grinned, although for different reasons than Mason must have thought. And then I remembered what I was supposed to do.

“Mason,” I began sheepishly. “You remember the other day…when you gave me you’re coat.”

“What about it?”

I pulled out his cell phone from under my pillow. His eyes flashed to it then back to me. “I’ve had it this whole time.”

“So that’s where it’s been,” he said half-heartedly. I was slowly pushing it towards him. Instead of taking it from my hand, he closed his hand over mine, letting my fingers wrap around the phone. “You keep it. I don’t need it.”

“B-but…Why would I need it?” I stuttered.

“You never know,” he said, letting a sad smile take over. His hand let go of mine, his sad smile fading.

Suddenly he was overcome with an exciting thought. “It snowed real strong last night. There’s about a foot of snow outside now. Do you want to invite everyone and go out? We can have a snowball fight till Jake gets here.”

My eyes lit up, reminding me that it was winter. “Yes!”

I scrambled out of bed and into the bathroom. I changed into the awful uniform I had found in the wardrobe and then ran back out. Mason was holding out a giant winter jacket and snow pants.

“Are these mines?”

“Technically, they’re mines, but you can wear them, I have another set in my room. How about you get your friends and I’ll go get my suit.”

“Don’t forget to bring Victoria!” I yelled out the room.

“I sure will,” he said. I could imagine the wink he would have given me. As soon as he left, my mind returned to the cell phone.

Why would Mason let me keep it? Didn’t he suspect me of using it to…to do something with it?

A thought occurred to me. All of a sudden my perspective of Mason changed. Maybe he was trying to help me.

My mind whirred with the possibilities. If Mason was helping me, that meant I had inside help as well as an official who knew more about the Institute than any outsider. But I’d have to repay Mason in some way for helping. I could find a way to get rid of Elizabeth and bring Mason and Victoria together. Maybe I could even bring them with me so that they wouldn’t have to be holed up in here. It didn’t seem like Mason liked working here, although I didn’t know about Victoria. I hadn’t seen her in some time.

Would Mason be willing to leave? I didn’t have an answer.

It was cold outside. The snow was floating down to the white ground, layering up. There was already a thick layer, good for sledding.

Mason forced me down the barely visible path to the park near which was a fairly well sloped hill.

I could already see many bright figures, as bright as one can get in the different shades of blue and pink, balling up snow and flinging it at another, some were sledding and even a few with snowboards.