Only mine | The Darkest Minds fanfiction

Prologue

My head was throbbing, it hurt so bad. I was dizzy, I couldnt move.
My stomach was cramping, but I couldnt throw up anymore, my stomach too empty after spending the last few days puking my guts out.

„Now don't make a fuss! It can't be that bad. Stop whining, Annalise." Adeleine, my aunt, scolds.
But it was bad. I never thought life at Thurmond couldnt get any worse but here I was.
Some nasty stomach bug went around and a quarter of the camp had fallen ill.
But they got better. I didn't. And I didnt know why. I still felt as worse as I did on day one.

Aunt Adeleine plucked the wet and damp flannel from my forehead. By now it was almost as hot as my forehead. I felt miserable. I was so dehydrated, but I couldnt keep anything down, no food, no water. I hadn't had any infusions since last night, it was too expensive and the money would have been a waste on someone like me.

Thurmond is a rehabilitation camp for kids like me. Kids with IAAN. A strange disease that affected children who reached puberty. At least that's what they said on TV at the time. Most of the kids died from it.
I didn't know what to do with it until I was thirteen. My little brother and I were home-schooled and never had much to do with other children our age.

Our parents wanted us to have it better one day. That we would have a good chance in life, a chance to go to a good college. What irony followed.

I was reading a poem in our living room, angry at my mother for not letting me go back to Ballett classes. „It's been three years! Why am I still here? The virus must be over! Three years, mum! You can't lock us up here forever! I miss my friends. I miss going out." i yelled at my mother.
„You can't. And you won't. It's not worth the risk, Anni. Be reasonable and start being a role model for Ethan." she answered back, angry but calm.

I looked over the table at my younger brother. His brown hair was neat on his head and he looked a little pale, listening to our conversation. He was eleven years old and the nicest, most precious young boy I could ever imagine. He never complained and always came up with new ideas to cheer me up when I was sad about the life we got ourselves into.

It should have been the other way around, I know that now. Whenever I thought of him that was my first and mostly only thought: he was too good for me and I never was the sister he needed and deserved.

„Mom? I don't feel to good." Ethan said quietly. But neither my mum nor I paid attention to that, too busy arguing.
„- and if you would be a better mum, you would know how we feel and -." I was caught off by my falling water glass. The whole table was shaking. An earthquake? No. That was my brother. He was shaking like hell. Horrified, I sprung up and ran around the table just in time to catch my falling brother.
We crashed onto the ground and my little brother was dead.

My mother was crying, shouting and bawling when she noticed. She snatched ethan from my arms and sank to the ground with him, her tears falling down his face. I had never seen anybody so upset. I couldn't cry, I couldn't shout. I just sat there next to them and felt nothing and everything at the same time.

My eyes fell onto the glass on the ground next to them. It bothered me. And in this terrible situation I tried to dissociate myself and directed all my thoughts to this glass.

Slowly, it began to wobble again and then rose from the floor again and rose towards the table.

My mother screamed. "You are one of them! You had the virus! Look what it has done to you. And look what it has done to your brother. It was you. You infected him. Why? Why, Annie? How could you do that? He's dead and you're alive and it's all your fault? Why, my little boy?" she sobbed aloud. Reproaches followed again and again, but I didn't hear them any more. The glass fell back to the floor and shattered. Everything was full of shards, I grabbed one, but I didn't feel the pain either. I no longer felt anything at all. My brother was dead. And it was all my fault.

I didn't notice what happened next either. At some point, a few men dressed in black stood in our house and took me away. They pushed me into a van where other children were sitting, all scared. But I didn't care, I didn't care about anything.

My aunt greeted me at Thurmond while she gave me my uniform. Aunt Adeleine was my mother's sister and she used to be the nicest adult I knew. She was funny and caring and always outgoing. But she changed due to the crisis the country faced with IAAN. She was a nurse and she soon was shipped to Thurmond to work there. She had no other choice. I hadn't seen her for three years by then and I should have been happy to see her, but I didn't care about anything anymore.

You either die or you become a monster like me. A monster capable of the death of so many other.

„Is she still sick?!" a large man bellowed as he entered the infirmary.
„Yes, sir." my aunt replie.
She left my side after injecting some medicine in my arm and went over to the men.
„I don't care that she's your niece. She is too expensive. We should kill her." the man said angrily. I was too sick to care. ‚Then kill me' I think. I didnt want to be this sick anymore. I couldnt take it anymore.
I didnt hear what they are saying anymore, I can't focus. I was dizzy and soon I lost consciousness.

__________

The next time I woke up, I wasn't in the infirmary in Thurmond anymore. The bed I way lying in was equally hard and uncomfortable, but the walls were white and not as depressing grey as it was where I came from.
But where was I? I felt a lot better, the nausea was nearly gone and my head was a lot better.

I looked around. Nothing looked familiar. At the other end of the room were six little girls crying. A nurse was shaving their hair off. „Don't cry. We don't want everyone here to get lice." she said strictly as she continued to shave an asian looking girl. It was horrible to watch. These girls were so young, probably around ten. They didn't deserve this. And I didn't either. I was fifteen and life was shitty. But not just for me, for everyone here. Wherever ‚here' was now.

When she finished shaving off the last girls hair, she turned around and faced me.
With quick steps she came up to me. „Good morning. I am nurse Grace. How are you feeling?" she asked.
I had never seen this woman ever before.

„Uhm. I'm better. But where am I? I have never been in these rooms of Thurmond." i replied shyly.
„Because you're not at Thurmond. Not anymore. Your aunt called here three days ago. You are in Caledonia, Ohio. You were on the verge of dying and Thurmond couldn't spend any more money on your health. Your aunt begged us to take you in for recovery. I know her from nurse school. I owed her. I will send her an email and tell her that you feel better. I'll have some soup brought in." With that, she turned and disappeared out the door.

Ohio? I hadn't escaped. Just another new shithole. Great.