Forget » Theo Raeken

one

FOUR YEARS LATER

"Alright boys, let's get this show on the road." Hadlee Parker nearly cheers, although venomous sarcasm drips from her speech.

The masked men stare at her with no expression (what else?), and reply only with silence, and a shrill buzzing that follows the trio of dread constantly.

The brunette chuckles to herself, and teases, "What, no answer? Very rude." She rolls her eyes, then examines the collection of weapons sitting on a cart next to her. "Your mothers should have taught you some sort of manners." She chortles, and toys with a rusted blade, tangling it throughout her fingers. At that moment, the clock strikes twelve A.M. in the distance.

And besides the vibration the clock sends throughout the water-treatment-plants' corridors, there's another disturbance that makes its way through the lab.

The suits encapsulating the dread-doctor-induced humans melt like liquid off the bodies, revealing normal, teenaged kids, one of them not remembering the crimes they had committed, maybe just minutes before, as something of a hooded zombie.

"There you are!" Hadlee shouts, rolling her eyes and allowing a smile to creep onto her otherwise expressionless face.

Behind the first mask, a teenage girl, not much younger than Hadlee, fluffed her hair and examined her nails. "Where did I go?" She queries.

Hadlee laughs and leans against an operating table, reminiscing. If only the poor girl knew about the exponential amount of Dread-Doctor generated chimeras, the numerous Homicidal acts she had been involved in; but the poor girl is brain dead nearly the whole time, only brought back at the strike of twelve A.M. or by the flooding back of forbidden memories from her forbidden previous life.

But none of the four know a thing about their previous life. All except Theo...but he refuses to open his mouth to any of them.

Hadlee ends her reminiscing with a light chuckle. "Rori," she begins, "You have no idea."

The girl with the electric blue plait, by the name of Rori, shrugs her shoulders and walks off deep into the lab.

A boy looking much older than the two of them emerges next, wearing next to nothing except for a white wife beater and blood-red boxers. He ruffles his dark brunette hair. "Is she still that clueless?" He says, quirking an eyebrow.

"Jonah, of course she is. She's Rori." Hadlee grasps a worn, deep green canvas bag off an even more worn work-bench. "Besides, it's only her third day. She's a new one, remember? Thanks to you."

"I had to do what was necessary - "

"Jonah you turned a perfectly innocent girl into a monster! You used to be normal too. You were furious when you found out the truth."

"She's right." The next one says, dusting off the shoulders of his grey sweatshirt. "You did it to the kid."

"Shut your trap, Theo. At least I don't privately abuse my 'parents'."

Theo chuckles to himself. "Jonah, save the animalistic behavior for the football field." Jonah bows his head in defeat, whilst my eyes bulge open.

"We're actually going back to the hell hole?"

"I prefer the term: honey hole."

"Why would you want to go back there? After Isla - "

" - Hadlee. I swear if you say her name again I will rip your throat out."

" - Isla."