Diana

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Chapter 17

The walk was uneventful.

We were quiet the whole time, neither of us saying a word. I would open my mouth to ask Varian about how much further we had to walk, but the words would never make their way out. I didn’t want to hear Varian’s sharp tongue again. I wouldn’t tell him, but his tone had hurt me.

Varian was the only person to talk to me without formality or disappointment. I understood why he didn’t speak with formality. He wasn’t a lab coat and therefore he wasn’t superior towards me. Once, He’d told me that although the lab coats were condescending towards the experiment, they weren’t much higher up on the ‘food pyramid’. In fact, he told me some considered them below us. If a lab coat made a mistake in front of an experiment they were never seen again.

He’d also told me that the Outsiders were steps below experiments. Whilst experiments were treated with care and formality, Outsiders were treated with disgust and avoided unless it was absolutely necessary. He’d made sure that I understood how Outsiders were inferior to us. If He was correct, then Varian was inferior to me. But I was starting to question everything He’d told me.

Varian had never acted inferior towards me. If He was correct, then Varian and I were supposed to have a relationship parallel to a lab coat and an experiment. But we didn’t. Varian talked out to me, but I never punished him. Varian didn’t seem to find anything wrong with speaking out either. But why did I always feel miniscule when I spoke out towards him? Did that make Varian superior towards me?

“I think we’re almost there.” Varian spoke, breaking the endless silence. His eyebrows were furrowed with confusion, like he couldn’t remember. I understood slightly why he might  be confused; all the buildings looked the same. They were all bricked and unusually dirty. They clearly weren’t sterilized like the lab was.

But if he’d lived in this area all of his life, shouldn’t he know where we were the way an experiment was built to remember their number? It came naturally to add my numbers to the end of my name. Arcelia 14786: it seemed to flow. I’ve known it my whole life at the Lab just as Varian knew his area.

Of course, I didn’t voice my opinion. I wasn’t ready to have Varian snap at me once again, leaving me confused and hurt.

Suddenly he stopped, his eyebrows furrowing further. His eyes closed and I just stared. Varian closing his eyes wasn’t going to increase his chances of remembering where he wanted to be. But I didn’t tell him that. Instead, I kept staring, waiting for him to come to the realization we might be lost.

“I think we take a left here.” He murmured, walking off again, not bothering to check if I followed. I sighed mutely, but continued trailing after him only because if I stayed alone there was more than a fifty percent chance I would end up dead.

He stopped again at a lone building that stood all by itself. It didn’t look as stable as the other buildings we had just passed and not near as clean as the lab. It clearly looked abandoned making me sure that no one inhabited it. Varian seemed to think otherwise as he turned towards me.

 “You’re going to stay behind me the whole time, understand? Don’t say a single word.” He said, his confusion gone, replaced with a mask of seriousness. I nodded, thinking myself capable of the ability to remember a few simple commands. He sighed before nodding to himself and stepping inside the building with me right behind.

The interior of the building was even more isolated than the outside. It held nothing except for the few pillars that were there to support the structure. Otherwise, the floor was dusted with dirt that had probably blown in and never found its way out. I could hear rustling of what sounded like the rats that used to escape from their testing environment occasionally at the Lab. Other than that, it was completely silent.

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