JUST PRETEND ↠ ALEX SUMMERS ✔️ [EDITING]

Chapter 16

After a long shower—better safe than sorry after the Alex incident—Devin got ready for bed. Putting on sweatpants and one of her old shirts, she brushed her teeth before staring at the mirror looking over her face. She wasn't going to let the boy die any more times than he already has. She wasn't going to dream of him dying.

She looked at her new door, Erik offered to fix it for her. Devin looked at the lock before turning to the bed and getting under the covers. She turned the lamp off and rested her head on the pillow, closing her eyes. Hoping that night would be different.

Devin was in a strange white room, there were no doors or windows, there didn't seem to be a ceiling either, but that could have just been from the extremely bright lights up ahead—almost blindingly bright. She looked down at her clothes, they were all white as well, she touched them to see if it was real.

But when she put her hands on the shirt she pulled them away quickly, she stared at the shirt where her hand had just been pressed against, seeing the stain left behind. She looked around but saw nothing, saw no one. It was only her. Devin was all alone.

She stared at her hands, they were hers, but what was on them didn't belong to her. She had blood all over them, and it was warm, dripping down her arms down to her elbows before dripping onto the floor. This couldn't be happening again. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to get the image out of her head.

Devin opened her eyes once more and saw that this time she was in a field at night. Or a war zone. She wasn't exactly sure. All she knew was that she wasn't in the white room any more. There was smoke rising from cars, buildings, and rubble. A few dying red flares were on the ground, fizzling out. She looked down. This time in some black uniform. Some sort of training uniform. Like the one they use in the simulations for training.

Maybe this was just a simulation. Maybe she sleepwalked down to the Danger Room and started a simulation. But she wasn't sure how she could have done that. Just to be sure, she looked at her hands, they were clean. She sighed in relief. The blood wasn't real.

When Devin looked up, she saw other people in the same uniform march towards her. One held a gun out to her, her hands immediately went to take it. But she didn't will her hands to do so. She wasn't in control. As she turned around, to see where the rest were marching, the scenery changed to a destroyed building, a bright sun burning up ahead.

The same building.

Her body moved along with the crowd, her steps quickening as she managed to get to the front, walking through hallways and into an empty lot with rubble and dust everywhere. Parts of the walls collapsed outwards. Plumbing scattered across the ground.

Her breathing deepened as she lifted the gun up, she looked to where the gun was pointing, it was the boy. Devin so desperately wanted to scream. To tell him to run quicker or get back, but she couldn't. She was trapped watching as her finger pulled the trigger sending a bullet towards his chest before she could feel herself holding the trigger down until the magazine round was almost empty.

She looked back up to see herself running towards the boy screaming, a metal pipe wedged in her leg. Devin was the only one who fired the gun. But they all turned back around to leave. But as she did, the scenery changed again.

This time she was herself, watching the men leave. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. She wasn't sure why she kept jumping from person to person, place to place, view to view. First, she was in a room of white, then a battle ground, then standing across the room.

Was she the same person the entire time and now herself? Did she watch what happened to the man who killed the boy? His story? Was he conditioned and created for this purpose? Was he even human?