Playing with Fire

7

"Toboni," Adam stares at her with his arms folded.

She looks at him, then at me. As if she recognises me (which is very unlikely because I only know Nat, Daniel, Adam and Ruben).

Toboni's facial expression is still but I can see that she is a bit scared.

"This is Lawrence. She is one of my friends." Adam continues.

Silence.

Adam sighs and glares at me. "You talk to her. She may understand you."

He walks out, leaving me with the silent girl, slamming the door as such.

I stare at her and she does the same to me.

"So... what ya wr-"

"That tattoo." she stares at me.

"What tattoo?" I examine my arm to see a triangle. Just a triangle. Black outline with no colour to fill it in. Fear scrambles up my spine. "When did I get that?"

"You're a test subject, aren't you..." Toboni says silently.

Suddenly, I see the blonde haired woman with glasses, squatting in front of me with the syringe in her hand.

"How can you tell?" I question as I snap back into reality.

"The tattoo." Toboni responds. "She injected you with the fire serum."

So that's what she put into my neck...

"But. The tattoo and the serum doesn't correlate-"

"It does. Each tattoo is a alchemical symbol. For instance, your one resembles fire. Each tattoo they give you is what serum they inject into your DNA."

I raise an eyebrow at her and I sit next to her.

"Are you one then if you know what's what?"

Toboni nods.

"Do you have a tattoo?"

"It's on my back, I haven't shown anyone but since you've been through the same thing, I might as well show you."

She turns around and takes off her black shirt to show an ink drawing of what looked like an upside-down omega symbol.

"It means Life."

I fix my eyes onto the mark on her skin. "Life, why life?"

Toboni shrugs her shoulders. "I don't know, please don't say internal life because I would hate that."

I nod in agreement. "I would hate that too."

She puts her shirt back on and turns to face me. "You know, that Adam guy underestimates me a lot."

"Why's that?" I ask.

"It's that he thinks that I need caring but at the same time, he'll demand me to do whatnot. Like a parent."

My face rests and it won't return to its normal state. I stare down at my feet and frown.

"Hey, what's wrong?" she asks.

I gotta say it as Daniel knows. So it'll be a bit unfair. I inhale by my nose and I tell her. "I have no parents. They abandoned me. I don't know why but I thought I was lucky that the woman-with-blonde-hair found me-"

"NO IT WAS NOT!" she raises her voice at me. "SHE TREATS YOU AS IF YOUR HER CHILD BUT YOU'RE NOT! WHEN YOU'RE AT THE RIGHT AGE, SHE'LL TEST ON YOU!"