Exoskeleton

Chapter 2

I shut my eyes and a scream escaped from my mouth. Not a small scream, a piercing scream filled with terror. I reluctantly opened my eyes expecting to find a bloody mess.

What I found was much more surprising. The knife was lying on the floor, perfectly clean. What was really strange was the small dent surrounded by silver in my brother's arm where a wound should have been. Slowly the dent disappeared and it left a small silver scar.

My eyes widened. "Alice..." Ryan started to say. "What the hell is going on?" I said, my voice shaking. "I can explain." he said.

By now his friends had joined us and were watching us. "Well then start explaining before I freak out." I yelled. "Too late." muttered a boy with thick black glasses and brown tussled hair. I glared in his direction.

"Calm down, I'll explain. All of us were walking down the beach when a large group of men jumped out of the bushes and grabbed us. They shoved bags over our heads and drugged us."

"When I woke up some man was injecting a silver mixture into my arm. He said it was something I can't remember that had been melted. It burned when injected and I honestly thought I was going to die in that lab." Ryan said.

Many of the teenagers were crying and others looked like they were on the verge of tears. I was too, I wanted to pull my brother into a hug but I let him finish his story. "When I woke up I was in a cell with all the guys, and the girls were in the cell next to us. We were all tinted silver and our skin had burns all over it. Over three days we healed and we were taken into a large room. A woman, Dr White, told us we were the first batch that this experiment had worked and that we should be happy none of us died. She let us go, somehow she had convinced the camp we had been staying with her for some unknown reason. We all carried on like nothing had happened but we all get nightmares about our time there. We have noticed that people are following us as well, two woman and a man. We think they know what happened and want to capture us. They carry weapons as well. I thought my friends could hide here for a while." he said emotionless. It was as if his feelings had been drained out of him. I assumed he was the leader of the misfits currently standing in my kitchen, because they all took orders from him.

"I am so sorry. Totally unrelated question, where is that Dr White? I'll kill her!" I huffed angrily my mind a tornado of thoughts. "Wait, why didn't the knife cut you?" I asked regaining my composure. Under normal circumstances I would have thought my brother was joking, but these were definitely not normal circumstances. "The mixture they injected into us has hardened our skin and has given us a sort of exoskeleton. Most weapons can't get through our skin and most bounce off, and if a weapon does any damage, it is just a graze that lasts a few days. We don't know the side effects though." he said flatly. By now tears were streaming down my cheeks, I cry over almost everything. I ran over to my brother and threw my arms around him and buried my head into his chest. I hadn't noticed before but I could feel the smooth hardness of his skin. It looked exactly the same but felt like a type of metal, without the coldness that metal usually posseses. He hugged me back and we stood for a while just standing in each other's embrace. Then Ryan stepped back and cleared his throat. "Girls follow Alice and boys follow me. We will provide you with anything you need. " he said shooting me a pleading look. I sighed and told the girls to follow me up stairs. I led them into my room and I quickly shoved my clothes into my cupboard. "Well first things first, I'm Alice, as you know, and I am fifteen years old." I said. We went in a circle each girl anouncing her name and age. There was : Megan who is fourteen and is the mousy haired girl who I had seen earlier, there was Simone who is the girl with the fiery plait and she is sixteen, Casey is blonde, tan and seventeen, Nina has raven coloured hair and is fifteen, Rebecca is tall, with a dirty blonde short hair style and is sixteen, Wendy has dark brown braided hair with a severe expression painted across her face constantly and is fifteen and Taylor with brown hair fading into purple and she is sixteen. "Awesome, I don't where you want to sleep: there is my room and the study." I smiled trying to be friendly but on the inside I was having a stress sesh (short for stress session). When did my life turn into a science fiction movie? I was surprised I was acting so calm. I would probably cry into my pillow tonight. I am always the enthusiast as you can see.

"Maybe your room, if that's okay with you." Casey suggested. "Sure, I'll get the sleeping bags later. It will be like one big sleepover." I said sarcastically. "We can make popcorn and watch movies all night!" Megan exclaimed excitedly not catching onto my sarcasm. "Sounds like fun," said Taylor shooting me a "Don't pop her bubble of happiness" look. "So, how long do you think you will be staying?" I asked. My parents would come home eventually and I am pretty sure they would notice fifteen more teenagers staying in their house. "We don't actually know." Nina said thoughtfully. Well, that's helpful. "What about your families?" I asked. "We told them yesterday." Wendy said. "And?" I asked to no one and everyone at the same time. "Once we had showed our parents the evidence they had to believe us. Some wanted to sue, some wanted to call the police, while others just cried. We left our homes knowing someone was following us but we thought we would be able to go back home." Rebecca said her voice wobbling. "Well, do any of you need to borrow my phone to tell your parents you're staying here?" I asked. They all looked surprised and whipped out their phones to send a message to their parents.  Apparently it hadn't occured to them that they should tell their parents where they were. It seemed everyone had their phones except Wendy who asked to use mine. "Well, why don't we go down stairs?" I said not sure what else to do. "Okay," Megan smiled. "Okay." Nina smiled back. "Maybe okay will be our always." Simone said and we all started squealing hysterically. Even Wendy smiled, or maybe she was snarling. You never know with that one. "I love that book!" I exclaimed. "John Green is a genius." Taylor said as we walked down the stairs. We all nodded in agreement as we neared the T.V room, which also served as the communal gathering centre. "Oh come on!" yelled my brother.  We walked in to find all the boys sitting around the television playing Mario Kart. In the middle of the nerd gathering was the boy from earlier who I had wanted to murder. He looked about my age and his, annoyingly, handsome face was focused on the screen. My brother sat next to him and he was playing as well. "I am totally beating your ass." smirked the boy. I sighed, when would my brother learn. I wove through the boys and grabbed my brother's controller. He just sat back and didn't utter a word, we both knew what had to be done. "Have fun trying to catch up, just don't freak out when you lose." said the boy arrogantly. "We'll see about that." I said. I was thirtieth and he was first: piece of cake. I am a Mario Kart expert.

We were on our last lap and I was second, he was first. All you could hear was screaming, whether it was for me or him I do not know. Just before we crossed the finish line I passed him and now I was first. "YEEEEEESSSSSS!" I yelled leaping up and high-fiving my brother. "Well played." the boy said shaking my hand. His cheeks were tinted red and his brown eyes were tilted downwards, he was acting noble but he was actually embarrassed. "Well, whateveryournameis, remember this day next time you start talking smack." I smiled cockily. "Nathaniel." he said. "Well Nathaniel, nice beating you." I said and with that I walked out of the television room. I was headed for the kitchen to grab a snack when I heard footsteps behind me. I turned around to find Simone behind me. "Hey, what's up?" I asked. "I just wanted to say that what happened back there was awesome. Nate is so stunned he is just sitting on the couch in a state of shock." she said before bursting out into a laughing fit. I laughed with her and by the end we were both clutching our stomachs. It wasn't that funny but we both laughed like it was hilarious. "Do you want something to eat?" I asked after we had recovered. "Oh, no thanks." she said and then walked back to the T.V. room. I smiled to myself, I had always wanted an older sister and here was my chance.

*♡*

Author's note:

Heeeyyy!

So how did you like that chapter?

How cool is Simone? I want a friend like that!

What do you think of Nathaniel?

Will try to post again soon!

♡hc1717