Scene 10
Gwen landed hard on her hands and knees, the metallic tang of fear sharp on her tongue. Her brother, Glenn, was already scrambling forward, pulling her by the collar of her dirt-smudged shirt. Behind them, the air filled with the tearing, grinding roar of the wall collapsing.
"Keep moving!" Glenn barked, his voice raw with panic. He didn't wait for her, dragging her through the jagged hole and out onto a dusty, narrow service catwalk.
"Matthew!" Gwen yelled back, turning her head as she stumbled.
"Damnit. He's gone, Gwen! You saw the soldiers!" Glenn yanked her harder, forcing her gaze forward. "They were already on him. There's nothing we can do!"
They burst out of the maintenance area and slammed the heavy, unmarked steel door shut. The emergency alarm, a piercing shriek that seemed to rattle their very bones, was already muffled by the thick metal. Glenn didn't hesitate; he kicked a cinder block he'd had ready into the door frame, jamming it closed.
"That won't hold them for long," he gasped, leaning against the cold metal, his chest heaving.
Gwen pushed off the wall and spun around, her eyes blazing with frustrated anger. "We... We were so close, Glenn! He was right there! We could have—"
"No, we couldn't have!" Glenn cut her off, his eyes wide and pleading. He was tall and lean, with the same worried frown she usually saw in the cafeteria. "Look, H-He couldn't have been of any help to us, especially in THAT state."
"Now..." He looked around the cramped, fluorescent-lit corridor they found themselves in. It was a sterile white hallway, indistinguishable from the main facility, but devoid of people. "...We need to find a new hiding spot."
Gwen didn't argue. She knew he was right. They moved quickly and silently, their rubber-soled shoes barely whispering on the polished floor. Glenn led them past a series of identical, numbered doors until he found a utility closet tucked behind a vending machine. He jiggled the lock with a worn metal pick and pulled the door open.
They slipped inside, and Glenn gently eased the door shut, plunging them into near-total darkness. The only light was a thin, neon crack around the door frame, painting the interior in harsh, electric yellow. The room smelled of bleach and copper.
"His eyes... Did you see them? And feel how cold they were," Gwen whispered, her voice tight with grief and anger. She curled up against a stack of discarded linens, hugging her knees to her chest. "How lost and terrified he looked?"
Glenn sat across from her, running a shaky hand through his short, dark blonde hair. "That's his illness, Gwen. The things he did in that cafeteria…" He shivered. "It wasn't him. It's what the pills were holding back."
"But they injected him, Glenn," Gwen insisted, leaning forward. "He was awake. Something or someone is triggered him. He could having been defending himself, he knew something was wrong."
Glenn sighed, resting his chin on his knees. "Yeah, and look where that got him. Lying in a pool of blood with a firing squad standing over him."
Gwen took a deep, shaky breath, letting the finality of her brother's words sink in. She ran her fingers over the skin of her forearm, tracing a raised, unfamiliar pattern beneath her sleeve. It was a network of thin, branching lines, a faint, almost invisible vein-like pattern that had appeared just this morning.
"No," she said, her voice quiet but firm. "It is new information to try AGAIN."
Glenn looked up, confusion etched on his face. "Again? You can'tbe serious. It's over, we can't keep doing this.."
"Just... Listen." Gwen slowly pulled up the sleeve of her shirt, exposing the strange, subtle pattern fully to the dim light. The lines were a pale, silvery blue against her skin, almost like delicate circuitry.
"On my fifth night with out the pills, I thought it was just a bruise," she murmured, turning her arm to catch the light. "But it's not... They told me it's an infection and they injected me. Next thing I know, it's spreading. And… I felt different, WAS different. Every day felt like deja vu, I remembered everything that was going to happen, until i learned what's going on..." She paused, looking her brother directly in the eye. "The injections are not the same as whatever the pills are."
Glenn stared at her arm. Then, slowly, he pushed up the sleeve on his own left forearm. A matching, silver-blue network of lines, slightly thicker and more pronounced than hers, covered his skin from wrist to elbow.
"Spot on, deduction skills, sis'. Got mine before my first bj in the bathroom," he whispered, a smirk playing on his lips.
Gwen shot him a withering look. "Eww."
Glenn chuckled, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender, the silver-blue lines on his skin seeming to shimmer in the weak light. He had the decency to look slightly sheepish, but the twinkle in his eyes was still there.
"What?" he asked, a look of faux innocence spreading across his face.
Gwen pressed her lips into a thin line, but a small, involuntary smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. She shook her head, running her fingers over the cool, strange pattern on her own skin. "That is just... too much information, even for our current escape-or-die scenario."
Glenn's faux innocence dissolved into a genuine, broad grin, and the two of them shared a quiet, breathless laugh that was quickly muffled by the dusty linens. It was a fleeting moment of normalcy, a brief flash of the sibling bond that had somehow survived the crushing absurdity of the facility.
"Sorry, sorry," Glenn whispered, still grinning, before he pushed himself off the floor, his long legs unfolding with surprising grace in the cramped space. He stood in the narrow utility closet, a man reborn with a sliver of hope.
He extended a hand to Gwen, his expression now serious and determined. "Alright. Attempt number fifteen, here we come."
Gwen looked up at him, a spark of renewed fight in her eyes. "Heh, Year?" she asked, accepting his strong hand and letting him pull her to her feet.
Glenn gave her hand a final, firm squeeze as he released it. "2023, May thirty-first."