Dancing In The Wind

Two Real

Two

RealSmall paintings dotted the white corridor that stretched out in front of me. While the colourful murals softened the stark walls, they didn't conceal where we were. Behind the mask, this was still C.E.C.I.L.

I tried to keep my focus straight ahead, but as usual my gaze wandered to the drop-tile ceiling. Not yet removed from its mount, one of a few remaining security cameras aimed down the hallway. Although inactive, I worried the device would suddenly power-up and follow my movements with its red eye and mechanical whine. For so long, the intrusive objects had monitored my activities, and it was hard to shake the paranoia that someone still watched.

I shook my head at the absurd notion. The motion detecting cameras no longer operated, and when they had, they made no noise. I had imagined it all as the hypno-drug wore off and changed my perception, affecting every sense. Distortion was the worst effect I'd suffered. The sliding pocket doors never whooshed as loud as I'd thought. There was only a faint airy sound heard in the quietest of moments.

Thinking about the distortion reminded me of Jasper, my caretaker. Jasper had reduced the hypno-drug that led to the return of my conscious awareness. And it was Jasper who set the fire that ultimately freed everyone.

As Noah and I continued along the hallway in silence, the recollection of altered realities transported me to the past.

I push the button on the bathroom wall and pull the door open. The warning alarm buzzes as the five-second countdown begins. I step over the threshold into my room, and the door closes behind me. An audible hissing sound travels through the door, and I know scalding hot steam is filling the small room on the other side.

The vision faded, and bitterness replaced it. The exaggerated hissing of steam heard behind closed bathroom doors was a figment of my imagination. My fingernails dug into my palms as I clenched my fists.

As I regained control of myself, I struggled with the accuracy of my memory. Although hyperthymesia allowed me to remember everything, I'd recently learned some memories were false, and Beth suspected it first. She'd suggested a while back the possibility that someone planted the memories in our heads. Her suspicions had been right. Not all our recollections, or at least how I remembered them, were correct. The drug changed them or Cecil did.

For instance, the first meeting with him in our home and later encounters weren't exact. By confirmation from our parents, we never called him Uncle like he said we had, rather we addressed him as Mr. Banks. It relieved me to know he'd never been Uncle to us and concerned me that outside influences could so easily alter my infallible recall. What else within my psyche had changed?

“Ready?” Noah's voice interrupted my thoughts.

We stood at the end of the corridor. Sheets of plywood replaced the glass walls damaged from the blaze that ravaged this part of the building five months ago. In the centre of the solid wall was a wood door. Behind it, a stairwell led down to the first-floor rooms.

With his hand on the handle and the other gripping mine, Noah gave a small tug as he turned the knob.

“Noah, wait!” I cried, stopping him. “Give me a moment.” The knot in my stomach rose into my chest.

“April, you've had days to prepare. This is not a surprise.”

“Yes, I know, it's just…”

He c****d his head to the side.

My shoulders slumped. “Fine,” I said, stepping forward and allowing Noah to lead me through the exit.

We walked down the stairs; our footfalls resonated in the stairwell. At the bottom we had two choices, continue down another flight of stairs to the basement or pass through one of three doors. The exits to the left and right led to the first-floor hallways, and the exit straight ahead, to what remained of the forest simulation room. For years residents used the room for daily exercises all the while undergoing thought control. Subliminal messages whispered through speakers, veiled by the sounds of nature. As inhabitants conditioned their bodies, he conditioned their brains. The directives to stay on the trails in the nearby woods were fail-safes. Should someone ever escape, he'd be able to locate them.

I stared at the entrance in front of me. Bile rose in my throat as the grisly image of a gnarled and charred hand sticking up from the ashes forced its way out from my memories. The unfortunate soul burned along with the contents of the simulation area, and it had been my misfortune to run across the remains several weeks afterward.

Noah's thumb brushed over the back of my hand. “Okay?”

I bit my lower lip and nodded.

Noah reached out for the doorknob of the steel entry and pulled. Bright sunlight made me blink as a cold breeze fluttered my hair. I zipped my jacket all the way up, tucked my chin inside, and stepped outdoors.

Noah was right. The simulation room looked nothing like before, not when fake trees, winding trails, and recorded bird songs filled the space. And not when it was a blackened mass of molten plastic and ash.

The renovations began just after Beth and I had left the compound we'd rediscovered after our escape from the old house. Had we stayed for another day, the reunion with our parents would have taken place sooner.

Marigold and her team of engineers worked many long hours to make this facility inhabitable again. Two backhoes and a loader had pulled down a section of the far end wall and the pitted steel door and replaced it with a wide metal gate. The longer side walls survived, and the rubble was long gone. While not finished, the objective was to turn the large outdoor space into a courtyard.

I turned a slow circle and examined the area. Blistered paint was all that remained of the forest mural that once covered the now blackened concrete walls. They'd removed the concrete slab from the centre, leaving the rest around the perimeter to form a walkway. A wood bench rested against the rear wall with a view of the clearing and the rows of solar panels beyond the gate.

I stepped toward it; Noah trailed. When I approached the seat, I shivered.

“The bench is a memorial,” Noah said.

I bent forward and read the names engraved into a metal placard attached to the backrest. My finger traced over the etchings, and my eyes stung as I read Jasper, Shaun, and Caia. The plaque, while not big enough to list everybody, mentioned the other eighty-four residents who'd lost their lives. Twenty-nine test subjects exposed to the virus during multiple vaccination trials, and the fifty-five who perished or disappeared without a trace on the trails. There was no engraving of Cecil's name. No recognition to those who helped him, had approved of his plan, and died or escaped and never returned.

I sat and stared out toward the field and the distant multi-coloured trees. “What did they do with the rock?”

Noah wrinkled his brow. “Rock?”

“The huge boulder. It was…” I scanned the area, “over there.” I pointed.

Noah shrugged. “Probably melted like the plastic trees and they scooped it up with the rest.”

“No, it was real.”

“Are you sure?” he said. “I thought everything in this room was a fake.” Noah swept his hand through the air before wrapping his arm around my shoulder. We had grown close over the weeks since my rescue.

As he pulled me near, I sighed, breathing out all the stress and tension I held in my body. “No, it was real,” I whispered and rested my head on Noah's shoulder.

The rock had to have been real. But then I wasn't so sure what real was anymore.