Exodus (2 page)

“The light… professor, the light!” Douglas yelled as if he was suddenly awake.

Carson hadn’t noticed that the blue light was slowly itching towards them.  At the sound of Douglas’ voice he seemed to snap out of his trance and everything faded back to an empty darkness.

He tried to move, but he couldn’t.  They were suspended in the nothingness of the room. Carson began to panic as Douglas squirmed and screamed.

The light was growing brighter and brighter.  Then it suddenly zipped towards them in a flash.

“No!  No… no!”  Carson’s voice flooded the room, echoing into the darkness.

The light exploded, filling the emptiness with a harsh blue blaze.  As quickly as it had flashed it vanished and the room was empty again.

Anthony awoke in a rush, like he’d just been doused with ice water.  His eyelids sprung open and he sat up so fast he felt like he’d left his head back on the ground.  He panted heavily, his chest swelling like a balloon and then quickly evaporating.

The sound of liquid splattering onto the cement floor echoed loudly in the dark.  A faint scream pierced the air, but was cut short as the hefty guard named Hanson bellowed.

“Shut it or else!”

Anthony turned onto his side and covered his ears.  He watched as small insects scampered slowly up the brick walls of his cell, clinging to the algae and fungus that had accumulated through the years.  A faint light made its way through the creases in the door.  It was less than a candle, but enough to illuminate Anthony’s dismal surroundings.

He shivered and rolled into a ball, the filthy rags hanging from his frail body did little to keep him warm.  The metallic floor he laid chained to felt like a block of ice and stung his skin.

He tried to shut out the screams, the cries of pain.  It was nonstop.  The sounds of torture and despair banging around in his head like a drum.  Days and nights no longer held any meaning, it all strung together like one never ending day. 

His time was spent either unconscious in some lab, or chained to the cold floor.  He seldom had a lucid moment and when he did, he prayed it would pass quickly.  The bleak reality of confinement choked him like a noose.

It had been two years since Anthony was first brought here.  Two years of daily torture, two years of not seeing the sun even for one minute.  It was enough to drive anyone mad, yet somehow Anthony had remained relatively sane.

He dreamed that someday he’d open his eyes and his friends would be standing there.  They’d find him and come to take him home.  It was that fleeting vision that had kept Anthony alive this long, but now that dream was starting to fade.

Where he once held to hope a different feeling now grew deep within. It was a feeling of anger, of complete and uncontrollable rage. It was the smallest of cinders. Anthony didn’t even notice it at first, but it slowly grew each day burning a little warmer.

With a rusty shriek the door to his cell slowly slid open and Anthony cringed at the sound of the grinding metal.  He lifted his head and huffed as a pair of military boots came into view.  Instinctively, he slid towards the corner as someone jabbed a needle in his side and unlocked the chain.  He blacked out as they started to tug at him, dragging him across the floor.

A few minutes later Anthony awoke lying face up on a metal table.  A bright light swung overhead, the intense white glare momentarily blinded him.  He moved to shield his eyes, but someone grabbed his arms and legs and strapped them down with chains.

He’d been through this more times than he could count.  And it was always the same thing bright lights, pain and then blackness.  Hours later he’d wake up in his cell, aching from head to toe.

This time seemed no different.  He waited, knowing any moment the nurse with the giant needle would walk in.  She strutted like a giraffe, not even glancing his way.  Stabbing him as if he were a pin cushion, before disappearing like the reflection in a lake when you toss a stone in.  She normally came through the doors right before the doctors, which was the last thing Anthony would see.

The room seemed a bit colder today.  He shook on the table uncontrollably, looking from side to side.  Suddenly, the door burst open and several men in masks with white robes piled into the small room.  They walked to the table and stopped.

Standing over him they whispered to each other and pointed.  Then for the first time since he’d been there one of them looked directly at him and spoke.  It was an older man with white hair and prickly eyebrows.  He stared down at Anthony from behind a pair of thick glasses with bronze rims.

“Do you know why you are here?” he asked with a scratchy voice.

Anthony glanced around the room.  He wasn’t sure how to respond, or even if he should respond.  His eyes rested on each of the men for a moment and then he stared off at the wall.

“Dr. Marshall, sit him up,” the man directed.

A stout, pudgy man quickly stepped forward and pressed a green button beside the table.  A buzzing sound rung out and the top half of the table leaned forward.

Anthony sat up feeling a rush of anxiety.  In the two years he’d been there they’d never deviated, never changed the routine.  Now they were actually talking to him.

“My name is Dr. Vorcick,” he said as he pulled down his mask.  “It’s okay, no need to be frightened.”

Anthony looked past him and focused on the other men standing around.  Their beady eyes and awkward stares pressed in on him.  They stared at him with awe, how a child might look at a lion in the circus.

“Why am I here?”  Anthony glanced back at Dr. Vorcick.

“Why do you think you are here Anthony?”

“I don’t know.”  Anthony sighed and laid his head back onto the table.

“What did your uncle tell you?”

“That he wasn’t my uncle,” Anthony quickly replied as he rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Ah, that would be true.  Frank is not quite your uncle.  Still he serves his purpose.”

Anthony glared at him.  He felt a sudden rush of anger swelling, boiling his blood.  It was the feeling he had back in that cabin two years ago.  The feeling of being lied to, of being made a fool.

Anthony’s life was one big joke and he was just learning the truth of it all.  He wanted to jump off the table and throw Vorcick against the wall.

“You are here, because you are different,” Vorcick’s voice cut through the air.  “What do you know of your real parents?”

“My real parents?  What do you mean my real parents?”

“Surely you remember your parents, before Frank placed you with the Dimair’s?”  Vorcick looked at him in confusion.

“The Dimair’s…”  Anthony said with a hint of aggression.  “Are my real parents.”

Dr. Vorcick leaned back and began to laugh.  He shook his head and sighed while removing his glasses.  “Boy, boy.  We have ourselves a situation.  Did it never seem strange to you that you have no memories as a younger child?  No pictures of you and your family since you were what, five years old?”

Anthony stared at him, his eyes fierce and dark.  He tugged against the chains.  If he could, he’d rip Vorcick’s tongue out.

Anthony grunted, struggling against the restraints.  He lunged at Vorcick then collapsed back against the table.  The doctor laughed.

“You’ve got spirit boy, I’ll give you that,” Vorcick said with a chuckle.

Anthony squinted his eyes and clenched his teeth.  He focused hard on Vorcick, his only thought, his only desire was to cause him pain. 

Suddenly Vorcick gagged.  He grabbed his neck and coughed furiously.  He tried clearing his throat as he grunted and spit blood onto the floor.

His eyes began to water and he collapsed to the ground, falling to his knees.  Bending over on all fours he reached for one of the other doctors.

“It’s the boy, stop the boy,” he muttered as he gasped for air.

They looked at one another in confusion.  None of them wanted to touch him.  Slowly they backed away in panic.

Anthony’s gaze didn’t stray from Vorcick.  He breathed heavily, each huff deeper than the last.  It was as if he was pulling energy from the air around him.

Vorcick was now writhing on the floor in pain, blood dripping from his nose.  His eyes were bloodshot red and his skin was beginning to turn a light shade of blue.

Anthony yelled out as the chains that held him snapped and fell to the floor.  The cart next to the table toppled over sending scalpels sliding across the room.  With his eyes still fixed on the doctor he slowly started to slide his legs onto the ground.

Suddenly there was a sharp prick in his side and Anthony jolted.  He looked away from Vorcick and found Hanson towering over him holding an enormous needle.

Hanson grinned at him, exposing his rotting teeth.  Then he brought his heavy fist crashing down on Anthony’s face.  Anthony fell back onto the table.  He tried to sit back up, but the drug had taken its effect.  His eyes grew heavy and then there was nothing but black.

Dr. Vorcick staggered to his feet as he gasped for air.  He wiped blood from his face and then looked over to the other doctors who were huddled near the door.

“You worthless lab rats.  Get out!” he yelled.

Vorcick motioned towards them and they scurried out of the door tripping over one another.  He looked back towards Anthony where Hanson was standing still holding the hulking needle.  Its sharp point gleamed in the light, sedative still dripping from the tip.

“If it was up to me I’d have killed him doc,” Hanson grinned.

“Well, good thing it’s not up to you.  He is the one, the one we’ve been searching for.  He’ll survive the compound I’m sure,” Vorcick stammered as he leaned against the wall.

He wiped blood from his nose and stared at his hand.  Sniffling he motioned to Hanson.  “Take him to his cell and alert District that we have another candidate.”

Hanson grumbled and started to lift Anthony’s lifeless body.  He slung him over his shoulder and then headed out of the room.  As he passed the doorway he turned sharply and banged Anthony’s head on the frame.

“Hey!  Be careful with this one!” Dr. Vorcick yelled.

Hanson nodded and stepped around the corner.  Grinning, he glided down the dark hallway and disappeared.

Dr. Vorcick stared after him for a moment before collapsing back to the ground.  His head spun like a Ferris wheel and everything went blurry.  As he passed out he caught a glimpse of a nurse walking through the door.

Hanson lumbered down the shadowy corridor to Anthony’s cell.  He slid open the heavy iron door and threw him to the ground, then quickly chained him back up.  Anthony made a whimpering sound and Hanson laughed then kicked him.

“Next time you try that, I’ll kill you.  I don’t care what that doc says,” he looked at Anthony in disgust then slammed the door.

Anthony slowly pried his eyes open and winced.  Clenching his jaw, he sat up and leaned on his arms.  His head throbbed and his side burned where Hanson had stabbed him with the needle.

He glanced around his cell trying to remember what had just happened.  It was all a blur to him, fragments of a dream.  As he stared at the wall he felt a sudden jolt and everything around him began to fizzle and dissolve.  The dingy cell gave way to a jungle like setting.

Anthony was suddenly running.  Or he wasn’t running, but whoever he was, was running.  It took him a minute to figure out that what he was seeing was through someone else’s eyes.

He couldn’t see his cell or the brick walls anymore, but he could feel the hard cold touch of the metal floor against his skin.  He was still imprisoned, but his mind was elsewhere, like he was in someone else’s head.

He could feel the sun burning overhead, the leaves and branches whipping him across the face as he darted through the trees.  It was like being two people at the same time. He could feel what they felt and hear what they heard.

He was running and running fast.  He swung his hands as he ripped through the twigs and vines in his way.  His feet jabbed at the ground like a gazelle.  He felt stronger than he’d ever felt in his life.

As he zipped passed the heavy tree trunks and dense foliage, he finally realized why he was running.  He could sense someone behind him, but they were falling further and further behind.

He leapt through a thick patch of bushes and the trees cleared giving way to a plateau up ahead.  It ended abruptly a hundred feet below into the deep blue waters of the ocean.  Jagged rocks protruded from the surface like broken glass, the waves crashing over them with a thundering rattle.

Instead of slowing down Anthony could feel himself speeding up, his pace quickening like a plane preparing for takeoff.  His foot hit the last bit of earth and he dove into the air, leaping off the cliff with his hands outstretched like a bird.  He felt weightless for a brief moment, suspended in the sky.

He was certain he would plummet to the rocky earth in seconds as he slowly turned in the air.  Suddenly a familiar rush swarmed over him.  Wings ripped from his back and he soared into the sky like a rocket.

Something was different however.  Where he normally felt awkward and clumsy in flight, this felt natural.  His wings responded effortlessly with no thought.

As he moved higher into the air he turned and looked back.  At the edge of the cliff were a dozen men in strange suits that looked like a cross between robots and some kind of futuristic soldier.  They were covered from head to toe and a tinted glass visor covered their eyes.  Each of them gripped some kind of weapon that Anthony had never seen before, but they didn’t take aim.  They stared after him, looking into the sky as he flew higher and higher.

Anthony gazed at them momentarily.  Then smiling he took off at a speed that Anthony would’ve thought impossible.  He shot upwards like a space shuttle, the ground turning into a speck below him.