“It was just for fun,” we all say in different interrogation rooms. We have all planned the same conversation so that the police wouldn’t arrest us, but I’m waiting in an interrogation room for the police officer to ask me questions. I have my head placed on the table where I rest my hands beside it, covering up the mistake I am next about to make. My friends don’t know what I have in store, but it is my duty to protect them so I’m going to lie. The walls are not caving in as I am able to keep myself strong.

Then I move my head up as I hear the door opening to reveal a young police officer. He looks around my age, 20 something but there a few strands of grey in his hair. “Freddie,” he says. “Can you tell me what you and your friends were doing in the warehouse?” I remain silent till he sits in front of me before I fake confess.

“I dragged my friends to the warehouse to find her dead body because I killed her. There is no evidence tying me to it because I got rid of what would be needed, and I didn’t think this moment would have come. I made them tell the same lie to you, that we went to the warehouse for fun since it’s Halloween. But really, I killed her. Take my word for it. Arrest me. Torture me,” I say making direct eye contact with the police officer who smirks to himself.

“Thank you,” he says chuckling, “you’ve made my job easier. Freddie Smith you’re under arrest for the murder of Asha Nolan.”

I knew we shouldn’t have come here but no one listened to me. The blood coating my and splattered on my new pair of white sneakers that I worry will never come out confirm my fear. There is a noise in the distance warning that someone or something is coming and we need to move. Panicking we gather our belongs, making our way back under the hole in the fence making the blood mix with dirt. I don’t think I breathed until we were back at the car, all of us panting while Ryan fumbled with his keys. The silence on the way back to campus was a silent agreement that we were to never speak of this night again.

“It’s cruel summer”, a strange voice screams. “I’m drunk in the back of the car”, the mysterious voice continues. I wonder what comes next. First a cruel summer and then being drunk in a car. “But ooh, whoa-oh”, I hear next. “WAKE FINALLY UP, SMITHS!”, I hear my neighbour’s voice. “AND CHOSE ANOTHER SONG, I CANT HEAR THIS THING ANYMORE!”, my old Neighbour yells from his garden. Now, I am so confused that my eyes finally decide to open themselves and I realise I lie in my bed. It’s a Monday morning. School day. I turn of my alarm clock, a Tailor Swift song, that my mother recommended. _You’ll feel way better in the mornings when you hear such a amazing voice, _she always told me. What ever. It’s not even summer. I open my window to check wether Mr. Williams is still alive, cause I haven’t heard him anymore since he yelled about the song. Instead, my eyes turn towards a blue exercise book that says _Homework. _Shit. Maybe I can quickly write something, so that I can lie _I tried but I didn’t understood the task. “A group of teenager stumble across something they shouldn’t have…continue the story!”, _I read before lying down in my bed and sleep for the rest of the day.

We fell into a forest Where could we be? In the distance was the sea

I turned and saw pure white It was bright Like a light

One started walking She disappeared into the forest Then there was a scream

Another wanted to find her He set off in the same way Only to disappear Just like she

Where have they gone? There was only two of us left

We walked together To where the two disappeared There was nothing

I touched the forest floor And there it was The guardian of the forest

“I am the guardian I am the leader You mustn’t pass Or thee shall be cast”

It looked horrifying Worse than a banshee’s cry

It Was An OHIO DEMON AHHHHHHHH

We ran for our lives Then there was the bright White Light

It covered the whole rest of the forest There was nowhere to go Nowhere to see Nowhere to be

And so we walked Into the bright White Light

It was everywhere There was nothingness But us The only thing Was us

Then there was a sound A sound from behind Was it the Ohio Demon? Had he found us?

I looked back And there he was Running towards us Faster than light

There was no escape No chance to escape

Nowhere to go Nowhere to be Nowhere to see

“Mmm delicious morsels!”

"We shouldn't be here.” I glance apprehensively at the abandoned hospital that stands before us. There’s no way anyone has stepped foot in it before the First Wave. But still, it feels wrong to be here.

“Stop being so lame, Jane.” Myles snorts and rolls his eyes. “We’re just going to look around. What if there’s still supplies in there?”

“He’s right, Jane.” Riley adds. “If there’s any food, or better yet, medical supplies, we’d be the saviors of the Compound. We could be off scout duty for the next six months, if not more.”

I nod and let out a breath. I know they’re right, and odds are the only people we’ll find in there are decaying corpses. Red Zones are known for being the most gruesome. It’s not like I haven’t scouted in one before.

“Let’s get this over with.” I lead our small group toward the wide double doors.

The red doors are barred shut. Both a good sign that no one has raided it yet, and a bad sign that there is probably something in there we don’t want to find. Fantastic.

I slide the rusty metal pipe out from between the door handles. It doesn’t even make it out all the way before it snaps in two and drops to the ground with a loud clang.

Myles sniggers behind me. That certainly wasn’t going to keep anything in. Maybe there weren’t any active Infected in here after all.

“Let’s get this over with.” I pull open the doors and step inside the hospital.

All I can see are bodies piled high.

“Poor souls.” Riley says as she walks up beside me. “They never even had a chance.”

I take a deep breath as I walk through the dark gloomy forest, taking in the darkness letting it swallow me whole. Anna is walking next to me and Keira And sarah are behind us. I hear a deathly scream come from behind me. I turn around to see Sarah standing over top of a bloody leg. Anna starts to cry at the sight of it. I try to calm everyone down we just need to call the cops I say reaching for my phone. No service fuck I think I stay calm telling them it will all be okay. Keira looks at me with a look of despair in her green eyes. Suddenly I remember about what happened last night. "Sarah did we" i stutter "did we do this?" I start to panick. "I I dont know I thought we helped him find the way back" Sarah says tears streaming faster then a river go down her face. "What do we do?" Keira says looking around "Shit thats the guy we were trying to help" Anna says gagging at the sight of his bloody face. "Fuck fuck fuck there gonna think we killed him" Keira says reaching for her phone. "I already checked theres no service this far in the woods" I say trying to stay calm so the rest of the group doesnt start to panic. "We need to hide the body" Sarah says "I cant go to jail" Everyone stares at her with empty voids in there eyes. "Thats more suspicious though" Keira says fiddling with her necklace. "Guys lets just get out of here they have no prove to tie us to this" I say starting to walk back towards the start of the never ending trail. "Okay but..." Anna says before I cut her off "No buts we are leaving we never seen anything okay" "Okay" Everyone says. We walk back the trail feels like it is never gonna end each branch snapping sends shivers down my spine. "Okay we bring this to our graves got it?" Says Keira as we near the end of the trail. "Got it" We all say. To this day no one ever knows off that night in the trail.

“That’s two weeks detention young lady” Mrs green barks “aye aye captain” i say back with a limp salute If she was a cartoon character she would have steam blowing out of her ears she’s plump and looks as though she’s never seen a teenager misbehave. “If you talk back to me you will spend the rest of the day in the principals office!” She says “are you sure’

They all just stare.

Four pairs of eyes focus on the duffel bags with the files spilling out.

Those files have everything about them. Things taken from them. Their names. Their families. Their lives.

The files are them. The them they don’t remember.

“Of course he labeled them using our subject names,” Landen comments, glaring at the bold lettering on the top of the nearest folder.

Ness picks up the one closest to her. “Subject Wisconsin,” she reads off.

“Should we be reading these?” Penny asks, interrupting her from opening it.

“What do you mean?” Ness isn’t sure what the harm is. These other people are like them. Maybe they can get information that can give their families closure.

Grabbing another folder from the pile, she traces the name with her fingertip. Subject Oregon. “Well they should get to,” she explains, setting the folder down.

“That’s assuming they are alive,” Tex chimes in, ever the optimist. Though Ness agrees more with him than Penny.

She may not remember much of her life before the experiments, but the memories of the after? Vivid recollection. No matter how much she couldn’t.

For a while, it was just her. Dr. Marken focused all his attention on her. Which is a very bad thing.

The torture she went through just for his experiments still makes her wake up begging for her life.

It was lonely. Even with Zona, Tex, and Landen. They were brought soon after one another. Zona, Subject Arizona, was the first of the four to arrive and the first to leave. They never knew what Dr. Marken did to her.

Then he imprisoned Penny, and she instilled hope in them.

So she had the least amount of time to face the unbelievable pain that the doctor can incur. Ness is very aware.

In her opinion, they may be the only survivors.

“You think all of these people escaped?” Landen inquires, eyebrows raising. Ness is continuously bewildered with Penny’s positive outlook.

She shrugs in response. “Maybe. We don’t know.”

While Ness can’t completely buy into Penny’s theory, she can agree that privacy is important.

“We start with our own then,” Ness suggests. If perhaps someone else survived, maybe looking at their information could help them assist any potential people, but for now, they can give them the privacy and decency they deserve.

They all scatter the files, searching for their own states.

One sticks out to Ness.

“I found yours, Tex,” Ness says, handing him the thick folder that is labeled Subject Texas. His has a multitude of ways to keep the papers inside the Manila folder. Many paper clips. String going from the top to bottom and left to right like it is a fucked up package.

Wordlessly, he trades with her, holding out hers, Subject Tennessee. When it reaches her grasp, it’s like it weighs a ton. It holds so much of her in it.

It’s as if she could read a book about herself and rediscover everything about her.

It tempts and terrifies her at the same time.

Penny and Landen finds theirs and they all sit on the ground criss cross with their folders in front of them.

None of them move.

Even though they all want answers, somehow with them right there, it is frightening.

It’s now or never.

Ness reaches forward and slowly takes apart the barriers that keep the folder closed. Paper clip by paper clip, she unravels the treasure that is herself.

“Subject Tennessee: from Jonesborough, Tennessee.”

Landen snorts. “Naturally.”

“Name: Noor Kessel. Sex: Female. Age at acquisition date: 13 years old.”

“Noor,” Penny tests it out, as if it is foreign on her tongue. Which it is. Even to Ness and it’s her name.

There is a bunch of stuff like her height and weight which she skips over. That isn’t what Ness is interested in.

“Subject TN acquired on 10/19/32, and its mother dealt with.”

The woman from her memory at the amusement park. She was dealt with?

“Dealt with?” Tex asks, sounding on edge, more so than the rest of them. That terminology certainly doesn’t help.

“It doesn’t say.”

The date haunts her. From a newspaper they found shortly after they escaped, it was 2034. She had been imprisoned for two years. Two years.

She knew it had been a long time, but two years! It makes her regret not killing him back at his house.

“Ness?” Penny ushers her to continue.

Clearly her throat, desperate to do something about her swelling up esophagus, she proceeds reading about herself. “There was a hospital record that Subject TN recovered from the sickness. It had been sick with the normal symptoms for three months but was discharged from the hospital perfectly healthy. It recovered the quickest out of anyone I’ve researched.”

It wasn’t random. When she had the memory at the carnival, she wasn’t sure if she was at the wrong place at the wrong time. But this shows that he knew who they were. Targeted them specifically. They must have each survived whatever sickness Ever had.

“Subject TN is crying. It responded very well to the initial experiments. Better than Subject Arizona,” she trails off, surprising herself with the name she reads.

A day doesn’t go by that Zona isn’t in her thoughts. At her lowest moment, not knowing who she was or where she was, Zona was there. She was the first. Or Ness thought so before seeing the piles of folders.

She was the first to Ness. Then she was the first to go.

They never knew why she disappeared. One day Zona was there and the next, she was gone.

It was after her disappearance that Ness truly began losing hope.

“Zona? Does her file have anything about what happened to her?” Landen questions, immediately searching for hers. Leaning of his file in front of him, he rifles through folders.

Ness and Tex join him in his efforts. Penny does after a brief moment. Their paths never crossed so Penny didn’t know Zona. But her presence is missed.

Tex raises his hand, holding one. She doesn’t have to read the title to know what it said. Subject Arizona. A sinking feeling grows in her stomach.

“I know what I said about privacy, but I think you guys deserve to know what happened to her,” Penny says.

None of them take it from Tex, so he holds it close and opens it. “Subject Arizona: from Mesa, Arizona,” his rough voice reads out. His hands quiver on the smallest amount.

Back when they were imprisoned, Ness thought it was better not to know what happened to her. It was easier to imagine a nice ending. But life isn’t a fantasy.

“Name: Maren Simmons. Sex: Female. Age at acquisition date: 15 years old.”

Maren. Huh. That doesn’t sound right. Zona fits her much better. Ness can’t think of her as a Maren. Just like how she can’t imagine any of her friends having any other name.

“Subject AZ acquired on 4/5/32, and its family dealt with.” There’s that phrase again. Dealt with.

What does that mean?

She can feel the static in the air. It takes her a moment to realize it’s because she has a lightning cloud above her head. Small bolts shooting out every so often.

Tex continues to read. “It shows promise. I think I am onto something. Subject AZ developed powers quicker than Subject Kentucky.”

Even with all the files around them, hearing about another victim jars Ness. In that cell being tortured, she never thought of there being more than what she saw. Zona, Tex, Landen, and Penny. In her mind, those were all of Dr. Marken’s subjects. But there are more. Much more.

“Subject TN is showing even better results. Progression is plateauing with AZ. Time for disposal,” Tex winces, reading Ness’ subject label. He shoots her a worried glance, eyes shining with an emotion that Ness can’t decipher.

Hearing about herself, being compared to Zona makes her physically ill. Before, it felt like a quick comment. This was Dr. Marken’s twisted justification for taking Zona away. Her stomach churns and she feels like she’s going to hurl.

When it gets really quiet, Ness still hears Zona’s humming. And yet, Ness might be the reason for him removing Zona.

“Subject AZ disposed of on 4/5/34.”

That sinking in her gut deepens and she grabs a grocery store plastic bag that they use to hold the food they scavenge and does throw up this time. Emptying the contents of her stomach doesn’t make anything better.

In fact, she feels absolutely worse.

Disposed of. Exactly two years. Was that their shelf life? Was that going to be their fate if they hadn’t escaped?

If that was true, Ness was coming by up to hers.

Glancing around at her friends, they all have wide eyes. While they may have all thought Zona was dead (except Penny), to see the words confirming hurts. It makes it real.

They risked everything to get these files. To get answers.

Naively, Ness thought these papers held all the answers.

But they bring up even more questions.

And the answers they do have, confuse her. They don’t give her the missing puzzle pieces to know who she is. Because the person on the paper, Noor Kessel, doesn’t feel like her.

The salty ocean air blew against Amara’s face. She tried not to think about tomorrow. She tried to focus on today. No matter how hard she tried, that thought always somehow drifted back into her mind. Her small beach house on the San Francisco Bay glinted in the sunlight. She could make out three figures walking in the distance. Tiani, Jianyu, and Adaline. Her three, and only, friends since she had moved here. Making friends wasn’t easy for her, especially for the fact that her dad had been arrested last week. Shoplifting is what they’d arrested him for, but that was just a coverup. She guessed his secret was terrible enough that the government didn’t even want to deal with it. Sighing, she walked down the coastline towards her friends. Amara had moved to San Francisco last month. Her family was always on the move, what with her dad’s job and all. She was a 16-year-old girl born in Idaho. Freckles were scattered all over her, like powdered sugar on a donut. She had shoulder-length wavy brown hair she didn’t even bother trying to contain, there was no use. The wind shifted her flowy blue sleeveless dress, ruffling her hair. The sun was setting over the teal-blue ocean, casting orange-red hues over the sand. As her friends came into view, she tried to think of what to say to them. How could she possibly say that she would be on the move again? “Hey!” yelled Adaline, running in Amara’s direction. She had a long blonde braid down her back and wore a dress like Amara’s, except this one was pink with short ruffle sleeves. “Hi,” Amara answered, trying to sound enthusiastic. Her friend was barefoot like her, and her chipping toenail polish was painted a dark shade of pink. She locked arms with Amara, and they strolled towards Tiani and Jianyi. Tiani was an Asian American with short-cropped black hair and usually wore Birkenstocks with khaki shorts and a white t-shirt. Jianyu was an African American whose fashion choice was always one of those cheezy floral shirts people would wear on vacation with jeans. (An interesting choice.) Today he wore a white tank top with a green button-up shirt being used as a jacket with black palm tree designs. He smiled at Amara as he approached the two girls. They had started dating a couple of weeks ago, and things were going well. That was the sad thing. She’d tried long-distance relationships, and they never worked out. She managed a smile while holding her hand up to her forehead to block the light. “Took you guys long enough.” Said Adaline, rolling her eyes. She released herself from Amara’s arm and kicked Tiani in the knee. “Gosh! Ouch!” Adaline just snorted. Amara continued to fake her smile. “Something’s bothering you.” Jianyu suddenly spoke. Amara shook her head. “It’s nothing.” She continued to hold her hand over her forehead. The light shone through a gap in her fingers, and she switched hands, her fake smile slipping out of grasp. “You’ve been like, weird lately man,” Tiani spoke, still holding his injured knee. She must've been terrible at hiding things, Tiani was a bit more stupid than the rest of them. Maybe she should tell them. Maybe not. It would risk their happiness at the moment, and Amara wanted them to be happy as long as she could stay with them. Adaline was always so happy, she’d hate to lower her friend's spirits. Yes, not telling them would be best. She tried to think about happy things. She’d be able to take their new cat Nico with them when they left. He was a small fuzzy cat with calico printings all over him. They'd found him on the beach one day. Her smile became more real. “Yeah, I'm fine. Just tired.” Tiani nodded his head. “Exams last week were hard.” “C’mon, let’s go play some volleyball guys!” Yelled Adaline. She skipped through the water, splashing Tiani, while Amara held hands with Jianyu. She tried to stay in this moment, not get worried about leaving. The volleyball net came into view, and Amara excitedly began to run towards it. Good thing Jianyu was next to her, or else she might've tripped over the small gold box. She almost fell face-first into the sand before Jianyu caught her by the waist. “You ok?” He asked, looking her over. “Y-yeah.” Her foot was bleeding from the small corner of the box. She grabbed a spare band-aid from her pocket and pressed it over the scratch on her heel. This happened a lot. Tiani and Adaline ran over. “Wow, what’s that!” Yelled Adaline. She got so excited over these things. She picked up the small gold box and dusted off the sand. It had small swirly designs over it and was about the size of Adaline’s hands together. Its corners were sharp, and there was a lock at the front. “How did this beautiful box get here?” Adaline had to yell because the breeze had picked up. At first, Amara had thought this was a Jumanji situation, but no. This was worse. They'd found them. Without another word, she ran.

To be fair, their isn’t much teens can find that their supposed to find. What we found was an old bullet. No gun, no weapon. Just a bullet. We did what we were supposed to do: turn it in the authorities. We even got an article written about us in the local newspaper. We proved that teens aren’t always doing the wrong thing. Except no one asks us what we were doing when we found the bullet. And that is something they don’t need to know.