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.