Click. Click. Crunch. The lock creaked but opened. It was covered with heavy, dark-brown grease. With the rush of adrenaline, it was time again. 

Time for another chance. For freedom.

Flare wasn’t a normal testee. She wasn’t a broken-down spirit, someone awaiting the end without goals or aspirations. 

She was the fire that danced along the seemingly endless corridors, lighting up the path. She was determined to make a change, even if her dreams were unrealistic. 

She would get out of there. Dead or alive, she would never return.

Her pale hands gripped onto the door handle and she rammed her body against the wood-stone door until she could leave. Leave the room she had spent most of her life in.

She was underweight, not once had a haircut, and yet she found herself running down yet another corridor.

She didn’t stop to convince the other lost souls to try and leave. They were too far gone, but that was common in the laboratories. 

It only took a moment to have that breath of freedom, of fresh air, of her dream, to be snatched from her grasp like candy being stolen from a baby. She did not take into account the purplish-black bruising angrily wrapped around her calf, or the injuries that spotted her aching body.

Hands. They had held onto her wrists and latched down like crocodiles getting ready to death roll their prey. That was exactly what was going to happen. Just until the static-voices filtered through the radio of her attackers, a language that she had a hard time understanding.

She found herself dragged down a more familiar hallway and dropped without care into a room with irritating voices entering her ears. Away from the place she craved and set her heart on - the outside. There were unspoken words from one soft, but stable presence in that rather noisy dining hall. It wasn’t as broken like the others. Maybe broken wasn’t the word for him- he was still standing with humanity intact.

Flare was in a daze when his gentle, cold hands went to her obvious-swelling injuries. Thin, t-shirt bandages and a “healing” cream was enough. “Thanks,” she muttered, half under her breath. 

There were many things odd about this one experiment, like herself he wasn’t completely lost. He wasn’t cruel, or unnecessarily risky. The main thing was that he wasn’t overwhelming in their shared environment of chaos. She would remember that if one day she saw him again.

Flare didn’t have the chance to study him or soak in his appearance. Watchful, greedy, scheming eyes always seemed to be in every corner of their stay. Flare’s eyes darted around, at the rotting food and the classic netted cafeteria tables and the hoards of people “trading” tasks for the day. 

“Just don’t get caught again,” his voice amongst the clashing voices flooding the room was almost a whisper. 

The frightening alarm had gone off again at that second. It boomed and was ten times louder than the crowd could have been. Panic sank in and screams echoed throughout the crowd until people dropped to hide under tables and chairs. It was the alarm of newcomers and relocation of old-time survivors.

The reaction of the hoard was similar to the public going under tornado or nuclear bomb drills- the fear, panic, last-minute grieving, and regretting of life choices while attempting to scavenge friends and family to protect their life.

This time she wasn’t going to fail in breaking the rules.

Her shaking hands had grasped an unguarded doorknob for a minute. Which, it seemed most doors were unguarded. The officers had become offensive rather than defensive- weapons out,  roaming the halls. So she took another risk. 

Why not?

Escaping down another hallway, she decided to take a turn. To become one with the dust balls of hair that traveled among the vents embedded into the ceilings - and find an opening. It took more bodily force to pry one open, thankfully for her, it was already damaged, and some willpower to crawl through the tight tunnel of the vent. 

After losing one shoe to a rapid spinning, bladed fan she had found a way out. To the ceiling.

The sunlight was empowering. 

The golden rays were warm and hugging her small frame when she climbed out of the top of the roof vent, covered in dust, hair, and dirt. The fresh air was almost like a cold glass of water while being out in the desert. A fresh, homemade meal made of simply the view of the forest- the way out of being “home” again.

So she went. 

She ran as fast as her thin, damaged legs could take her.

This time, she was going to stay free. She wasn’t going to take advantage of the privilege she was just given. She was going to pray, and make sure she was deserving of this freedom. She was going to experience life just the way she wanted to. 

After all, this was just the beginning. Nothing was going to get in her way now.