Jason's POV

I hear screams of terror thousands of miles away. Everything has gone black. I surface every once in a while, but just barely. I can't see. I can't talk. I can't move. The very brief moments that I'm awake mean I'm only to slip into the dark depths of unconsciousness minutes later.

But at some point, I am able to open my eyes. Or one, it seems like. In fact, I can't even feel my left eye. It's disorienting and even a little terrifying. I'm able to make my first sound since an eternity-- a strangled cry of pain.

"Look who's awake!" Chirps a cheerful voice.

Quinn.

I see the blurry shape of her head above me, against a blinding light that makes me shut my eye again.

"Are you in pain?" She asks.

I try to speak, but my throat is too raw to make anything but groans. My tongue feels too big for my mouth.

"You're very strong. The bullet just barely missed your brain. But even so, it's incredible that you survived. Your friends will overjoyed."

Bullet?

The memories are fuzzy, but I do begin to recall Kat shooting me in the face. Her eyes were icy, unfeeling. She looked at me like she hated me. But she's just like the rest of those imprisoned soldiers. Heavily armed, trigger happy kids jacked up on adrenaline.

"You think you can eat something solid? It's been two weeks since you've eaten anything that wasn't from a tube."

Annoyance flickers through me as she keeps asking me questions. Eventually, I stop trying to answer. And then there's that fascination with feeding me through a tube. How does that work?

"Oh well. Get some rest. Here, I'll put something in your IV to help with that."

"Wait!" The word feels clumsy and broken in my mouth.

"What is it, Jason?"

"K- Kat. Is she okay? What did you do to her?"

Quinn seems delighted, either because I began to talk or since we're on the topic of Kat, my psycho girlfriend.

"She's just fine. We took studies on her brain, wanting to see how The Walls had changed her. We found a device lodged in there, blocking the memory part of the brain. It also amplifies anger and aggressive behavior."

My mind spins. "You'll have to take it out of the brain? Won't that cause some serious damage?"

"Oh no, nothing like that! We can easily turn off the small chip in her brain for good. It won't harm anything, and she'll be back to normal."

I begin to relax. I can't help but smile as well. The desperate clutch on consciousness has slipped, but I willingly sink because I know that everything just might to turn out to be okay.