ALEXIS

I walked up to the school's front doors. Today was May twenty second—nothing special, or at least nothing special about it yet. My first class was History, which is a class I had always hated. Not that I enjoyed any classes though—I just hated History more than the rest. All it was is the monotone voice of Mr. Chase droning on and on about things past, but why do we need to know all of those things people did? We should all focus on the now.

I stalked to room 306, furious nobody could save me from an hour of this. I didn't even have any friends of mine in this class. After I walked in, however, I heard the phone ring and Mr. Chase picking up the phone and answering in his monotonous manner: "Hello?"

I walked over and placed my things on my desk. It felt as if I was being watched, but as I turned around and searched the classroom, the sensation disappeared. It happened a lot in a few of my classes, and it was quite peculiar.

"Excuse me students, before we start today, three of you need to head to the office immediately—bring your things, Alexis, Evan, and Levon." Mr. Chase's voice rang loudly and emotionless throughout the classroom.

"Why?" I asked, startled.

"Just do as I say—how would I know?" Mr. Chase retorted.

We walked down the hallway together, backpacks hung over our shoulders filled to the brim with our schoolwork. Utter silence hung over us like a beige storm cloud.

My parents were sitting in two of ten chairs in the lobby. The others were occupied by what I assumed were students' parents, as I saw four other students making their way down to the lobby, all in my grade. I didn't know any of them well at all—only their names.

My mom was teared up and my father displayed no emotion. Unlike Mr. Chase, he never spoke to me—he was too occupied with work and money and the business to care about my learning and growth as a person. At least I knew Mr. Chase didn't try to be annoying and he really cared, I guess, in a way. My father never had showed that he cared.

"Mom?" I asked, uncertainty creeping into my voice. "What's going on?"

"Oh, sweetie, I'll explain in the car." She looked extremely distressed.

"So, I kind of handed you over to science," she summed up in the sweetest way as soon as she locked the car doors and duct taped my seat belt to its place, enclosing me.

"What!?" I fidgeted and fought against the seat belt. "What did you do!?"

"I signed this contract... I did it for you. The person presenting the idea made it seem so worthwhile, and now I can't back out of it. Honey, I'm so sorry."

"Father, you agreed to this!?" I wailed. "Don't you love me!? I know she does at least, even if she does something like this!"

"If you live, you'll be experimented on, and your new survival techniques could bring in money. If you die, it will save us money from your necessities and we could sell your items," was all he said.

"I can't believe you!" I screamed, tussling against the strong seat belt. Why couldn't I pull it out? She must have glued it too, or replaced my seatbelt with a new one.

At the same time, my mom gasped. "George," she scolded, energy in that one word in an attempt to make him feel guilty.

"We're here," my mother said after a silence that replaced the grey sky with a stormy sky—a tension and anger-filled silence.

"No!" I screamed. My mother opened the door, yelling to someone far away. I got one last glimpse of the world, noticing my classmates' cars parked around ours, and then sensed nothing.

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DANA

Pain. Oh, how pain demands to be felt. I was asleep, but I could still feel the pain of the scientists and nurses and doctors experimenting on me. My parents sold me out. How had I not noticed? I had been so foolish—drawing on the sidewalk while my mother made a deal with a hooded person whose gender she did not know, much less her identity. I hen scolded myself for even feeling the need to reference a book at this dire moment.

I decided as soon as this was over, I would go find the person and get them back for what they did to me—and it was my freaking birthday. And my parents, too—they didn't realize what they had signed up for. If I even survived anyway. I soon scolded myself for being so imbecilic as to be negative—it would not help in the current circumstances.

I could not move. I could not sense, except the pain, demanding to be felt. I could not help but reference a book that I had laughed over, sobbed over. I could not help myself loving books, but because I am who I am today from them, and they inflict great emotion upon me, I would not if I had the choice.

I did not even know what types of experiments were being done on me. I was nothing short of petrified and aggravated. My body, not yours! Stay away! This was injustice, inhumane! I simply could not believe their idiocy.

I felt a wave of real sleep wash over me, and dreams of pain—physical and emotional—engulfed me.

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                     THIRD PERSON

Scientists rushed over to Evan's hospital room at the urgent call from others.

"What is it!?" Aaron demanded.

"We're losing him!" someone explained. "His body can't handle it!"

A scientist swore. "What can we do!?"

"Nothing. We have to let him die. It's too late."

The doctors and nurses rushed in, trying to save the boy. He knew it was over—he just wished he could say goodbye.

Suddenly, a loud, even beep sounded, frustration growing fast in the scientists and surgeons.

Evan was no more.

After a long time, scientists encountered the same problem, but with a different girl. They agreed there was nothing to do, but that did not stop the surgeons from attempting to do something.

Ominous, irregular heart beats were occurring. It took a bit longer for those spaced out beeps on the heart monitor to become one unified beep, though.

Evelyn was no more.

On a day this particular boy would love to bike to a friend's house, his body began to struggle more with the experiments. He simply could not handle them.

"We're losing him! Do something!" someone yelled. Surgeons rushed in.

He lived in this struggle for a few minutes before his heart finally gave out.

Ryan was no more.

Dark grey storm clouds hung over the city. Cars sped past, oblivious to the suffering teens inside the hospital.

"That's it," Elizabeth announced. "These four have survived our genetic modifying."

Cheers aroused. Four out of seven subjects had been successful.

Or so they thought.

They brought consciousness to the four teens. Three were feeling terrible and had thrown up, but nothing major. One fell out of their bed, throwing up a stream.

"Someone do something!" that one scientist exclaimed yet again.

"Do something yourself!" one retorted.

"I'm not a surgeon!" they shot back.

"You should be able to treat vomit if you're a scientist."

As they argued, the poor child with eyes like today's grey sky could not handle the changes, even though they had made it this long. The heart monitor was disconnected, but everyone felt that beep anyway, internally—they had lost a subject. Her grey eyes stared at nothing, not seeing, her ears not hearing, her body not sensing the new world she was going to be put into.

Grace was no more.

Three subjects had survived—so far. The scientists do not know how long their bodies will last, if they do, in the end, fail.

To the school, the students had merely disappeared. Nobody knew where they had gone, except a select few their families had trusted.

But then those families' children told the story, and it spread like wildfire. Students were overwhelmed with grief and anger. They felt their friends deserved more than this.

The school was bustling about the experiments, and somehow the student body found put about who died when. Evan—September thirtieth of the first year. Evelyn—February fourteenth, second year. Ryan—May twenty seventh, third year. Grace—May twenty second, ending of forth year.

The students also figured out Alexis, Dana, and Levon had survived for the time being. They were ecstatic that somebody survived, and hoped they would return soon. They were told they would, eventually, return to school—most likely with odd appearances.

Little did they actually know what "odd appearances" meant. They merely thought it meant different than before and a bit disfigured and different colored or shaped or sized.

Oh, they were wrong.

Extremely wrong.