Nov. 14, 2002/Nov. 15, 2002

I laid in the dead cold silence of the room. I couldn't bear to move. I didn't want to leave his side.

The ache in my muscles shrunk as the ache in my heart swelled.

The door creaked open.

"Oh there he is!" said Deborah mockingly. "I was looking for him!" She stopped short. "Wait, what? How did he-?"

She bent down over Osamu. "Rena, how did he die?" she spat at me.

I laid there for a long moment before I had the courage to respond. "He couldn't breathe." I said. "He suffocated."

"He suffocated." she repeated.

"He went insane." I added weakly.

I felt her scowl through the thickness of the room. "Get up." she ordered. I laid there. I wasn't moving from his side. "Get up." she said again.

I let my eyes drift shut. Oh, if only I could die now and get it over with. I wished. But some small, tiny voice from deep within me begged me to think otherwise. You're still alive. Osamu wanted you to live. Live for Osamu.

How childish to think that way. But it was true. And I didn't want it to be true. But if I was dead instead, I would have wanted Osamu to live instead of die.

And so my legs picked me up from the ground as my right arm hung limply at my side, sending shattering shocks up and down my arm. I opened my eyes and faced her. I faced the woman who had killed him without remorse. The woman who tried to kill me, but killed him instead. I faced her with my jaw squared and my eyes painfully tired.

"You killed him." I said. "You murdered Osamu, your Subject 58."

She glared at me. "Shut it, Hoo."

"No. Never."

She pushed me to the ground. I fell unconscious.

When I regained consciousness, there were people moving carefully around me, and I heard the sound of chalk being dragged around my body. I opened my eyes weakly.

I looked over to where Osamu had laid, but a white sheet had been placed on top of him.

People picked me up as carefully as they could, but they didn't know my right arm was probably broken, and I nearly screeched with pain as they put me on a stretcher and took me away from Osamu.

"Hoo, you have to tell me what happened." It was Nathaniel.

I blinked my eyes open. I was lying in a soft bed. My eyes locked with his and everything came back to me in gentle waves. Suddenly I was very awake.

Guilt swam behind his eyes and sorrow poked through to the surface. His voice was worry-soaked.

"Tell me what happened, Hoo. Please." he begged again. He was alone. No one else was here with him other than me.

I found the strength to speak. "He went crazy." I told him, unable to bring myself to say much more in detail other than what was necessary. "He couldn't breathe and suffocated."

He shook his head at me. "No, the doctors told me that," he said. "What happened when you got stabbed?"

"Deborah stabbed me." I said in a whisper. "She stabbed me and tried to get me to inject him, but I tried to inject her instead. She- she got Osamu."

Wes drew in his breath. "I want to believe you, Hoo, because I trust you...but I don't want to believe you, because I don't want this to be real."

I nodded, understanding.

A silence befell before us. "Hoo." he offered. "Would you like to be taken anywhere? I need some time to think about this, and I don't trust this place to leave you alone here."

I nodded. "I want to go with you." I said. "I don't want to be anywhere near Deborah."

He pursed his lips and nodded. He held out his hand, and I took it with my left hand, pulling myself and my wobbly legs off the edge of the bed and steadily onto my feet. Nathaniel hung my left arm around his neck and he helped me get out of the place I was in quietly.

We walked down the steps and across the dark parking lot and into another building. From there, we went up some stairs and finally rested on some couches at the top.

Nathaniel buried his face in his palms. "I just don't get it!" he explained. "I trust you Hoo, but I haven't known you for that long.. And I've known Deb for a while now, but her actions contradict her words so much that I can't comfortably trust her." He threw his hands into the air. "But maybe you're using that to your advantage, I really can't tell!"

"I'm not." I told him. "And to prove it to you, I'll make you a deal, a deal I'll abide by for as long as I live!"

He shook his head woefully. "I can't let you do that." he said dejectedly.

"Yes you can!" I argued. "I'll pledge my life for your safety!"

"No." he objected. "Not a chance, Hoo." He locked eyes with me, and both of our heads tilted to the one side, never breaking contact with each other.

"She upped the serum," I told him. He nodded. I must have already told him. "She used the modified one on Osamu," Nathaniel's eyes widened and I hurried to continue, "or that's what I'm calling him since I don't want to call him Subject 58." Nathaniel looked relieved, but still despaired.

I took a breath before continuing. "Mr. Nathaniel, you know I'm not really able to expect anything from you. There's nothing that I could be gaining from you that I could gain by getting you to believe my story about Osamu and the modified substance."

"WESLEY!!" a voice cried from downstairs. Nathaniel ignored it.

"Hoo... I- I believe you." he paused. "So what should I do about it then?" he asked me.

What kind of a response could anyone say in that moment? I didn't have a clue. "I- I guess you should do what you've been doing then, Mr. Nathaniel." I said softly. "Keep showing kindness to those like me. We-- I could never thank you enough."

He nodded softly as we heard shoes creaking up the steps. I shifted over closer to Nathaniel. I gave him an awkward, one armed hug, but a hug nonetheless.

"SO Rena Hoo and Wesley Nathaniel, what do we have here?" a sliding and slithering voice demanded to know. My heart pounded and body quaked at the sound. "It looks like Romeo and Juliet all over again." Deborah laughed. "One dies to the blade, the other to poison." She held up the injection gun and a knife. "I think we know who's getting what."

Undercover policemen came up behind her as her back up, a stand-in for her henchmen. I scanned for [Redacted]'s face, but I couldn't find anyone near his stature nor face shape.

"I just want her." said Deborah, as a man pounced on top of Nathaniel. His assailant landed a dangerously swift uppercut, precise and accurate, knocking Nathaniel out. His attacker joined his friends in the four corners of the room.

Deborah stepped towards me. "Go ahead." I said bluntly. "It doesn't matter to me anymore."

A knife dragged itself along my arm and stabbed itself all over my body. It was taking all of my strength just to not shriek in terror. I fell to my knees as Deborah stood over me. 

I was going to die to blood loss if I didn't die to the serum.

"For as long as I'm here," she hissed, "You will stay as far away from here." And for some reason I agreed with her. She readied the injection gun. I heard it whirring.

I took my final breaths as she shoved it up to me, but I was shoved out of the way.

I don't know what happened next.

Nathaniel was screaming screaming. I was sobbing sobbing. The ground was shaking shaking.

Nov. 15, 2002/Nov. 15, 2002

And then everything went still. Everything went silent.

Someone was holding me. Someone was hugging me. Someone's tears were falling against me, but these were tears I couldn't feel. Someone held my hand, squeezing it as if to make sure it was me. Or that I knew who it was.

Rena? It's me. Osamu's brother. The one they called Subject 58.

Osamu?

Sure. You can call me that.

"It's done." the man was saying. "Project 863 is dead." A bat clattered to the floor.

She was gone.

I was back.

Memories of my time at Syntec echoed like music notes from an organ around me. I could see everything that happened here at once, like it was all happening at once.

As the laboratory grew dark, I roamed freely, reliving every moment every night.

cAn u Keep A SEcRET?

UR Not LisTeniN6

WhAts wroN6?

He1p Me

fiND Me

LoxK cLoSer

Do YOu ThiNK me MAD?

I didn't want my life to be rectified. I was a lost cause. Rather, I wanted them to know, so they wouldn't have to learn that they were born on a ship of lies.

If they could keep my secret, they'd be doomed. My secret shouldn't be kept. If they listened to me, nothing would ever be done as it should. If no one questioned how this came to be, my life as a spirit would be useless. I didn't want help for me, I wanted help for others who needed it more. I wanted them to find the truth, but not necessarily me. If they looked closer, they might miss the big picture and end up dead like me...or like how Nathaniel ended up-- betrayed.

I didn't make this up. This happened. Nathaniel nearly thought I was crazy and Osamu thought I couldn't believe him.

I'm not crazy. Osamu was going crazy, but he didn't kill me, and thus not crazy.

I  find it crazy that one woman can control an entire company just by using words..

Good luck out there, Project 863.