Ahh, the Lab. It felt so good to be returned to the wretched mess of a place- what with its over sanitation, the smell of disinfection and the constantly monitored hostages? Yes, yes. I assure you there's no place like home.

It was 1 of 4 rooms in the building, the other rooms informally known as the Snug, the kitchen and the consultation chamber. I myself was designated to the Lab. Let's just say... I had an upgrade. They sorted us according to 'mental stability' by putting us on one of the three walls. Each of the 3 walls contained 20 vertical hospital beds beset with 20 frightened children up to 3 years younger than myself. The Lab was for ages 11-15, and the Snug for years 7-10. Please don't ask about the other children below the age of 7... I don't quite know myself.

Wall 1 held the 'average patients' and therefore got an average amount of attention.

Wall 2 held the 'peculiar minded patients', and they were feared by everyone. Even the scientists treated them with wariness and alarm.

Wall 3 however, held the 'incurable patients' and they were never approached by the scientists unless a patient had raised their hand to ask a question. A lot of us were temporarily put on to Wall 3 if we asked too many questions. The permanent residents came into the Lab somewhat stunned as if they witnessed hell outside. There were only 3 of them and they were triplets. But what about me, you might ask? (Well you'll be told either way, apologies.)

I was at the end of Wall 2, right on the last strand of the Scientist's nerve before being moved. Let's just say I had an unreliable temperament and attitude. I was usually referred to as the most 'peculiar minded' of my Wall and I was given daily threats that 'if my attitude didn't improve I would be moved to Wall 3'. The scientists deliberately assigned me to this wall because of my insistent demands to know what the hell was going on. They even attempted to make the other children afraid of me, but the truth was they admired my bravery. They wanted to know just as much as I, what they were planning on doing to us in the Lab- but unlike me they were too afraid to ask.

Why?

Well, we were enclosed in a room full of strangers with no communication to the outside world or to our families. We had no information to tell us they were even alive. We were forbidden to ask what the purpose of the Lab was for and if we would ever leave. Every day we woke up to scientists observing us, sighing, and then writing a report about us on a clipboard. There was limited medical assistance apart from pain killers and bandages. There was a school about the 'dangerous world outside' and we were given two and a half meals a day.

***

Once I was dragged through the wooden doors that led into the Lab, I took in the familiar surroundings. I could pick out my dishevelled bed from a mile away: the rodent bitten covers, the ageing yellowness of the mattress, and even my brick of a pillow.

Yes, I was so lucky to have the worst bed in the building. I loved feeling the springs under my body every night as I tried to keep away the endless nightmares.

The bald man tightened his grip on my shoulder for 'extra reassurance' as he led me to my rock. He seemed to take particular pride in shoving me onto it.  As he walked away I distinctly heard him mutter 'imbecile' under his breath. I watched him peeve another hostage with much distaste- partly because of the way he scuffed his shoes as he walked which left a sound like nails on a blackboard. As always, I face planted my pillow.

It's always good to be back...

For a while I just lay there sprawled on my front without a care to the world. I took in the smell of must emanating from my mattress sheet until a nimble finger prodded me in the back. I turned with a scowl to the source. A newbie.

Every week we got a newbie, yet I didn't know where they came from. There wasn't much point in them either to be honest; they simply read statistics of a hostage off their clipboard and told us what 'condition' we were in. That day she stammered that I was in perfect condition apart from my (devoured) leg, which she said needed tending to. When she made eye contact with me she whimpered and stumbled away to get bandages, her nose pressed into her clipboard.

"Pathetic." A familiar voice to my right said. "Absolutely pathetic." The voice belonged to my closest friend Noah who was the first other child I met at the Lab. Whenever he began with an insult or remark, he was veeeery angry. "They may act intelligent yet I bet they hired them because they weren't acceptable." He humphed. Humphed. I rolled my eyes at him.

"What are you on about?" I said with somewhat exasperation.

"You don't know?" His eyes widened with surprise.  It was as the bald man was handing me the bandages he intruded our conversation.

"Noah, what is wrong with you boy? Have you any courtesy to leave the mongrel alone? Now she's not at the verge of moving to Wall 3, I suppose she at least deserves some respect. You know very well that you yourself are on your last warning."

"For your information, Flora is a very close friend of mine, so you can-" Noah made an indiscrete hand gesture which incidentally pushed the bald man too far.

For the first time since meeting him, the bald man struggled for words.
"Get up!" He yanked Noah's arm and pulled him off his bed without any objections. I would've thought Noah would've been afraid, however he merely grinned at the bald man and didn't show the slightest hint of fear on his placid face. In fact, he appeared to be amused.

"You should know that I am not afraid of where you are taking me. The thing is... I maaay already know where I am going. My mother told me." He raised his eyebrow to pronounce that he knew something he ought not to.

"That's impossible..." The bald man looked pained and was obviously surprised about Noah's prohibited knowledge; however this was abruptly recovered with a very grotesque smile.

"I suppose your mother is a very intelligent woman to be able to work out where I take people like you. What was her name again?"

"I never told you. And I won't tell you because I know what will happen to her too." Noah clenched his hands into fists and gave the scientist an intrepid glare.

"I thought you would say that. Not to worry, I have other ways." The bald man pulled out a star shaped device and pointed the tip to Noah's head.  A spark emitted from the device and the boy gave out a painful cry.

"Katherine Bolders," the bald man read from the hologram. Several scientists stopped what they were doing and furiously wrote on their clipboards. Noah cried in anguish.

"Why you repulsive little-" He stopped to recover his wits. "If you even think about harming her I will rip-" Noah's sentence was cut off as the bald man and the newbie dragged him to his feet and heaved him away.

"No-ah!" My voice was taken with him.

How could they? He was my best friend- my only friend and the bloody scientists were taking him away.

He was the one that got me through the Lab. He always laughed at my humiliation; which then made me laugh. He comforted me when I had one of my many nightmares; he stood up for me when the bald man criticised me- he acted like a brother when I felt lonely. He was like a part of my family.

I called out for him over and over, desperate for a response while his protesting sobs could be heard down the corridor. It was preposterous that he was being taken from me.  I knew him like a favourite character from a book!

I knew that his favourite colour was green; he had an older sister called Ailis; his birthday was on the 22nd of February; his favourite food was pizza; his family sent him to the Lab at the age of 5 years old, and his parents were of a very high class so he had prohibited communication (such as letters disguised as checkups) with them.

How no one noticed was beyond me.

I still remember to this very day the first time we met. "Don't tell anyone," he whispered to me shortly after we became best friends and he told me about his letters. He put his rough finger to my lips while saying 'shh'.
He was a year older than me, but I felt so loved that he trusted me with his grave secret.

"Shh..." I whispered back, giddy with excitement. We both laughed and returned to our normal Lab routine as if nothing had happened.

He never changed as we grew up together. He would always speak sarcastically to the bald man; he would hug me with my head on his chest and his hands on my gaunt back; he would smell like lemons from his bed sheets... and he would always- always smile with a grimace to the scientists but with his eyes to me. We had a friendship closer than any other in the Lab- until they abolished it when they took him away.

I will avenge him.

I screamed his name repeatedly with only a faint garbled cry in response. I didn't want him to go. I knew I would forget what he would look like... just like my mother.

I had to remember. I had to.

Brown shoulder length fair hair. Ivory green eyes. Straight nose. Kite shaped face. Freckles. Lots of freckles. Tall. 5 foot 8. One crooked bottom tooth. Large smile. Pale skin.... pale like the sheet of a bed.

I said this over and over, refusing to believe he would be gone forever. He wouldn't have wanted me to cry.
'Weakness is not an option in here,' he used to tell me; and I believed him.

Barely anyone knew where 'people like him' were taken to, and those that did were severely abused. It was always the weak that knew the prohibited information too- for example, on countless occasions I had watched children only a year younger than myself cry all day and night- presumably fretting about the prospect of being taken away- and sure enough they were gone within a week of arrival. They were too weak to stay.

Noah on the other hand? Well, he was the only boy I had ever heard to stand up for himself and his mother about prohibited information. I tried hard to remember his brave defiance but the thought threw me:

How come I can't have communications with my parents?
They too might be just as important, right?

I had been in the Lab for as long as I could remember, and whenever I asked a scientist if I was born there, they would always reply something along the lines of:

"Don't be absurd. We would never let you be born here. You arrived here when you were 6. You were earlier than most because your brain had a larger IQ than most impertinent children of your age." 

It infuriated me when they spoke to me as if I were vermin! They always spoke to me through gritted teeth too, as if they were in danger of obtaining my 'impertinence'. It was their lack of answers that caused me to spend many days questioning the whereabouts of my mother and if I would ever see her again.

Maybe I'd better explain...

Apparently when I was 6, my mother gave me to the Lab for 'confidential reasons'. I remember being told that for the next 10 years I would have a compulsory lifestyle of lying on a bed with regular check ups, with lunch at 12.00pm and dinner at 7.00pm as if it were a normal day (including school).

Between the ages of 6-10 I remember being in a snug little room that was always filled with laughter and warm coloured painted walls such as reds and purples (presumably to create a sense of 'Home'). They had childish patterns on like sunflowers and daisies and Humpty Dumpty and there were also plush sofas and different beds that all of us slept in- ranging from bunk beds to cots to single beds.

There was music every evening and TV time where Little Einsteins was played. For dinner, all 20 of us sat at a long wooden table, with wooden chairs and blue and red napkins to eat pizza and pasta or other ready-made meals off. We always had rice pudding or chocolate cake on every Friday night too!

The snug room was where I first met Noah. I don't really remember how we became friends but he told me he saw me all alone while everyone else had a friend and he approached me as if we had always been friends. "Confident little blighter," he called himself while telling me how he simply asked 'how are you' and I answered, 'scared...'.

After that he said he took my hand and led me to a spare bed next his. "You can stay with me," he reenacted softly.

Although I couldn't remember much about the snug room... I remembered I felt something I thought I'd never feel again: Safe.