"But once again, Why am I here?" I asked frustrated at the lack of answers I'd been receiving.

"To preform a great service for our company." This random man in a lab coat answered. His name tag read Janson.

"What's the name of this place?"

A woman with short brown hair answered me, "We call ourselves WICKED." I rolled my eyes at the prideful tone of her voice.

"Okay, now, maybe I'm not making myself clear. So I will continue to ask the same question. Why am I really here?" I sighed an exasperated sigh, sounding almost like a little child.

"I thought you said that she would be easy to persuade?" Lab coat yelled at a boy with brown hair who was about my age.

"Just give us a second. We'll work through this. Right, Teresa?" The boy shared a knowing look with a girl, Teresa, who sat next to me.

"You have to do this for the world. For your family, For yourself. The human race is being killed by a monstrous disease and you can help WICKED find the cure." The boy's words seemed so forced, so scripted that I bet he had rehearsed this speech a hundred different times.

"Listen to Thomas. Listen to us. We know the great sacrifices you've had to make. But we want to use your immunity to help research a cure for those who are less fortunate than us." Teresa spoke her part with more emotion than 'Thomas' did but it still wasn't believable.

I'd made up my mind I was never going to help them.

I spun in my chair with my arms crossed, taking a good look at the room we were in. The walls were white. The ceiling was white. The door was white. Gosh darn it, I'm white.

Thankfully I brought my focus back to the long oval table, that was made of some type of dark wood.

"Do you have anything to say, sweetie?" An older woman asked me from across the table.

I rudely flicked my eyes up to her and then back to my hands. I was fifteen not five.

"That control room. The cameras. The maze, as you called it. What's that all about?"

"That would be the first step in our quest to find the cure," Brown hair lady said, "It's all about the killzone or 'brain' patterns. Mapping the responses of our subjects. It's a long process that should result in a cure for the flare."

"Should result?" I smiled at the lady, while pointing out a flaw in WICKED's plan," So you're asking me for my life, in exchange for someone's fantasized magical cure? This is ridiculous." I rolled my chair back and stood from the table.

"I wouldn't try anything if I were you." Lab coat smirked at me while motioning his hand to the upper corner of the room.

A small camera was aiming directly at me. It's red dot staring me straight in the face.

"We're being watched." I said announcing the obvious.

"Thank you for taking notice. Now please have a seat." Lab coat just loved to talk.

"Why?" I fired back.

"Because that door is locked and you don't have a choice between whether you want to cooperate or not. It's nonnegotiable."

"Then why is everyone asking for my consent?"

I received blank stares from all eight people in the room. Against my inner will, I sat back down in my chair.

"Moving on shall we," this man with dark black hair said.

"Moving on with what? Nobody has even told me exactly why I'm here."

"You're going into the maze." Thomas said sporadically.

"What? Why?!" What did he mean 'I was going into the maze.' Like heck I was. I got ready to stand from the table again.

"Sit down," Lab coat said with a snap of his fingers.

"We are going to use you to stimulate a new pattern in Subject A-5. He hasn't given us a change in emotion in a while and we desperately need his results. He's a crucial part of finding the cure." Old lady said dramatically.

"What makes him so important?"

"Well seeing that he's one of the only subjects in the control group, his killzone is pretty necessary." Lab coat laughed.

Control group. The words struck odd in my mind. Like they didn't belong when speaking in the context of people.

"I just don't understand how I could change any of this." I lightly massaged my throbbing temples. I have spent all day with these people. I wanted to leave now.

"Oh, don't worry about anything, we'll magnify both of your emotions and feelings." Black haired dude said.

"It'll be love at first sight." Lab coat smirked. Apparently what he said was a joke because everyone in the room started laughing like fully gone cranks. Except Thomas and Teresa they both just smiled nervously.

I on the other hand, blinked slowly trying to regain my slowly dwindling patience.

"Wow. That all seemed really funny. Please elaborate on the joke part, Because somewhere between your crap and lies I missed the punch line," with my words the room fell silent.

"Isn't it obvious? We're going to control your mind," He spoke slowly which set me on edge, "We'll tell him to find you painstakingly attractive and then we'll make you have a crush on him," He clapped excitedly, "It's quite simple really. Very awkward at first for your mind, you'll even feel slightly compulsive, but still very effective."

I swallowed the built up saliva in my mouth. My palms began to sweat. And this room had gotten way too hot.

"How will I know who this 'subject' is?" I asked, my voice much softer as I sank lower and lower in my obvious defeat.

"Pass her the folder." Lab coat commanded.

The old woman slid a blue transparent folder down to me. I opened the first page, to find a picture of a blonde boy. Across the picture in odd lettering read:
"Property of WICKED."

Below the picture was the name of the boy. "Newt. Subject A-5. The Glue. Control Group. Negative." None of the words clicked together. They seemed to be describing the boys title but it just didn't fit right. Negative. That word seemed questionable.

I glanced around the table asking for permission to turn the page. Nobody looked alarmed as my finger swept the paper over to page 2, so I continued reading.

"This subject has strong leadership qualities. They continue to grow as he takes on his new role as a Keeper. He demonstrates kindness and peace around other subjects and isn't one to cause trouble. But his patterns are slow and his responses haven't been generating much excitement among WICKED lab faculty. His recorded speech is rather depressive and his thoughts seem jumbled and far too fast paced. We believe further analysis is recommended and to watch this subject closely, seeing that his results are recorded negative." There was that word again.

Below this paragraph was another picture except this one was black and white with the same words across it as the first one. Talk about possessive, this place was crazy with they're property labels.

I began to flip to the next page, when the old lady grabbed the folder. I had only caught a glimpse of what looked like a chart. It must have been private because the 'old bag' stole it away from me.

"Now comes the 'sad' part," Lab coat said putting air quotes around sad.

"Which would be?"

"The Swipe." What?

"We cannot preform any operations without the patients consent," The old woman raised her voice slightly.

"What's the swipe?" I asked.

"Well, why would I waste my breath on someone who isn't going to remember my words anyway?" Lab coat was really starting to make me irritated.

"You're going to erase my memory?! Wait, how much of it will be gone?" My mind started to panic.

"Pretty much all memories are removed with the swipe," A new woman spoke who had been quiet the whole time, "But the memories will be stored away and saved onto a computer for further reference."

"You're going to study my memories?"

"No. We're going to be studying your brain." Lab coat answered," So once again, now that you understand a little more about us, will you agree to WICKED's trials?"

The room fell silent once again. Losing all of my memories would erase my past. Erase my dead family. Erase the earth I once knew. Not that the world was all that great anyway with this disease but still. It would all be gone. My mind would be a tool used to save the world. Saving the world. The words made me shudder. Could my sacrifice lead to a cure? If so is saving the exposed and dying really worth risking my life? The obvious answer is Yes of course, how in God's name could I be so selfish?

Yet things are never just simply how they sound. Things always have catches. It's the way the world works now a days. A sad system of panicked, dying people.

"We need you. Newt needs you." Teresa said with hope laced in her voice. She lightly put her hand on my upper back. She believed this was right. WICKED believed this was right.

"The world needs you." This came from Thomas. I looked at his eyes and they seemed hesitant, almost clouded. He didn't trust these people and neither did I. But then again it's not like I had much of a choice, so with one deep breath I spoke the words that would forever alter my life.

"Okay. I'll do it."