Alt+Control+Delete Chapter 4

I sit back down at my desk, and fiddle with my hair. Mr. Kane is droning on and on, about plate tectonics and earthquakes and all sorts of things I read about already. I try listening to him, but I am rapidly bored out of my mind. I open up my tablet and start dragging my stylus on the screen. I doodle some random hearts and stars, but my mind is suddenly pulled back to the conversation I overheard in the office.

I opened a new window and as force of habit, started writing notes. I wrote down what I could remember. I first put down Javert and circled his name. I did the same for Mr. Valero. I put an equal sign between the two with “experiment?” above it. From Javert, I drew several lines and wrote down “two mystery men in black,” “owns company?” and “threatening.” From Mr. Valero, I drew a line and wrote “Manchurian Candidate—movie.” I set my stylus down and thought. What is the connection between all of these? If only I could find out…

Suddenly, a flash of pure white pain flashes through my head, and I nearly drop my tablet. I can’t see, and I feel nauseous. “Kaya, are you all right?” asks a voice that sounds like Mr. Kane except…tinnier. “Do you need to go to the infirmary?”

I shake my head and grimace even though my head feels like it’ll split in two. “I’ll…be fine…” I manage to stutter out. Then the white behind blinding me turns into black, and the sound of Mr. Kane’s voice fades away.

I’m falling. I don’t know which way is up, which way is the sky and which is the ground. I’m enveloped in black, in darkness.

For a second, I feel exhilarated and I soar. But then fear seizes my heart in its familiar black claws and I start tumbling in space. I can’t see where I’m going, where I’ll eventually land.

“It’s all your fault,” says a voice. Oh shit, not this again.

“It’s all your fault,” says another voice.

“Shut up,” I reply. “I don’t need you right now.”

“It’s all your fault,” says someone that sounds like Lae. 

 “Hah, is that the best you’ve got for me?”

“It’s all your fault,” says a voice that sounds eerily like Marc.

 “Hitting a little below the belt, aren’t you?” I laugh a bit.

“It’s all your fault,” says Mrs. Spiel.

“This is getting unfair now,” I say. I can’t tell if the tears coming out of my eyes are from my accelerating fall or from the words.

“It’s all your fault,” says Gerad.

“Shut up.”

“It’s all your fault, it’s all your fault, it’s all your fault…”

“Shut UP!” I yell, and the tears are free falling now.

“It’s all your fault Kaya!”

“No!” I scream, and try desperately to grab onto something.

I awake to find that I was holding tightly onto the nurse’s uniform, and she was giving me an absolutely terrified look. I quickly let go of her, and she hustles out of the room. I realize I’m in the infirmary, with its putrid yellow looking walls and overly happy motivational posters.

I can see again, but the blinding white pain has been replaced with a dull throbbing headache. I guess this is what people experience when they have a hangover. I lie back down on the rather uncomfortably small bed, and see that my bag was beside me. I reached over and found my tablet (which was entirely intact, thank goodness) and my stylus. Turning it on, I was glad to see that the notes I took were unscathed.

I looked over the notes. What could I find out right away? I looked at the Manchurian Candidate. I open up the internet and look it up on Google. According to the results that pop up onto my screen, the Manchurian Candidate is about how “the son of a prominent, right-wing political family has been brainwashed as an unwitting assassin for an international Communist conspiracy.”

Brainwashed? Communist conspiracy? If this “experiment” is similar to the Manchurian Candidate, then what does this mean?

Hey! This blog is officially just over a year old now :)

Thanks for sticking with us through the thick and thin...I'll be on more often :D

-K