Friend or Foe?

“You’ll find out the hard way. Smart asses don’t make it very long on the other side of the wall.” Someone is coming down the hall.

“I could have you reported for child abuse.” It’s a kid talking. They do not sound afraid.

“Good luck doing that from a cell.” They pause in front of the door to my cell. I hear the lock unlatch, and the squeaky hinge of the door.

A flash of light reveals it is a boy. He looks like he about fifteen years old. He has bruises on his face. Lab coat slams him against the wall.

“Really brave of you to hit a boy in a strait jacket,” the boy says. Why isn’t he scared?

“I’m the law here, not you.” Lab coat hits the boy in the gut and throws him to the ground and turns to leave. The boy looks at me. Through his bruised eyelids I see that the irises of his eyes are purple. He winks, and we are plunged into darkness again.

“It is quite refreshing to have a cell mate for once,” he says. “What is your name?”

I don’t say anything. I don’t know if I can trust him. Dad told me something about not giving away my real name. Your name is like money, give it away, and you won’t have any left when you need it. Dad wanted us to have fake names, in case we ever got into trouble, we were to give our fake names. Moriah helped me come up with my fake name. We were sitting in our back yard under a tree that had a raven’s nest. She was sitting next to me by the dahlia bushes. They had blue flowers then.

“I know!” Moriah shouts in excitement, “We’ll name you Dahlia! Like these beautiful flowers. They look like your eyes. Dahlia--” she trails off. The raven cawed at that moment, “Dahlia Raven’s glen. No, Raven’s wood. Oh... Help me out with this one.”

“Ravensdale.” I said.

“Yes! Dahlia Ravensdale. How beautiful.” She giggled and sat down next to me again.

“Alright, I’ll go first,” the boy says. “I’m Griffon. Griffon McCoy. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he chuckles, “Whoever you are.”

“Ravensdale. I’m Dahlia Ravensdale.” My throat is sore, and the words come out like sandpaper against my throat.

“That’s a very pretty name, Dahlia. How old are you?”

“Eleven.”

“First time through?”

“Yes,” I croak.

“I am sixteen. It is my fifth time through. I seem to be sort of a regular around here. I think I scare them. They do not know what to do with me.”

I begin to cry, “I’m scared, and I want my sister back.”

“I’m so sorry. It is terrible that this is our lives now. It sucks we have no choice. Don’t worry though. We will stick together when we go. Okay? It will be alright.”

I choke back my tears, “Okay.”

We sit in the darkness for what seems like a long time. People walk up and down the hall outside.

“They won’t leave us in here forever, if that is what you’re concerned about.” He breaks the silence again, and shuffles around on the ground.

“When will they come get us then?”

“I don’t know. But they will come. Would you like to play a game while we wait?”

“What kind of game?”

“I call it Two Choices. I give you two choices and you pick the one you would like to have, and they you will get a turn to give me two choices, and it starts all over again. Does that sound like fun?”

Anything is better than the terrifying silence. “Yes, I’ll play. You go first.”

“Alright, would you pick chocolate or strawberry ice cream?”

“Strawberry. It’s my favorite. I have a bush in my back yard that grows strawberries.”

“Wonderful!” I can hear the smile in his voice. I think he’ll be a good friend. “I think I would pick strawberry too. Now it’s your turn.”

“Would you pick drawing or writing?”

“Drawing, definitely. I like to draw all sorts of things. But the best are landscapes. I like to remember all the places I’ve been.”

“I like writing.” I say, “Dad got me a journal once. I filled it up quick. Your turn.”

“Would you pick only telling the truth or only telling lies?”

I don’t know what to say. Do I tell the truth? “I don’t like this question. Pick a different one.”

“Fair enough. How about picking between always doing what you’re told or only doing what you want to do?”

This question isn’t much better. “Well, I suppose doing what I’m told. I don’t want to be bad.”

“Those two things are not the same. What if someone tells you to do something bad. Will you listen to them and obey?” He asks.

“Why would someone do that?”

“Dahlia, not everyone here is going to look after you like your family did. I’m really sorry about that, but it’s the truth. You must think for yourself.”

“So, I guess I would choose to do what I want, and what I want is to be good.”

“Good. It’s a start. Your turn.”

“How would you answer that question? Do you do as you are told, or what you want to do?”

“I would answer the same, do what I want. It is how I have lasted this long in the Lab. I do what I think is best, and ignore what people tell me to do. It does get me in trouble sometimes. But there is such a thing as good trouble.”

“Would you choose good trouble or bad people?” I ask.

“That is an excellent question. I would choose good trouble.”

“So if I’m a bad person, you wouldn’t choose me?”

“I don’t think you’re a bad person, Dahlia.”

“Everyone else does.”

“I’m not everyone else.”

“I don’t know that.”

“Then you’ll have to trust me,” he says.

I do not know what to do. I just want my sister back. Trusting anyone now seems impossible, and frightening. I am trapped in trusting strangers just like I’m trapped in this cell. Whenever I asked Dad a hard question he always responded with “We will see.” It worked for him, and maybe it will work for me?

“We will see.”

He has the nerve to laugh at me. I want to like him, and I know I will need a friend, but he is stupid.

“Would you want to always be right, or always be wrong?” I ask.

He shushes me, “No, it’s my turn. Would you always want to be right or always be wrong?”

“I don’t want to answer that, because I do always know what’s right.”

“Oh do you now? Well, you must be the smartest person in the world.”

“Now you answer.” I command him.

“I’d rather be always wrong. Just because when you’re wrong, you have a chance to learn something you didn’t know before.”

“Are you purposely going through Assessment multiple times?”

“Perhaps.”

“Are you crazy?” I ask, “Do know what they will do to you if they find out you’re lying?”

“No, but I’m determined to find out. Like I said, when I’m wrong, I learn something new.”

“What have you learned so far?”

“The questions they ask are arbitrary. They mean nothing.”

“What? That can’t be—”

Griffon interrupts me, “Oh, but it is.”

“But then, what if—”

“Ah yes, my favorite question. What if? So many things can come from that question.”

A Labcoat is coming down the hall. We stop talking. They stop in front of our door. There’s another burst of light as the door to the cell opens.

“Okay my lab rats, time to leave.”

We are picked up and carried out of the cell.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“To the second part of your Assessment.”

We are carried down the hall and through a door. There is a van sitting in a garage. There are other children in the back of the van.

“Are we going in there?” Griffon asks.

“Yes, you are no longer our problem. One to many times you went through Assessment, and one too many times we don’t know what to do with you. In you go.”

The doors of the van close behind us. The other children look as afraid as I feel.

Second part? Going away in a van? Dad never mentioned that. Then again, he never mentioned a lot of things.

“I didn’t predict this would happen,” Griffon says.

“What do we do now?” I ask.

“I—” he looks confused, “Don’t know. We’ll just go with it for now. Who knows, this might be better. We’re still together, see? I don’t think it will be that bad.” He does not sound convinced.

The van rumbles to life and we begin to move.

“You will be living in the Midnight Society side of Estral Laboratories until further notice,” the speaker in the back of the van says, “There has been a—” They stop speaking. The van takes a sharp turn, the children across from me fall off the bench. “There has been an incident with the Midnight Society, and we will not be able to place you at this time.”

I lean down to try and help them, but they manage to get back on the bench.

“Incident?” I ask Griffon.

“Yes, it appears we are now in uncharted waters. I have never been removed from the Assessment facility, nor placed in the Midnight Society. I’ve always just gone back to my parents.”

“Unusual.”

“Very.” He is quiet again.

We drive down the road. The other children talk quietly amongst themselves. I don’t know if I should talk to them or not. I may not see them again after this trip.

“Your parents. What are they like?” I ask Griffon.

“They are kind, and did a good job looking after me. Prepared me for something like this.”

“Something like this? Do you know what they are doing?”

“Not for sure, but I have heard of this happening before. They take the kids that went through Assessment and tested to be possibly evil, and bring them to another facility. To make them better. That’s the unknown part. Better in what way? Change us to be good? Or—” His voice shakes.

“Or what?”

“I don’t know, Dahlia. That’s the thing, I’ve never heard anything more than that. And no one has returned to tell about it. I don’t want to scare you, but we could be in trouble.”

“The good kind?”

“No. Not at all.” This is the first time I’ve heard him be serious. He is either serious or he is scared like me. I cannot tell for sure.

“But we’re still together.” I say.

“Yes. That is a good thing.”

The van travels down the road for a long time. Some of the children have gone to sleep, laying their heads on each other’s shoulders. I wish I could sleep.

“How big is the laboratory?” I ask Griffon.

“I’m not sure, but it has to be big. They keep a lot of people there.”

“Why not just let them go to the Midnight Society?”

“Dahlia, it is not easy to answer these questions. We will see.”

Here we go, Griffon caught on to it too. Telling me we will see when he doesn’t want to answer. So I let us sit in silence for a while more.

My head feels heavy and it becomes difficult to keep my eyes open. I lay my head back but it jumps around when the van hits a bump in the road.