I let out a tired sigh, exhausted from all the going ons in my life recently. The past week and a half felt like an eternity. From the moment Wil and I miraculously managed to escape until now, when we are trapped back here, the very place we had tried so hard to escape, once again. Had it really only been ten days?

I have only been here for three days and, surprisingly, they have been suspiciously quiet. Aside from the encounter on the first day, the simulation and my not so regular meals, I have been in contact with no one. It is just me and the walls of this cell. I wonder what they are planning up their sleeves.

Also, the pain in my back faded away after a day. It turns out that it really was the simulation and not a permanent injury, thankfully, though it did take a while to recover, considering it's only a virtual effect.

I stare gloomily at the tray of food placed in front of me. Thankfully, I can actually reach my food as no one ever bothered to reattach my cuffs and chains when they brought me back here from the simulation room.

The meal they have provided for my dinner is small, but even then, I do not touch it. Since I have stepped into this dreaded building again, I have not eaten anything as nothing seems appetising to me. The most I've done is drink water.

The meal in front of me consists of a tiny scoop of mashed potatoes, a sole piece of boiled broccoli and a small side of boiled peas, a large cup of oddly-coloured protein shake as well as a glass of clear water. I wonder what ingredient they've added to make the shake a sickening shade of green.

I feel as if they have been trying to keep me sort of healthy for some sort of upcoming experiment, what with the protein shake and all. Or perhaps they are just trying to ensure that I do not become too weak for whatever it is they have in plan for me. But then again, they have never failed to feed me with a significantly huge portion of protein, though rarely a protein shake. I wonder what the special occasion is this time around.

I pull my hair back and it falls on my back. I walk towards the wall facing the window. I sink to the ground, wrapping my arms around my legs, my bare feet pressed against the cold floor.

I lean my head against the rough bricked wall behind me, gazing out the window. Rays of moonlight stream in through the glass, the dark sky clear and cloudless. I bite my lip, resisting the urge to recklessly – and miraculously – breath the transparent but fragile material that separates me from the outside and, somehow, crawl out.

The sudden sound of someone repeatedly rapping on the metal door startles me. My eyebrows knit in confusion. Why would anyone even both to knock? Politeness? They normally just barge in here even if I don't want them anyway. Not like I ever want them in the first place but that is beside the point.

I stand up and head towards the door. Sadly, there is not any openings on the door so it is impossible for me to see whoever it is standing on the other side of this opaque door.

"Who is it?" I ask softly, curious, but not daring to speak up, though I doubt the other person can hear me.

The door swings open without warning, missing my nose by several inches, and I jump in surprise. The absence of the door reveals Key, the last person I expect to see in this place, standing outside in the dim light. This is really unexpected.

The look of utter shock and disbelief must be rather eminent on my face as Key chuckles at me.

"Well, hello again, Miri. Sorry for being late."

"But-But-But-Wha-?" I stumble over my words, not able to form a complete sentence or, in this case, a question.

Being late? What is she talking about?

"Are you just going to stand here? Or can we go? Because if you want to continue standing there, I'd have wasted my time and I am going to leave first."

"But how?" I question, hoping with all my heart that she understands what I'm talking about.

"I have my ways," she answers, clearly not intending to elaborate on that.

She's always so mysterious.

I nod my head, stepping out of the room. She reaches in to close the door behind me as silently as possible. "To buy us time," she explains, answering the lingering question in the air, before heading left.

I trail behind her quietly, not knowing where she is leading me to, mainly because I have never been to this part – the central wing – of the facility. I used to stay in the east wing of the place. That was where I spent all my time. Until now, that is.

Not all the lights are on, so it is not as bright as it normally is during the day. The corridors leading to wherever it is we are going to is quiet, which is hardly surprising considering the time of day. The walls are covered with long windows and doors. I wonder what anyone would need these many labs for. What do they use them for? I hope it's not any other experiments such as Wil and I. I only know about the both of us. But then again, I don't know what exactly they do so it's quite possible. Though I really hope not. I know how horrible it is to live as an experiment to these people.

I look up and notice that we are heading straight towards a set of large double doors that are of a dull shade of grey. On top sits a big sign with the words 'West Wing' written on it. Another sign with reads 'Strictly for Personnel Only' is placed on the left door.

I wait for Key to stop or to tell me that we have reached a dead end and that there is no continuing down this path. When she does not, I ask," Are we even allowed in there?"

She shakes her head but does not look back. "No, Miri. The West Wing is forbidden to all except a small handful. Most don't even know what's inside."

How does she know when you don't? You've stayed here much longer than she has, a small voice in the back of my head bugs me, but I ignore it. It is not the right time to be asking these kinds of questions. Maybe another time.

"Why?" I say instead.

"Let us just say that some very important items and documents that can cause a great deal of damage if in the wrong hands are kept in here," she replies with a finishing tone, closing the topic from any further discussion.

She reaches into her pocket and produces two bobby pins. Looks like we are resorting to more conventional methods of opening locked doors now, are we? How does she even know the door is locked in the first place? She has not even tried opening it. I'm getting rather suspicious. It's taking every bit of strength to resist the urge of questioning her now.

She squats down, one of her knees resting on the floor, and inserts the two pins in the keyhole, fiddling with them. Merely seconds later, she pulls out the pins and puts them back into her pocket. She stands up and kicks the door open. The sound of her shoe coming in contact with the wooden door resounds throughout the hallway. I wince, hoping the noise did not alert anyone of our being here.

"Let's go."

She walks through the door and I follow suit behind her. The door swings shut, erasing any trace of us even entering this wing, aside from the picked lock.

"Miri. Hold on."

I stop in my track. "Why?" I ask, clearly confused by the sudden request.

"Wait here. I am going to go on ahead to make sure that Aristelle is waiting for us at the back exit and that we are not walking into some sort of trap. If anyone comes, hide inside that room. Be sure to lock the door." She points towards the first room on the right. "It is unlocked. Don't open the door for anyone else but me. You will know it is me when I knock once, twice and twice again, with a pause in between each of them."

"Okay," I reply, my voice barely louder than a whisper.

I watched as Key walked down the corridor and turn left at the fork, disappearing from my line of sight, leaving me standing here, all alone in a deserted hallway. I wonder how long it will take for her to complete her task and to return to fetch me. 

The inevitable silence that slowly but surely starts to settle in the air is eerie, making a shiver go up my spine. This hallway that I am standing in is the same as any others I have been to in thinks building and yet, something in my gut is telling me that it's different. It's almost as if I will find something I am looking for in this very hallway. Though, what is it exactly, I do not know. 

The echoing sound of something falling to the ground rings in my ears. My shoulders tense up and my eyes widen, becoming alert and aware of what's happening around me. There's no one else here aside from me but, you know, one can never be too certain. I have the sudden urge to call out and ask who is there, though, clearly, that is not exactly the smartest choice at the moment.

I make my way to the room Key directed me to hide in as soundlessly as possible. I push the door open and, thankfully, it does not creak. I have never been more grateful for well-oiled hinges prior to that moment.

I open the door until it is just wide enough for me to fit through and I slip into the empty room. I press my hands against the wooden door and push it shut. My hand instinctively does to the lock and I twist it, hearing the lock slide into place. I let out a sigh of relief, hoping it is enough to keep them out or, in the very least, buy me some time to escape from this place.

I turn around, my back pressed against the door. I run my fingers through my hair, untangling the knots in my hair. And, for the first time since I've entered, I take a good look around the room, intending to find out more about this room. After all, who knows how long I'll be stuck inside here.

The room, as all others are, is dark. That is no surprise, though, considering there is no one in the room. It would only waste electricity if they constantly keep the lights on. My eyes dart around the dark, in search of a window, my chest tightening as the seconds tick by. There are none. My hand fumbles for a light switch on the wall beside the door. To my luck, the light switch is located there so I do not have to search high and low for it in the dark. When I find it. I turn it on and lights flood the room almost immediately. My shoulders sag and my shaky breaths and speedy heartbeats starts to steady.

 "Wow," I breathe, taking in my surroundings.

The whole room is filled with countless bookcases and drawers. This room is so large; there must be hundreds of bookcases in here. Books line every shelf, leaving not even an inch of space anywhere. The drawers are labelled with numbers in running order. I wonder what they represent.

I head towards the nearest bookshelf, running my fingers in the spines of all the books as I walk pass them. My eyes scan the many shelves of that particular bookcase and I realise that the bookcase houses more than just books. It stores files full of paper and the books are actually journals, all of different thickness and sizes. The journals are mostly black while the files are grey. Naturally, there are several exceptions.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that I must be in the records room.

The urge to open the book and files grows stronger as the minutes pass. Instead of succumbing to it, I bury it deep down. No, Miri. As much as you may hate them, you should not pry into other people's business, professional or not. You do not have the right. It's invasion of privacy, I tell myself.

I bend down to examine the items on the shelves. My eyes scan the spines of the many books and files, skimming through the words written on them, but nothing of interest catches my eye.

My whole body freezes as I read the title of one of the journals, realising that I have been subconsciously been searching for a particular record. I reach out to stroke the spine of the hardcover book. I remove the book from its place and the book on the left of it collapses onto the book that is now next to it, filling the empty space.

I place the hardcover journal in my hand, running my fingers on the white handwritten title on a black background. This is the very record that I had both hoped and not hoped to find, without a doubt, especially now that I've observed the title.

Experiments  426 and 782.

This could be the key to finally uncovering the answers to the many questions I've always had about us. This could be the key to finally discovering who we really are, who we were made to be.

But the question remains, should I open this?

Or is it better to just forget about it and leave some questions unanswered. 

Sometimes not knowing is better than knowing. After all, all knowledge comes at a price. In this case, it would be the burden of knowing. It would be the burden of thinking about the endless 'what ifs'. Am I willing to pay the price?

After a few minutes of debating with myself, I decided that I am, in fact, willing to pay whatever the price if it means knowing who I am. Sucking in a deep breath of air, I open the book. The pages in it are already yellowing and the edges of the pages are coated with a shiny golden layer. I begin to wonder exactly how long we have been alive. I've never really known nor have I ever pondered on the matter before. I've always taken it for granted. That we were old enough to make our own decisions and that was all I needed to know.

I flip through the pages as quickly as I can, my eyes scanning the words on the pages hurriedly. The words are all written in a mixture of black pen and pencil. Some of the words are smudged, probably due to the person writing the reports quickly. 

The records in the journal are regarding issues that I've never even known about before. Lab reports, behavioural studies, the compositions of our bodies and the way we react to situations are just several examples. There are diagrams and schematic drawings of some sort. Some words are circled or underlined. I wonder why.

In this record book, they wrote about us when they have just created us, I think, judging by how old the book seems as well as the date. Looking through just some of the earlier reports in the book, I realise that I barely have any memory of if all.

After a while, I give up reading each and every report. It is too consuming. Instead, I start skimming the words in the book so quickly that I barely have enough time to register what I am reading before flipping to the next page. Before I know it, I reach the end of the journal. The book is inked even until the underside of the cover as it is covered with a piece of white, though now yellowed, paper.

A pang of disappointment hits me, though I do not even know why. And that is when I realise that I found what I am looking for. It is right in front of me but I hadn't even noticed it.

 My eyes wander to the middle of the last written page of the book. My throat tightens and my breath grows shallow. Even my heartbeat is starting to accelerate in my chest as I read the words on the page in anxiousness. 

The words on this very page are words that both enlighten me and destroy me at the same time. It quenches my thirst to know but at the same time, it crushes my hopes, making me feel as if my whole life has been an absolute lie.

But most importantly, the words on the page are words that make everything clearer and more sensical.

...experiments are not turning out the way we have created them. They have disobeyed the commands given through the program with no difficulties whatsoever. The thing we have feared most have happened. However, we will still keep them for further research and to discover the flaws in them as well as the ways to better our future experiments. 

Project Status: Failed

Reason for Failure: Both Experiments 426 and 782 have connected to the data tree

Hey all! Another week, another chapter. Well, I'm trying my best to update twice a week. :) I'm really trying here. Haha. On another note, we are halfway through the novel! :D I know nothing much has happened yet. But you'll find a lot more answers in the second hald of the book. Just bear with me. :)

Also, do tell me your honest opinons on this chapter, or this story as a whole. Don't forget to vote, comment and follow me. Also, share this story around. :) Thank you so much. :D

To give you a treat, go and watch #BandCamp by Todrick Hall and IM5. :) It's a web series that has just started and it's hilarious. The video is on the side. :D I'm a huge fan of IM5 and you should go check out their songs. Both their covers and originals are reaally good. They're really cool and funny as well. 

PS, anyone wants a dedication?