Prolouge

“Of all the experiences you’ve had, what do you think is the most memorable?” Trent waited for several seconds for the girl’s answer but none came. “What’s your favorite food or color?” The girl still didn’t give any answers. She sat on the steel chair, unmoving, in the white room. The only sign that gave any hint that she was still even alive was the rising and falling of her shoulders as she breathed. Trent scratched his head with the back of his pen. He decided to ask at least one more question and give up if she didn’t answer. “Is there anyone you love? Anyone at all?” She remained silent. The doctor blew out a breath of disappointment. He scooted out of his chair. The intercom came on in the room.
         “Still no answer, doctor?” A female’s voice filled the room.
         “No. She doesn’t eat nor sleep at night either. I don’t know what to make of her. Blood tests don’t help and interrogation is pointless.” Trent exited the room and the girl that was on the intercom joined him from another room.
“So, we don’t know anything more about her than we did when she first got here?”
“That’s correct.” He flipped through his papers on the girl. There wasn’t anything he knew about her himself. He didn’t even know why he took her case. The only thing Trent remembered about taking this particular patient was because she was different from any other patient. His job bore him too easily when the patients he had could easily be categorized and lumped together with one group or another. Although this girl is proving herself to be a challenge. Trent thought to himself. He brought out his papers again. “Okay, let’s go through the basics.”
“Kayla, no last name, is a female at approximately five feet, five inches tall. Her age is at roughly between sixteen and eighteen. Eye color: navy blue—“
“Unusual.”
“What?”
“We need unusual facts of information. Something that sets this girl apart from the rest of everyone. Something that got her here in the first place.” The woman looked through her own papers.
“Umm, well her eye color is odd itself. The fact that she neither eats nor sleeps adds to it. She hasn’t spoken a word since she got here and sometimes she stares at the camera in her room at night when she should be asleep.”
“Have you noticed anything that’s not in the reports?” Trent asked with a bit of hope in his voice.
“Well, I noticed that she never looks at anyone, only towards, and her head is always bent down as if there’s something interesting on the floor.”
“Yes, yes?” Trent said enthusiastically, hoping to urge her on.
“Have you noticed her skin color? It’s always pale no matter what temperature she’s in.”
“That’s a common issue. There are a lot of people with natural pale skin. And her tendency to look away from people is only a sign that she is shy.” He sighed but then something struck him. “There are some key things that the reports are missing!” he continued on. “We have tested her blood but she doesn’t belong to any of the blood types. Her DNA is remained confidential by the higher ups. This must mean that this subject is of strict importance. Maybe she’s a bioengineered specimen of some type.”
“Calm down. I’m sure you’re just getting carried away. We won’t know anything for sure until we get a response out of her.” Later that night the two decided to watch her on the camera monitors in the security room. All of the other patients were asleep but this one was still awake. She stood on the far side of her room for about half an hour until she slowly walked to the opposite side of the room. She stopped under the camera and looked up towards it.
“Hey, Maria, take a look at this.” She came beside Trent and looked into the monitor.
“So, this is what they meant.” The girl waved slowly to the camera and Maria instinctively waved back before realizing that there was no way the girl could see her. But then the girl beckoned them to come by waving her hand back towards herself. “I think she wants us to come.”
“No, really?” Trent said in a clearly sarcastic tone. Maria looked at him irritably before rushing out the door. The two of them got to Kayla’s room quickly. When they entered she was sitting on the bed with her head down again. “Kayla, you called?” Again the girl made no response. Trent let out an exasperated breath. He turned towards Maria. “It’s clear that she likes to play practical jokes.” Trent kicked one of the chairs in the room into a wall. “This stupid case is going to drive me insane! No symptoms or mental defects so why does she act like she’s a walking corpse?”
“Trent?” Maria called in a quiet tone and was pointing behind him. Trent turned around and saw that the girl was looking up at him. “She must have responded to your anger.” Trent grabbed the chair he had kicked and set in down in front of the girl. He sat himself down and glared at her.
“Is that it? Did you look up because you saw something you normally aren’t used to seeing? Do you like television?” The girl didn’t utter a word. Her eyes continually stared into Trent’s. “Do you even know what a television is?”
“Trent!” Maria said shocked at Trent’s sudden outburst.
“What? There’s clearly something wrong with this girl. It’s as if she enjoys seeing people suffer! I still can’t under—” The sound of a soft cough behind him cut Trent off. He turned back towards the girl. “You know what? I just think we just have another one of those insane patients on our hands. Just call up the asylum for crazy people and have them ship her off.” He could have sworn that he saw a small smile come across the girl’s face. He remained in his seat for another couple of minutes then got up. “Come on, Maria. Nothing new here.” Trent and Maria were opening the door when a soft voice sounded behind them.
“I’m not crazy.” Both of the doctors froze in their tracks and slowly turned towards the girl. “You people judge others without looking at other possibilities.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Didn’t you ever try to consider the reason why I didn’t respond for such a long time? I could have been a mute, a deaf person, or even a foreigner from a different country thinking that she was going to be killed or tortured at any time.”
“But you’re clearly not so why the acts?”
“I have to recollect myself. After all I was just thrust into this high security building and now had doctors question me. Do you know how hard this is? To be honest I was just waiting for a doctor to be assigned to me that seems to actually express feelings of sympathy so that I might be released from this prison cell.”
“Well, I’m afraid you have the wrong doctors to carry out that plan. We’re definitely not going to help you escape and now we’ll have to inform the guards to keep tighter security around—”
“I wasn’t talking about you actually helping me escape voluntarily.” Trent didn’t even notice that the girl had gotten up and walked over to him. “You’re the only doctors I’ve had that don’t carry around weapons of some sort but now I realize that that won’t be a problem.” The girl stretched out her hands towards Trent and he fell to the floor dead before a scream could come to his throat. Maria tried to run bun was seized by a sudden force and was thrown against a far wall. A pipe sticking out impaled Maria and she hung on the wall, lifeless, as Kayla walked out the door finally free to the open world.

Reviews

[ChloeKirk]

You managed to hold the suspense for as long as you could while bringing up as much exposition as you can. Heading over to the next chapter now, but before I do just a thought as to if you want to expand or use this later in another way-have the characters think what they feel, not say. Of course when it's short like this it doesn't matter, but good character development in a long story is essesstinal.

[silver threaded queen]

Kayla slightly reminds me of the girl off of the ring.
I think it's just me.

[Creepy Swine Guy]

First off, I am no expert. What I offer here is nothing more than my opinions. I'm no bestselling author, in fact I don't even think that I ever even got an "A" in an English class. But I'll tell you what I liked and what I thought seemed a little off. I'm not trying to make myself feel important (I hate when people do that) I'm just telling you what I think. That being said, I'll go ahead and review:

One suggestion is "white space" I think that if you add a space between paragraphs, a piece becomes much easier to read.

Second, you have a very few grammar boo boos, but it is clear that you show attention to such details. So I am sure that in subsequent editing passes those things will be caught.

The story itself is interesting. I am certainly curious to see what happens next and who this strange, lethal girl is.

[Black_Rabbit]

Oh soooooooooooooooo intresting! Is this a horror novel? i'm not really into that scary stuff but this is well too intresting not to read. Great read Vincent!

[Jersey]

This is intersting, I'm not use to reading science fiction, but this I might have to. It's really good and the proluge really grabs attention.

[E. L. Foley]

Reminds me of the Black Box Recorder song 'Child Psychology'. "bioengineered specimen" was a startling first indication that it's science fiction.

[The_Dreamer]

Whoaaa.... this had me gripped already in the prologue! I didnt really read the blurb, so this came as quite a surprise to me. I will proceed to the next chapter!

[Hipster Detective]

That Trent guy seemed like a jerk. The dialogue at the beginning and the back and forth is nice and realistic. It seems to me like you spent a lot of time building up to something and spent little to no time on the climax.