It’s cold in here, even more so than it is downstairs or even outside. There are no windows overlooking the fields and cabins below, so I have no way of knowing how far up I am or where this part of the building is with respect to the rest of the compound. All of my clothes are still in my cabin, so I can’t even change into something warm.
Between the two simulations and my constant interrogation – not to mention meeting Rin and finding Dori in a cell – I am exhausted. Gingerly, I lean down against the mattress, lying on top of the sheet and trying to position myself as far away from where I know the stain is as possible. I know that I won’t be able to sleep right now, but at least I can rest; even if my mind is stretched and torn apart, my body will be strong enough to support me.
I settle on my back and look up at the ceiling. The light above my head is burnt out, and a fly is trapped inside of its casing; if the lamp beside the bed doesn’t work, then soon this room will be covered in darkness.
For the first time since my training simulations began, I let myself cry.
***
I must have fallen asleep at some point, because I am awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of someone knocking on my door. I jolt awake, hitting my head on the sloping wall over the bed, and debate whether or not I should answer. If it was a Digit, would they have even bothered knocking? But Rin said she wouldn’t be here until tomorrow – if she’s even coming at all.
It is so dark in the room that I can barely see the outlines of my own hands when I put them up in front of my face. I am wearing the same clothes I was when I was brought here, because I don’t have anything else to change into, and the white of my blouse seems to glow in the darkness. I fumble blindly towards the edge of the bed and move my hand around in front of me until I touch a corner of the desk; it takes me a little time and more than a few missed attempts before I am able to pull the cord on the lamp that brings it to life. Thankfully, the light-bulb is still working, though it’s not quite bright enough to light up the whole room.
The knocking has stopped, but I haven’t heard any more footsteps, so whoever it was must still be there. I stand up, steadying myself against the desk until my dizziness passes, and approach the door cautiously. I look through the window and see bright blue eyes staring back at me.
“Dori?” I whisper incredulously. “What are you doing here?”
He shakes his head and pinches his eyes shut like he’s in pain. “I don’t… I’m not sure.”
“You don’t know why you’re in this building, or why you’re at my door?”
“Both, I think. I’m not…” He takes a deep breath that rattles in his throat and coughs when he exhales. “I don’t remember why I’m here. I mean, I know why I’m here – because I wanted to see Holden – but I don’t know why I’m… here.”
He sounds so frightened and disoriented that I feel a pang of pity in my chest. His words are slurred when he speaks, like he’s been drugged, and I wonder how aware he really is through the fog in his head. If I could bring him inside of my room and comfort him somehow, I would, but I can’t; the doors in this part of the building all lock from the outside, and there isn’t a handle on the inside for me to open it even if it was unlocked.
“Dori, can you tell me what happened to you? What’s the last thing you remember?”
His eyebrows furrow and he frowns, saying, “I remember… being with my group. We were training for… something. And then my instructor came to get me and I can’t… I can’t think. It hurts too much.”
I can hear him struggling to breathe through the slats in the window, but all I can really make out in the darkness is his face – it’s so pale that it shines even though the lamp-light doesn’t quite reach him.
“What was your group doing, Dori?” I ask him, speaking as softly as I can to avoid being overheard. “Were you doing training simulations like ours? Holden was moved to your group after he failed his training. He’s been worried sick about you.”
“…Holden?” Dori’s eyes widen and he looks at me like he’s trying to remember something. “He’s in my group? You’ve got to get him out! He can’t – ”
I shush him under my breath and hold a finger to my lips. “You’ve got to be quiet, Dori. Someone might hear us.” He nods sheepishly, and his breathing evens out until I can’t even hear it anymore. “Now, do you know where you are? We’re on the second floor of the central building; I think you’ve been here since the last time I saw you – three days ago. Can you remember anything at all about the past three days?”
“It… it hurts,” he whimpers, sounding more vulnerable than I’ve ever heard him. “It hurts to think about it. It was so… so painful. All I remember is pain.”
A creaking noise sounds out from across the hallway, and I freeze in place for a moment, listening. A door opens and shuts far away, but the sound doesn’t come any closer to my room. I let out a shaky breath and hear Dori do the same.
“Everly, I can’t feel anything. My head hurts, but I can’t feel anything.” He sounds delirious now, like he’s on the verge of panicking. I can’t blame him for being so scared, but he needs to calm down before the Digits hear him and take him away again. If he thinks it was painful before, I can’t imagine what they’ll do to him if they catch him now.
“Yes, you can. Dori, you need to breathe, okay? Just focus on – wait,” I pause, stopping myself the second I remember something. “What did you just call me?”
Dori peers at me through the bars, confused. “I called you Everly. That’s your name, isn’t it?”
“It… it is, but…” I look closely at him, watching his eyes move, his brows scrunch together, his long hair sweep across his forehead and fall over his shoulders. “But you always call me ‘Eve.’ You’ve never called me by my given name.”
All of a sudden, Dori closes his eyes and smiles. Any other day, he would have looked peaceful, but in this lighting, with his words playing out on a loop in my mind, he looks nothing but haunting to me.
“You’re very perceptive, aren’t you? And here I thought I was doing so well.”
His entire demeanor changes all at once – his shoulders straighten, his breathing evens out and silences again, and his mouth is twisted into a toothy grin. I’ve never seen him look like this before; it’s like he’s possessed or something. He’s still Dori, but… he’s not.
“Doing well at what?” I ask, a bit louder than I know I should. “Dori, what’s going on? Are you okay?”
“I’m great, Eve,” he says; he’s finally using his nickname for me, but it doesn’t sound the same as it used to. “I’m doing a lot better now. A couple of days ago, I was in so much pain, but now I can’t feel anything.”
“Please stop talking like that. You’re scaring me.”
“How scared do you think I was? You and Holden… you left me here. They cut me open, and you didn’t even bother trying to find me. You could have saved me, but I guess it’s a good thing you didn’t. Things are so much… clearer now. Everything makes sense.”
He presses his hands against the bars of the window and taps his fingernails against them. His face looks eerie in the light from the lamp, and I take a step backwards away from it. For the first time, I am thankful for the locks on the doors.
His face is so pale, his eyes look like black holes in his skin and his cheeks are high and jagged. If I look too closely, I can’t even recognize him.
“What did they do to you? Please, Dori, you have to tell me! I can help you. Holden’s been so worried - if we had known where you were, we would have come for you right away, but we had no idea. But we can help you now. You just have to tell me what happened.”
“I learned the truth. That’s what you want, isn’t it? I can tell you everything. You just have to do what they say and everything will be so much better.”
“You’re not Dori,” I spit, watching him closely. “Dori wouldn’t have talked like that. The Dori I knew would never have joined the Digits, no matter what
they offered him in exchange. I don’t know who you are, but you’re not him.”
The imposter cocks his head to one side and winks at me; Dori used to do that, too, but it was always more playful and less sinister when he did it. Somehow, though their faces are the same, their mannerisms are completely different.
“Dorian is gone, Everly,” he whispers through the window slats. “He’s gone, and he’s never coming back. But don’t worry – I’m just as good as he was. Better, actually. You’ll see.”
I wish I had something to throw at him, but there is nothing in this room that will fit through the bars; if the door was unlocked, I don’t think I would be able to fight back the urge to punch him. I just want that stupid grin off of his face – I want him to stop using my friend’s body to say such cruel things. Dori would never act like that.
“Where is Dori? If you’ve hurt him, I swear – ”
“He’s dead.”
The words hit me like a cannon, exploding all across my body and sinking deep under my skin. My heart starts pounding so loudly I can’t hear anything else. It’s like I’m underwater – my chest feels tight, and I know I am drowning, but I can’t seem to move my body to save myself. Nothing makes sense anymore. I feel like I’m back inside of my simulation, and I desperately wish that I could shoot blindly enough to end it, but I can’t. I am trapped inside of this tiny cell, and somewhere outside of here, one of my only friends may have died without me even knowing.
“You’re lying. There’s no way that’s the truth. No way.”
Dori’s imposter suddenly looks very serious; he narrows his eyes and fixes them on me, and I instinctively look away. He’s not smiling anymore, but he doesn’t look unhappy, either.
“It is the truth,” he says. “He’s dead and I’m here to replace him. Didn’t anyone tell you that’s how things work around here? What did you think you were brought here for?”
He sweeps his fringe aside, tucking his hair behind his ears. Even in the dim lamp-light, I can see the glowing shape in his forehead as plain as day. I gasp and take another step backwards, then another, until all I can see in the darkness is a pinprick of red.
I hear a soft chuckle from behind the door, and it sends chills down my spine.
“Welcome to camp, Everly.”
The Digit disguised as my friend begins laughing, and I have to cover my mouth with both of my hands to hold back a scream.
Chapter twenty-three
We were brought here to be made into Digits. I don’t know why, and I don’t know how, but somewhere in my gut I know it’s the truth. I think a part of me has known it all along, but I just didn’t want to acknowledge it. Who would ever want to believe that something this horrible could happen?
But I’m used to horrible things happening to me, and I should have realized it sooner. The Digits told Holden that they would make him walk again if he cooperated with them and did whatever they wanted – but his injury is too great to be healed, even with the best of modern medicine. But if he had a new body… a perfect body…
I think about all of the people I’ve seen here, each one an outcast of society – someone with nothing to lose and no one to miss them. If they were to never come home, nobody would notice. If they died, it wouldn’t matter to anyone.
But it matters to me. I’ve barely even known Dori and Holden for a week now, and already they’ve become precious to me – and they mean the world to each other. Doesn’t that make them important? Does that make me important?
“Dori, you’re still in there somewhere, aren’t you?” I ask, grasping at straws even though I know it’s no use anymore. “Some part of you has to still be alive. You remembered me, and Holden – you still love him, don’t you? They are the ones who hurt you; don’t you remember that?”
For the first time, he looks unsure. He frowns and squeezes his eyes shut, and I hear a sharp intake of breath that startles me. Now I know why his breathing was so erratic earlier – he doesn’t really need to breathe anymore, and he must forget that sometimes. But, then again, he’s a Digit, so he never had to breathe in the first place, right?
But he’s still Dori. I don’t know how I can tell, but I just know. Some part of Dori is still awake inside of this creature standing at my door – I don’t know why, and I don’t know how, but it’s got to be true. I can’t just give up on him when he’s right in front of me.
“I remember,” he finally says, and the softness of his voice surprises me. “I can remember the pain, but I can’t remember what it felt like. Just like… I remember loving him, but I don’t feel it anymore.”
He sounds almost forlorn, like he did when he came knocking at my door, before I learned what had happened to him. How much of what he’s saying now is a lie? Was he lying about everything up until now?
Cautiously, I take a step forwards, towards the window. The lamp-light falls across my back and casts Dori’s face into shadow; I can see every ridge and line of his face, the smoothness of his cheeks, the hollows where his bones should be. All of his human imperfections are gone, but he’s never looked less beautiful.
“What do you feel?”
He pauses for a minute before answering. “Nothing. I don’t feel anything.”
His eyes shift from side to side and he opens his mouth a little, but then bites down on his lower lip just before he is able to say anything. I get the feeling that there’s something he desperately wants to tell me, but he can’t – like the real, human Dori is alive inside of him somewhere and he’s trying his best to reach me. But Digits are stronger than humans, and there is no way that he can win.
“What is going on here?”
I hear an eerily familiar voice from behind Dori’s back. I crane my neck to get a better look, even though I know who I will see. My blood boils when Tesla’s face comes into view, and I have to force myself to calm down. She slides one arm across Dori’s shoulders and grins at me through the barred window, and I clench my fists so hard my wrists hurt.
“Dorian, what are you doing out of your room at this hour?” she asks him, addressing him with her eyes still fixed on me. “You know you have a big day ahead of you tomorrow; you’ll need all the rest you can get.”
Dori blinks up at her, frowning. “Right,” he says slowly; he sounds confused for a moment, like he’s not sure where he is or how he got here. “You’re right. Of course.”
Tesla drags her hand across Dori’s back, digging her fingernails into his neck, but he doesn’t flinch or move away. He glances at me before he leaves, narrowing his eyes and shaking his head like he’s trying to clear it, but he doesn’t say anything. Maybe it’s because Tesla is here, or maybe he can’t remember what he wants to say. Or maybe he’s said everything he wanted to – everything he could. He shoots one last pained look at me around Tesla’s shoulders, then turns and walks away; I notice that his gait is a bit crooked, kind of like Cyrus’s, making him lean slightly to one side when he walks. It doesn’t look like it hurts him, but then again, pain is often more than just physical.
Tesla takes a step back and down the hallway, but I call her back just before she disappears from my sight.
“Wait! Hold on. I need to talk to you.”
She spins around and shrugs her shoulders at me, but doesn’t come any closer to the window; I have to press my face against the bars just to see the outline of her body, but her skin is just pale enough that I can see her face clearly even in the darkness.
“Yes?” she asks innocently. “What is it? You should be in bed by now. You will need your rest just as much as Dorian does, I presume. I can’t say for certain, though.”
“Bullshit,” I spit, forgetting for a moment all of the times my mother reprimanded me for cursing.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” I don’t know how Tesla is able to bring out so much of my anger with just the twitch of her lips or the set of her eyes, but she does; I didn’t even know I could feel this bitter towards another person before I met her.
“You told me you didn’t know where Dori was, but he was here the whole time, wasn’t he?”
“Ah,” she says, holding up an index finger that seems to glow in the dim light. “That’s not what I said. I believe I told you that he may – or may not - have moved on. And he has moved on, as you’ve seen, so there’s really nothing for you to be upset about.”
She almost seems to be genuinely confused as to why I would be angry with her about what just happened. Does she not understand? Her kind – the same creatures that murdered my parents and tortured what was left of my family – just killed one of the only friends I have and turned him into a monster just like them. Why wouldn’t I be upset about something like that?
“He’s dead! You killed him and you expect me not to be upset about that? He didn’t move on! He died!”
My voice seems to get louder with each word I speak, but I can barely control it anymore. My throat is burning and my eyes are wet, but I shout through the sobs and manage to hold them back. Tesla looks surprised by my bluntness, but not by my accusation; she recoils after I begin shouting, then wrinkles her nose and pushes her face just close enough towards the window that I can see the curl of her lips over her teeth.
“It was his choice to come here,” she says sharply. “And he’s not dead – he’s been perfected. His humanity was making him weak; now he’s strong enough to do anything.”
“You mean anything you want him to.” I lower my voice slightly, but in exchange, the bite in my words increases. “And he may have come here on his own, but you forced him to do everything else. I saw how terrified he was of his simulations. He wouldn’t have come if he had known what you were planning to do to him.”
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