I woke up to find my pillow soaked with drool. It was dark outside the window, with just the vague orange glow of the streetlights as any source of light. My body still felt heavy, like all it wanted to do was stay prone on the bed for the rest of eternity. I moved about in bed and found that that feeling of numbness had gone. The bed was so soft, so cool for brief moments as I moved my arms and legs around. After about half an hour of laying in the dark just enjoying all of the comfort, the anxieties of my situation propelled me to get up and get dressed in the overalls again.

There was simply too much to compute. So much had happened. The more I thought about everything that had happened to me the more questions came to mind.

I turned my attention to the bag of snacks that I had noticed before going to bed. I helped myself to them, forgoing the noodles for the time being to avoid having to heat them up. I made quick work of the chocolates, leaving several discarded wrappers on the table. Not satiated from the sugar high just yet, I got to work on the pack of biscuits. I was never much of an eater, more of a snacker throughout the day, so it came as something of a surprise to me that I was able to sit and eat every single biscuit with hardly a break in eating. I did all this in the dark, savoring the mental massage which came from being alone in the dark with my own thoughts.

I was socially exhausted. Seeing a never-ending sea of faces in the last forty-eight hours or so had drained my inner battery to its lowest level. My head throbbed with a migraine that wanted to remind me that I regained my inner peace from being alone, not from spending endless hours with strangers.

I checked my Meter. Still green. I wondered how I would feel to see it turn orange again. Just the idea of that made me feel sick. I pushed the possibility from my mind and focused my attention on making myself a hot cup of tea and a bowl of noodles. There was a mug and a bowl in one of the drawers at the desk, as well as a box of tea bags. It struck me that this was likely all a holdover from the bed and breakfast's daily operation and the Pied Piper officers had merely not bothered to remove these complimentary items. It seemed unlikely to me, knowing how the officers had gone about their duties with cold efficiency, that they would bother to do something nice like provide snacks and complimentary tea bags. Unless…they had a reason to be nice to me now?

I felt a sense of pride at having accomplished nearly twelve straight hours of jogging on the treadmill. Thankfully the redness had gone, and I was back to my peachy-skinned self. Even that seemed odd. I hadn't had the inner emotion to care about how sunburnt my skin had looked because of the exhaustion, but now, though it was gone, the idea that my body had gotten to that strange state made me feel like a freak. It wasn't a problem now however. My skin was normal. In fact…my body felt fine despite a little bit of tiredness.

This did not make sense. How could anyone be fine after going through what I had just been through? I sipped my cup of tea, which tasted glorious, though there wasn't any milk to make it even better. Cup of tea in hand I did some squats to test out my legs. My legs felt fine, no different to what I was used to.

I finished the cup of tea and started on the noodles. The packet came with three different extra oils which I mixed in with the noodles. They too tasted incredible, a tad spicy, but a welcome blow to my insatiable appetite. I was thankful there was also a selection of cheap plastic cutlery to use in the room…it wasn't exactly a prison cell, at least.

There came a sudden knocking. I got up and moved to the door, looking into the peephole. Nobody was in the hallway. The knocking came again and this time I realized it was located at the wall. I moved closer to the wall and put my ear against it.

"Hello?" I said.

"Hey," said Tiffany's muffled voice, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I said, "You?"

"I'm alright," she said, "Can we talk?"

"You mean…in person?" I said.

"Yeah," she said, "I can come to you."

"Won't we get in trouble?" I said.

"We're already in trouble," she said, "I won't tell if you won't."

I considered this offer. Did I really want to tempt the Pied Piper Officer's like this? The last time I hadn't done what I was told I had discovered what it was like to have a gun pointed at the back of my head. Just the thought of that made my stomach tie up in knots, the anxiety came on so bad all of a sudden I felt a stitch take hold in my gut. I held my stomach, wincing.

"Burg?" she said, "You there?"

"Y-yeah," I said, trying to talk despite the pain of the stitch, "I'll come to you."

"Okay," said Tiffany.

I took several deep breaths to try and calm myself down. Breaking the rules was not a good idea. Making the Pied Piper officers mad was also not a good idea. But I had followed their commands every step of the way and that had meant going through that treadmill hell, so following everything they said to the letter wasn't exactly a way to avoid trouble. Like Tiffany said, if we were already in trouble, what did a little more matter?

I slipped on my plimsolls and opened my door as quietly as I could. I turned the handle of the door to make sure it wouldn't lock me out, closed it, then continued on down the hallway to Tiffany's door. I didn't have to knock because she opened it as soon as I got there. She looked down on me, looked about the hallway behind me, then closed the door once I was in.

I felt a little bit like I had been invited to a slumber party. Knowing it was against the Pied Piper officer's rules for us to be doing this made it that little bit more fun too. Tiffany's room was a bit of a mess; she'd helped herself to the food and drinks in her room, and her bed was unmade. She moved past me and sat on the bed. I sat on the chair by the desk. She had a dim lamp on, on the desk, providing just a little bit of light for us to see each other better.

She, like me, was no longer looking sunburnt.

"I'm glad you're okay," she said, "I can't believe the crap they just put us through."

"Yeah," I said, matching her whispering tone, "Did you see how long we were running for?"

"My treadmill said almost twelve hours," said Tiffany, "How is that possible?"

I shook my head. "I don't know. I really don't know. Did you see what happened to Alex?"

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Tiffany looked confused.

"The boy with the white-ish spikey hair?" I said, "He was on my left at the start."

"Oh yeah," said Tiffany, "Do you know him?"

"We went to school together," I said, "But we weren't friends."

"He…got taken away. His Meter turned red…" said Tiffany.

After a long pause she said, "...do you remember that explosion? The whole building shuddered."

"Yeah," I said, "Which means…maybe someone blew up?"

Tiffany nodded. She ran a hand through her shaved head of hair and sighed.

"I just want to go home," she said, "I hate this."

"This might sound crazy," she said, fixing her gaze on me, "But maybe we should do a run for it?"

"Runaway now?" I said, "We wouldn't get very far."

"We might," she said, "I just don't know if I want to stay here any longer. What if they make us go through with all that treadmill crap again. I don't think I could handle it a second time."

"Yeah," I said, "Me neither. But…"

"...what?" she said.

"The thing is," I said, "I think there might be more to this than just trying to stop us from blowing up. I think the Pied Piper officers are trying to test us."

Tiffany nodded.

"Yeah," she said, "That treadmill crap felt like a test. Did you see the cameras?"

I flinched.

"Cameras?" I said, "No."

"There were a ton," she said, "Every corner of the room, I don't think there was a moment in the gym where we weren't being recorded. And it wasn't just a few cameras, but lots. I'm surprised you didn't notice them."

"I was a bit preoccupied with everyone screaming and crying and everything else," I said defensively.

"Yeah," said Tiffany, looking a bit guilty, "Sorry."

"It's fine," I said, "But maybe they were recording us to make sure they would know right away if our Meter's turned red."

"But why do all the running in the first place?" said Tiffany, "Do you really buy that it was to stop ourselves from blowing up?"

I flinched again.

"Wait," I said, "What else would it be for? I know I said they were testing us…like maybe they're looking to see the best ways to stop people from blowing up. And we're the guinea pigs."

"Maybe," said Tiffany, "But I still think there's something more going on here. Like what the heck is up with that officer pointing his gun at you? He was going to shoot you."

I felt the stitch take hold of my gut again. I winced.

"Burg, you okay?" said Tiffany, "What's wrong?"

"J-just a stitch," I said, rasping, "I think it's stress related."

She stood up.

"Do you want some water?"

"No, no," I said, waving my hand for her to sit back down, "I'm fine."

Tiffany sat back down but kept a look of worry for me on her face. She really was nice.

"So," I said, "We're agreed that there's more to this whole thing than just keeping us all from blowing up?"

Tiffany nodded, "Yeah," she said, "It might have something to do with how we absolutely aced that treadmill crap."

I grinned, trying to ignore the pain in my gut, "We did, didn't we?" I said.

Tiffany started chewing her fingernail. I noticed the tips of her fingers looked a little raw. Ah, I thought, she's probably dying for a smoke right now.

"You know," I said, sitting forward a little, "There is another possibility we might not have considered."

"Which is?" said Tiffany.

"Maybe," I said, "We're becoming superhuman."

"You mean, like, superpowers and stuff?" said Tiffany.

I shrugged, "Maybe. I'm just saying that there's no way we should have been able to do what we did yesterday. Something extraordinary is going on. The most obvious explanation is that we've got some kind of…latent…superhuman…abilities."

"Nah," said Tiffany, "That sounds like a load of crap. No offense. There's probably another explanation we're not thinking about."

"Probably," I said, "But it's the only one that makes any kind of sense to me right now."

Tiffany continued to chew her fingernail. I had to look away because the edge of her nail had started to bleed pretty bad.

"Sorry," she said, "I get like this if I don't smoke."

"It's fine," I said.

After several moments of silence I said, "Do you really want to try and run away? You…helped those three on the coach run away, right?"

Tiffany dropped her hand to her knee and looked a little proud of herself.

"Yeah," she said, smirking, "One of the boys asked me to create a distraction. He gave me his lighter."

"I figured," I said, "Pretty cool of you."

"Why thank you," said Tiffany, putting a hand to her chest and acting bashful.

"Look," she said, "I think what we need to do is stick together. I know you a little better now and I think the best chance of us getting out of this okay is if we look out for each other. At least until this craziness is over. I'll do whatever you want to do. If you want to run away now then we can run. If you want to stay and see what other crazy crap they make us do, then we'll deal with that too. Together. If you…want?"

I felt a fresh bout of tears stinging at my eyes.

"Of course we can stick together," I said, "Though, it feels like you've been the one looking out for me this whole time. I haven't been much help to you so far."

"You have," she said, "Just having you around has made this way easier to deal with. Seeing you trying so hard on the treadmill motivated me to keep going. There's no way I could do any of this on my own."

I wanted to touch her. To hold her hand. Anything. It felt really good to be wanted. To be needed. In a sick and twisted way it made all the suffering of the last forty-eight hours worth it. How pathetic is that? I thought to myself, you're so desperate for even the tiniest amount of niceness from people.

I shook my head, trying to shake away the negative thoughts that were prone to working away at my anxieties; an inner voice that told me I was no good, useless, and would never amount to anything, ever. I just didn't have time for that voice right now.

"I think we should stay," I said, "I…really want to see what comes next. If we leave now then we'll be on the run. There's a good chance we might even get shot. I don't want to risk that right now."

"But, Burg," said Tiffany, leaning forward, "Are you sure? Because things may get way worse if we stick around."

"I don't know," I said, "I really don't know what the right thing to do is…but…I guess I would feel cheated somehow if I didn't see what the Pied Piper pricks had in store for us next. What if I'm right? What if we have super powers and they're…sort of…trying to sieve out the non-powered people from the powered ones?"

"But why wouldn't they tell us that was what they're doing?" "I don't know," I said, "I'm probably wrong about all this. I wish I knew what was best but I'm just making stuff up as I go along."

I took a deep breath. "I think we should stay," I said, "For now. If things get worse then we can figure out a way of getting out of this. Okay?"

"Okay," said Tiffany. She smiled uneasily. I offered her my hand. She got up and hugged me instead. It lasted a few moments and then she pulled back.

"Okay," she said, "I think you better head back. I don't know about you but I want to get some more sleep."

"Good idea," I said.

I got up and headed to the door. "Goodnight," I said.

She said, "Goodnight," back, and then I left and returned to my room.