“Good morning,” I mumbled to June as I wandered into the living room. Lucas and Isabelle must’ve still been asleep. June nodded from the couch and turned her attention back to the tv. She was watching it with the subtitles on and the volume off to let the others sleep. She focused intently on the news like I often did. I sat across from her and joined her effort to analyze the news for lies.
The reports had changed now that the new cover story was some disease plaguing our city, instead of an influx of petty crime. It scared me. They set it up in a way that made the story harder to question or verify for those that didn’t already know what was happening. Covid was only eight years ago, and it had made mandatory quarantine seem normal. It made the disease seem probable. No one was going to question it without reason and they knew that. They could just make their rounds giving blood tests and whisking away anyone who tested positive for the disease. They’d tell the families they were going to the quarantine hospital and no one could visit, and that was that. It seemed far too easy to lie to the general population this way, and I found myself wondering how many others had managed to escape before being subjected to the testing.
The news droned on about the unprecedented disease. They dropped statistics about how many had already tested positive, and how many had died. I wondered if that was a lie too. Were there more or less Oddities? Were they being killed in captivity or were those numbers just to scare the population into obeying the quarantine? Two things the lady on the news said caught my interest. The first is the contamination. They’d talked about how contagious the disease was, and the staggering number of cases, but they said it remained local. It hadn’t made it outside of the quarantine zone somehow. What could be causing our bodies to change this way, but only in one small area of the world? I wondered if it was on purpose.
The second interesting thing was the age statistics. Usually you’d see cases in old people or very young people. But in this case the graph showed that almost all of the positive cases were between the ages of fourteen and twenty-five. It checked out for those that we knew personally, but still I couldn’t help but wonder why. The questions just continued to pile on, and our only hope at finding real answers was waiting at Alpha Lab 001, fifteen miles south of us. Before long the rest of the group was awake and had joined us on the couch. I shared my train of thought from the news with them, in hopes of hearing their theories.
Isabelle reached for a notebook and flipped to a page, scribbling down some information from the graphs on the news. She flipped to another page that was covered in writing, and scanned it for a moment. “I have a theory,” she said to the group. We all looked at her and waited. “So hear me out. Based on what we shared last night, each one of us had some sort of sick or abnormal physical reaction before the abilities manifested.”
We nodded. We’d all felt bad in one way or another, typically on the parts of our bodies relating to the ability.
Isabelle continued, “we’re all young, and none of our bodies are finished developing until around the age of twenty-five. The age group that’s getting the fake disease is the age group where the body is changing rapidly according to the news.”
Isabelle looked around at us to see if we’d caught on to her line of reasoning. It seemed like everyone was waiting on bated breath, and no one seemed to have figured it out yet. I had no clue where she was going.
She sighed, seemingly disappointed, and continued, “Something has genetically altered us. A drug or chemical maybe. I don’t know if it was on purpose but the biological response we all exhibited was likely due to a change in our genes finalizing, and these new abilities manifesting. It would make sense that it’s only our age group.”
“Huh,” Lucas and Alex responded almost in unison.
“It does make sense,” I started.
“But why?” June ripped the words out of my mouth.
This part is where it got tricky. None of us knew why. We bounced theories off each other for a while longer, but couldn’t come to a conclusion. The conversation lulled and everyone seemed stuck, and frustrated. Then I remembered the papers we’d found on the soldiers. I nudged Alex to get his attention and asked him to go grab the papers from my bag. While I waited for him to return I faced the group, they looked at me expectedly.
“Did you know they have a name for us? We’re called Oddities,” I said angrily.
Lucas sat up and raised an eyebrow, fully invested in what I was saying. “By who exactly?” he asked.
“Soldiers, and whoever gave them their orders,” I replied, looking down in shame.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Lucas narrowed his eyes at me, “Did you-?”
“We don’t need to talk about that. I’m sure you can guess,” Alex spoke harshly as he returned to the room.
He laid the papers down in front of me, and returned to sit at my side. I grabbed the papers to share what we learned, and noticed some blood on the sheets I hadn’t seen the day before. They all seemed to notice it too, and Lucas gave an understanding nod. Alex grabbed the map he’d marked and pointed to the separate pocket of the quarantine zone.
“We know what’s here now, thanks to these orders,” Alex said calmly.
We let them pass around the orders and discover for themselves the full knowledge we had about the mysterious lab. Everyone’s faces showed disgust as they read through them, and the room stayed silent. They were studying us, and they knew what we were, why we’d changed. That much was certain. We agreed that it was likely that some, if not all, the captured Oddities were being held there.
“Looks like we have a plan then,” Lucas said with the now familiar wild grin on his face.
The group was in agreement. June went along with whatever Lucas said, and Isabelle was busy adding the new information to her notebook. We agreed to leave that night for the facility. June and Lucas still had their car so we’d take that as close as we could to the quarantine zone, and walk from there. We aimed to get there late at night, hoping it would lessen the guard. Isabelle would scout ahead while invisible to let us know how bad it looked, and then return to us wherever we felt was a safe spot to wait.
With the plan decided we were given the day to rest. Lucas told us not to use our abilities and wear ourselves out. By this point we had a solid grasp on what everyone could do, and we all knew how to use our powers. There was no reason to practice when that night would likely be violent. Alex was told to drink plenty of water after telling them of the drawbacks of his power. I turned my attention to June, who seemed engrossed in her phone. Since last night she’d spent a lot of time staring at the phone with great focus.
“What are you up to?” I asked her, pointing to the phone.
She flashed the screen at me. “Social media. I’ve been trying to find out if the public has caught wind of this at all,” she said softly.
“And?” I asked.
“It’s weird,” she frowned, “I can’t outright search any keywords, Isabelle said they’re probably tracking anyone who does since it would mean they have powers. Instead I’m just searching through as many new posts as possible on a few different apps. I even followed a bunch of conspiracy theory accounts. So far the best I’ve found is catching one post that talked about inconsistencies with the news and a possible theory, but the post was deleted almost immediately.”
I sighed deeply, “It’s worse than I thought then. The governor, police, CDC, Army, news stations, and social media apps are all either helping willingly or being controlled to support the cover story. At this point who the fuck isn’t involved?” I sunk into the couch, feeling overwhelmed. I’d really been hoping social media had information, and people were starting to figure it out on a larger scale. Lucas took note of my outburst and offered me a cigarette, which I waved away. He shrugged his shoulders and returned to his conversation with Isabelle.
We’d basically covered any angles we could at that point. Without more information from the lab we wouldn’t be able to piece together anything new about our situation. I thought back to graduation, and Jake being ripped away from me. A wave of pain and guilt struck my heart. I hated that I had to leave him behind. If I didn’t find him at the lab I had no idea what else to do. I was so afraid of him being experimented on or killed just because I couldn’t free him back then.
“Hey, come take a walk with me,” Alex said gently, ripping me from my thoughts.
I agreed and got up to follow him outside. He led me to the nearest edge of the lake, and took a seat on the dock, dangling his feet in the water. I followed suit, then rested my head on his shoulder. I closed my eyes and listened to the water slap the underside of the dock. I felt the breeze and took a deep breath. It was nice out here, it was almost enough to make me forget about how bad things were right now.
“Angel?” Alex asked softly.
“Yeah?” I replied, not yet willing to open my eyes.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen tonight, and I’m afraid of losing you. I know things are stressful right now but I don’t want to wait any longer. I don’t want to regret anything. Do you understand?” he asked.
I turned to him and looked him in the eyes. He was smiling gently at me, and it warmed my heart. I nodded my head and gave him a light kiss on the cheek. “I feel the same way. I wanted to wait until life went back to normal, but I don’t think that’s happening any time soon,” I replied and returned his smile before resting my head back on his shoulder.
“It’s official then,” he whispered and kissed the top of my head.
We sat there for a long time, silently staring out at the lake and taking in the moment. We both knew things would get dangerous tonight, and I wanted to live in this moment for as long as I could. We’d already waited for so long to be truthful about our feelings. He was right, waiting any longer felt foolish. Life was dangerous now, and I didn’t want regrets either. We sat there until the smell of food started coming from the cabin, provoking my stomach to growl loudly. Alex laughed at the audible growl and stood up, offering his hand to help me up. I took his hand and we walked back to the cabin.
We wasted away the rest of the day, eating, getting to know everyone, and watching tv. With each passing hour the reality of what we had to do tonight became more pressing, more tangible.