She didn’t know if she was mean enough to do it. Stella had been close with them for so long, so why did she betray them?

Lab experiments—that’s what they were. She and her two close friends: Celia and Evan. Experiments for years, they needed to escape. They were all sick of it. Every morning and every night, they’d be called up to get their injections. With what: they don’t know. It was extremely painful, but they would be severely punished if they made any effort to fight back. But how? How could they escape? The entire place was security ridden with guards, alarms, and cameras in every hallway. There was only one way—wait until nighttime to sneak out and find secret information, then leave the building.

They were all supposed to leave together; at least, that’s what Celia thought. The day to escape came, and they thought they had done it. Carefully sneaking down the hallways when all the guards were busy giving the other experiments their injections, they made a run for it. Typing the password at the door, they thought they were leaving. But suddenly, alarms went off, security came sprinting down the hallway, and the two got caught.

Two.

Stella left the two, making her way past the guards and out of the laboratory. And nobody even noticed—except the two. Evan was already unconscious, and before she could even say anything, she was knocked out.

Now the two were locked in a room together. It was very different to their own personal rooms: this one had cameras in every corner, and there was no place to rest. Just a cold, hard room; not even padded.

“Ow…” Celia mumbled as she sat up slowly. A wave of nausea hit her as she covered her mouth, trying not to throw up. What did they give us…? She thought.

She looked over as Evan sat up as well, looking like he felt the same nauseous feeling. He covered his mouth, his body jolting forward slightly as he gagged. His skin was paler, his hands were trembling, and overall, he just looked weak.

“… Evan? Are you… okay?” Celia whispered, moving closer to the boy.

He looked over at her and nodded, moving his hand down from his mouth. “Yeah,” he whispered back. “’M fine...”

Celia slowly stood up, walking towards the door. It had no glass window, only a small piece to slide open for the guards to communicate with them. She tried to open the door—nothing. It was locked. Obviously… she thought to herself and let out a sigh. Her arms fell to her sides and her shoulders slumped. She felt defeated.

“Hey,” Evan spoke up. “How the hell do we get out of here? Where even are we? And... what even happened?”

What happened? What did happen? Why were they in this room?

“Uh… I don’t really know why we’re in here.”

“Great,” Evan responded with a groan. “We’re stuck here, and we don’t even know why.”

Celia looked around the room. It was quite small, and very empty. Although, the lack of furniture did make it look a little bigger. The only thing that she could see were the cameras—four of them; one in every corner.

“Okay,” Celia said after a moment, the words mixing in with a sigh. “Well… the door’s locked shut, and there’s cameras everywhere. I don’t think there’s anything we can do—”

“There’s a vent,” Evan said, interrupting Celia. He pointed up to the wall behind him, pointing at a vent.

“Oh. Well… how do we get up there? It’s high up, there’s no furniture, and the cameras… we’d get caught.”

Evan stood up, brushing the dirt and hair off his knees. “Well... we could try and cover them. The labs give us coats to wear under the stupid clothes they give us… we could face the cameras facing the vent. But the ones on the same wall… we should be fine.”

Celia looked behind her, looking at the two vents in the corner. They could cover the cameras, but what if they got caught doing that?

“Wouldn’t we get caught?” she finally said.

“No.”

“No?”

“No,” Evan repeated. “Well… yes, maybe. But if we’re quick, we’ll be fine.”

Celia let out a sigh. Should she trust this? It sounded like a decent idea… but what if something went wrong? There were a couple of different options: either they got caught and somehow got punished, or the vent led to somewhere even worse; or, nowhere at all.

“… Okay,” she mumbled under her breath, “let’s do it, I guess...”

They both swiftly took their coats off, shaking the dirt off. Evan reached up and threw the coat on one of the cameras while Celia had to jump up to wrap it around it.

“Okay- how do we get up there now?”

“Uh,” Evan mumbled. “Just… get on my back or something. No—even better, get on my shoulders and I’ll lift you up. Then you can open the vent, get in, and pull me up. Sound good?”

Sounded dangerous. But Celia just nodded. She had to be compliant and do what he said; there was no other way out.

“Good.”

Evan got down on his knees and looked back at Celia. “’Kay, get on. But please be careful.”

She walked up to the boy and carefully sat on his shoulders, wincing at the pained groan he let out. He quickly grabbed her legs and stood up, nearly falling over. Celia held onto the edge of the vent and took the cover off, letting it drop down to the floor.

Crash!

“Sh*t! Celia… be careful! We can’t be too loud!” Evan whispered, yet it was almost like he was yelling at her.

“Sorry,” she whispered back. She held onto the edge again and put her foot on one of Evan’s shoulders, pushing herself up into the vent. He let out a quiet ‘ow’ as she lifted herself up, sucking in air through his teeth.

“Okay,” he said, brushing his shoulders off. “Now lift me up.”

“I’m not very strong…”

“It’s fine—just try!”

She sighed as she held onto Evan’s hands, trying to lift him up. He was too heavy.

“Evan! I can’t! You’re too heavy!”

“Wow,” he said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “Thanks.”

Celia managed to pull him up just enough for him to grab the edge with his other hand. He held onto it and put his foot on the wall, pushing himself up. His face turned a bit red from the straining, and he let out a sharp exhale as he got in.

“Move—get out of my way!” he said to her.

Celia frowned. “You could be nice… and I don’t wanna lead the way!”

“Oh my god...” he mumbled. “Fine, move.”

Evan crawled over Celia and started to move down the vent, feeling a bit awkward. The space was tight and very uncomfortable—it was hurting their backs. As they were making their way down, they heard people talking from under them.

“The ones left behind we put ‘em up in a room. Fourth floor.”

“Yeah? Well what about the girl who escaped? Did ya find her yet?”

“Not yet, we’re looking though. Damn kids…”

The ones left behind? Escaped?

Then it clicked.

“Evan…” Celia spoke up, her voice sounded nervous. Yet… it had a hint of frustration in it.

He stopped crawling and looked back at her. “Yeah?”

“… I know why we were locked in the room.”

“Why?”

“Stella. Stella she—she left us! She escaped the lab and left us behind!”

Evan’s eyebrows furrowed; his mouth parted slightly. “… Stella? Who’s…”

His voice trailed off as he remembered who she was. His jaw dropped for a second, but it quickly shut.

“You’re right… she took us to go into that… that room… and—wait.” Celia’s voice trailed off as she remembered what happened the night they snuck out to find secret information.

The three of them looked around the room, trying to find anything that could help them get out. Evan and Celia were together looking through some files together while Stella stayed away from them, doing her own thing. She grabbed a folder and glanced behind her, making sure they didn’t see what she grabbed. When they did notice, she said it was nothing, keeping it hidden from them.

They both looked at each other, their eyes widening.

“That little…! Whatever—we can worry about that later. Just, come on… I wanna get out of here…”

Celia gulped and nodded, following Evan as he crawled down the vent again. It took them a while before they finally reached the end. And lucky them—when they pushed the vent cover off, it led to outside.

As they roamed the streets, they hadn’t seen the outside in years. Especially Evan: he hasn’t seen the outside at all. He spent his entire life in that laboratory.

“We’re free…” Celia mumbled under her breath. She looked over at Evan, who was feeling and looking at everything he could get his hands on. He looked like a baby who had seen the outdoors for the first time.

“Okay, okay, we can go exploring later. But for now, we need clothes. You know… to not look like we’ve escaped a lab?”

Evan stood up straight and nodded, looking around for any clothing store. “Umm… looks like there’s one over there, come on.”

The two of them walked down the street until they reached their destination. As they were about to go in—

“Wait.” Celia spoke up. “We don’t have any money. How can we buy anything?”

“Money?” Evan asked.

“Yeah. It’s what you need to buy literally anything in this world.”

“Oh… well how do we get that?”

“I can help.”

They looked behind them, and someone was standing right there. A girl with long, cherry red hair going down to her waist, a pink tank top, and some denim shorts. She looked… a little mean, but maybe that was just her resting face.

“Oh, uhm... thank you! What’s your name?” Celia said, smiling softly.

“Not important. Come on.”

Before Celia could say anything, the girl pushed them to the side, going into the store. Evan just shrugged as they both went in, following her. She took them to a couple places and bought them an outfit, as well as some food.

Celia was now wearing a T-shirt and a jacket, some tights, a skirt, and a pair of boots. Evan was wearing a sweatshirt, baggy jeans, and some sneakers. They both were scarfing down their sandwiches as they walked down.

Evan and Celia stayed behind as they followed the girl, who was up ahead a bit.

“So,” Evan mumbled, swallowing his bite of sandwich. “Why do you think she won’t tell us her name?”

“Mh… I dunno. Maybe she just doesn’t wanna give any personal information to strangers.”

He shrugged. “I mean, maybe. But that was kinda weird, don’t you think? And her face… she looked kinda panicked for a second before she shoved into us.”

Celia hummed, eating the last bite of her sandwich. She didn’t say anything back, she just stared at the girl who was walking in front of them. As she looked closer, she noticed something on her neck.

“Hey, Evan… what’s that on her neck? On the left side?”

Evan looked closely, squinting his eyes a bit. He then shrugged, letting out a chuckle.

“Imagine it’s a number like we have on our necks. Ya know, experiment numbers.”

Celia kicked his leg as she let out a huff. “Not funny!”

As she looked closer, she realized.

Oh.

It was a number. ’07’ was embedded into her neck.

“Evan…”

As soon as Celia spoke, Evan realized as well. They both stopped walking and looked at each other, their eyes widening. Their arms fell to their sides as their jaws were down onto the ground.

“Celia,” Evan spoke up, finally closing his mouth for a moment as he thought. “That’s… that’s Stella…”

As if on cue, Stella stopped walking and turned around. She eyed them up and down before turning back around.

“Hurry up,” she spat. “Unless you wanna get caught.”

Caught?

“Uh,” Celia said as she caught up to her, Evan following. “What do you mean… ‘caught’?”

She stopped walking again and turned around, facing them.

“You know… from the lab.”

Their eyes widened. Before they could say anything else, Stella was already walking again, up ahead significantly. Celia looked over at Evan, who had a stern expression on his face.

“I’m gonna get my revenge, just you wait…” he mumbled. He shook his head slightly and started walking again.

Celia tried to reach out to stop him, but he was already walking with her. She let out a sigh as she followed them, walking alongside Evan.

Well, she thought to herself, I guess we’ll see.