Harsh Realities

As it turns out I don’t get any answers in the morning since we are still locked in. Our dinner gets delivered through a hatch in the door, veal extra rare. If there is any disease in it is sure as hell won’t kill us. We stay locked in for a week keeping to one of the bedrooms because they haven’t removed the corpse and it had started to rot. Some vacation!
When we are let out again Anderson disappears somewhere taking Gregory with him and I’m left with Hawkins checking on the ‘patients’ in the experimentation ward. There are children there chained to the beds looking at us with pleading eyes like they still hope that all of this is a nightmare and they will be released any moment. I wonder why they do it, even a child should realize that no one goes home from the Institute.
After what seems like hours of visiting ward after ward and me trying not to look at any of the ‘patients’ trapped there, even thou I was one of the people responsible for their predicament in most of the cases, we meet up with Gregory and Anderson again. Anderson isn’t looking at me and Hawkins starts to look away too, Gregory I notice is in a foul mood all of a sudden. But since no one is telling me anything there is little I can do about it. After a conference with one of the professors we get loaded in to a van and taken for another hunt. For some reason there are more guards then usual. Something is up and it’s killing me not to know what the hell is going on.
The guards cordoned off a city block before we were allowed out of the van. Gregory wasn’t looking at me too, silently he sat in a corner of the van staying as far away from me as possible. He’d never acted that way before, not even when he had first been introduced. I was officially worried, he might not be the most reliable partner to have but there days he was the best the world had to offer. And usually he did watch my back but now… Something was very, very wrong and I apparently was right in the middle of it! We set off in to the first apartment building. Two guards were following us at a distance waiting for us to capture someone to take off our hands. I was trying to ignore them as much as possible sniffing out the Infected. There were several in the building, fearing us having heard the siren. We sped up running up the stairs to the first apartment. Gregory kicked open the door letting me in first and locking the way out. I headed for the bathroom where our prey was hiding. It’s amazing that after almost two years of raids people still haven’t figured out that the Institute is using people with heightened senses to find their ‘patients’. This time it’s a young woman which makes my job easier in a way. Women are usually smart enough not to fight back and accept their fate easier.
The next apartment I let Gregory handle standing in the door just in case the prey escapes. I notice that our guards are legging behind. We move on and after another two apartments and the guards are legging behind four floors. Instead of kicking in the door Gregory slams me against the wall. I try to fight but get slammed in to the wall again.
“They are going to dissect you.”
I shouldn’t be surprised, and yet somehow I am.
“Why all of a sudden?”
Gregory was growling clearly agitated, he never could keep his baser instincts in check very well, shooting glances down the staircase and sniffing the air.
“Your fainting spells, according to their data you should have died the first time it happened.”
“But I didn’t”
“And now they want to find out why.”
I wanted to kick him for springing this information on me. I didn’t want to know since I couldn’t do anything about this. The guards would be here any minute and we would clear the block, then we would be back at the Institute and I would be cut apart in the name of research. Letting go of me Gregory kicked the door in to see another prey cowering at the end of the hall. At least they didn’t try to run any more like they did at first. For some reason Gregory wasn’t even trying to be careful tying him and tossing the middle aged man down the stairs. I wanted to protest but Gregory dragged me further.
“Stay in front of them.”
“Why?”
He looked at me like I was crazy then I realized what he was planning to do. Somehow escaping hadn’t even crossed my mind. The idea seemed ludicrous the Institute would find us any way. Never mind the fact that there was no way to go. The disease had spread all over the world and so had the Institute. We had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. I wondered why the hell Gregory was trying. We moved further over the roof to the next building working through the apartments there and picking up another three ‘volunteers’. We’re in a poor neighbourhood a perfect little hunting ground for the sick. We can pick up about a hundred at a time if we’re lucky. At the next building the guards stay behind just cleaning up the mess behind us and at the next one they stay on the ground floor until we are out. Gregory gets edgier with every building we clean out and finally we are on the roof of the last building. The roof of the next block is an ally away, all we have to do is jump. I can hear the guards six floors down they are dragging one of the Infected down in to the vans standing by. Gregory was checking the distance, he didn’t seem impressed. Minutes few by with us just looking at each other absorbed in the thoughts of freedom running through both our minds. Then Anderson was there, we hadn’t heard him come up, demanding that we follow him. I saw murder in Gregory’s eyes and knew it was reflected in mine. Again we moved as one against our prey ripping apart the man who had kept us imprisoned for what seemed to be so long. I tasted his blood and flesh and rejoiced in the cruelty of the act. Then when there were only unrecognisable pieces of the man who was once our keeper around us Gregory turned around. He jumped. I could hear the guards coming up the stairs too fast for comfort. On the other rooftop Gregory was waiting for me looking me right in the eye again. Waiting for me was diminishing his chances for escape yet he didn’t move. I knew it was hopeless, they would find us again eventually and most likely not kill us right away but use for experimentation instead. I didn’t want to end up on a slab, hell I didn’t even want to end up un-dead! I just wanted to be left alone. The guards were two stories down. Gregory was still waiting…
I didn’t believe that we would make it, I knew for sure that this would end badly. For the first time in my life I wanted to just drop dead and get it over with.
The guards were one floor down.
I jumped.