THE MESSAGE IN CODE

Jolene left the basement and went back upstairs, with all the staff busy, she went to the recorder to listen to the message once more. Each beep made her body tremble, she took out a sheet and wrote down with her own handwriting what she deciphered.

"Lo," pronounced, "op."

She repeated the coded message as many times as necessary.

"Loop," she listened carefully and continued, "ground..."

With her gaze fixed on the pen and her attention on the sound, she didn't notice that Maeko was in a corner watching her. Jolene spoke the words in a subtle tone as the girl listened.

"Infinite ground loop," she smiled raising the sheet of paper to the ceiling.

"What are you saying?" Maeko interrupted.

"Maeko! Baby, what are you doing up?" She immediately put the sheet away and leaned towards the girl.

She stared at her, unblinking, making Jolene nervous.

"That loop, did it catch someone?"

"Maeko, please let's go to sleep" she took her shoulder.

The girl said no more, she frowned and walked head down trying to control her

temperament and dissembling in front of her fake mother. Arriving back in the bedroom,

Jolene covered her and stroked her hair to reveal her face and get her to sleep.

"When will I be able to use my loop?" She dared to ask before Jolene left the room.

"Very soon daughter, very soon."

The woman came out changing that smile on her face for an expression of concern, she needed to hurry up if she didn't want the roles to be reversed.

The next morning everything seemed to be quiet everywhere, the soldiers went out looking for more survivors while the others stayed in the bunker. Ronda went looking for Ocean and Evander to ask about their state of health.

"Do you feel better with oxygen?"

"Much better." He stretched out his arms, yawning.

"I'm glad," she outlined a slight lopsided smile, "hey, with everything that happened, I thought we should look for 089."

"But where could he be?" Evander wondered.

Ronda let out a long breath and kept her eyes closed for a while.

"I'll go wake up the others, we need to continue training," said the brunette and went looking for the others.

All afternoon they were training until Commander Kylen arrived with new news. He called the rescuers and other soldiers to the common room to tell them about the information he obtained.

"In our mission today we found the lifeless bodies of at least sixteen people, the walkers did not attack them, apparently they killed each other."

"Why would they do something like that? To survive?" Luna asked, very scared by the news.

"The girl with the killer song did it," he frowned.

Zev and Milo remembered the event that happened to them when they ran into that girl, it was like being under a spell because they didn't have complete control of themselves. Luna apparently didn't know about that mysterious girl and when she found out it seemed chilling.

"That girl also has power, just like Ocean and Evander, the difference is that she's bad," Kylen said with conviction.

"What is the purpose of all this?" Milo said very annoyed, "I mean, an experiment from the community failed, wasn't it easier to lock up their creatures and that's it?" His breathing seemed agitated, "what need did they have? to attack people? Those of the community are also human."

Ocean reacted badly to that comment, quickly approached Milo and slammed him against the wall placing her forearm on the boy's neck.

"Do you really think that?" she asked with great seriousness and courage inside.

She tightened her grip on his arm, to the point that Milo was having a hard time breathing. Zev noticed how aggressive Ocean was being so he interfered asking her to let go of his little brother.

"You're not Ocean," Milo murmured as she released him.

"Don't say that again, we're not just experiments that failed, we're more than that," she pointed her finger, "also, if it wasn't for us you and Zev would be dead since that day and be thankful that this time I don't burn you alive."

"Ocean please calm down," Zev interrupted trying to calm her down.

Ocean's look was scary and gave anyone goosebumps, she honored her power, the fire, she was on fire from the courage she felt thanks to Milo's little empathetic comment, who was secretly fed up of everything that was happening around him.

"You always so tender and sweet with humans, dear Ocean," said a deep and manly voice behind everyone.

She recognized her right away, as did Ronda, Evander, and Kylen. The famous reinforcement, 089 was walking, smoking a cigarette. A brown-skinned boy, with marked features, stocky and tall, caught the attention of everyone present.

"Tell me then, who was the idiot that activated my loop?" He bumped his fists.