Overdose

'You'll never make it!' 

'Just reach the door.'

'She's already dead.'

'She's waiting for you.'

My mind was at war with my heart. My body was drawn to her but deep down I knew it was a bad idea. This was a really bad freaking idea...but my heart was pounding so hard I could finally tell that I was alive. 

I ran as fast as I could to the destination, but when my head peaked around the corner I was met by the barrel of a pistol. Hope had a gun to my head. The siren alarms immediately went silent in my head. 

"Can I trust you?" 

She said in a firm tone.

Not knowing what to say, I just nodded yes. She then clicked her tongue and moved the gun closer to my head, at this point I could hear my heart beat getting louder. Was I really afraid? Of her? Why her? No one else here could do anything to make my hear go this crazy. 

She then continued to ask impatiently, "Tell me about El. Illusion 66, what did you do to him!"

I could hear drums of footsteps marching to our location. If we didn't leave soon we were going to get caught.

"Hope, this is really not the best time. They're gonna kill us!" I said, trying to persuade her to lower her weapon and open the door.

"Tell me about Illusion 66! Did you kill him to raise your ranking in the program? And don't you dare lie to me, Micheal. I'm very much on edge right now!"

She insisted harshly. 

Then I thought, 'Ah, I guess they told her after all.'

I didn't know what to tell her that would keep her with me, because if I told her that story she would no doubt leave me. At least that's what the voices were saying. 

"Tell her about us. Blame it on us."

They kept repeating. "Better to be nuts than psycho."

I lowered my head in show of hopelessness not denying anything. In a glance I saw her eyebrows tilt up as the gun got heavy in her hand lowered her arm. It wasn't the answer she wanted.

The darkness around me was getting thicker and thicker and it's voice more real. 

"Another one bites the dust.' it said. 'Good job, Micheal. Just keep pushing all of them away. Hurt everyone who cares, all you need is me. You're a parasite, you don't deserve to be loved, accept that.'

For a second I believed this voice, then Hope asked, "Would you do the same to me?"

My eyes immediately rose to her face in an instant. I was expecting the sound of gunfire and eternal darkness but she offered a ray of light at the end of the tunnel. 

I could see it in her eyes, the promise of change. She didn't need to say, I knew then that everything would be okay. Her eyes that didn't see a monster or a vessel like everyone else, she saw Micheal King crying out for help.

There was brief eye contact as she decided whether to trust me or not. On my end the chemicals were flooding my mind. She then suddenly raised her gun and fired past my ear to shoot the guard I hadn't noticed behind me. The sound was deafening, I couldn't hear anything in my right ear at all.

As more guards came up behind her, she pulled me by my sleeve and scanned us through the door. What I saw on the other side turned my mind upsidedown. 

There was no gravity, we were floating in the chamber as soon as we entered with zero sense of direction. There is no right side up in zero gravity, so I struggled to keep my body leveled straight. 

"What. The actual. F----!" 

I exclaimed. 

Hope seemed to have more experience as she flew around like a superhero to the many locked Chambers below the window like structure that formed the top half of the wall. Through it, I saw a quarter of the earth glowing in a magical blue light in vast expansion of space. We were on a bloody spaceship this whole time!!

I tried my best to follow Hope as fast as I could, treating the zero gravity like a pool and trying to swim in it. As you can guess, it didn't get me anywhere fast. 

The guards couldn't enter because of the level-9 lockdown that made their access cards completely useless. I didn't have the mind to ask how Hope managed to scan us through at the time though.

'Illusions 38 and 66, you are adviced to return to your quarters immediately or we will use lethal force.' 

Said Darcey through the comms. 

They were still trying to figure out why the chips weren't working. I imagine it was chaos in the operating room, you could tell from the background noises. 

"How the hell did they manage to fry the chips? They are literally in their heads!"

An angry voice shouted through the monitor. 

I wanted to make a pun about that so bad, but I was rather occupied trying to reach Hope. 

"Some kind of an electric current, ma'am. We're not really sure!"

A man repled in the operating room as I grabbed hold of a handle in the wall that Hope had pulled me towards. It seemed too hard for her to open. 

When I faught the guards who were dragging her way, they had tazers with them which is what they used to knock me out. That's why my legs were so weak when I woke up. Was it them who tazerd me or Hope, and she did the same thing to herself so we wouldn't get caught?

'You have 15 seconds to comply.' Darcey said as she started counting down.

"Come on, come on, come on!"

Hope said, rushing me while tapping my shoulder.

I pulled the handle with all the strength I could muster and it rose with a cap which I turned clockwise and a small door opened. I had just opened an escape pod. 

"Come on now do mine," 

She tried to pull me to another one but Darcey's countdown had just reached zero. Hetches opened up in the ceiling and hanging guns came out. 

I pulled Hope into the pod with me and shut the door before Darcey commanded them to fire. The lazer bullets dispersed on the door as Hope shouted, "Eject!" and we were shot out into space. 

I'm not sure now, but I think I saw Zeus watching us from the upper window of the ship and waving goodbye. Unlike Dracey and the head scientist who were debating over whether to shoot me down or not, Zeus seemed calm about the whole thing. 

"You can't kill 38! If he dies we'll lose all of our progress!" 

As I caught a glimpse of it from the outside, I could hardly believe that's where I had been for the past 8 years. It was big and round like a disc. On the side near where Zeus stood I saw the words [ATLIS] inscribed in capital letters.

As we entered the Earth's atmosphere, I became more conscious of Hope's body pressed against me as I felt her heart pounding against my chest. Gravity was now dragging us back home and the pod began to shake over wind resistance as it burned against the pod. 

There was no distance between us in the enclosed space. I could feel her every inch of her body against mine, especially her small hands clinging to the garments on my arms as she pressed her face against my chest as though to hide from the world. 

My heart was pounding as well, but for an entirely different reason. She seemed so vulnerable that I couldn't hold back anymore. I dropped my head a little to tap my forehead on her head, when she raised it to look at me, I brushed my lips gently against hers. 

She was surprised at first, but then she closed her eyes and reciprocated. I felt her heart slow down and beat in unison with mine. There was a flame inside my chest that I could not tame and prayed she felt it too. I realized then that I may have overdosed on those happy pills. 

We fell to earth like a shooting star. Our only undoing was that we fell on the night of the Phantom Eye.