I do not own anything, just my ideas.

Chapter 6

GALE

At first when I see the body, I'm frozen with flash backs. Memories of war and blood, but the scene in front of me is different from my memories. I immediately run up to the side of whoever is lying there and try to stop the blood from drizzling out. I push back her hair, and I recognize the face there.

Calla

She sits on the ground, her back being supported by the brick wall. Her teeth chatter from the brisk air wrapping around her. Her hands are shaking, and in one of them is a bloody pocket knife. How she got it, I will deal with that later. Now, all that concerns me is getting her inside the hospital.

I pick her up and carry her inside. The first person I see just so happens to be the last person. Omni nearly drops the papers and coffee and in hands as I pass by, rushing down the hall.

"Calla." Is the only thing that comes out of his mouth. He tries to follow behind, but, even carrying Calla, I am able to out-run him. It must be the adrenaline. Or something else. I don't bother thinking about it too much.

Soon enough, I come to a surgical room, and I give her to the doctors. They immediately begin working their magic, trying to heal her. While they try to stop the blood rolling down her body, I can now try to figure out the real problem: What happened?

I sit in a chair, just outside the operating room. The door must be sound-proof, because I can't hear a thing. Or it is probably the thumping in my ears blocking my hearing. Either way, I have to think. Think Gale, think. My hands come to my face, and they are wet. With her blood.

Ugh, what the fuck happened? Alright, take it step by step. The last time you saw her she was... in the hallway, and she was upset. And, I think she just had a session, because she was upset. Angry. Now, the when you left she was talking to Omni, and she didn't look happy.

Just then, Omni walks up to me. "What the hell happened?"

"What did you say to her?"

"What are you talking about?"

"The last person I saw her with was you, and she was not happy about it, I might add."

"I simply told her something that is between her and myself."

"Well whatever you said, I think it caused all this!" My voice is to a yell.

"Calm yourself, you are too hot. Why are you angry at me? Wasn't she attacked?"

"No, she did that to herself. She had a bloody pocket knife in her hand and she slit her wrist. She is my worker and my responsibility. And whatever you said drove her over the edge. Now tell me what you said!"

"I told her..."

CALLA

Beep... Beep... Beep...

The heart monitor chimes through the air. It is the only sound that I am able to comprehend. Where am I? I can't remember... Well, I can't remember a lot lately. I remember the hallway. Then a memory; it flashed back to me. It revealed a part of my past I thought I wanted to know, but now I wish I could forget it like all the other memories. Then it was cold, light snow falling down. It, a knife, was somehow in my hands. And I wanted to die, to kill the evil person inside me.

Beep... Beep... Beep...

What is this place?

Did I do it? Am I dead? Did I make to heaven?

No. I'm not in heaven. I don't deserve to go to heaven. Only good people go there. This place... it must be hell. Because that is where people like me go. People who kill. I have killed, so many innocent lives. And how do I know that the one memory, the one that showed me what I have done, isn't who I really am.

I deserve to die... So why am I not dead?

Beep... Beep... Beep...

...Beeeeeeeeeep...

...

GALE

The room is quiet, except for the quiet hum of the machines.

I subsided my anger before I walked into the room. I need answers. And I won't get answers unless my mind is clear and I do not scare her. Calla. She lays in the bed. After hours of sleep, she has finally woken up.

At first, nobody was allowed to see her, but I'm the one who saved her. The doctors said that if she was outside any longer she would have lost too much blood; she might not have made it. But she did, and now I have to find out what happened in that time frame of when I was gone.

I can't decipher the look on her face when she sees me. I don't think she understands what has happened. Every step closer to her is slow, like approaching an animal in the forest. She's not an animal, though. And I know that. But I still tread softly towards her.

A moment ago her face holds confusion. Actually, it's that look she gets when she is solving a puzzle; piecing together everything around her until it makes sense. But I guess she figured something out because her face turns hard. Angry.

At me.

"What happened? What did you do?" She screams at me.

"I saved you. You were bleeding out and I brought you here."

"Why did you do that? Why couldn't you let me be? Why couldn't you let me die?" Tears stream down her face. I've never been one who was good at comforting, especially since I made that promise to not get close to anyone.

But I also made a pact to myself to save as many lives as I can. If that can help undo some of the bad from the past...

"Why did you try to kill yourself?" With this, she stops screaming, stops thrashing. She is subdued in a state of... pain. Her mind is somewhere else; her eyes looking, but not really seeing.

"I remembered who I was... What I've done. And it isn't good." She sighs, small silver tears slowly streaming down her face. "A memory, it came back."

"What was it?"

"It..." She begins, but she stops. She closes her mouth and doesn't continue.

"Is there something wrong?"

"How do I know I can trust you? You could be working with them, trying to get everything out of me and analyze me like I am a slide under a microscope."

"I wouldn't do that to you, because I wouldn't do that to myself. My job here is being head of security, and leading the Box Project. You're one of my workers, and you were found by the side of a building, bleeding. I would like some answers so it won't happen again."

"Why shouldn't it happen again?"

"Nobody deserves to think they are so helpless that they need to kill them self. And you are the best worker I have."

"I thought I wanted my memory back; I thought it would help. But it didn't." Her fist are clenched. "You had just left for your appointment, and then Omni came over. He said something to me, something that triggered a memory."

"It's time. You know what to do, and you know what will happen if you don't do it."

"Never say those words to me!" She yells, "How did you know that?"

"Omni told me what he told you, but that's it."

"Those words... Every time."

"Every time what?"

"When he said that, I remembered when I heard them, because I had heard them before. The memory I got was me, in a room with many computers. And I knew how to work them because I was the one who built them. I created it all."

"What is 'it'?"

She takes a deep breathe, her eyes closed. She doesn't look at me. "A place of nightmares. I created it, I controlled it. On the surface, I do not exist, but without me, they wouldn't have happened."

"They wouldn't have happened?"

"The Games. I controlled them, I built the technology to create all kinds of monsters. Haven't you noticed they changed a few years ago."

I do. I guess I didn't really notice it until now. There was a shift, the mutts were more real, more vicious. The signature changed, and not the kind of change a new Head Gamemaker brings. Everything seemed more... intense.

"The exact memory, I was walking in a hall, and then I was in front of a steel door. Right before they pushed into the lonely room, someone whispered into my ear that phrase. He said, Be a good girl, little flower. And it's weird, because I could smell flowers.

"Then I was in the room, and the technology, I had to have been the one who built it, because I knew it like it was my creation. Then there were people on the screens, kids like me-some scared, some relentless. And I killed some of them, I did it. I pushed that button that flooded that arena and killed kids like me."

The heart monitor begins to go crazy again, and she is reaching for something... a syringe. I manage to grab it before her. The doctors come in and plunge their own syringe into her. A sedative. And in moments she is down, her eyes closed, but her mind still awake. Haunted by memories of the Games.

Aren't we all.