I could feel the cameras watching us.
Every movement we made in the white-walled facility was recorded. Every smile. Every blink. Every whispered word. After the "Center Group" was formed, Lucas and I were separated from the others. We weren't placed with the Repians or the Crepians. We were given our own section, our own schedules, our own tests.
They didn't say it, but we were the experiment within the experiment.
Lucas sat across from me now, picking at the bland food on his tray. His curls had grown messier, and he always wore that same worn cap like it was armor. Sometimes, when he thought no one was looking, he would stare at the walls like he was trying to see through them.
"You ever think about running?" I asked one day, poking at my mystery soup.
His eyes flicked to me, curious, cautious. "Every second."
I didn't know if he was joking.
But I smiled anyway.
We started talking more after that. Not just about escape, but everything. Home. School. Rohan. Our parents. We joked about the guards with their clunky boots and how one of the nurses always smelled like burnt oatmeal. We shared memories like secrets, afraid they might vanish if we didn't say them out loud.
And then there were the tests.
One day they asked us to destroy things. Another, to build. They hooked us up to wires, made us walk through obstacle courses, fight simulations. Some of them were real. Some of them… weren't. One time, they brought in a hologram of my mom, crying, begging for me. I almost broke the entire room.
Lucas held me afterward.
His arms were warm. Strong. I didn't want to let go.
But I did.
We couldn't afford weakness.
Then things started changing. People were whispering more. A guard let slip that some of the Repians had vanished from their bunks. A Crepian kid named Manny told us one of the scientists didn't show up for work. Rumors of rebellion buzzed in the air like static. They called it The Bloom.
It was small at first—just messages scratched into the walls, "We are not your tools." "They fear us." "Bloom." Then someone hacked into the main PA system. For a few seconds during lights out, music blasted through the speakers—real music. A song I hadn't heard since I was little.
Freedom was starting to feel real again.
One night, Lucas and I sat by the glass wall that separated us from the rest of the facility. We couldn't sleep.
"They think we're special," I said quietly. "But I think we're dangerous to them because we care. Because we won't break."
Lucas looked at me. His eyes weren't just blue. They were fire and sky and lightning all at once.
"I think they're scared of what'll happen if we realize we're stronger together," he said.
My heart did something strange.
I looked away. "Would you actually do it?" I whispered. "Run?"
He didn't answer at first. Then he touched my hand, gently. His fingers were warm.
"Yes I would."
The lights flickered.
Then the power went out entirely.
The whole facility plunged into darkness.
And a voice crackled over the speaker—not a scientist's. A kid.
"This is The Bloom. If you can hear this, they're lying to you. We're not sick. We're not freaks. We are the future. We rise tonight."
I grabbed Lucas's hand.
It was starting.