Animal Instincts

I followed Jasen down the stairs. It had been thirty nights and thirty days of being trapped in this house, and I was starting to lose count. The drugs they continually forced on us didn’t help with my sense of time–many days, it was a struggle to hold onto the reality of what was happening.

I’ve been kidnapped. I’m not supposed to be here.

Jasen claimed to have a plan to get us out. Technically, it should have been more than possible. As they loved to remind us daily, we were only a mile away from LAX–maddeningly close to civilization, if only our weakening brains and the collapsing social dynamics didn’t all but preclude us from working together to escape.

Of course, this was exactly what they wanted. The Leaders had told us from day one that if we wanted to survive here, we would need to drop our pretense of morality and be willing to sell each other out. This was the only understanding I had gleaned about their motivations. That for whatever reason, they clearly wanted to see us resort to our baser animal natures.

I had refused many a time, and paid a hefty price. So had Jasen. That’s why I was here, despite the risks, trusting him.

“We’re going to see Orlando,” said Jasen.

“Who’s Orlando?” I asked, as an image flashed into my mind through the drug-fuelled haze. An image of a man with bleach-blond hair and scratched-out eyes.

Jasen didn’t answer. I didn’t blame him. Here in the house of horrors, someone was always listening.

We rounded the corner at the bottom of the stairs and entered into a dark, narrow passageway. I could feel the shift as the silence deepened around us. We were deep in the bowels of the house now, possibly even underground.

Jasen stopped in front of a small door with a tarnishing crystal handle. His eyes met mine for a fraction of a second–a seemingly blank stare, although I knew what that expression meant.

We were only here because the Leaders wanted us to be. Whoever Orlando was, whatever his plan might be, they had only allowed us to make it this far because they believed it wouldn’t go well. It was the Leaders’ pleasure to make us betray, fight, even murder each other. It was up to us not to give in–without letting them know we had transcended their game.

The door squeaked open, and I followed Jasen into a dim, dingy room. Much like the other rooms in the house, it looked deceptively harmless, like a forgotten bedroom in a fraternity house. I heard the screech of cars driving by overhead–tantalizingly close, yet lightyears away.

In the center of the room, a wolf-thin man sat on a greasy leather recliner, hands clasped in his lap.

“Jessica,” Orlando said. His voice held no emotion. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

In the shadowy darkness, I could only see the bottom half of his face–his skin an unnerving, sickly white, his mouth frozen into a thin line. A gray-green scar ran from his chin up to the part of his face I couldn’t see.

Choose your words carefully, I reminded myself. They’re listening.

“So have I.”

There was a pregnant pause.

“Come closer,” droaned Orlando. “I want to tell you what I’ve learned. Jasen here already knows.”

I stepped forward into the puddle of light emitted by the table lamp. As Orlando’s face fell into the light, I saw them: his eyes, or what remained of them, covered by huge claw marks like those of a bear.

“The drugs,” he said quickly. “There’s a compound in them that makes us fear. That makes us resort to our survival instincts, turn on each other. That makes us more like animals.”

My mind was racing, my heart pounding.

“And are you an animal?” I asked.

At this, he smiled weakly. “It’s too late for me, Jessica. I’ve been here a long time. But you’re not an animal. Not yet. Neither of you are.”

Orlando picked up a knife on the side table and flipped it into the air, catching it. Maybe a show for the Leaders. Maybe not.

That was when it dawned on me – he couldn’t see us at all.

“It’s resistance,” he said flatly. “The more you refuse to fight your own, to do what they want, the less the drug works on you. It hooks itself into your animal instincts. The more you feed it, the more it grows.”

And the more you refused, the more immune you were. I thought of Amelia, who had been killed by Oscar for a scrap of food. Or Melvin, lured in by the promise of an alliance, only to be stabbed in the back.

Most of the others didn’t even notice when one of us went missing. But I remembered. Through the fog of lies, my brain latched onto flashes of the truth.

“Is that why I remember more than the others?” I gasped.

“Yes,” replied Orlando. “It’s also why you have a chance of getting out of here. But Jessica, Jasen – there’s one more thing.”

Was this a trick? Was Orlando working with the Leaders? It wouldn’t be the first time one of our number had sold us out to escape the pain, only to disappear, never to return.

Somehow, I doubted it. Somehow, I sensed that Orlando was risking everything he had built here–even his life–to give the two prisoners who showed resistance a chance at escape.

For the first time in I-wasn’t-sure-how-long, I felt a surge of real hope. Jasen and I, we could do it. We could get out of here. If we had the power to resist the drug, maybe we had the power to escape.

“It’s the trackers,” Orlando whispered. For the first time, I caught a note of desperation in his voice. “The way they watch us, control us, even deliver the baseline dose of the drug.”

As I gazed at Orlando, a terrible realization began to dawn on me. A realization that made my stomach drop with the thought of what I might have to do if I ever wanted to leave this place.

Above, I could hear the sound of footsteps coming toward us.

“They’re in our eyes.”