No. 4: This way, That way, Up, Down, Left, Right

No. 4: This way, That way, Up, Down, Left, or Right

The trio got little sleep that night, and was a nervous wreck when the dawn finally came. Because it wasn't just the dawn that met them when they woke up.

"Are you ready?"
The woman was standing back in middle of the living room. The three kids pulled their blankets or pillows or hair off their eyes and sat up groggily.
"the least you could do would be to give us a ten minute warning so we could at least enjoy breakfast no matter how small." Venn grumbled from the floor.
The woman regarded him for a moment before giving a slight shrug.
"Time is of the essence Vencint. Now please, have you said goodbye?"
The three sighed and looked over at Angela's still sleeping form at the edge of the couch.
"Yeah." Cliff muttered.
"Venn did you say good bye to Christie?" Izzy asked as she rolled off the couch and nearly on top of Cliff who was trying to scramble off the floor.
"Yeah I went to see her last night."
"Did you actually tell her?"
"No. I told her we were going on vacation. Now can we just get this over with before mom gets up...I don't want to giver her anymore sad goodbyes. She's gone through enough."
Cliff nodded, knowing he was talking about his father who had passed away a couple years ago.
Venn kissed his mother on the cheek and quickly turned his head before anyone could see the tears.
"Very good. Now just relax, let your mind go blank and try not to think about anything."
"That's not exactly humanly capable for a girl." Venn heard Izzy mumble under her breath.
"Close your eyes, and count down from five."
Izzy slid her hands into the boys'. Grasping them tightly with the mind that she never wanted to let go.

.:+++:.

"Sir..." The lady spun around in her chair. "She's awakened."
The man nodded.
"Good. Anna, go talk to her. She'll need somewhat of a familiar face. Remind her that we are here to keep her safe. And we mean her no harm." Anna nodded and rose from her seat.

Her long chestnut hair was pulled into a loose bun, a flyaway hair got caught in her mouth as she walked briskly down the white washed halls.
Anna passed people in lab coats who acknowledged her with a nod of their heads.
She rounded the corner and stopped abruptly.
"It is time. I have waited for this day for a long, long time."

.:+++:.

Isabelle Wood was the first to wake.
Again, she was hit with the blue tint to everything she saw. Her heart beat raced, as she realized her movements were slow, but didn't feel restricted. It came to her that she was in some kind of liquid, but it was thicker then usual, it wasn't water.
She felt the odd weight of the scuba gear on her mouth and the stale oxygen flowing through into her nose and mouth.
She noticed a figure on the other side of the class tube she was incased in.
The figure tapped at a couple computer monitors and she felt herself rising to the top of the liquid by a cool, flat something under her body.
Gradually the liquid fell away and so did the scuba gear.
She sucked in a breath of fresh air. A moment of panic set in when she found that she couldn't move. She tried to move the smallest thing, her fingers, her toes. But she literally couldn't. Move. A thing.
That scared her.
   She moved her eyes and saw what looked to be a hospital. Looking up, she noticed bags of clear liquid, a large machine behind her that glowed red, and beat with a pulse. The figure she had seen earlier was gone, leaving her alone.
After a while, she got feeling in her fingertips again. Moving her left hand over to her right arm, after several moments of trying to get her arm to cooperate, she managed to pull the tube out of her arm.
"That probably wasn't the wisest thing to do, young lady."
Izzy looked up and saw the woman from the hologram standing over her.
"Yeah well, I've always hated needles." She answered. "where am I? Where's Cliff and Venn?"
"They're right here." She moved and motioned behind her. Izzy saw two more tanks that were similar to the one she had been in, with two boys on top of metal grates, they were clothed in what seemed to be in boxers, which got her wondering what on earth she was wearing, but decided it was best not to look.
The boys looked the same, thank goodness. Nothing about them had changed, except that maybe their hair was a bit too long.
"None of you have changed, other then you're hair has a lot of dead ends. Now come along, you have strength to walk now." She turned on her heel and walked away.
Izzy had a feeling it would always be like that. Someone would always be one step ahead of her, leaving her to catch up on her own.

Taking it slow, she slid off the grate, her weight for a minute seemed to much for her feet to hold. She scrambled to keep her weight on her hands that were gripping the grate. Finally her feet felt like they could hold her weight again, she was a little wobbly and her legs were stiff, but she kept taking deep breaths.
They felt like they hadn't been used in a long time.
Finding her sense of balance she did her best to follow the woman in the lab coat.

"This is Tao." Anna introduced a man with olive colored skin and dark hair. "He will take care of your hair, and then he'll show you to the wardrobe. Choose anything you like. I'll be back in a few hours. Enjoy." She smiled at Izzy and walked out of the room.
Isabelle sighed and sat down in the salon chair. Dreading the next few hours.

.:+++:.

A few hours latter, Isabelle was ready to face the world. The real world.
Her raven black hair was layered now, but still had its length. Tao had blown it dry, so it was extremely soft and fluffy. Though she knew it would never be like this again. She hated blow drying her hair.
When he had shown her to the wardrobe, it was just a massive room that had anything a girl could possibly want. In fact it had so much, it scared Izzy.
So sticking to the basics, she grabbed a dark flannel shirt that was slightly baggy, a pair of skinny jeans and a pair of orange converse.
She was then escorted by Tao again to where the hologram woman.

"Anna, right?" She asked. The woman turned to her from the computer screens and smiled at her.
"That's right. Oh don't you look cute."
Izzy glanced down at her outfit. It was hardly cute, but she didn't mind. That's what she had been called all her life, cut or adorable. It was the mix of always putting her hair up in two braids, and the fact that she was pretty short.
"So, when will they wake up?" She asked, turning to the two boys still lying on the metal grates.
"Soon. It's like when you have just finished a dream. It takes a moment for the brain to realize you're awake."
Izzy's brow furled as she turned to the woman again.
"Well, then why did I wake up so soon?"
Anna sighed and blew a stray hair out of her dark eyes.
"Because you broke through the system before. When you hit your head on the side walk and blacked out? You woke up for a minute, so you're brain was already trying to wake up. Where as with the boys, their brains still are fully asleep. It's going to take a while -"
"Hey look!"
Isabelle ran towards the boy with long blond hair.
She watched as his fingers twitched slowly.
"He's waking up." She smiled a big grin that warmed Anna's heart.

The voices seemed far off to Cliff. Who was concentrating on getting control over his limbs.
"Hellooo?" That voice was louder. Closer.
"I know you're waking up...I saw your fingers moving. You're quick I'll give you that."
His finally opened and her jerked back when he noticed that there was somebody leaning in close to his face.
It was a girl. Her raven black hair fell over her shoulders, her bright blue eyes looked welcoming, naive, and innocent.
He blinked once, she was really pretty.
She smiled at him and moved out of his personal bubble.
"Nice to see you awake, finally. Now we just have to wait for slow poke over there." She declared.
He groaned as he forced his stiff muscles to work with him. He finally made it to a sitting position and was slightly unnerved to find that he was only in boxers, though the girl didn't seem to notice.
He looked at her for a moment and felt something tug at the back of his mind. The way she moved, how she smiled, the words she spoke, it all reminded him of someone from a dream.
"Izzy?" He was able to say the word though his mouth felt like it had been glued shut.
She smiled at him and offered a hand.
"In the flesh. Really this time. Be careful..." She said quietly as he took her hand and she helped him down from the grate and tank. He almost had a wipe out if it hadn't been for her quick reflexes. She quickly threw his arm over her shoulders and used her body to keep up his weight. Her own eyes grew wide when his eyes met hers, His eyes grey eyes were lined with silver around the outside of the iris, and then around the pupil.
"Iz, why are your eyes silver?" he asked. She shook her head and took a step back. She was not quite sure how to respond, so she didn't.
"Like I said, be careful. You'll be stiff for a little while. But it'll wear off, I promise."
He nodded as he got his feet under him, but still watched her closely.
"Oh I feel so loved. Sure just go help Cliff, forget all about me why don't you?"
Izzy turned around to find Venn sitting up on his own grate.
"Everyone knows the youngest always gets the overdose of attention." She grinned teasingly, tossing a towel at him, hitting him square in the face.
"Yeah but the oldest gets all the special privileges." He grumbled. Isabelle rolled her eyes and made sure Cliff had his feet under him before going over and helping Venn down. She took a moment to study his eyes and was slightly shocked to see that he had the silver lining the outside of his iris, along with around his pupil as well.
What is going on?! She screamed in her head.
"Anna will show you were you guys can um...get...cleaned up." Izzy said as the boys absently pulled their towels closer around them.
Cliff watched her step back from the two of them, her head hanging down and her black hair falling into her dark blue eyes. It didn't take a lot to tell she was on the verge of tears, though he got the feeling she was trying to be strong. But he couldn't figure out for who.
He was drawn out of his thoughts when Anna started talking to them, telling them about a man who would do their hair and then take them to a wardrobe.

.:+++:.

Two hours latter found the trio sitting in a kind of break room with trays full of food.
Izzy was glad to see that the boys looked more like themselves, with their hair cut short again. They were both wearing dark jeans with graphic t-shirts, Cliff's had the Avenger's symbol on it, and Venn was wearing Mountain Dew. They both seemed more comfortable now and she couldn't blame them. Once she had washed away the blue gel she felt human again, then she felt more herself when she found the orange converse and comfy flannel shirt.
But she still felt slightly unnerved by the silver lining their irises.

Anna was getting slightly impatient, though she did a pretty good job hiding it, she only slipped when she glanced at her wrist watch one too many times and sighed.
The three were still a little groggy and stiff, but glad they were able to at least move around.
"Ok-so-why-is-it-that-we're-so-hungry?" Venn asked in between shovels of mashed potatos.
Izzy rolled her eyes as she took a sip from her water bottle.
"Alright," Anna started calmly. "When you were in the virtual reality, your conscious was in there, but your physical body was here." She gestured to the bunker they had been in for the past five hours. It freaked the trio out because it looked like they had just stepped into a sci-fi sciences lab, only with humans as the lab rats instead of mice or chimps.
"That virtual reality was similar to a dream, only we controlled everything that happened, not your subconscious. However, you have been in the same dream for almost ten years."
The three froze.
Izzy gulped.
Venn's jaw slacked, unappetizingly showing everyone his last spoonful of mashed potatoes.
Cliff gagged on his Coke as it went down the wrong way.
"Ten years?" Izzy asked.
Anna nodded.
"That's why you're still sleep and stiff. You haven't been out of those tanks since you were six."
"Then why aren't we as skinny as a rake? Why are we able to move around so easily?" Cliff asked. Taking a momentary break from eating.
Once he brought that up, Anna's eyes lit up with excitement.
"Well see, we couldn't do this with just anyone. You three are....unique in every way. And not just the way your bodies have been made, though that's a big factor as well. But it's because you three have such a strong connection that we were able to succeed with you."
"What do you mean 'a strong connection'?" Venn asked, "We practically just met."
"Oh no I don't mean that, I mean you three being triplets and all." Anna smiled at them.
"We're what?!" They yelled in unison.
"Well yes," Anna said calmly, but with a look that told them they should have known this. "You three are not only siblings, you are triplets. Hence the reason why you all share the same birthday and the same age."
The three turned to face each other.
"Venn, what's your birthday?" Izzy asked, her voice full of urgency.
"March sixth, nineteen-ninety-six."
Her heart fell, and so did Cliff's face.
"That's mine too." She muttered. Cliff nodded in agreement.
"Venn, I told you to leave me alone when it came to girls." He muttered.
"Dude, how the heck was I suppose to know she was our sister?" Venn pointed out.
"And she happens to be sitting right next to you." Izzy jumped in. "So lets not pretend she's not. Alright?"
Turning back to Anna, Iz asked the next question.
"What was that gel stuff we were in?"
"Ah, that was an interesting aspect of the experiment." Anna said. Izzy's eyes widened as she heard the word 'experiment.' But she didn't have time to ask about it because Anna went right on. "The machine at the end of the tanks give an electrical pulse into your body through wires. They kept your muscles stimulated and prevented atrophy. The gel was better then a hospital bed because you would have had bed sores and those are nasty."
"Okay, so now my turn." Cliff spoke up. "Why do we all have silver eyes?"
Anna shifted slightly as the three sets of different eyes starred at her. It was true, they all were different, yet the same. They all shared silver in their eyes.
"Are you finished?" She asked. Avoiding the question. "Because the Professor would like to speak with you."

Anna led them to an elevator and looked at them excitedly.
"Prepare yourselves. This will be the first time you've seen the sun in ten years."
"Awesome." Venn muttered, his voice thick with sarcasm.
Anna reached forward and pushed an unmarked silver button. The doors slid soundlessly close when they had all stepped through, then it made it's way to ground level.
Unexpectedly, they found themselves standing on a square patch of silver, surrounded by green grass, at the edge of a school campus.
The elevator walls had all but disappeared.
And now, the three were momentarily blinded by the bright sunrays, and deafened by the sudden noise of the school.

All the students looked like average teenagers, but the age range went from thirteen to eighteen. Which got Izzy wondering what kind of school this was.
The three got lots of glances as they followed Anna down the sidewalk.
Isabelle's ears picked up whispers from girls who were eyeing Cliff and Venn like they were their next meals. This drew out Izzy's protective side as she stepped up to block their view, faking an air of higher importance then them.
That earned her a glare from them, she watched as they walked off, her shoulders slouching forward as she let out a sigh.
"Being a sister is going to be so annoying." She muttered to herself.
"Iz?"
She glanced up and saw Cliff looking down at her.
"You ok?"
"Yep. As 'ok' as I can get." She answered.

Anna led them down a path that led to a fountain which was positioned right in middle of the campus and stood in front of a large mansion looking house.
Venn noticed two buildings on either side of the main one, he saw only boys coming out of the one on the left, and only girls coming out of the one on the right. So he made the safe guess that they were dorms.
The trio felt slightly odd as they passed students who made way for them as they whispered to each other. Cliff was only able to pick up a little of what they were saying.
"...Kidnapped...experiments...underground...stories..."
None of what he heard made much sense, but he didn't have time to dwell on it.

Anna told them that the school was built on two hundred acres of land. It had been built back in the nineteen-twenties by an Englishman named Mark S. Rolland, who was said to be so insane that he performed experiments on himself. But Anna didn't clarify what kind of experiments, she went on to explain that in nineteen-twenty-five Rolland died from one of his experiments gone wrong.
The facility had been abandoned, but was rebuilt towards the end of World War two as a bomb shelter because of the underground tunnels.
When the war ended, the Professor's grandfather bought the property, which had been passed down through the sons in the family.
Izzy found the history of the school fascinating. The boys had pretended to be bored, but they too were interested in the school.
Of course, even hearing the story couldn't distract Izzy from the lingering eyes they passed as they moved inside the large building.

"Alright, I must ask." She said, stepping in time with Anna. "Why are they all starring at us?"
Anna smiled as she rounded the corner of the entry way and stopped at the bottom of a set of stairs built into the wall of the building.
"Because of the stories of course."
That was all she said about the subject.
"The Professor is waiting for you in his office." Anna gestured to the door at the top of the stairs. "Don't keep him waiting too long alright?" She smiled one more time then left back the way they had come.
"Okay." Venn said quietly. His eyes lingering on the front door that was swinging close after she had passed through it.
"I don't want to point out the obvious," He turned back to the two. "But she really creeps me out."
Izzy and Cliff chuckled.
"Bet that doesn't happen too often." Izzy remarked.
"No," Venn shook his head. "it doesn't. And I don't like it when it does."