riven by maggie morris (best novels to read for students TXT) 📕

“You don’t know? The president has resigned, and now you can save the world!” Okay, obviously this guy was a little not right in the head.

So, I tried out some of the French I learned while taking a course on Rosetta Stone, and asked him, “Quelle?”

He mistook this, too.

“Le président a démissionné, et maintenant vous pouvez sauver le monde!” Great. Now Dr. Mental Issues thought I spoke French.

“Listen, buddy,” I sighed. “I have no idea what’s going on, and I just like for you to give me back Claire and let me leave.” His grin faded.

“You don’t speak French, I see? I cannot let you leave, though, Miz Alicia. You have a destiny. I must help you fulfill it. And this, Claire, you talk about, she is, ah, gone. You have made her disappear!” Dr. Melkins flicked his hand and walked out of the room. The door slammed.

“Wait, no!” I screeched. How could he leave me alone in here? But, with no more distractions, I was finally able to study the room I was in.

The walls were bare, and were painted an ugly shade of purple. The floor was made of black tile, and it clashed with the white trim outlining the walls. The only thing in the room was the chair I was sitting on.

Next I looked at my waist. Thin black Velcro was all that was holding me down. I smiled and peeled it off. After glancing around to check for security cameras, and finding none, I dashed for the door.

It was locked. Typical. I slumped to the floor defeated, when I saw a vent. It was a big one, too. Big enough for me to fit through. The only issues were the fact that it was screwed shut, and it was on the ceiling.

As I stood up to get a better look, the door slammed open, knocking me back down. Adam came in, carrying a tray.

“Oh. You tried to a escape, didn’t you? Naughty, naughty, naughty, sis. Did you find the ventilation shaft? Trust me, you aren’t getting out through that,” he said, clucking his tongue and shaking his head.

Ignoring the fact that he’d called me “sis”, I retorted, “Doesn’t mean that I won’t try!”

“Try all you want, sweetheart. It ain’t gonna work. Now, here’s your lunch. Eat it.” Adam dropped the tray so it was aligned with my feet.

“See ya’!” He grinned, then left and slammed the door.

Now for my plan. I inspected the room from every angle, and quickly noticed that the chair was directly underneath the vent.

How convenient! I thought. Shortly after, I found that if I stood on the very top of the dental chair, keeping my balance, my head would brush the vent. However, it would require a lot of upper body strength to pull myself up inside of it.

But how to unscrew the cover. That was my real issue.

When hunger began to claw at my stomach, I went back over to my food and started eating. My lunch consisted of a small bowl of soup, off-brand string cheese, crackers, a cookie, and carrots. How old did they think I was? Five?

I ate the food despite the fact that it was cold. Once my stomach was full, it would be a lot easier to think.

I pondered the how to open the vent. I did not have any tools, and no extra supplies. Maybe I could try to break the bolts?

Then it hit me. The spoon. Adam had been stupid to give it to me, because now I knew exactly how I would escape. The tip of the spoon would fit easily into the screws, and then I could twist it and unlock the cover.

However, I needed to work fast. I had no clue what time it was, but I figured it was sometime around noon. I also didn’t know when Dr. Melkins or Adam was going to come back.

I finished off the rest of my food and headed towards the dental chair. I climbed up on top, spoon in hand. Just like I had predicted, the spoon fit the screw perfectly. I twisted the spoon, and, surprisingly, the screw loosened. With a few more turns, it fell to the floor.

One down, three to go, I spoke in my mind. I worked for a few more minutes, until all the screws were on the floor. Tentatively, I removed the cover. With one cautious hand, I felt the inside of the shaft. Thankfully, the heat was not on.

After groping around the inside, I found that, to my delight, there was a little metal ledge outcropping the edges of the vent. I positioned my hands on the ledge, and hoisted myself up.

My arms shook from the effort. At only 160 pounds, I was light for my age. But lifting my whole body up by my arms was no easy feat. Somehow, I managed to do it. Once I was up high enough, I was able to put my feet down on the ledge.

Now I was standing. I could see that the shaft went up a good ten feet, but then it turned at a horizontal angle. Working quickly, I pressed my back to one side of the vent, and my feet on the other side. Slowly, I moved one foot up, scooted my back, then moved another foot, scooted, and so on.

The task was tedious, but within a minute I had moved almost three feet. I repeated the movements over and over, until finally I reached the horizontal section. I pulled myself on top of it, breathing heavily, sweat dripping down my arms. From this point on, I would have to crawl. The thought of it made me feel claustrophobic. It didn’t help that I had no idea where the ventilation shaft would let out.

Swallowing down saliva, I started crawling. I didn’t know how long I’d been in the tunnel-five minutes, twenty minutes, an hour? I looked at my watch to see exactly how long, but then realized I didn't know when I had gone in.

Heat beneath my palms shook me out of my thoughts. The metal I was crawling on was getting warmer, and that could only mean one thing; they’d turned on the heat.

I didn’t know if they knew I had escaped, or if they just got cold, but I did know that I needed to hurry. Soon a big wave of hot air was going to blast me in the face, and then I would have minutes left to live.

I gave a strangled cry and went thundering down the tunnel. My hands were burning, and heat was beginning to seep through my jeans.

At last, a faint light illuminated the shaft. I could see the next opening of the vent. Just then, steaming hot air whooshed past me, and I cried out. I felt like I was the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz-melting.

I crawled up to the vent cover, and with all of my energy left, kicked it. The cover broke off, and I tumbled out with it.

I screamed as my shoulder banged against the corner of a cabinet, but immediately regretted it. Now they would know where to find me. I glanced quickly at the room I was in. Papers were strewn everywhere, and the walls were completely lined with file cabinets. Strange equipment sat on the desks, and the cabinets were all labeled with words I didn’t know how to pronounce.

But the main thing that drew my attention was the bulletin board on the left wall. It had what looked like a star chart, and one of the stars had Bryce’s and Claire’s faces on it. I was so confused. Were these people stalkers or something?

Curiosity go the best of me, and I went to explore. I quickly found a desk calendar and flipped through it.

Three years worth of pages. One for every day. As I took a closer look, a saw that each page was filled with writing, some days with words spilling over the lines. I selected a random page and began to read the messy, scrawled handwriting.

08-01-32

7:02 am: When Alice woke up this morning, she put on a white cami with a chevron sweater jacket over top. She put on jeans to finish the look. Instead of showering, Alice just brushed her hair and teeth and left, skipping breakfast.

Louis business went bankrupt, so Alice is going to have to take her lunch today.

6:37 pm: Alice had her first soccer game today. After days of practice, she thought she is ready for it. It  is the first sport she has ever played, and she didn’t do very good.

Her first pass went to the other team, and they took the ball and scored immediately. She is currently crying in her room as we watch from the tiny cameras embedded into her ceiling lights.

Megan is coming over for dinner tonight to cheer her up, but right now Alice wants to be alone. She is going to take a bath and go to bed early.

-M

I sank into a chair that was facing me. I remembered this day. But they had more of my life than I could recall in their clutches. I flipped through a few more of the days and saw that they all looked pretty similar.

The pages mostly talked about me; Megan, who was my former best friend; Louis, my dad; and Jackie, my mom. They were all signed with the same letter-M.

I assumed that it was written by Dr. Melkins, but I could be wrong. However, what scared me the most was that they had cameras in my room. That meant that they’d seen me...changing? I blanched at the thought.

Pounding above me caused me to freeze. Quickly, I slid under the desk and flattened myself to the floor. Once it quieted again, I pulled myself back out and walked over to the file cabinets.

I gasped when I saw that one of the drawers was labeled “family”. With an excited squeal, I yanked the drawer open and peered in at it’s contents. There, sitting on top of everything, was a family tree.

I studied it closely. Me and Adam were at the bottom. But, that wasn’t possible! I had no siblings! And the images above us were not the pictures that my foster parents had showed me. The pictures of my real parents looked completely different!

Also, according to the picture, Dr. Melkins was my mom’s dad, which meant he was my grandpa! I refused to believe that this was true. I had not been lied to my whole life. I couldn’t have been!

But the closer I looked, the more and more I saw the resemblances that I beared to my “parents” and “brother”. We both had the same brown hair as our so-called dad, and Adam’s brown eyes matched Dr. Melkins and my mom’s. Unlike the rest of my family, I had grey eyes.

So there. That was my evidence. Then, I looked at the chart one more time and saw that my grandma, titled with the name of Amelia, had the exact same shade of grey as I did.

Suddenly, a wave of nausea rolled over me. I fell to the ground and coughed. In a split second, millions of images passed through my mind. I groaned and ended up in a choking fit.

My head felt like it was splitting into two pieces, and I couldn’t see anything but black. I was still conscious, but right now I wished I was dead.

And then, just like that, my vision cleared and my headache lifted. I felt just like I had before, but something was different. I remembered. I remembered what happened before this world had been created. And I was the creator.