The Departure

 I did not know what to think about this strange invitation with no return address on it. Or why my mother and my best friends treated me like a monster. Or even why were there no doctors or nurses in this supposed hospital. All I knew was I could not stay in this horrible hospital. I went back to my room and looked for spare clothes, but I could not find any. 

“Crap. How can I get out of here with no clothes and no money?” I said to myself.

But then I thought, Wait. Mom always brings an extra nurse outfit in her bag. Under the circumstances, could not say I felt guilty about stealing her clothes. 

I opened the gym bag my mom left in the room and found extra green scrubs. 

Luckily, Mom and I wear almost the same size. 

After I put on her uniform, I looked in my mom’s purse and was shocked to find one thousand dollars in cash. 

Where did that come from? We barely had enough to cover utilizes this year. Where did she get all that money? 

Did they pay her to keep me here? 

I searched everyone’s pockets and scraped up two thousand five hundred dollars and the keys to Mom’s car outside. 

Along with that, I took Marcy’s visitor badge, to avoid suspicion, along with Chad’s taser, and hid it in my mom’s gym bag. 

After I used Marcy’s visitor's pass to leave the building, I noticed this was not a hospital at all. I was in an underground facility that looked like it was top-secret. 

“Where the hell am I?” The warehouse building had only the room where I stayed. It looked like a top-secret bunker you would see in a CIA movie. 

I walked towards the main entrance when two guards confronted me. 

“Hey, you,” the first guard yelled. “Where do you think you’re going?” He pulled his Taser. “Get back to your holding cell or we’ll drag you there.”

My heart thumped in my chest. My hands felt clammy. The only way out was to run like hell. 

The second guard called for reinforcements on his radio. “Heads up. The subject is moving towards your direction.” 

I charged toward the other direction, but two other security men blocked me when I reached the corner. When they snuck behind me, I dropped the weapon I stole from Chad.

I struggled to break free. “Let me go!”

 One of the guards pulled away from me and picked up the weapon I dropped. “You’re not going anywhere.” The guard pointed the stun gun at me. 

Anger filled my veins. I felt the same type of energy I had felt when the people I loved held me down a few minutes before. I felt my mind overpowering theirs, like a computer hacking into another computer. 

“This is an underground bunker used to isolate and study hybrids,” the guard said in a blank trance. 

They released me. They seemed to be in a hypnotized state. 

I put two and two together and tested out this new “mind control” thing. 

“Now tell me where the hell I am,” I told the third guard. 

“Vanity has instructed informer Sarah Penelope North to conduct private studies upon you to identify what abilities you may possess.”  

I tried to hold my concentration while fighting tears that started trickling down from my eyes, hearing that my own mother was studying me like some type of experiment. 

No. That could not be true.

My mom was keeping me here and so was Marcy. They did think I was a monster. They lied to me. 

I wiped away the tears from my eyes, hoping to control my grip on the guards. “What’s a vanity?” 

Moments before I got my answer, two guards, I had seen earlier showed up, causing me to lose focus. “There she is,” the first guardian said, readying his Taser. 

“Hey, what’s with you two?” yelled the second guard. “She must’ve gotten to them. Let us take them out.” 

 The guards charged at me, but I hacked their thoughts. I pretended to be playing a video game with my mind as the controller. 

I guess my video game skills paid off. I made the guards that were under my control fistfight the others with my thought control abilities. 

     Although the other guards managed to land a few hits, the guards that I had controlled eventually managed to overpower them and knock my attacker’s unconscious.

But I quickly began to feel each blow inflicted on the guards under my control as if they were inflicted on my own body. It could be because of my mental l**k to the guards that I had controlled. Fortunately, those creeps only got a few good hits. I would hate to think about what would happen if things had gotten worse.

“Okay, tell me who this Vanity person is and what are they after next?” I ask the third guard. I pulled out my letter from Zen Academy. 

I probed their minds to learn more about Vanity, but a blue and white light exploded in the third guard’s mind. 

“Ahhhh!” I screamed. I lost my connection with the guards when they both fell unconscious, but not before I found out where I was and how to escape. 

From his thoughts I learned, I was in a private bunker under an abandoned flag-making warehouse in downtown Seattle. 

When I reached the door, I slid Marcy’s visitor’s pass into the slot.

Access granted, the monitor said. Then it popped out a capital V with two circles and a vertical line in the middle. I guessed that was Vanity’s symbol, whoever they were.

The door opened to an elevator with the same symbol painted on the stainless-steel doors. I pressed the only button there was which would reach the top floor inside the old warehouse. 

 I walked toward the exit where I saw two open doors to the outside world. I raced towards the exit, pushed the doors open, and saw downtown Seattle. I paused for a minute to observe the skyscrapers in the city. 

I began having flashbacks of the last time I was downtown: Eight years ago when I was eight years old.

My mom had said, “Madelyn Angelou North, get back here right now.” 

I always hated when she said my full name. Do not get me wrong, having your parent yell out your full name seems too embarrassing for word at eight years old. 

“Mom, I want to ride the horsey.” I stood in front of the Manchester Mansion, one of the oldest abandoned buildings in the city. No one seemed to know why it was shut down.

“I told you to stay away from here,” Mom said, pulling me away. “This is a terrible place to be around. Promise me you will not go near this place again. Do you understand me?” 

“But Mom,” I whined, using my puppy dog eyes. 

“Don’t give me that look. Come on. Let us go. No arguing.”

“Yes, Mom,” I reluctantly agreed, staring into the ground. 

She took my hand. “Good, let us go. I am going to drop you off at Marcy’s house. I am working another double. With any luck, I’ll be considered for the company’s next promotion.” 

I grew up in a low-income neighborhood on the outskirts of Seattle. As a single mom, my mother did everything she could to save for my future and put food on the table. I remember spending long nights at daycare or with Marcy and her mom, Bethany Willis. The truth is, I do not remember Mom having many days off. When she did, she spent most of the day sleeping or running errands. 

Each weekday morning Mom walked me to school since we did not have enough money for a car. 

“Thank you again, Bethany,” Mom said, hugging me after one tiring night at work. 

“I can’t keep doing this for free, Sarah,” Ms. Willis said.” You know I love you both, but I have a child of my own and bills to pay off.” 

“I promise to pay you in full next week,” my mom said with a heavy sigh. “Times are tough for everyone right now.” 

My Mom had gotten pregnant with me while she was a senior in high school. As a single mom, she did not have time to pursue a career as an orthopedic as she planned. 

My grandparents had been disgusted over the fact she got pregnant so young. Mostly because Mom’s parents were Italian immigrants who worked diligently to come to America and earn enough to survive here. 

Although Mom claimed they accepted me as their grandchild regardless of my mixed ethnicity, we were not welcome in their neighborhood. 

My grandparents gave Mom an ultimatum: either she had put me up for adoption or my grandparents would. Instead, Mom chose to keep me and begin a new life in Seattle. 

Unfortunately, with only a high school diploma, Mom barely made end is meet each month. 

***

Later that day, a dark, fancy mustang drove to the curb. A man wearing a black suit, red tie, and a pin that looked like an eight-sided star stepped out and spoke to Mom. 

“Sarah Penelope North?” 

“May I help you?” Mom, asked, pushing me behind her. 

The man took out his wallet, flashing a silver badge like the badge on his pin. 

I used to question if he was, a social worker. But considering my present circumstances, maybe there was a connection between him and Vanity. 

“We need to talk. I will drive you to your daughter’s school. She can sit in the back so we can discuss a few details. The barrier between the front seats and the back is soundproof,” he said.

I had never seen my mother so serious and frightened before. 

“Mom, who is this man?” I asked. 

She tightened her grip on my hand. 

“Let us go, Madelyn. Everything is going to be alright.” 

She put her work bag in the backseat and helped me get in. 

The last part of this flashback that I remembered was watching Mom reassuring me that everything would be found by blowing a kiss to me before the door closed shut.