Bola lay on her bed, silent as the night swept through. With all the torches off, the darkness blanketed the halls and the rooms. Bola had stayed awake long enough for her eyes to adapt to the darkness.
The cricket's clicks resonated through her ears. The mosquitos were more persistent than ever with their obnoxious chorusing singing into Bola's ears. She would try waving them away but they would come back, as if checking f she was still awake. She was very much awake. Her bunk mate above her was oblivious to the mosquitos insistent buzzing, neck deep into her sleep.
Everyone else seemed to be sound asleep. It was as she had suspected. The Haven kept revealing its secret daily as if no longer afraid of what consequences might follow. Every night wasn't so much different from the other. The usual shower before dinner in the mess hall, then everyone was off to bed. But Bola hadn't been at ease for a couple of days. At first she played it to stress. The stress of planning an escape with a child always brought her migraines. But she knew even that wasn't enough to cause blanks in her memories.
For some time now, especially the night when campers were carried away, she would have little recollection of what had happened that night. And it bothered her. She wasn't one to have her head messed with.
Being a nurse in the army made her as conversant with what she suspected was happening, but she had to be sure. She went around, discretely asking different campers if they had had the same experience she did, and most of them confirmed it. They also had blanks in place of those nights. At first Bola had tried to rule it to heavy sleeping, but ever since she had come back from the army, her sleep was never the same. The screaming of her brothers in arms, the blood and the death of her own haunted her dreams every night. She hadn't slept well in years and it was no coincidence when she actually got a good night sleep, it was when campers went missing.
So she decided to do a little bit of investigating. For almost a week, she kept her eyes peeled for any suspicious activity the best she could. She didn't want anyone knowing she was poking around especially with Ahmed's men everywhere. But she didn't need to know everything they had going on, she just wanted to go through with a hunch.
The day's routine was normal like every other day. The training and meals were exactly the same till night fell. The mess hall was filled with campers chattering and waiting on their meals to be served. She never got in the hall, but waited till everyone was gone. She moved as quietly as she could un-detected to the back, where the smell of gbanga soup fumed through the air. The women turned the sticks in the gigantic pot in circles, stirring the ingredient into every part of the soup. The firewood burning left a cloud of smoke that caused the women to keep coughing. But that did not deter them from the cooking. They already seemed used to it.
But then Bola noticed them add something to the big fat black pot that soothed her hunch. She couldn't get a good look at the bottle from where she was, trying to not be seen. But even in the dark of the night with the little the fire torches illuminated, she could tell they were some kind of drugs. Sleeping pills maybe. And an awful lot of it.
She didn't eat that night. Her stomach kept grumbling in anger, demanding it be fed. But that was the least of her problems. She needed to know why they drugged their food. To what end?
Then she heard footsteps, then the opening of a door. But it wasn't hers. It was the room next to hers. The door soon opened again and the footsteps were now accompanied with a dragging.
"shhh. Carry 'am. No dey make noise." It sounded like one of the Ahmed's men.
"No fear. All of them don off guy. Them no fit hear anything" Another one of Ahmed's men.
Bola knew then she was right. Everything fell into place. Well almost. She knew they had been drugging their food, and that explained why bits of those nights were missing and broken in her mind. They also did it so they could get off with kidnapping campers in the middle of the night without anyone knowing, because if we got wind of it we would have revolted. Causing unnecessary casualties that Jerome seemed to not be able to afford at this time. Everything about this reeked of desperation to Bola.
Bola slowly climbed down from her bed and threaded quietly to her front door. She wouldn't want them knowing she was awake. Bola opened her room door as quietly as possible, trying to see where they were headed.
She saw one of the men carry the camper, a teenage girl that looked a couple years older than Obe, over his shoulder as the other walked beside him.
She followed them as closely as possible without raiding any alarms. She prowled under the night, crouching low beside the once class room structures. She was a trained soldier who was trained to be cool, calm and collected during situations like this. But it didn't explain why her heart pounded so loud she feared that the well-built men in front of her would spot her. She wasn't sure what she was more scared of, the men finding her and over powering her or what she might find out at the end of the night. What they would do to that girl.
She noticed they were heading for the clinic whose lights were burning bright. She could hear what she made out to be a generator. Bola had noticed the generator during one of her escapades but always thought it was out of order. Or so it had seemed to be. But it was all obviously a rouse. Her skin crawled thinking of what the night still had in store for her in its deep dark pockets.
They knocked twice on the door and it opened to reveal Ahmed waiting behind it. He muffled something under his breath Bola couldn't make out and placed the girl on his arms. The men nodded, turned and left immediately without any objection. Bola wrapped her hands around her, trying to free the cold of the grip it had on her causing goose bumps to appear on her skin. The little cloud of condensed air appeared every time she let out a breath. It was a cold night to be out, and her tight shorts with a sleeveless top weren't helping any matters.
But that wasn't enough to faze her. After all, she was Bola the deviant. She had to find a way in. The generator was good. It would block out any form of noise she may make trying to get in.
The clinic was quite far from the classes and other hostels so it was good for anything to be done without being interfered with. It would also explain why Jerome wanted everyone out of the clinic fast. He was turning it into something and she needed to figure out what.
Still crouching, she began to head towards one of the windows slowly. But then she heard footsteps again heading for the clinic. She didn't hesitate before diving to ground, taking cover under the grasses. Now would be the worst time for her to be found out.
Through the grass, Bola could see one of the men who had carried the girl, picking something up from the ground. It reflected light and looked metallic in Bola's eyes. The jingle gave it away. Keys. They left as soon as they had come. Ahmed obviously did not want them anywhere close.
Slowly Bola crouched and moved closer as silently as she could to a window, trying to see what was going on. She raised her head slowly letting her eyes peek through the window. The clinic was filled with nothing but empty beds and the girl, an angry but very still Ahmed and Jerome in his lab coat working on a weird looking machine. The girl had been tied up to the bed, still unconscious. After injecting her with a substance Bola couldn't recognize, he turns to the machine. The machine was big and wide like a stand by generator but with a lot more flashy bits. It looked like something that belonged in space or something to Bola, far from what she was used to.
Jerome pushed buttons on the screen of the machine. It released tubes from its mouth which Jerome grabbed and injected the girl with it, with so much force Bola thought he was trying to kill her. Maybe it was a blood transfusion or something. He did mention he was going to save us when we first got her or maybe it was just her mind trying to make sense of what she was seeing.
Jerome removes a small recording device from his pockets and pushes record.
"Test 57. Julia Manaz. Sixteen years of age. She has shown considerable amount of micro samples of the dominant traits in her neuro paths during Cat scans. She has performed excellently at training also. She is strong."
Jerome moves closer to her body examining her heart rate with his stethoscope. He also checks her temperature with a thermometer and seemed satisfied with his result.
"Vitals are all in the norm. We will now attempt to bombard her cells with a catalyst, forcing the microscopic pieces of genetic material of the Dominant into full form, causing Julia here to obtain an instant link with the dominants, understanding their thoughts and weaknesses without losing her bloody mind. She will also –"
"Do we have to go through this every damned time? We know what we're here for. So let's get it over with." Ahmed says with disgust. His eyes hadn't left the girl's still, unmoving body. Bola refused to believe it was compassion. Fire of empathy couldn't burn in an empty vessel of a man.
"It's a criteria, but we could skip it." Jerome clicks a switch and turns a nob all the way up. The machine roared with life and the generators sound began to flutter. The lights inside and out began to flicker. Even with the nauseating flickering, Bola could see Ahmed's face grow cold, grim and drained of color. The sight sent shivers to her spine.
Jerome pushed a green button and then Bola saw what we it did. Her eyes grew wide with horror.
She had been strong for too long but what she saw made her hard rock interior break like a plain glass wall. A tear slipped through her eyes running down her dark skin as the painful scream of Julia sent jabbing spears through her heart.
Pushing her down, Ahmed concrete straight face was shaded in sadness. Doing this to people he had trained personally was warring on his mind. Julia body responded to the pumping catalyst like an animal prey fighting a predator for its life. Her chest kept pushing Ahmed back as she struggled to free herself from her constraints.
Jerome watched coldly, waiting to see the outcome with no iota of sympathy on his face. He was the bigger monster.
Julia didn't stop turning and churning for a few minutes before she stopped instantly. She was moving after words. She was just as they had brought her in. Her face was now pale and devoid of life. It didn't seem she was breathing at all. Bola's heart pounded even louder than it was before.
They didn't just kill her.
Jerome immediately turned the machine off, hitting the red button on it. He goes closer to Julia checking her pulse. He turns in anger, slamming his fist on the wall.
They did.
Ahmed was boiling inside, Bola could see it. He held on to the bed frame, staring down at Julia deceased body. His grip on the handle tightened like he was blaming the bed frame for her death. As if he was trying to strangle it. As if he wanted to rid it of every breath it had. Bola wished they were her hands strangling his neck.
It took every form of restraint she had not to burst into the clinic through the window, beating them to a pulp. But it wouldn't have done Julia any good. She was gone. The least she could do now was save herself, Obe and the nurse. Three less test subjects for them.
Jerome tried to calm himself, releasing a deep sigh, not daring to look at the girl whose life he had just snatched so vilely.
"Get rid of her. I will have to make some modifications." His voice was cold and void of empathy. It hadn't moved him a bit. All he cared about was his experiment.
Ahmed didn't feel the same way apparently. He slowly raised his head staring death shots into Jerome's back.
"Get rid of?" he whispered it under his breath as if in disbelief.
Jerome turns to look at him, face still straight as a nail. "Yes. It's almost dawn. We wouldn't want any—"
"UBANKA!" Ahmed's shout followed a well-rounded full faced slap to Jerome's right cheek. The sound of the clasp came as music to Bola's ears. A smile broke out and formed around her mouth. She breeze of satisfaction running through her. She didn't know which was more satisfying. The slap or their disunity.
Ahmed grabbed Jerome by the collar slamming him unto one of the walls.
"You keep killing these people like they're nothing but your lab rats. Well, doctor, how long do you think you can keep this up before your lab rats figure out that there is no other camp? Only a mass grave site beyond the wall? Hm?" his saliva sputtered on Jerome's face like drizzled rain. Jerome was shocked by the sudden outburst and even still dangling like a piece of meat hooked to a hanger, he tried to act in control.
"Well, Ahmed, if you would put me down I—"
Ahmed lets him go and points a daring finger at his chest looking at Jerome in the eye.
"Get it to work or else your body will be the next I would 'get rid of'"
Ahmed's display of toxic masculinity was cut short when Bola heard footsteps approaching fast, running. She would be spotted immediately. She spread flat on the floor, trying her best to remain in the shadow of the wall. Even she knew it did little to nothing.
But then she saw who it was.
Nurse Grace. Oh God.
She didn't know what she was walking into. Bola wanted to scream out her name to stop her in her tracks. If she got in there, there was no escaping. And god damn she was part of the plan.
She didn't even stop as she reached the entrance door to notice Bola by the window right there. She immediately flung the door open at arrival. That must've been the all helping, pure heart Obe spoke so fondly about.
"What is going…" she exclaims as she makes her way into the clinic. "oh God."
She stared at the sad and lifeless body of the young girl on the bed, wide eyed.
"It didn't work, did it?"
It didn't work? What? That wasn't the way Bola imagined Grace would respond.
God.
She was a part of this debacle. Oh God. Oh Christ!
"Ask him" Ahmed grunts as he walks past Grace, grazing her shoulder. He leaves, banging the door behind him. He didn't stop walking until he disappeared into the darkness of the night. Bola at this point felt she could walk in and no one would even notice she was there.
"What happened Jerome?" she asked concern in her voice. This wasn't what she thought Obe meant when he said she was kind. She was kind to the wrong people.
That little petit piece of—
"There must've been a miscalculation or something. I will have to cross check my notes. I- I thought I had it this time."
"You don't have much do overs left Jerome. The campers are getting ideas of what might be going on. You had doubled the test rate and training to get faster result. Well your plan might be backfiring."
Bola squeezed her fingers into a fist. They needed to get out of there.
Now.