"You're the...first person...I saw."
He said these words as simply as saying, 'Hey, I didn't do my homework today.' And looking at his clear eyes, I had a feeling that I'm going to get plenty of surprises starting from now.
So...it meant that he remember nothing. 'What to do now?' I thought. I can't take him back. I can't ask him to leave and I also can't keep him in my room forever. I tried to think of a solution, but then I heard my stomach growl. Amidst all this, I almost forgot how hungry I was. But when faced with a monster, who remembers such trivial things, right?
I got up and asked, "Are you hungry?"
"How do you know when you are hungry?" he asked, innocently.
I thought about it for a minute. "Well...when you're hungry you feel something over here." I pointed at my stomach and he looked at his own. He placed his hand over his stomach and looked at me.
"I don't know... if I'm hungry. I feel... nothing."
"Well, we'll find out. Come with me." I gestured him to follow me and he did, without any questions.
I walked down the stairs into the kitchen. Since no one was in the orphanage today, Sharon wasn't here as well and I barely knew how to cook. It has been two months since I came? dropped? woke up...whatever you call it. So, it's just two months since I got here and in this time I hadn't been able to learn how to cook. Sharon tried to teach me, but it was a disaster. I nearly put the entire kitchen on fire.
I looked if there was something left to eat. Nothing. And I wasn't surprised. We rarely have leftovers ever since Sharon started cooking.
"There's nothing here." I sighed.
"What is this?" The boy asked. I looked at him and he was holding a jar of choco-spread. I almost forgot that Sharon made it yesterday. I took the jar from his hands and took out the bread. I sandwiched the cocoa-spread between two slices of bread and handed it to the boy.
"Eat up. You'll like it. I've never met a person who doesn't like chocolate."
"Chocolate" He repeated after me. He was observing the piece of bread as if it was some kind of futuristic device that needed high order thinking in order to operate it.
Much to my surprise, he started licking it.
"Stop, this is not how you eat." I took a slice of bread, took a bite and started chewing it.
"See? This way."
He finally took a bite and his eyes widened. He started having bigger bites, chewing pleasantly. I wish I could accurately describe his expressions, but that's what it was-inexpressible.
"How is it?" I asked after he was finished. He smiled at me and said genuinely, "I...like to eat...chocolate." His eyes were sparkling as he looked at the jar of chocolate. "Can I get some more?"
I chuckled, I couldn't help it, he was just too adorable.
After eating some more, while I was washing the plates, he asked, "What's your name?"
"Arya"
"And.." he looked at his feet and asked in a calm yet confused tone, "And...who am I? And what is this place?"
I remember how I asked the same question to Chester a few months back. I was completely clueless and confused. What was I supposed to tell him. I didn't know anything about him. 'Maybe I should just take him back.' I thought. It would probably be the best.
I looked at him and said, "Don't worry. I'll soon take you back to where you came from."
I took him back to my room and told him to wait while I had other stuff to do.
"Lock this door and don't go out of this room. You can do anything you like, but just stay inside and don't let anyone see you, okay?"
He silently nodded in approval.
...
I reached the dead end alley where I accidently found the facility. To tell him about himself, I first needed to know it myself. I came here hoping that I would find out something about him
"It was somewhere here..." I was moving my fingers on the wall, hoping something similar like before would happen, but it didn't.
"I can swear it was here. Did I take a different turn?" I mumbled. That's when I saw few letters engraved on the blocks of the wall, 'ER'.
"ER?" I pressed those letters and the door flipped open. "Woah!"
I walked in silently. I could hear voices inside. I was lucky that the sliding of the secret door didn't make any sound otherwise I would have been caught. I tiptoed inside the room and hid behind few equipments.
I saw two people in lab coats standing in front of the empty container. They seemed to be having a heated argument.
"What are we supposed to tell them? The deployment and installation wasn't done properly!" one of them shouted at the other.
"Stop shouting! Calm down." the other replied.
"Calm down? Have you gone insane? We'll be dead meat if they find out. What are you going to do about it, huh?"
They continued their argument until they both received a phone call. After hanging up, they looked at each other, "You received it too?"
"Yes" They exchanged worried looks and left the room in a hurry.
After making sure that they left, I came out and started scrounging for information. Since those people went in a haste, they left a lot of electronic gadgets running.
"Lucky for me 'cause there's no way these computers aren't secured with a password. Even teenagers lock their mobile phones, compared to it, these computers and the information in it must be worth a fortune."
I tried opening few folders, but they were encrypted. So, I started looking at the hard files that were kept on the work table, but the contents in it were incomprehensible. It was a bunch of chemical formulae and equations-it was just too much scientific for me to understand.
I looked a bit more, but then noticed a folder on a computer that was running. It was named, 'Progress Report'. I opened it and luckily, this file wasn't encrypted. It had several video files in it- all named numerically.
I clicked on one file, 001549. The video started and I could see this very room. It looked so different from now. It was a lot livelier. Many scientists in lab coats were moving around the container that kept a boy inside, but this was not the boy whom I met. He was some else.
There seemed to be a sense of urgency in the environment. A voice started explaining few things and figures which I didn't understand. A few seconds later, a figure appeared.
"Starting with the aforementioned procedure on Subject H-037. The vitals are normal. So far there has not been any abnormality..."
He went on explaining, but it was a lot to take in. This video alone was of one hour duration. I needed more time to analyse everything. I found a pen drive amidst some other things, emptied its contents and copied all the videos and other unencrypted folders in it. I also took the hard files that I believed I would be able to understand if I gave it a little more time, thought and hard work.
With all this, I left the room and hurried home.