You have a choice. (DAWN TO DUSK: 1)

“NOOOOOOOOO!”

That ‘NO’, was enough to awaken me from a sleep I didn't know I was in. The voice that said it though, it sounded familiar… it sounded like-

“Bother, help!” I heard a whisper. I searched my surroundings for the voice. I was in a huge, dark, nearly-empty room. The floor was dark and dusty, the walls made of bricks painted over in gray. Now, I wasn’t that dumb. This was most obviously a jail cell of some type.

The girl calling me was around my age at the front of the room, near the door made of white metal bars. She had a huge cut on her arm, and was holding on to the bars to steady herself.

Glad I wasn’t the only one around here, I admeadeitly ran over.

“Let’s get out of here, brother.” she told me. I hardly recognised her, so it felt weird that she was calling me brother. Then again, I could barely remember anything, so maybe she was speaking the truth.

She had a bad limp on her right leg, so I put her arm around my shoulder and slowly helped her stand upright.

“This way.” she pointed down the hall.

The ‘hall’ if you could even still consider it that, was falling apart as we spoke. It had metal tiles that looked like they fell from the ceiling to the floor, and I faintly smelled burning, like something was on fire in this building. One metal tile on the floor looked like it fell from the ceiling, but was a good distance away from any black void that was left in the roof.

“That piece fell one me.” said the girl. “On my leg. I pushed it off though.”

Well that explained the limp.

“We have to help her…” she said. “We have to help Kayla.”

“Who’s that?” I asked, clueless.

She turned to me, annoyed. “You know who Kayla is, our-wait, he didn’t really do it did he?” she went from mad to worried in a heartbeat.

I was getting more confused by the second. “WHO DID WHAT?” I wanted answers badly, I could barely keep a grasp on what was going on.

“Oh, No, he did, he did take your memories!” she said, distressed. She stared at the ground, letting this scary information sink in.

“HE WHO!?” I yelled.

“SIN THAT’S WHO!” she yelled back. “We don’t have time for this! C’mon lets get Kayla and get out of here!”

I felt overwhelmed. This felt like trying to teach a newborn algebra. I wasn’t getting hardly anything that was happening, and all this new information was getting thrown on me like a ton of bricks.

“Okay! Okay! Just, calm down a bit and tell me what’s going on. Please. I’ll take you to Kayla or wherever as long as you can explain to me what’s going on at an understandable pace.”

The girl nodded, seeming to think out what to tell me and how. She took a breath. “My name is Jayda, I’m your sister. Well, adopted sister, we aren’t biologically related, it’s just that Kayla rescued us both from Quantum Labs-this place-and became our mother.”

“Uh, so why are we back at the very place we tried to escape?” I asked my apparent sister.

“Because, even though Kayla saved us, she wasn’t done with Quantum Labs. She said this place was up to no good and she had to go back and put a stop to the Lab’s plans. She took us because there was no one she trusted enough to watch us.”

I analyzed this information. Then a memory came flooding back to me, in that faded way memories come.

I was in that jail cell I was just in, except a man with jerry curls and a thin beard that didn’t leave his chin was at the door behind the bars, telling me that I was an experiment, meant to be examined, and that I had no choice but to obey his words in order to live. Then he began to tell me what I’d be tested with for the day.

Then he got punched out the way by a woman with a sword on her back. He started to fight her only to be attacked by other people. People with eye patches.

It only took two slices of her sword to break my cell door open. She walked over to me and kneeled down on one knee in front of me.

“It’s okay. I’m not gonna hurt’chu.” She said softly when she noticed me backing up. Then she said, “We’re going to get out of here.” You and me. I know a safe place far away from here.”

I held her hand as we snuck out of there, assassin style. She only cleared out who she needed to, and we snuck out of that huge building. “What’s your name?” I asked this woman.

“Kayla,” she told me.

A long walk and a bus ride later, she took me into her home and I saw a young girl with short, curly hair and big, curious brown eyes.

“This is Jayda. She is your new sister. We, are your new family.” Kayla told me.

“So you're like, my new mom?” I asked her.

“If you want me to be, but all in all I just wanted to help you escape. You don’t have to stay here, you can leave my house. But I will warn you it’s a ruff world out there. Especially with Sin in power.” she frowned at the name ‘Sin’. “But you're free from Sin’s Lab. you're free from Sin’s rule. You have a choice on how to live your life. You can stay here or leave. You can eat my dinner or don’t. You have a choice. That’s why you don’t have to call me mom. You can if you want, but it’s just Kayla.”

I smiled. And I chose to stay.

I thought about the voice I heard when I woke up.

Kayla was the one I heard screaming earlier, huh, Jayda?” I asked her.

“That ‘NOOOOO’? Yeah, that’s her.” Jayda said, her eyes tearing up. “I hope Kayla’s okay.”

“She will be. Well make sure of that, sister.” I told Jayda.

We shared the same smile for a moment, then rushed after the sound of the yelling.

TO BE CONTINUED