I’ve been walking west out of Dallas for hours with stops for shade under anywhere that would provide it and the only thing to be seen is the same as in Dallas. Leveled buildings and corpses. The girl has dazed in and out along the way but is now becoming alert. I make my way through a pasture untouched by the devastation to a large oak tree in perfect position with the falling but blazing sun to provide enough shade for the two of us to fit. There’s a manmade pond  a few feet away and with the girl now stirring but too weak to walk, I conclude that this is a good place to rest for a while.
She’s been looking at the darkness on the back of her eyelids so long that the dimming sunlight is too much for her eyes to bare. Through a pained squint she looks up at me from her perched spot against the tree trunk and sighs.
“Where are we?”
“Just west of Dallas.” I respond while removing my flannel and covering her shoulders with it. It can get cold during the nights and freezing is not another thing I’m going to let this girl add to her traumatic day.
She grips the shirt and balls it in her fist until her knuckles turn white making a quizzical look from it to me and back.
“I feel like I should know you, but I don’t… or I just don’t recognize you right now. I know what happened to me though. That’s about it.”
“My name is Michael. We don’t know each other. Can you tell me your name?”
“...I don’t know it.”
“Well we’ll make a new one.”
I smile down at my hands and pick at my nails. The girl lies her head down on her crossed arms in the grass and positions my shirt as a blanket. If she makes it through the night, she has a shot. At least long enough for me to find her help.
I wake her up periodically throughout the night in case of a traumatic brain injury. She stirs and mumbles profanities every time I nudge her shoulder. Really a charming young lady, but a good sign I guess. I pull myself to my feet and set out in search for anything useful. After walking for about ten minutes I see a small shed to my left and make my way over.
The shed is scattered with bins of tools, buckets, tarps, and a lantern. I unfold a tarp and begin to string a bungee cord through the holes at the top in order to make a sack and added a rope for a strap. I don’t need a lot of tools, only the ones that can be used for a multiple things. From one bin I take a crowbar, a screw driver, and a wrench. From another I threw in a flashlight, matches, and as many batteries as I could find. There’s another bin in the back corner that looks as if it hadn’t been touched in a while. As I pop off the lid I see more buckets and some cans inside. The bin is full of non-perishables. Dried foods and canned goods.
I stock the sack with as much as I am able to carry and pick up two metal buckets with handles on the way out. The tree is in a path parallel to the sun so I head in the direction I came in search on the pond first. I see the glare off the water first.

Her P.O.V
“Cami, get up! You’re going to be late!”
I roll over in bed and pick up my phone. The light makes me squint. A blurry 7:34 enters my vision receptors and throws me into a panic. My class starts at 8 and I still have to put my face on and get coffee. I run to the bathroom and call the diner to pre order my coffee and change while sitting on the toilet. While grabbing my keys, I slip on my aztec shoes and run out the door. Everyone is going to have to deal with my makeup less face today.
Every crosswalk is stopped so jaywalking will have to do. People are blaring their horns and yelling from their cars but I’m too focused on not getting hit to process what they are saying. When I get to the diner I stand in the corner by the basement door to wait for my order. The ground begins to rumble. Then quake. Everyone drops to the floor and covers their heads. Then I’m falling.
My brain shocks itself awake with a start. I’m gasping for air and shaking in fear. My skin is itchy from sleeping on the grass, my skin is warm from laying in the sun, my hair is greasy from sweating because of the heat and my nightmare, and Michael is gone. My breaths quicken and my heart rate picks up as I realize that a total stranger has left me abandoned under a tree, in a field, in the middle of nowhere.
“Hey! Are you alright?”
“I just thought I was alone. I thought you left me here.”
“I just went exploring. Here have some water.”
I cup some water from a metal bucket in my hands and drink as much as I can. I’m not alone but he is still a stranger. Which doesn’t matter because I have no one else and I don’t know where I am.
“My name’s Camille.”
Michael smiles and sits down next to me.
“We’ll have to get going soon.”
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t know.”

Narrator
Camille drapes the flannel around her shoulders and picks up a bucket.
“Are we going or are you just going to sit there?” She says with a mocking tone. Michael lets out a laugh that was more like a snort and pulls himself to his feet, throws his makeshift tarp bag over his shoulder and picks up the other bucket and they make their way through the grass back to the deserted highway.
Camille turns around to face Michael, walking backwards. She gives him a small smirk.
“What?” Michael questions with an equal smirk.
“We totally cuddled. I don’t even know you. I cuddled with a man I don’t know! How scandalous.”
He lets out an uncomfortable laugh and keeps walking.
“Who’s the girl?” She implies.
“Huh?”
“Your girlfriend, crush, lover, something. Who is she? It’s kind of obvious there’s a she. A long term she or you wouldn’t be so uncomfortable with my sarcastic cuddle comment.”
“Yeah I have a girlfriend.”
“Oh.”
Camille’s P.O.V
We’ve been walking down the highway in silence for at least an hour. Obviously I hit a sore spot. The first real time I talk to this guy he already hates me. Too bad, he’s kind of cute.
Michael’s P.O.V
We’ve been walking for an hour in silence all because I’m too much of a drama queen with relationship problems. This girl is all I have now and I need to grow up. I have to say something.
“Camille, I’m sorry. She’s my girlfriend, but not really. We are at a rough spot and I don’t even know if she’s alive so we can fix it. It’s just complicated. I’m sorry but please talk because not talking is making me more uncomfortable.”
“Okay.”
“That’s it?”
“I don’t have any advice if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t know if she’s alive or not so I’m not going to give you false hope but we are all each other has right now, so let’s start again. Start fresh. Okay?”
“Okay.”

She has been talking nonstop for the past couple hours and I don’t know if I’m beginning to regret telling her to talk or not. On one hand I would like a little silence every once in a while but on the other hand, I like her voice. It’s excited, welcoming, warm, and energetic. I think I just like that it’s something in her that I don’t have in me. So I’m okay with her talking. In fact, I become absorbed in her stories. So absorbed that I miss the the rusted truck in the field to the left. I stop dead in my tracks. She keeps walking and talking, not realizing I’m no longer beside her.
“Camille.”
I turn around and for sure there is a rusted truck in an abandoned field. It’s not a hallucination.
“Cami.”
She is still talking.
“Camille!”
She finally turns around.
“Did you just call me Cami?”
“There’s a truck over there.”
Camille spins around on her heels, kicking up dirt around her feet. She eyes the truck and starts jogging in its direction. Then running. “Let’s go, Michael!” She is smiling from ear to ear and laughing as if it’s Christmas morning.
“It probably doesn’t even work. I mean look at it. Camille. Camille, stop. Why would someone just leave it here if it worked.”
Still keeping a smile on her face she turns and responds, “Why can’t you just have a little hope?” And she skips back into place and through the field.

The truck starts. I ignore the gloating smirk Cami is giving me to my right and put it in gear.
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“Smiling. Shut the door and put on the seat belt.” I respond with a chuckle. I cut through the grass back onto the highway. There’s something about Camille. I’m driving and have no idea where I’m going, what I’m seeing because I am thinking what it could be about her that intrigues me so much. Maybe it’s how she smiles even though everything is wrong, how she jumps at things with hope, or maybe just because she’s the only woman I’ve seen in a few days. I don’t know.
I just know that she’s fallen asleep and snores louder than the radio, and there is a building coming up ahead that looks like a good place to stop for the night.

She felt the brain bots moving in her head, trimming pieces here, connecting pieces there.
Why did they do this. I’m not one to be paranoid but I am. I don’t think they just stopped the bleed. I think they added something. This place seemed suspicious and he let them cut into my brain. I know he was trying to save me, but everything feels off. I was left exposed and vulnerable to people I don’t trust. Now I’m all alone except for the people behind the really thick looking glass wall staring me down like I’m a cow at the market. Some are in lab coats, they’re all holding clipboards and wearing concerned and interested expressions. I don’t know what they’re expecting me to do.

Michael’s P.O.V
Fred’s Parts and Service… A Division of New York Human Industries. There’s one light in the building shining through a small square window that’s too high off the ground for a normal window but another light turns on as the sound of this beat up pickup radiates through the walls. By the time I turn off the truck a man is opening the front door. He stands there as I walk around to the passenger side to Camille.
“Cami. Hey, wake up.”
I shake her arm but she doesn’t budge. Her eyes don’t twitch, nothing. The man gives an odd look like he knows something I don’t and begins to walk towards us.
“Camille!” Still nothing. She’s barely breathing. I lift her into a cradle and run towards the man. I don’t have to resources to figure out what is wrong but maybe in the building, they do. The man tries to take her from my arms but I briskly walk past him accidently hitting his arm with her feet. He turns and jogs behind me but remains silent. I’m expecting some miracle when I walk through the front doors. Like a safe haven or oasis, but it is just a bunch of cubicles. It takes a few seconds on me looking around in a panic before the man finally speaks.
“It’s downstairs in the basement. Take her downstairs.”
Before he can finish I am halfway done the stairs. The basement is loud and chaotic. There are hospital cots lining the walls with injured people everywhere. People in masks, gloves and backpacks are everywhere tending the injured. One of them comes and grabs Camille from my arms after I hesitate, but he can probably help her more than I can. I lose track of her from there. I feel helpless while I watch everyone helping everyone and I am too emotionally unstable that I can’t even stand. That could have been the last time I ever see her and I passed her off to a stranger. If she dies she’ll die alone and that can’t happen.Everything around me is going so fast but I feel like I’m going too slow as I weave my way through in the direction Camille went.
I’m outside a door when I hear voices. Through the small window I can see the man that took Cami whose laying on a hospital cot getting an MRI. What is this place. How were they so prepared for this. Unless they knew it was going to happen.
“She must have his her head pretty hard, she’s got a bleed. Do you see it? We’ll have to relieve the pressure.”
I push through the door with questions ready but when they all turn to look at me my mind goes blank. I turn to Cami laying limp on the hard mattress. The man comes to the bedside as I set my hand on top of hers.
“She has bleeding in…”
“Her brain. I know, I heard you.” The machine she’s attached to starts to beep louder.
“She’s bradycardic. We have to relieve the pressure right now.”
The man grabs a drill from the equipment table and before I can say anything he is drilling into her head. I know what he’s doing, I’ve seen it before but I can’t help panicing. The drill looked different than what I’ve seen. There was something on the tip that I didn’t get to look at well enough before it went in but the heart monitor went back to normal.
“I’m Dr. Reed Moore. In case it’s not already obvious, she needs to stay for observation. We will be taking her to an observation room. You can visit when we’ve done our full work up.”
All I can do is nod and trust these people to take care of her. This whole place seems suspicious but it is our only option. Dr. Moore pushes Cami’s bed out the door and through a maze of glass walled halls. Every room behind the glass walls have a patient in them. Some are walking around, some are laying bed, and some are watching us walk by.

“Can she get a room without a full glass wall?” I ask.
“We don’t have any like that. The glass walls are useful so our nurses can always be able to see them in case anything goes wrong.”
“And so can I. These people don’t have privacy.”
“That’s not a necessity considering the current situation.” He almost barks back.
I decide to stay quiet and follow him down the hall. A nurse is standing in from of an open glass door to the room at the end of the hall. She guides us in quietly and begins taking Cami’s vitals.
“How is she?”
“You need to leave now sir. You can visit when we’re done.”
“Done doing what? It’s doesn’t take that long to check her blood pressure.”
“It’s protocol.”
I slam the glass door so hard on the way out I was sure it was going to shatter. The people in the other rooms reach out to me as I pass but can’t get farther than the wall. A metal door is shut behind me when I make it back to the entrance and I almost make it to the floor before I fall asleep.   

It was so dark that Camille couldn’t tell the difference when she closed her eyes. “How did I ever get in a mess like this?” she whispered. There was an air vent above her with a strong current blowing her hair into her eyes. She reached her arms out to her sides and both hand touched shelves. The room wasn’t much wider than she was tall and was lined with shelves making the room even smaller. She felt trapped. Even more trapped since there were three large men looking around for her so she could even breathe without being heard. She felt her way to the corner and slowly lowered herself down, lowered her breathing, closed her eyes, and waited.

Camille’s P.O.V
I keep reliving the accident. Falling through the floor and waking up to a cute stranger that turned out to be Michael but more emphasis on the falling. The visions are of my falling for what seems like forever and landing in Michael’s arms. The way he carried me in the beginning even when I was pretending to be still be asleep. Then it starts all over again. The feel of falling is so real that I can’t breathe but everything slows the closer I get to Michael and I start breathing again.
There is so much noise around me that sounds like panic. People are yelling, machines are yelling, I’m yelling, everything is yelling. My eyes finally open to people hovering over me, injecting things in my I.V. and a man smiling while holding an oxygen mask to my face.
“Bad dream?” The man asks? I’m in a state of panic and these people aren’t helping me. My eyes dart around the room taking in my surroundings. I don’t know anyone here.
“Everyone needs to get out now. She’s stable. I’ll take it from here.” The man speaks again. He must be an authority figure because everyone comes to a halt and bows quietly out of the room leaving me alone with him.  He nods, removes the mask from my face and sets it on the bedside table.
“I’m Dr. Reed Moore. Your friend Michael brought you to me. You were in critical condition due to a bleed in your brain. The bleeding had healed itself but the pressure under your skull was too much so we did a procedure to relieve it. Headache is a common side effect and will be for a while, we can handle that with meds.”
“Where’s Michael?” I’m still breathing too heavily to make a coherent sound but he still understands what I’ve said.
“I’m sorry, Camille, but he’s gone. He left shortly after he dropped you off.”
Now I’m falling again, but it doesn’t get slower this time because Michael’s not there at the bottom. Dr. Moore’s face is becoming cloudy and the monitors are yelling again. Everything needs to stop. Everything needs to stop, so it all stops. It’s all dark.

Michael’s P.O.V
They still haven’t let me in to see her. Every once in a while a girl walks around with snacks and at what I assume is mealtimes she comes around with real food. I’ve been sitting on the floor in the basement for two days waiting to go see Camille. I can’t tell what time it is since there’s no windows and I’m not moving from this spot just to find out. I estimate the time by the girl passing food. Dr. Moore walked in there about an hour ago saying he was going to check on her and hasn’t come out. So when the metal door opens I jump up fast enough to get dizzy. He steps out from behind the door, shuts it slowly, then turns to face my with his hands folded behind me and a smile on his face. That has to mean good news.
“She hasn’t woken up yet, but she is still stable. Some people take longer to come up from the anesthesia. We will let you know when she does. Feel free to move around and make yourself at home.” Then he walks away without saying anything and I sink back to the floor.

Camille’s P.O.V
When I wake up this time I’m alone. Just me and the steady beeping of the previously yelling machines. When the nurse outside notices I’m awake she closes her charts and comes in. She has a fake smile on her face. Like if she ever stops smiling she’d lose her job on the spot. That must really hurt her face.
“I’m Caroline. I’m your nurse so you’ll be seeing a lot of me.” She lets out a small laugh, “That’s kind of an understatement.” She changes my I.V. bag, “Listen.” She sits at the end of my bed, “You are going to be here for a long time unless you do something about it.” She looks around like nobody can hear what she’s about to say, “You need to get out of here. Any chance you get, get out. Sneak out, I’ll help.” Dr. Moore walks in front of the glass and I raise an eyebrow at the nurse. She seems to know what I mean when she says, “Now nod, smile and say thank you. I’ll finish charting. I’ll leave and you won’t ask any questions. You’ll smile and act clueless around anyone else… Oh, and Michael’s not gone. He’s waiting to see you when you’re stable but they’re feeding him lies too. I’m going to go now.” Then she’s gone. I can see her through the glass reading over the charts to Dr. Moore. He puts a hand on her shoulder and smiles and they walk past each other. I squirm a little when he walks through the door. I’ve never been good at keeping secrets.
“Camille, it seems you’re doing well but we’ll be keeping you for more observation because of your panic attack. You just tell me if you need anything to help make you comfortable.”
“Can I get up?”
“Of course you can. If that’s all you need, I’ll be back to check in later.”
He gives me a reassuring nod and leaves the room. As soon as he’s out of sight I pull myself up on the edge of the bed. The tile is cold when my toes brush against it. I’m afraid of using my feet. I feel like I’ve never walked before. The IV cart is an arms reach away so I roll it towards me to use it for balance. It moves a little as I pull myself to my feet making me unstable. I have to reach down to the bed to steady myself before I take my first few wobbly steps. Then I notice for the first time that there is no door handle on my side of the glass. I can’t even find the seam between the wall and the door. I  run my fingers across the glass searching to see if I can at least feel a difference.
Caroline’s face shows up less than an inch from mine on the other side of the glass. She gives me a smile and takes a sidestep to my left. She places her hand on the glass giving it a slight push then slides a small white nail filer from her scrub pocket in the bottom of the opening.
“Take care of yourself, Camille.” She says while straightening her scrub top and walks back down the hall. I slip half way through the door until I realize taking my IV stand with me isn’t the best escape tactic. I’ve seen people do this in movies but the idea makes me want to vomit. The needle needs to come out. I take off the tape that pulls out most of my arm hair and pull out the needle. With one foot jammed in the door I reach over to the bandages knocking all but the ones in my fingertips on the ground. Then the alarms start.

All of the lights go out except the red emergency lights so I start to run blind. An arm reaches out and drags me through a door. It’s a woman hushing me while I hear the talking and the footsteps of guards outside.
“Listen to me. There’s a device implanted in your head where they drilled in to save you. When it’s activated you will have no control over your own body, whoever’s behind the controls will. They are creating an army. Well not an army. More like a perfect species. You’ve got to get the device out. There are places that do it. Take care of yourself, Camille.” Then she leaves the room. It was Caroline.
Now I’m alone in a dark room being chased down. I wasn’t awake when I got here so I don’t know where I am. If Michael really is still here, I don’t know how to get to him. All I really do know is right now, I’m alone and to these people, I’m a fugitive.