<a class="postlink" href="http://i56.tinypic.com/358yq6t.jpg">[ img ]</a><br/><br/>________________________<br/><br/><span style="color: #BF00BF">Eighteen years. Eighteen long years of the same routine. It was for those eighteen years that Lily had remained in the personal care of scientists, being poked and prodded with stainless steel instruments. For those years, she was kept like an animal on a remote island, away from the world, as she was considered a danger to it.<br/><br/>She knew little of the outside world; only what she'd read about in books. Lily'd been told that it was her fault her parent's had died, as had the doctors that had taken care of her. No one had known what to do with her, so they called the government. Of course, they'd arrived with their unmarked vans, men in suits carrying suitcases had piled out, all wearing assorted protective gear as they assessed the problem. Unable to find a problem there, they picked her up with padded tongs, placing her in a basket and carrying her out of the hospital, to be strapped to a gurney and brought to an off-continent location.<br/><br/>There, off the coast, she was placed in a facility, and immediately tested on. They took blood sample after blood sample. Skin layer after skin layer. Many men died in the process of testing what they deemed cures. It would take three years of her life to determine that it was only through direct contact with her skin that someone would die. No other aspect of her body created such an adverse affect to another living thing. <br/><br/>In the next five years, they tested her potency on a number of different living things. The feelings each of these experiments had on her broke her down, bit by bit. She didn't want to touch anything, and it became more of a struggle every day to make her comply with their tests. Gloved hands would grip her small arms to the point of bruising, forcing her small hands to reach forward toward the specimens they brought in. Each time, the result was the same, and she'd burst out crying, only to be tranquilized and dropped off in her room. She never did understand why she couldn't be out when they made her touch things. Maybe for the psychological affects it would have, making an entire case study out of her, instead of making it about her body only.<br/><br/>It only got worse as the years passed. It got to the point that she'd hardened herself against the pain, unable to take the feelings that it had every time she reached out and touched an animal, or plant. To her, it was her parents...the doctors...the innocent people she'd been told she killed. Every animal that posed a new hope for her, <span style="font-style: italic">"Maybe I won't kill this one!"</span>, died as did all the ones before it. She no longer hoped for a cure. She accepted her fate.<br/><br/>By fifteen, she was a morbid girl, a lonely girl. Lily craved nothing more than human interaction, more than what she received from the people prodding her and herding her into rooms so they could approach her island enclosure without dying. There were no longer daily tests. Instead, it was a maybe blood drawn here or there, maybe another antidote tested out on another animal, bred in captivity of course so PETA would never know. The only interaction she got was with the occasional attendant sent to clean out her room, which was brief. Or, when the scientists would come in to talk to her about more tests. It was nothing like she wanted.<br/><br/>By eighteen, she'd given up all hope whatsoever. She didn't dare hope as all of it had been expended and never bore fruit. She'd gotten her hopes up far too many times to want to do it again. So, instead, she spent her time wandering the island with the camera they allowed her to have, taking pictures of flowers and the wildlife. Lily would never touch them, not unless with a gloved hand. She didn't want to kill off the only beauty she'd come to know in life, beauty outside of her books.<br/><br/>Her books were the only thing she could base what any interactions in the real world off of. She'd dream of one day reaching the main land, and having a romance like the ones she'd read about in books. Lily knew it was impossible, but she couldn't help her dreams. The books made life seem all the more bearable, like she could live vicariously through them. Even if her fate was bleak, all the books she would allow herself to read had a happy ending and it was the only kind she liked.<br/><br/>This is how her days would go: Reading, wandering, reading, sleep. Day in and day out, she would follow this routine to the letter...<br/><br/>...Until the storm...<br/><br/>It had been warned that a hurricane was going to be over her island, posing the threat of no electricity. Lily hadn't thought anything of it as they'd always talked about this happening eventually, though she'd always lucked out. Her island always seemed to be bypassed or it wouldn't be strong enough when it reached her to do any real damage.<br/><br/>This one was different. While still five miles off the coast, the power was already flickering. Winds ripped through the island, churning the sands and ripping up the flowers that Lily had photographed many a time. If not for those photos, no one would have any inkling of their prior existence there. Trees blocked the roads, uprooted and broken. And when the storm broke upon the shore...all power was out.<br/><br/>Lily had been in her room at the time, reading one of her favorite books, <span style="font-style: italic">Dr. Franklin's Island</span>, a book about two girls turned genetic freaks, and then turned back after their struggles. It was the only book she could stand of that nature as it was too close to her situation, but since it had a happy ending, she could read it. In the middle of a page, the power flickered on final time, and then went out, the locks on her door clicking open. Her eyes fought to adjust to the lack of light in the room, but it was hard. Peering up into the corners of her room, she didn't see the red blinking light of the cameras anymore.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">I'm...I'm not under surveillance...</span> she thought timidly to herself. If ever there was a chance to make it to the real world...it was now. <span style="font-style: italic">But do I dare?</span> Lily wondered. They'd never let her go unless they cured her, and that could take years. She wasn't guaranteed to get off the island otherwise, unless in a casket, a thought that crossed her mind about fifty times a day. Taking a deep breath, she released it, telling herself that by the end of it, her mind would be made up. <span style="font-style: italic">It's now or never...</span><br/><br/>Lily decided to take that chance. Pulling on a trench coat, wrapping a heavy scarf around her head, only her eyes visible, and then wriggling her fingers back into her gloves, she cautiously opened her door. Her movements were slow at first, and then became more and more harried, before making a break for it, running out the exit to her outer enclosure. Rain pelted her hard in the face as leaves whirled around her. Lightning struck down repeatedly as thunder roared. Waves crashed up on the shore, higher than usual. Her hand raised to block the rain from her eyes as she scanned the dark shore line for the entrance her attendants used.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Bingo...</span> she thought excitedly as her eyes laid on the metal hinged gate. Running up to it, tripping several times, she fumbled with the door, finally managing to pull it open against the gale-force winds. Running onto the shore, she searched desperately for a boat, any boat, the boat they used to venture out to her every day. A smile filled her eyes as she spotted it, a mile up the beach crashing along the dock with every wave. <br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">There's still time to go back...</span> she cautioned herself, pausing her run. <span style="font-style: italic">But...I may not get another chance like this, so if I don't go now, how will I know if what exists in my books is real?</span> she wondered. Shaking her head, she threw caution to the wind and ran pell-mell at the boat, hopping into it as it hit the dock, breaking through it. Haphazardly untying it, she fell over to the floor, and had to crawl her way to the wheel, turning the boat on. <br/><br/>Suddenly, looking over her shoulder as she tried to steer the boat away from shore, she saw the flurry of men running after her, yelling for her to come back. She refused, and pushed the boat as hard as it would go to the mainland, to society, to people.<br/><br/>Fast forward to the morning after her heroic escape, and her boat had crashed onto shore in the middle of the night, having hit some rocks off the coast and been carried in by the massive waves. Her body was unceremoniously thrown from the boat and laid out on the beach, wet and cold and unconscious, until the screaming voice of a woman somewhere near her woke her up.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">...The hell?</span> she thought groggily. Her head hurt, well everything hurt, and she had no idea where she'd ended up. Yet when she opened her eyes, and didn't see the inside of her enclosure, her body shot upright, panicking as she realized people would be coming to her aid, aid they wouldn't be able to give. Getting up, and then falling back down to her knees as a head rush made her lose balance, she tried to assure them she was fine. Trying to convince them of this fact while keeping them from touching her was another matter entirely. She may be covered from head to toe right now, but they'd want to examine her and make sure she was as all right as she said she was. If they did that...they'd die the moment they touched her skin, and that was something she wasn't willing to have happen.<br/><br/>She pushed through the crowd and ran for all she was worth, running for cover wherever she could find it. Running through the trashed streets, she passed broken houses, fallen trees, down power lines and overturned cars. Ducking into an alley way, she took shelter under some stairs, obscured from view by a few trash bags as she tried to catch her breath.</span>