Chapter 4
Chapter 4: The Girl in Room 404
The forest of St. Jude’s Island felt dead. There were no birds singing, no rustling of small animals in the undergrowth—only the hum of a distant power generator and the periodic click of security cameras mounted high in the pine trees. I kept low, using the thick ferns and shadows to avoid the sweeping lenses.
After an hour of trekking through the dense woods, the trees gave way to a massive, imposing concrete compound. It looked like a cross between a modern brutalist museum and a maximum-security prison. It was surrounded by a double-layered electric fence, topped with razor wire.
I crouched behind a boulder, studying the perimeter. Every twenty minutes, two armed guards in black tactical gear patrolled the perimeter walk. But I noticed a flaw in their security: a large drainage pipe emerged from beneath the compound, emptying into a rocky ravine outside the fence. The opening was covered by an iron grate, but the bolts holding it in place were heavily corroded by the salty island air.
Using the iron wrench I had brought with me, I crept down into the ravine during the gap in the guard patrol. I jammed the wrench into the rusted bracket of the grate and threw my weight against it. With a loud, terrifying snap, the iron gave way. I slid into the dark, slimy pipe just as the glare of a guard's flashlight swept over the ravine.
The pipe was narrow, forcing me to crawl on my hands and knees through inches of foul-smelling water. It felt like crawling through the bowels of a monster. After what felt like an eternity, the pipe opened up into a dimly lit basement utility room inside the main facility.
I slipped out, shivering and soaked, and found a laundry cart filled with clean white lab coats. I quickly threw one over my damp clothes, hoping it would serve as a rudimentary disguise.
Stepping into the main hallways, the contrast was jarring. The floors were a polished, sterile white, and the air smelled heavily of bleach and ozone. I walked with purpose, keeping my head down, trying to look like a busy employee. Security keycards were required for almost every door, but I managed to slip through an elevator bay just as a group of scientists in surgical masks were exiting.
I took the elevator up to the residential wards. According to a digital directory inside the elevator, the upper floors were designated as "Subject Housing."
When the doors opened on the fourth floor, I found myself in a long corridor lined with heavy, reinforced steel doors. Each door had a small reinforced glass window and a digital keypad. The silence here was heavy, broken only by the faint, rhythmic beep of medical monitors.
I walked down the hall, peering into the windows. What I saw broke my heart. Inside the rooms were teenagers and young adults, all sitting or lying listlessly on white beds. Their eyes were hollow, staring blankly at the walls. They looked like empty shells, their spirits entirely broken.
Then, I reached Room 404.
I looked through the glass, and my breath caught in my throat. Sitting on the edge of the bed, staring out a small, barred window at the gray ocean, was a young woman. She was eighteen now, her face mature and sharp, but there was no mistaking the shape of her jaw, the curve of her nose, or the birthmark shaped like a crescent moon just below her left ear.
It was Sarah.
My hands pressed against the glass. "Sarah," I mouthed, tears blurring my vision.
As if hearing a ghost, the young woman stiffened. She slowly turned her head and looked toward the door. Her eyes, once so full of laughter, were filled with a profound, crushing sadness. She stared at me, her brow furrowing in confusion. She didn't recognize the lab coat, but as I pressed my face closer to the glass and pulled down my surgical mask, her eyes suddenly widened.
A gasp escaped her lips. She stood up, her legs trembling so violently she almost fell. She took a step toward the door, her hands reaching out.
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"Mom?" she whispered, her voice barely audible through the thick glass.
Before she could reach the door, a red light atop the keypad began to flash violently, and a loud, piercing klaxon wailed through the corridor. Intruder alert. Sector 4 breached.
