The Phantom School - 88 Guilty

“We are running out of time.” Cansu said. “Take her.”

I reached out to Idil’s body, but the clone slowly dragged the corpse away from me.

“What is wrong with you!?” I yelled at her. She didn’t say anything, and turned away from me, like she was trying to hide the body.

“We are going.” I said and approached her from behind. Just as I got closer, the clone held the body from it’s neck and started squeezing and shaking it violently.

“NO!” yelled Cansu. I kicked the clone away and caught Idil’s body with my hands. The clone fell down and turned to me. She was looking at me with hate.

“What are you doing!?” I shouted. As a reply, she just screamed. She slowly got up and began approaching me.

“Give her to me!” she said.

I slowly laid Idil’s body on the ground and faced her, blocking her from reaching the body. She tried to get past me, but I pushed her away and held her back.

“We have no time for this.” I said.

“Hold on, let me handle her.” Cansu said. The clone suddenly stepped away from me.

“Alright, now, hit her.” said Cansu. “Lightly.”

“What?” I said.

“Trust me, I know what I’m doing.” she said. “Hit her!”

I softly punched the clone, and she fell down unconsciously.

“The way is clear.” said Cansu. “Now hurry up, we now have two bodies to carry.”

“Wow, how did you just do that? And… what was that all about?” I asked as I tried to lift Idil’s body up again. “What was she talking about?”

“Probably some sort of personality crisis.” Cansu said. “We will carry the clone’s body in first, as a security measure. We wouldn’t want to leave the original body alone in there when we came back to get the other one.”

“Right.” I said and slowly released Idil’s original body. I lifted the clone and began walking towards the inner sections of the facility.

After walking past countless corridors, we got through a few steel doors on our way and finally reached the lab section again. I was already memorising this part of the facility by now.

Someone saw me when I got inside. I recognised the man, and he seemed to recognise me as well. I was prepared for hostilities.

“Finally, you are- Where are you carrying that!?” he asked me. His behaviour was friendlier than I had expected. Undoubtedly, he was unaware of what I had done to the facility a while ago. He was still seeing me as an ally.

“I need help.” I told him. “I need to save her!”

“Alright…” he said. “Hey, wait a minute-”

“We have no time!” I said.

“What do you want to do?” he asked me.

“Her original body is decaying, we need to rescue her!” I said.

“Where is the original body?” he asked.

“I need to go get her.” I said.

“Okay, okay, give the clone to me and get her!” he said. He was very quick to distinguish a clone from an original biological body. But it was normal; this was his profession after all…

I ran back all the way to where I had left Idil’s body and grabbed it. I made my way back to the facility in a few minutes. The scientist I talked with was already waiting for me there, inside a room I had seen before; the one that had tubes all around.

“Unfortunately, I can’t contact the other members of my team.” he said. “I can try to do it with the help of automated systems, but it will take some extra time.”

“What happened to other people here?” I asked. He tried to reply to me as he rushed around the room.

“Some of them had been killed, some are missing.” he said. “Honestly I am not sure anymore, I might be the only one left in here.”

A very heavy feeling of guilt began growing inside me. I might have killed some of those people…

The scientist carefully lifted the unconscious bodies and placed them into adjacent tubes. The glasses in front of the tubes were closed, and the inside of the tubes were illuminated. The scientist was standing in front of a console, carefully observing everything.

“Good thing the bodies have arrived without suffering much damage.” he said.

I heard something behind me. The sound was coming from the speakers. Cansu was probably trying to say something to me without the scientist noticing. I got closer to the speaker.

“Ask him how long the operation will take.” she said. I silently nodded and got away from the speaker. The scientist was trying to operate a very complex piece of machinery by himself, he was already frusturated.

“How long do you think it will take?” I asked him.

“I don’t know.” he said.

“A guess?” I said.

“I can’t tell.” he replied. “I don’t know, I’ve never done this just by myself.”

I joined my hands and started waiting. There was nothing more I could do, and this feeling of being unable to help was incredibly unsettling. My thoughts were wearing me down like never before.

We were both startled with a loud noise. Someone bbarged into the room and instantly grabbed me; pushing me against a wall by my shoulders. I got a very strong punch in my stomach and the pain was unbearable. I dropped down, with my back against the wall. The man kicked me and I hit the back of my head to the wall. I was bleeding.

Everything was blurry.

“Hey, stop it, what are you doing!?” the scientist shouted. He apparently knew the man.

“Stop the operation!” the man in front of me shouted back, and looked at me again. “This man is dangerous; he is a traitor, and a cold-blooded murderer!”

I had lots of things to say, but no power to do anything.

“D-d-d-d-d… d-d-don’t let her… die.” I said.

“Leave him!” the scientist said.

“If you had just seen what I saw him doing, you wouldn’t be able to look at his face.” the man said.

I coughed out some blood. The man grabbed me and lifted me up. I couldn’t resist. He threw me away, towards another wall. I fell down again, and laid still on the floor.

“Stop whatever he asked you to do.” the man told the scientist.

“But… but I can’t stop it!” he said. “Not after this point, the process is mostly automated. You know what happened when we cancelled it the last time!”

“And do you think I care about what you think?” the man said. “I give the orders around here!”

“Alright, alright.” the scientist sighed, and walked to the console to stop the operation that would save Idil.

I was so close…