We separated evenly into four groups of three, and I was glad that Jessie stuck with me and Jade. As we dispersed into the surrounding neighborhoods, I gazed back at the facility we'd emerged from. It was an ordinary stout brick building. At a glance, you'd never guess there was a massive underground complex beneath it.

I looked away, but a vague twinge of recognition made me turn back again. The sign on the building read "Walsh Insurance." An old memory rang in my mind, and I stopped in my tracks. Jessie and Jade halted and turned to stare at me in exasperation. I motioned them into a sparsely wooded area so we could confer without being seen. We hid behind the curtain of leaves hanging from a large weeping willow.

"I know where we are," I explained in a rush. "The building we came out of—I used to pass it every day on my way to school. We're near where I lived."

"Great, so...what, we'll head to your old house and you'll introduce us to your parents?" Jessie joked, leaning casually against the tree's trunk.

My stomach dropped at his words. We were so close to my home. But surely we couldn't—

"Actually, that might be a good idea," Jade commented. "We can trust them not to turn you in, right, Tess?"

"I . . . uh . . . I guess," I stammered.

We took advantage of the receding blackness of dawn to sneak into the neighborhood I grew up in. My parent's cars were still there, parked in the driveway, just as if I'd never left. My heart thudded loudly in my ears as we crept closer, scaling a fence and slipping behind the overgrown bushes in my old backyard (my mother had always been a hopeless gardener). We crouched there in wait until, finally, my parents' cars both motored out of the driveway and disappeared down the street.

I opened the backdoor using the key still hidden under the mat. Then, ignoring the sense of dread in my heart, I stepped cautiously through the threshold.

Suddenly, there was a low, menacing growl in the other room. It approached rapidly until a face, indistinct in the dark house, peered at us around the corner of the kitchen.

"Sophie!" I exclaimed.

My dog—an old rottweiler—bolted toward us and launched into the air. Her paws landed on my shoulders, knocking me into Jessie as she furiously licked my face. I laughed uncontrollably as I tried and failed to push her off. "I feel like this is the first time I've heard you laugh in a year, Tess," Jade remarked.

Struggling to regain composure, I stood up and announced, "Okay, I think our first priority is to get out of these awful hospital gowns."

I darted toward my room, only to pause when I reached the doorway, peering inside with amazement. My bedroom was entirely unchanged. Had my parents waited years, hoping I would someday return?

I heard clanging from the kitchen, and Jessie exclaimed with his mouth full, "Correction: the first priority is always food."

"Now my parents will definitely notice we were here," I muttered to Jade, who had followed close behind me.

"We need to make it clear it was you," she suggested, "or they might report it as a burglary."

I stared at her, my stomach lurching. Something about this felt very wrong—even though it had once been my home, I was now an intruder.

But I swallowed my doubts and stepped into my room warily, as if I were navigating a minefield. "What do we need to take?" I wondered aloud, my eyes flickering about.

Jade was always organized and focused—someone you could count on. Meanwhile, I felt useless. A barrage of emotions warred for dominance over my mind, with no clear winner ever seeming to assert itself.

"Clothes," she stated, snapping me back to reality. "We'll need extra winter gear since we can't go back to the school. For now, anything sturdy and practical will do." She stared at the ceiling as if deep in thought. "We could also use any first aid supplies for emergencies, and maybe some discreet weapons. And bags or backpacks to carry everything."

"Right," I said, tearing my dresser open. I threw her some thermal leggings and a heavy sweatshirt to change into. "Do these fit you?" I asked, tossing a pair of my sneakers in her direction. She tried to squeeze into them, to no avail. "My mother's closet is across the hall—she's two sizes bigger. Help yourself."

"Thank you, Tess," she said meaningfully, disappearing into the hall before I could respond. I stared after her. It seemed like she was thanking me for more than the new outfit.

After ditching the hospital gown, I quickly dressed in a pair of dark jeans, a t-shirt, and my old track jacket. I jumped when I spotted myself in the mirror—my own clothes hung off me as if they were several sizes too big, and I barely even recognized my weary, gaunt face.

I slung a backpack over my shoulder, then decided to join Jessie in the kitchen upon realizing how unbearably hungry I was. He had his face buried in what looked like a roast my mother had made. "Gross," I muttered, and he jolted upright, flashing a shameless smile.

"Hey, I was starving, and this is an excellent—"

"Go raid my dad's closet. It's down the hall," I said, tossing him a spare camping backpack.

As I stuffed myself with an array of food, I absentmindedly picked up a letter from the counter to skim. It was my father's paycheck, but there was an extra column that read "fine: $250." I squinted more closely at it, reading the fine print.

The government was docking his wages for "suspicion of aiding and abetting a fugitive."

Meaning me, of course.

But I had left without a word to my parents. They hadn't helped me at all, and I was sure they had no idea why I'd even disappeared. I couldn't imagine their reactions when wanted posters displaying my face were plastered around the city, naming me a fugitive from justice.

I slapped the letter back onto the counter, furious. Suddenly, I felt the weight of guilt on my back—literally—as the backpack full of loot dug into my shoulders. How could I steal from my parents when the government was already taking so much from them—all because of me? I propped myself against the counter, gritting my teeth as overpowering fury, guilt, and misery churned in my stomach.

Then I spotted something in the corner of my vision. It was the clipboard I'd stolen from the facility on the floor, which must have fallen when Sophie tackled me. Thankful for the distraction, I picked it up to inspect the papers it held.

Most of it was unintelligible to me—lab results containing medical jargon like "polycythemia" and "platelet morphology." But there was one page—an unsent letter—that caught my eye. I began to read:

General Rothsford,

It appears that the subjects' cells have been altered to increase compatibility with those of the unknown specimen. In the lab, the brain cells of the subjects and the specimen were seen to conjoin in most trials. After three years of extensive research, my working hypothesis is that the subjects have been readied as "hosts" of a sort. We must keep this new group secure indefinitely, out of the reach of further infiltrations.

This is of the utmost importance, and I implore that you consider granting more funding to the research and containment divisions of the project. Security is severely lacking. Frankly, a universal keycard is unacceptable, and our current guards are largely indolent and inept.

Signed, Parker van der Meulen, Chief Medical Officer.

_______________

Happy winter holidays & an early merry Christmas!

There should be another update before the new year (my semester is over, so I can finally have a life again). Though I have not succeeded in finishing it this year, I am proud of the progress I have made, both in writing this story and as an author in general.

Things are heating up. The current word count is 33020. There may be over 20 chapters to go, then I will probably edit and polish the entire story.

The length also depends on whether this will be a standalone novel or the first in a series. I'm undecided about this. If it's a lone story, it will definitely be longer so that everything is properly wrapped up.