Willow: a poetry-verse suspense

Author’s note: 

Hello, Reeders! Just would like to let you know some things about this story. 

First: Willow is a continuation of Spices, Rescue, Storm, and John’s Tale, and it really makes the most sense if you start there. All these stories spiral out from Chocolate Kisses, so if you can start there, please do. Not trying to keep you from reading this or give you homework, just letting you know. 

Second: This is possibly the darkest point of the story, the big climax. 

Third: It isn’t from the point of view of any of the old characters, it’s narrated by a girl named Willow who hasn’t come up yet. You can read this alone for that reason, but the plot is easier to understand reading the first. 

Thank you for your support!

This submission is dedicated to Haripriya Anand and Ray Dyer, who have liked and commented on all the other Bridgebrook Tales. Thank you for your support, guys! :)

Twenty 

marks.

There are ten marks on the 

cold, metal 

wall that keeps me away from 

the rest of the cells. 

Wall 1: Glass barrier for examination. 

I’m not sure why.

They stare 

at me all the time, taking notes.

It’s bulletproof, I think.

Wall 2: blank steel to my left. 

Wall 3: blank wall to my right. 

I can hear water behind it, though, 

and I think there’s a 

pipe there.

Wall 4: Wall behind me. There’s a 

Hot water pipe or something there, and so I 

sleep pressed against its face. 

It also has 

Twenty marks drawn here

with a sharpie

that I had in my pocket. 

The floor isn’t comfortable, but at least they aren’t 

always poking me with needles, like

Mai.

“I am 

so done 

with this place!” 

Mai shouts as the 

glass wall slides shut. 

“We don’t have a choice, 

Mai.”

She groans and 

sits on the floor, pressing 

her palms into her face. 

“I don’t caaaaaaaaaaaaaa

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa 

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaare.”

“We can’t leave. They need 

us for their experiment. Or whatever.”

“I don’t care. I’m

going to 

E

S

C

A

P

E.”

“You're crazy!

It’s like, scientifically impossible!”

I 

call out. 

Mai doesn’t listen.

“Willow it’s impossible what they 

Did.

They say it’s to measure how long we can

cope with whatever, but

WILLOW --

I DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY DID LAST TIME, BUT

I SWEAR I WAS GETTING SUPERPOWERS.”

“Mai, 

are you

doing that thing again?”

“I’m not doing anything! I wasn’t 

hallucinating! 

I had MAGIC POWERS, 

I swear! Wills,

this is 

so legendary.” 

“What happened? I mean--”

“I started glowing 

and beams came from 

my eyes and hands 

and then

I got sick and passed out, 

so yeah.”  

“Mai--”

“Willow, I’m tired.

I got another round of weird 

shots.

I

need to sleep. 

Be glad that you don’t have to do this.” 

She curls up on the ground next to wall 2.

I do the same

by wall 4.

But first, I 

add another line on the wall.

“Good night,”

I mutter softly, even

Though it might be day, we can’t tell, never leaving. 

Mai’s weird, but

she’s my only friend. 

I wake up. 

The warmth of the pipe, or

whatever it is, 

has vanished away. 

I look around. 

I’m in the same room I’ve been in 

for the past twenty-one days, I think, only 

one thing is wrong. 

The marks.

They’re missing.

I feel sick; 

reach into my pocket to draw out my pen-- 

it’s gone! 

There’s no way to keep 

track of time. 

The glass door slides open. 

I snarl at the figure approaching. 

She isn’t 

a scientist, though. 

She’s a girl. 

Long brown-black hair, 

perfectly straight, 

big glasses, 

confused hazel-green eyes. 

She looks tired-- maybe

they have her on

Some kind of weird drug.

She slumps to the floor, the 

cloaked professors sliding it shut. 

I’ve figured out that it 

works on a magnet, sliding 

back 

and 

forth, 

unopenable from the inside. 

The girl lets out a groan. 

“Hello?” I ask her.

No sound 

comes from her lips.

That’s when I realize-- Mai is nowhere to be found.

It’s not like she

Could hide.

We’re

in

a 

featureless steel box.

Mai 

is not 

here. I 

don’t think 

they preform 

their experiments 

on her so early in the 

morning, if it is morning 

at all. They could have moved 

her out of here for some reason-- 

maybe she’s radioactive and they didn’t 

want me to get cancer? No, she’s way more 

valuable than I ever am to these freaks! Mai would

never escape without me. Besides, they’d hear her breaking 

down the walls on the International Space Station. That doesn’t 

explain the new girl in here, or why my marker and tallys have all 

just disappeared. I checked all the pockets in my red hoodie, blue

jeans, and white shirt, which doesn’t even have a pocket that 

is big enough for anything, just a little decorative one, but 

there is no trace of my marker, or anything I had on me 

Right before I was-- before I was-- before I-- before-- 

I can’t think about it. I don’t know why I can’t,

but it’s like something in me got shut off. 

Some switch got flicked, turning Willow

into weird, no-idea-how-she-got-

here Willow. I don’t like it. I--

I don’t know how I’m here

and I don’t like it at all.

Someone help me.

I can’t get out.

Someone 

help 

me.

“Can you help me?” the girl asks.

“With what?” I ask in turn.

She shows me a 

band around her right arm, 

metallic and strange, with some kind of 

needle poking into the skin on the underside of her wrist. 

A red light blinks slowly;

Red

Orange

Off

Blue

Red

Green

Red

Orange

Off

as I examine it cautiously. 

“Whenever I try 

to fight back it does this thing 

that really hurts 

and I fall asleep.”

She says. 

“I think there’s either 

some kind of drug in there, or 

you’re getting electrically shocked. 

Probably the first, for safety.  

You can get killed by--”

“Oh, stop, you sound like Emilia!”

The girl says sadly.

“Emilia?”

“Emilia. She was one of my 

best friends, even 

though she was a grown adult.

She talked just like you.”

“Oh. I didn’t mean to--” something

shocks me, and it sure isn’t electrical. 

“You 

remember 

That stuff?”

“You don’t remember your friends?”

“I know I have them, but I can’t see 

their faces. 

In my mind, there’s not an image of them I can summon. 

I don’t think they’re 

looking for me.” 

“But they are!” the girl shouts. 

She pulls something 

from her pocket. It’s 

a crumpled sheet of paper-- several,

actually, and 

they all have names and numbers and photos on them.

Missing person 

posters. 

“Mai Chera, fourteen years old. 

Last seen on March fifth, 2033, in Midday, Oklahoma. 

Hair: brown.

Eyes: Brown.

Skin: white. 

Height: 5’ 2.

Weight: 95.6 pounds.

Last seen wearing a pale orange Nike sweatshirt, 

ripped jeans, and black rainboots. If you

see her, please call this number.”

The girls reads the number out.

Mai. She’s

being looked for. 

She isn't alone at all. 

Well, she is now.

She doesn’t have me. 

March fifth was exactly 

twenty-eight days ago, and Mai’d been here for a 

week before I came around. 

“Jodie Hawkins. Twelve years old.

Last seen on March tenth, 2033, in Bridgebrook, Oklahoma.

Hair: blond.

Eyes: blue.

Skin: white.

Last seen walking to the Bridgebrook Middle School dance 

in a blue lace dress, white dance shoes, and

a black leather jacket.

Call us at this number if you see her.”

“Huh, it’s smeared.”

The girl looks at the image of a (slightly cuter) girl 

with two big dimples, 

rosy cheeks, and curly 

blond hair falling around her face.

“I know her! Saw her at 

school before. We’re in different classes, though,” the girl says.

I need to stop calling her “the girl”.

“Uh, what’s your name?”

“Chocolate, and don’t laugh, my parents run a 

sweets shop-bakery-coffee shop. 

You can call me Choco.”

“I’m Willow,” I offer,

smiling. 

“I think I’ve heard of you, too!”

She looks 

through her stack of papers. 

“Willow Mayer. Twelve years old.

Last seen on March 12th, 2033 in Newflower, Oklahoma.  

Hair: red.

Eyes: hazel.

Skin: white. 

Last seen wearing a red hoodie, 

white T-shirt, blue jeans, 

and black Converse high-tops.”

That’s me.

That’s even what I’m wearing. 

“That is…”

Chocolate shoves her papers back into the pocket

Of her black raincoat.

“They’re coming!”

She exclaims. 

Before I can ask

who, the glass door is thrown open. 

“43, don’t dare 

interfere with our job,” one of three scientists says. 

They call me 43. I’m

not sure why. 

Bright light 

From the glass hallway system outside, looping

around and around like a labyrinth of 

diamonds

turns them into harsh silhouettes. 

The one on the left and 

the one on the right 

reach for

Chocolate, who

cowers from them, tring to

hide without moving, when-- 

ZAP!

The one on the left 

and the one in the middle fall over, 

stunned. 

“Who did that?”

The one on the right asks no one.

He falls as well.

A seventeen-ish boy holding some kind of 

taser thing stands behind them. He  

looks around, confused.

“Did anyone else 

see that?” 

He asks foolishly.

“John Kazzer, 

you’re the only 

seventeen-year-old on the face 

of the earth who would come charging into 

whatever this place is 

and start electroshocking everyone!” 

Chocolate yells.

“And how did you get here?”

“I drove?”

“No, how’d

you find me?”

“Long story. Do you know where

Samantha-Jae is?”

“Nope. Spent 

a whole lot of time here

in a coma. 

Then I ended up here.”

“Hey, anyone want 

to ask me?” I say. 

“Okay, great. I have 

a big question. How do I 

sneak three people out of here?”

“I thought captain 

hero-butt over where would work on the rescue,” I say.

“I got in here by pretending to agree to

work with them. Thought 

I’d get more secrets on what the heck they’re doing over here, but

no luck. 

Also, I can’t find Samantha-Jae.”

“Who’s she?”

“Weirdo, fifteen-year-old detective that

I know for a fact is somewhere in this lab.” 

“I’m out of here!” I shout, but 

the boy stops me. 

“There might be a tracker

on you. I can scan for it with this thing,”

he says. 

“Okay, but I think 

I don’t have any.” 

He scans me 

with his phone.

“Yeah. You were right. Just a 

precaution.”

He looks at 

Chocolate’s wrist. 

“Okay. That definitely is

a tracker.”

He manages to 

cut it off somehow-- I can’t tell, I’m not looking.

When the needle is removed,

it bleeds. 

A lot. 

I feel sick.

“How long have 

you known how to do this?” Chocolate 

asks. 

“Emilia taught me.” 

“When was that?” 

“As soon as 

she escaped from Samantha-Jae’s 

stepdad’s 

basement.” 

“That is oddly specific 

and I don’t know what 

you’re talking about,” I say. 

“Okay, she and Sherry showed up

and told me this long tory aboutnlooking for Samantha-Jae 

in her stepdad’s house but she wasn’t there, 

and somehow they got 

locked in the basement.”

“Who is Sherry?”

“Nevermind. They’re 

in the getaway car, which they’ve 

helpfully filled with Gatorade. 

I have no idea why.

We're rescuing you, so this conversation can wait, I think.”

“Yeah, 

explain it when we get out of here,” I say.

The cell door is open, and 

we dart into the glass maze of corridors.  

I was underground before, when I 

was with Mai, but this is clearly a ground level.

That’s when I see

it. 

Or, I see why.

The halls are made of glass

so people can see potential  

escapers. 

Us. 

Luckily, they slam into more walls than 

we do. 

“Halt!” one yells, holding out a zap-gun like 

the boy’s. (The boy's name is John, I think.)  

We keep running. 

After a while, 

we pass many cells, empty cells, waiting 

for more experiments to hold, and eventually 

end up in a big, stone room with several medieval-dungeon looking cells. 

“ABOUT TIME YOU SHOWED UP!”

A girl’s voice shouts. 

“It’s been a day and a half!”

John shouts back.

“THAT’S STILL A WHILE! I 

HATE THEM! 

TELLME YOU HAVE

THE KEYCARD!”

Keycard?

I look at John nervously.

“I’m gonna hijack the

system, Sam.”

“WITH WHAT?”

“This.”

John walks

to the end of the room and

uses his zap-gun to 

electrocute something small and gray.

I come closer and see that it’s 

something you swipe a keycard through.

Oh. That’s why

the girl asked about a keycard. 

“That better not 

break it and trap me in here,” she snarls.

“It won’t. I think.”

“You THINK?”

“The door slides open with a 

rusty creak.

”Oh,” the girl says.

She runs out of the cell, over to the wall, and takes

some kind of white, temperature-taker-looking-thing off it, scanning the

metal bands on her wrists. They

fall off. 

“I’ve been watching the

scientists do this,” she says. 

I hear footsteps coming.

This place

is a dead end. 

We’re trapped.

The girl, Samantha-Jae, 

Charges at the approaching figures and 

knocks them over.

We follow.

We run for what feels 

like hours before finding an exit. 

Outside, the air

is fresh and good;

mountain air. 

All around, tall mountains

topped with green trees surround

a sci-fi-looking lab

shaped like a dome.

I stick my tongue out at it, and run

down the hill we’re on

to where a young woman waves us down to a 

reddish toyota. 

“John! 

Samantha-Jae! 

Chocolate! 

Weird redhead girl!”

She calls.

“Get in, fast! We

have company!”

A group of guards 

are charging down towards us. I

grab onto the roof and  

swing into the left door,

hanging open as the others

race in. 

As we ride away, I only have 

three thoughts on my mind. 

One:

Where 

is Mai? Where did

they take her?

Two:

who are these

people I'm

running away with?

Three:

What happened 

to my tallys?