The night shift and the beast

Jordan sipped his coffee and took his phone out of the back pocket. Night shifts are easy money. He thought with a smirk on his face. He took a glimpse at the cameras in front of him before opening a game on his phone. Jordan looked at each screen and saw that out of the 10 kids that currently resided there, 8 were sleeping. 1 was reading a book and one was pacing around the room. At that sight he felt goosebumps. It was one he tried to avoid at all costs during the day.

He worked at a “Institution” for special kids. They kindly called Institution but any sane person that worked there knew it was more of a jail then anything else. The special kids in question were kids with... powers. No, it's nothing like x-men. It would be much better if it was. There were all kinds of abilities there: telekinesis, controlling things with only their mind. Pyrokinesis, the power to control and create fire. One kid can camouflage into anything around him, another can talk with the dead.

It can come to question how can such a powerful group of people be stuck in this jail-like building, and the answer is: brainwashing. The group of directors/scientists that experimented with this poor children did all sorts of manipulations to make them obey, to the point that if you don't, you are submitted to minutes of suffering electrical shock.

Jordan tried to take his mind off that. He didn't like his job, he felt bad for seeing how this children were treated, but he was trapped too. The abilities of the kids are a secret for society, so once you start working there, it was almost impossible to get out. He only knew one person that did, an old guy named Carl, he managed to leave but Jordan and the others never heard from him again, they questioned if he actually made out alive.

“That's it, I need a moment.” Jordan got out of his chair and went to the nearest restroom to wash his face, in a attempt to wash out his thoughts. He didn't like thinking about how miserable every single person here was, everyone besides the scientists, who enjoyed experimenting all sorts of things to see the extent of the kids powers. The purpose of this? You're not allowed to know if you're not in that department.

Sitting back in his chair he checked the cameras of the halls, infirmary and other rooms. All was normal. Security roamed around, and the night nurses were chatting with each other. Jordan enjoyed this type of shift because that's when he felt safest, he was in a employer-only area, with security outside, while he could just sit and watch what other were doing, with access to cameras on every single room. Knowing what she was doing at all times made him feel safe. He never minded the other kids, some were nice, other were too frightened to interact much with employees, but then there was her.

Olivia was the most dangerous person there. She was the older of them all, around the age of 15, as well as the first to arrive, when she was only 6 years old. His parents subjected her to “treatment” here to help her control her powers. Or so that's what was advertised to them. Jordan didn't work in the Institution back then, but he heard from the oldest security guard, Philip, that she was normal when she arrived. A happy, playful child, who happened to have way to much power in her hands. Olivia can control all four elements: fire, wind, water and earth. Is safe to say she found ways to make them all dangerous and as deadly as possible.

After a few minor punishments for not listening to rules, as she always had a little bit of a rebellious side, she started to disobey even further, using her powers to throw the scientists around like dolls while long and spiked roots that come out of her hands. As the punishments got worse, so did she. The more the scientists subjected her to shock therapy and such, the more vile she became. It was no longer as they were dealing with a person, and more as if it was a dangerous beast. She had all the security possible in her room, to the point were every time she needs to go out (which is almost never nowadays) a gas is activated inside the room to make her sleep. Then, she is moved to where she needs to go, injected with a substance that makes her weak, and the scientists proceed to do whatever they think they need to do. But she rarely leaves now. They stopped doing experiments with her after she killed around 18 different people. Yes, the scientists are greedy like that. Only one person wasn't enough.

Olivia kept pacing around the room. Her barefoot touching the cold floor as she walked in circles. The girl had her head down and Jordan wondered if she was thinking of a way to escape of if she simply couldn't sleep. Jordan didn't like that, it felt wrong. She usually spent most of her time sleeping. She had books and puzzles in her room but she never touched them. Whenever she wasn't sleeping or simply laying in bed, she would practice her powers, making the room fill with water, that she could make disappear in instants, or make vines come out of her hands and move them around.

She slowly stopped walking and turned around. Her tired and angry face lifting as she looked directly at the camera and smiled, a vicious smile that made Jordan jump from the chair. He accidentally pressed a button to turn off her camera. He moved as fast as he could to turn on again. She was back to pacing around. Jordan felt every single hair on his body spike of fear. He though of calling the science department and telling Mr. Hill that she was behaving oddly.

And there was his mistake. He didn't call.

With another ran to the bathroom, he washed his face again and walked back slowly, dreading the moment of having to sit on that old chair and looking at the girl. The peace he was feeling at the start of his shift was long gone. As he walked back he thought of how he felt bad for her, after all, she turned that way because of all the evil she was subjected to. That's why he hesitated on calling someone, he couldn't put himself to be the one that made her suffer another punishment.

Jordan tried to convince himself that nothing bad was happening. She hadn't left the room in three months, Olivia was probably bored and trying to distract herself.

“Everything okay, dude?” His friend, Marco, asked. He was also doing security shift that night and was standing right outside the camera room.

“Yes, just drank too much water, you know.” Jordan said, closing the door and taking a moment to breath.

As he set down to return to his post, determined to ignore the situation and play games on his phone for the remaining of the night, he heard the loud emergency siren, screaming through the speakers. Code red. The robotic voice repeated. Code red. He knew what code red was, all staff was trained for it. Code red meant the vicious beast escaped.

With utter disbelief and feeling sweat forming across his body he looked at Olivia's room to find it empty, with a big hole where her door was supposed to be. Hands shaking, Jordan re winded the footage a little bit to see her blasting the door away with a tornado-like shot of wind, coming from the palm of her hands. Her screaming face, showing that she was gathering her anger to boost her powers.

Code red.

Code red.

The voice continued. Security was supposed to go after her, while everyone else evacuated the building. The others kids locked in the rooms were all by their locked doors, talking or screaming. Every one of them too scared to open by force, scared to disobey and be punished, the didn't know what code red meant. Jordan was also too scared too leave the camera room. He couldn't bring himself to stand up and go after Olivia.

Pitying himself he walked across the room, locked the door, even if he knew that wouldn't stop her, and crawled under the table. He didn't need to look to know a lot of people were dying. Tears streamed down his face, he pressed his hand on his mouth, forcing himself to cry in silence. He was a strong guy, but he knew he couldn't take her down. It's just one shot of your gun, he thought. But he felt like he was stuck on the floor, he couldn't even bring himself to fetch his phone on the table to call for help.

As desperate and scared as he had never felt like in his life, he cried silently under the table for many minutes, which felt more like five hours. Here and then he heard shots and prayed that meant someone got her. But the cold red alarm kept ringing through the speakers in the room.

More shots. He hard familiars voices screaming for help and falling silent seconds after. She was coming. He knew.

Just as expected, the door blasted open with a rage of fire. The last thing Jordan saw was the malicious face he so feared, as he spent his last seconds regretting not making that call.