The Experiment P.24

Lydia shielded her eyes with her hand. The neon pink light from Gavin's forehead was blinding.

"How are you doing that?" Lydia asked Gavin loudly.

"I..I don't know." Gavin mumbled, putting his ham over his forehead to cover up the light.

Gavin quickly removed his hand.
"Damn! It burns!" Gavin yelped, taking his hand off his forehead.

Suddenly, the door to the room opened. Tashie walked into the room, blood dripping down her arm. Natalie and Marcus were behind her, their guns at the ready.
Tashie looked at Lydia, Stefan, and Gavin. "Where's everyone else?" she asked quietly.

Stefan grimaced. I thought they were with you."

"No, they must've went ahead." Tashie said quickly, shaking her head.
She looked at Gavin. "Oh no." she murmured.

"What?" Gavin asked.

"They marked you." Tashie said, walking over to Gavin and examining his forehead while shielding her eyes. "Oh well." she walked away from Gavin and back to the others.

"Oh well?" Lydia shrieked. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, he got marked. And he's already shining." Tashie explained. "He's screwed."

"What do you mean?" Lydia asked.

"There are five stages of the marking." Tashie explained. "One, you get marked. Obviously." she said, gesturing to Gavin.

"Two, your mark begins to glow. We call this stage 'shining'. Three, the skin around the mark changes color and you begin to lose your sense of smell. Four, your body functions slow down. It gets harder to walk, harder to breathe. And five?" Tashie sighed. "You die."

Lydia burst into tears. "How long does he have?" she whimpered.

Tashie walked up to Lydia and put her arm around her.

"2 days, maybe three." Tashie gave Lydia a squeeze. "Hey, it's okay. It's not like he liked you anyway."