FLASHBACK – TEN YEARS AGO
The world was orange.
Not the soft, sleepy kind of orange that settles behind trees at dusk no this orange burned, It roared, It screamed, It ate everything.
Rosie was seven, Her fingers were locked around a stuffed rabbit whose eyes had long since fallen out the fabric was singed, her ears rang, the smoke was a fist inside her lungs.
"Run Rosie!" her mother's voice had splintered sharp like glass cracking under pressure.
But Rosie didn't run not fast enough not before the man in the white coat Lutego stepped through the fire, untouched, uncaring, he looked more machine than man, and when he spoke it was cold, clean, and final.
"Sedate her."
Rosie tried to scream but the needle hit her neck first.
And just like that, her memories turned to ash.
SEVEN YEARS LATER
Rosie remembered nothing except her name — and Charlie.
Charlie, with her fox-red hair and wolfish grin Charlie, who taught Rosie how to read by candlelight and sneak snacks from the guards Charlie, who held her hand when the injections made her scream who whispered, "I'll get us out I promise."
Rosie had a collar on her neck a silver one It blinked when she cried It buzzed when she disobeyed. She had a chip in her palm too — until tonight.
Because tonight, everything changed.
Blood poured from Rosie's hand as she ripped the chip out with trembling fingers and a broken scalpel Charlie had stolen weeks ago, the alarms were screaming, the lights were red and Charlie — oh, Charlie — shoved Rosie through the back gate, her voice cracking:
"RUN!"
"I can't leave you!" Rosie had begged, her voice raspy from disuse, desperate.
"You have to! This place doesn't deserve you, Rosie. GO!
The collar blinked red
She ran.
LATER – THE ROAD
Rosie didn't stop.
Even when the poison hissed into her neck, even when her legs gave out and her vision split into blurs and stars, she clawed at the collar blood slicked her throat but still, she ran.
Until her body gave out.
The last thing she heard before the blackness took her was the distant hum of a car... music... and the voice of a boy saying,
"Wait — stop the van.
"There's someone out there."