Chapter 5. Megan learns of consequences of flying.
Like Bradley, Megan woke up very late that morning. Because nobody banged on her walls, she actually slept even longer than Bradley. Similarly to what happened with the boys, shortly after she woke up the ceiling opened, and the Suspicious lowered down a ladder. She demonstrated to Megan how to fly and told her that she should be practicing and taking it seriously since without the capability to fly nobody really could get things done in this country. When the Suspicious left, Megan sat down on her bed and began to think. She did not try to fly even once.
Her first and the biggest concern was what her parents were doing back home after they kids got lost. She felt pain, thinking how her mom worried and Megan could not let her know where she was. Second, Megan felt uneasy sitting in this room all by herself and the boys being somewhere else where she could not talk to them. And third – how to get out of this place and get back?
After some time of desperate thinking Megan decided that the only way to get out was to learn to fly. An opportunity to get out of the country of the Unknowns might come up when she had access to other places besides this room. When she had this realization, she climbed the ladder and jumped down the same way the Suspicious showed her. Surprisingly, she did not fall down right away and even flew a little bit without descending at all, but then she lost her balance and started going down fast. She did not hurt herself, however, because even though she was going down, it was much slower than just by gravity. When she reached the floor, she sat there for a while pondering what just happened.
She did fly. It was very awkward, true, but it was happening. It was not like she fell right away or anything like that. So if she kept trying, it should be getting better and better every time. Megan climbed the ladder again and tried one more time. This time she was not so focused to reproduce the posture that the Suspicious showed her, so she went down right away, but again not so fast as to hurt herself. She tried several more times and realized that she could fly around the room and go down to the floor at her own will. Then Megan decided it was time to practice starting from the floor and going up to be able to reach the ceiling. She started jumping up and trying to assume a horizontal position but it did not work. She decided she would have to ask the Suspicious when she comes in the afternoon to check on her. Meanwhile, Megan started flying around by going from the top step of the ladder.
All of a sudden Megan saw that there was a hole in the floor. Without giving it a second thought, she went down and jumped into the hole. It was dark down there, so Megan could not see anything until her eyes adjusted to this low lighting. She saw a tunnel leading in both directions. She picked a direction and started going that way. “It’s great we don’t have to eat in this country,” she thought to herself. “Otherwise I would not have dared leaving like this without any snacks or anything.”
As she walked in the tunnel, Megan shortly realized that there were railroad tracks under her feet and got scared. What if a train came through? It would really be bad because there were no turns to hide from it if that happened. Megan even turned back because of being scared of such a possibility, but the hole, through which she came out, was gone. The only solution that Megan could think of was to keep going forward as fast as she could to get out of this tunnel before a train came through. Megan started to run. But the tunnel kept on going, Megan got tired, and there were no trains all this time. Eventually Megan stopped being afraid. Maybe, this was an old railroad that was not used anymore.
Megan kept walking and walked for quite a while until finally she ran into a dead end. “Great…” she muttered to herself. “All this work and all for nothing…” All of a sudden she heard voices behind the wall. She stopped moving and quietly stood by. She recognized the voices of the Suspicious and the Chief. There were others whom she did not know. They were not talking very loudly or maybe the wall was too thick, so Megan really had to stand still and put her ear to the wall in order to be able to hear.
“He is not even trying to fly!” one voice said in an indignant tone.
“Mine tried but gave up and suggested we did something else instead. I had to remind him that flying was the only way to get out of that room,” said another.
“Mine did not fly either”, the Suspicious chimed in.
“Bad, very bad,” the Chief said, pausing, so Megan imagined he was giving his subordinates a stern look. “You didn’t tell them that after they successfully pass the exam they would not be able to leave, did you?”
“Of course not!” the Suspicious exclaimed, sounding offended.
“Not at all,” the other two said simultaneously.
Megan became petrified. So this was what was waiting for them! Being forced to learn to fly because there was no other way out of their rooms, and then they would not be able to leave! She felt an urge to turn around and run to find the boys to warn them to keep from flying at any cost, but she changed her mind and decided to keep listening for a little longer.
“How is the progress for you guys?” the Chief asked, letting Megan know that there were more Unknowns in the room.
Some other Unknowns started giving him their reports. According to them, their mentees were making good progress in whatever they were supposed to be doing. Some of them were also only at the stage of learning how to fly, but they were getting so good at it that the question now was about when to schedule their test. Others already studied other subjects, but Megan could not understand what they were. “So, there are many people in here who they captured!” she thought quickly. “And they don’t know that they can’t get out because they already passed their flying test! Or maybe they like it here? Maybe they learned to fly, saw things around this country and decided to stay voluntarily… Are they also kids?”
Megan had lots of questions, but the Unknowns started talking about something completely different. Some of the assignments and chores of their own. Megan was listening for that stuff inattentively, at the same time thinking about what she’d already learned. First of all, where were all these trapped people kept? Did they all live in rooms similar to hers and, because they could fly, could they come out when they wished? Or were they still being controlled by the Unknowns? When she, Bradley and John were walking towards the building where they were placed yesterday, she did not see a single person on the street. That made Megan think that they were inside somewhere most of the time. Because they did not have to eat, they did not have any grocery stores, this was now clear too.
The voices behind the door became harder to hear, and Megan realized that the Unknowns were walking towards the exit. Then the voices disappeared completely. Megan started to slowly walk back in the tunnel. All of a sudden she realized that she was very tired. She probably walked for three hours before she got all the way here plus all the flying in the morning… How did they sustain energy here if they didn’t eat? Megan was not hungry in her stomach, but being tired was a problem. She wanted to try finding the boys before anything happened to her and she lost her chance to share with them what she’d heard. This tunnel with the dead end might have an exit on the other side, far beyond where her room was. If they found it, it could be an opportunity to get out.
Megan sighed and continued walking. She was not afraid of trains anymore because she saw this was a dead end, but walking on the railroad tracks was very tiring because it was not an even path. Finally Megan got so tired that she decided to take just a little rest. She lay down between two railroad ties, resting her head on the track. She tried to keep her mind occupied by the events of the day so she would not fall asleep, but it did not work. In about five minutes after she lay down, she was fast asleep. Megan had not realized that she spent much longer time walking back than she thought. She did not know that she past her room long ago, and it was actually very late evening when she stopped.
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