I lay on the floor hearing nothing at all. I need to know if Scott is okay, but no one is making a sound. Silence does kill. I wait for what seems like ages for someone to make a move, for someone to breathe, for someone to call out my name. 

Finally, I hear someone groan. It's Scott! I can hear him push either a desk or chair as he makes his way towards me. "Cosima," he stands in front of me while holding the side of his stomach. "We have to take you to Aaliyah before you start feeling the pain."

"Help me," I whimper, ready to get out of there. I can no longer imagine what else would be in stored for me if I were caught.

Scott picks me up and I'm thankful that I don't feel any pain yet. He carefully lifts me over his back. He doesn't mind the blood on my hand slowly dripping onto his shirt. He looks at me and smiles. "It's going to be alright. I won't let anything happen to you."

As Scott carefully carries me up the stairs, I have this urge to hug and thank him for all his help. He risked his life for me, and for what? He could have died doing what he did. Most people would save themselves over a stranger they barely knew. Scott is more than a friend to me. He's my hero.

We get to the last floor where there are only three rooms. I can see Aaliyah poking her head out of the door, motioning us to hurry inside. As soon as we're in, Scott lays me on a small electric bed. The room in here reminds me of a hospital room, only everything is white. A person could lose their sanity in here.

Aaliyah puts a hand over her mouth when she sees my hand. "Oh my goodness," she gasps.

"Come on, we have to hurry up and fix her or the plan fails. Fast." Scott demands.

Aaliyah walks over to a large cabinet and pulls out some things. She returns to me then pours something like alcohol over my entire hand. I'm not sure what it is because I can't get a good look at her. After that, she dabs my hand with something. Scott comes and sticks a few needles in my hand, right through the flesh. There I am again, thankful I don't feel any pain.

"Cosima," Scott sighs. He turns to Aaliyah and I can tell they're about to tell me something that I don't want to hear. I start preparing for the pain, thinking that they would un-paralyze my body in that moment. However, they don't. 

Both of them stand over me where I can see them clearly. "I have a plan that can get us out of here, but for that, to work, you're going to have to let Aaliyah sew the skin back on your hand."

Aaliyah quickly adds to his comment. "You won't feel it, Cosima."

"Okay," I manage to say without moving my lips. If it gets us the hell out of here, then I don't care what they have to do.

"Before we tell you about the plan," Scott says. "I learned that if you mix the gooey DNA from the inside of the teacher's body with the needles they use to paralyze students, it can paralyze them too."

Aaliyah clears her throat. "He didn't learn it, I told him that," she sneers. Apparently, they feel pain like us, just in a different feeling."

"Anyways," Scott continues. "Before the atonement, I was able to find Aaliyah in the janitor's closet. She was there with a female teacher who was tying her up for the atonement. The teacher asked me why I was there and I told him that I was called in to bring Aaliyah."

"Long story short," Aaliyah sighs. "The teacher wasn't buying it, so I jabbed her in the neck with a needle and paralyzed her. She fell right to the ground. Scott had this crazy idea for us to go back to the room where I make them look like humans."

The both of them look at each other for a quick second then back to me. Aaliyah takes a deep breath. "No one was in the room, so we were able to remake the teacher. I made her look just like me." Aaliyah turns away and begins to cry. "I had to use the remains of another student to do it."

Scott hurries over to her and hugs her. "It's okay. She was gone. If we hadn't done this, you'd be dead. We would all be dead. But now, maybe we can save us. Maybe we can save everyone."

Aaliyah wipes her tears. "Yes," she says as Scott lets go of her. "Our new plan is to make you look just like Rachel."

There's a knock at the door and Scott answers it. Mulan and Gemma walk in, both carrying Rachel. Rachel's skin is sliding back and forth, breaking off of the gooey parts of its insides as they drop her onto the floor. 

They knew about the plan.

I groan now because I feel my body returning to its normal state. It doesn't feel good because my body feels extremely stiff now and also sore. One good thing is that I don't feel the pain in my hand.

"What's going on?" I ask, lifting my head a little.

"Guys, we have to do this fast! I just told Felix to come up and he immediately tried to tell a teacher," Mulan says. "I think he's possessed or something. I knocked him out, so he's on the hallway floor at the moment."

"Lock the door," Scott orders. "Cosima, put this on." He hands me a white plastic shirt to put over my clothes.

Rachel's mouth is sliding off now and she's saying all this gibberish that we don't understand. Her body pumps up and down and her globby parts swell up a bit. The site is both horrifying and disturbing.

"Get on the bed, Cosima," Aaliyah says, rushing over to me. "Now you're going to have to do everything we say. It's for our safety."

Scott picked up a large pair of scissors and faces me. "We have to make you look just like Rachel. She's the headmaster of this place and that way we can order the teachers to do what YOU want them to do."

Aaliyah nods. "That includes tell us where room 001 is."

The plan sounds like it would work, only thing is that I knew what it would call for. It would take a little bit of makeup, a little bit of voice practice, and almost all of my hair. They were going to turn me into a new Rachel.