"I'd take it easy on them," Ranae had said. She went on about comic books, earning a moment of confusion from Sam's furrowed brow. Then she mentioned the two key words which always got her attention: Guinea Pigs.

It did not take long for her to put two and two together. In this instance, it added up to manipulation, extortion and possibly murder. Whomever they were, they intended to hold their captives until such time as they either proved useful or without value. Despite Sam's own subconscious screaming in her mind that she was without such value, she intended to give them no reason to suspect that. If they believed there was something to be gained by keeping her alive, she intended to play on that misconception for as long as possible.

But something else troubled her. Ranae had used very specific wording in her response to the man. She seemed to imply that they were somehow altered; that they were in some way different than when they had come to be captives in this hidden place. Sam did not know in what way, but the woman seemed adamant about it and she could find no reason for her to lie. So what had changed?

Sam thought back on the events of the last week. It had been out of the ordinary only because she had escaped captivity by the mental hospital, but was otherwise as she expected things to be. The only point she could lay odds in favor of being the common denominator was...

[i]Of course!,[/i] her thoughts echoed within her mind. [i]The crash. We were all present for the crash. But why is this important? What reason is there to keep us, if that's the only thing we have in common?[/i]

She dwelled on Ranae's mention of a change. She had said that the event 'gave' them something. What did she mean? Could it have been something to do with how sick she'd felt for the last week? Aside from a lungful of burning rubber and gasoline fumes, she could think of no reason why a simple crash could have affected her enough to be put into quarantine.

But then there were the drawings. They were simple at first, but gained in both complexity and frequency over the course of the last seven days. At times Sam was not even aware of when she'd drawn them, or even [i]if[/i] she had. She would turn the page in her journal, fully intending to write another entry, only to find these meaningless scribbles splashed across her only outlet. Now that [i]was[/i] different. Only a week ago, Sam had [i]no[/i] ideas about art [i]or[/i] self-expression. Now she was to believe she was a latent artist in full bloom?

[i]Fat chance,[/i] she thought bitterly. [i]Something stinks here, and it isn't the crash.[/i]

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