Outspoken

"Vidia."

There was no response.

"Vidia!" Veronica said louder this time. The girl wouldn't wake up, so Veronica walked over to try once more.

"Vidia! Vidia!" She tried shaking her awake. Finally Vidia had awoken, but with clear irritation in her eyes. She flailed Veronica's arms off of her, "What the fuck do you want?"

Veronica had no reply. Almost as if she was still too shocked by the thoughts that continued to circulate her head, rendering her from speaking her mind.

"Why are you waking me up at this time?" Vidia sighed. "You look like you've had a nightmare."

"V-Vidia…" Veronica could barely spurt. "It wasn't a nightmare…"

"What wasn't a nightmare?" What are you-"

"THEY WERE MEMORIES VIDIA," she interrupted. Her tone was overly sincere and flooded with fear.

"Veronica, what are you talking about?" Vidia was annoyed. She just wanted to go back to sleep.

Suddenly, Veronica's eyes swerved elsewhere—towards the containment hall.

"I need to tell the others," her anticipation shot up. "I need to tell the others NOW. WE NEED TO GET EVERYONE HERE."

"Why are you like this? What happened? I've never seen you like this before…" Vidia observed her panicked roommate. Just the day before, Veronica had been like she'd always been; nonchalant with everything, other than with her clear interest in flowers. Now, she was anxiously sweating, and panicking like Vidia had never seen before. In the heat of the moment, Vidia subconsciously tuned into her mind, where her thoughts had began speaking to her in a voice too clear:

"Listen to her. Listen to what she has to say. Let her express her worries. Let her words guide your thoughts. Don't doubt what she says. Don't doubt anything.

Believe everything."

—The voiced thoughts vanished, and were quickly interrupted by Veronica's continued burst of stutters and jitters. "I- They-" She couldn't finish any of her words.

"Believe everything?" Vidia asked herself.

"Yes," the voice replied.

Vidia realized this voice had always been in her mind. It was always... speaking to her. It had been speaking to her ever since—

"Ever since…" Vidia understood the hole in her mind:

She didn't know how long the voice had been there.

She didn't actually know what came from her past.

"V-Vidia get your brother, and let's get Ian, and the two others; Midas and Venus." Veronica stood up, unbalanced. She grabbed Vidia's hand and led her out the door. The containment hall was still lightened, but to a dimmer state; not overwhelmingly white and bright as usual—this indicated the nighttime state of the facility.

Veronica rushed further down the hall towards Midas and Venus' room. This left Vidia to Gian-Luca and Ian's room closer to her.

"What am I doing?" She asked herself. Everything was going by so suddenly and so quickly. She could barely keep up

"No, do as she says. Do it," the voice in her head spoke. This reinitialized Vidia's spirit. "Okay," and she walked towards the designated room.

She knocked heavily on the door, "Gula!" She yelled; "Gula! Wake up, I need you!"

Within a minute, the door was answered; "Vidia?" Gian-Luca came out.

"Is Ian awake?" Vidia asked.

Gian-Luca turned back around. "He was. I'm not sure about now."

"You imbecile why are you dragging us out this late!" Venus could be heard, yelling down the hall. Behind him, was a drowsy Midas, both being led by Veronica who scurried towards Vidia and Gian-Luca in a panic.

"Go inside the room," she said quickly, and they all went in. They were greeted with the deep snores of Ian who had fallen back asleep, still in bed.

"What's happening? Why are we all meeting here?" Gian-Luca asked in worry.

"Yeah this is unusual," Midas rubbed his eyes.

They all looked towards Veronica, who had organized the entire chaos. She was visibly frightened, and unsettled by all that surrounded her.

"I-" She tried to speak. "I had a dream… where…"

"Oh don't tell me we all gathered here to comfort you after having a nightmare?" Venus annoyingly said.

Veronica tried defending herself. "No no no. It was like a dream, but it felt… all too real. It felt way too familiar. Almost like they were—"

"Memories?" Midas budged in. "They felt like memories, right?"

Veronica replied with surprise. "Y-Yeah…"

"And what happened in your dream?" Midas asked.

Veronica hesitated for a second. She thought of Toby, but she wiped it away. "I was working as a gardener, at my workplace. I was working at… Numbra's Botanical Garden of Flowers."

"Numbra," Midas immediately said. "That's a district. Numbra District."

Veronica's eyes widened; "YES!" She yelled. "Th-That's my home district!"

"You remember too? Mine's Pactolus District," Midas said.

"Pactolus District? I know that place... I remember seeing the name pop-up on the news before. It was broadcasting an irregularity on one of those big billboard-looking screens." Gian-Luca spoke-up.

"You know my hometown?" Midas asked. "Do you remember yours too?"

"It was…" Gian-Luca thought. "Hunsington District."

The three—Veronica, Gian-Luca, and Midas—all looked at each other with absurd realizations; their dreams weren't dreams.

"Hold on, hold on. I thought that what I had was just a dream? I dreamt of my time in Hunsington District. I remember working as a volunteer, and I was on my way to my client's house and then…" Gian-Luca paused. "That's… all I remember."

"I had a dream of my time in Pactolus District, where I attended Education, and did an assessment. I even remember my teacher's name; it was Mr. C," Midas said. "I even remember that there was a big glowing circle in the sky—the sun. It changed to different colors at different times; white at 6:00 am, yellow at 9:00 am, orange at 12:00 pm and—"

"Red at 12:00 am," Veronica said.

"Yeah…" Midas replied.

Veronica now sat up straight. She seemed more eased at the comprehension she was about to bestow—

"If the three of us have had dreams in the exact same society, then it really means that they're… memories?"

"Seems reasonable," Midas spoke.

"No, nothing about this is reasonable at all. You're all a bunch of hallucinating imbeciles," Venus was irritated.

"Venus, you've never had dreams like ours? None of what we've said rings a bell?" Midas asked.

"No," he replied.

"Me neither," Vidia spoke up. "I have absolutely no clue what you guys are talking about."

"Hmm," Midas wondered. "The only hole I see in this whole thing is how we even got… here," he looked around. He'd been referring to the containment room, the halls, the testing chambers—the facility as a whole. "How and why are we here in A.X.A.'s facility, and where exactly are we?"

"You guys don't remember how you got here?"

Midas and Gian-Luca looked over at Veronica cluelessly.

"I can recall a bit of my transfer over to this place. After an… incident that I was involved with, I remember waking up in a vehicle. The walls were all white and super bright, just like the ones here," Veronica pointed around. "I remember seeing three white suits… Angels, surrounding me. A-And one of them was Overseer Ariel! I could recognize her by voice. I remember them injecting things into my head. I remember…" She paused. "After something was injected into my head, my memories started drifting away. It was like I was slowly forgetting everything."

Everyone listened to what she said with interest. Even those who hadn't recalled any memories at all—Venus and Vidia—had their attention seized.

"Now that you mention it..." Vidia paused; "I don't recall anything from my past."

"How about you?" Midas turned to Venus. "No," he snarked.

"And even to us who do remember," Midas looked at Veronica and Gian-Luca; "None of us know the full extent of our pasts, do we?"

"Not everything," Veronica agreed.

"Yeah, there's a lot of gaps in my memories from back home," Gian-Luca said.

Midas thought back onto Veronica's recollection of her transfer involving the vehicle, "I think it's appropriate to say we've all been kidnapped, and that we've all probably experienced a similar transfer to Veronica's."

They all sat in silence for a moment, taking in the information overload that was transferred from person to person.

Venus broke the silence; "But… why?" The rest looked at him. "Why would we of all people be taken? None of us are the same, we're all different. You're all a bunch of imbecilic idiots!"

His words were followed by a groan coming from the corner of the room. It was Ian waking from his sleep. He sat up, and looked at the group of people huddled in the room.

"What the fuck?" He squinted his eyes. "What're you all doing here?"

"I'll explain," Midas spoke up.

"I think I have a pretty good understanding of the situation we've all found ourselves in."