The Association - Alternate Version

In my groggy daze, I heard the dull beeping of the alarm clock. I already knew that if I laid there for a few minutes, then my mom would come in, turn off the droning tone, and wake up my already non-sleeping lump on the bed. But gentle isn't a word I would use to describe her, considering she wakes people up with buckets of ice water, she dumps a bucket on you every time you moan. For me, that would usually mean about ten tubs, so usually, I can turn off the alarm on the third beep.

But today, I couldn't even twitch my fingers. I tried to open my eyes, but I only succeeded in realizing that they felt as heavy as blocks of lead. But with just a glimpse of the ceiling, I could tell that I wasn't in the same old room or even the same old house that I'd lived in all my life. Suddenly, I started to hear screams and the rushing around of many people. Then, the screams formed words, buzzing around me. "She's awake!" "Give her more morphine!" "How could she have woken up? This must be the first time in history... Especially after all the morphine we gave her last night..." My mind froze at those two words, and then began to whir.

Last night? How could they have done that? I was at the party with Tyler...but I don't remember how I got home...Did someone spike the punch? My brain started to cloud over and my thoughts grew fuzzy. I tried to ask where I was, but my brain had all but shut down by now. I managed to open my eyes for about three seconds, and was struck with horror at the face that I saw. ...Dad? I thought, filled with confusion. I hadn't seen him since he left me and mom when I was seven, on my birthday. Before I could form another question in my mind, my eyes closed and I blacked out.

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I woke up to an electronic voice. It took me a few minutes to register the words, from, what I guessed, was a side effect from all the morphine they gave. If I listened closely, I could make the strange mumblings into words. "Annebelle, it's time to get up. Annebelle, wake up please." The voice seemed to come from, and everywhere at once. I opened my eyes, which now felt light as a feather. The mysterious voice continued as I took in my surrounding.

I was in a room with a veil of black over it. I couldn't see any doors, or even where the floor stopped and the wall started. The room was nearly bare, as if someone had forgotten to add furniture, but I was lying on a tall, slightly tilted, bed completely exposed, other than where I was lying on it, so, go figure, it was stone cold. I looked next to me and I saw a bedside table, as tall as the "bed" I was on. On it, I noticed there was a pair glasses. I was half tempted to try them on, but I decided to figure out where I was and why I was there.

By now, the anonymous voice was getting on my nerves with its rambling. I tried to sit up, but I found my arms and legs restrained. I was beginning to be truly frightened by what was happening to me. "Where am I? Why am I here?" I was starting to be hysterical. "Annebelle, calm down" said the voice. "Calm down? You're telling me to calm down when I don't even know where I am or anything!" I was practically screaming now. I started to frantically look around, as if there was an answer somewhere in the empty room, and realized that I was hooked up to so many IVs and machines that I lost count. I felt my muscles tense up, my eyes widen with fear, and my mouth agape.

I was about to scream when people bustled through a near-invisible door. I spotted my dad right away, because he was one of the few who were wearing a black cloak instead of a white lab coat. He looked at me at the same time, and in that instant, I saw how sorry he was for leaving. But even after six years, it looked as if he hadn't aged. He still had his casual five o'clock shadow, black dress pants, and crisp white shirt. He smiled with his dazzling white teeth, when he glanced at me, and he gave me a thumb's up. While he was doing that, I was still processing that he was here in the middle of this mob of strangers. I realized that the people around me all had their mouths moving, as if they were shouting at each other. Or shouting at me, but I would never know which, because I could only here that annoying electronic voice.

"Annebelle, we aren't going to hurt you. You have been chosen to be one of our newest recruits, along with a handful of others." You have been chosen at a younger age than we are use to, because we believe that the younger than our recruits are, the easier it is to train them." "So...I am a recruit?" I asked cautiously. As soon as I started talking, everyone's attention was focused on me. Then everyone was trying to talk to me, but I still couldn't hear them. When I shrugged, letting them know I couldn't hear them, I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder and heard a pop in my ears as if I were on an airplane. I looked over to see my dad with a needle, and he grinning eerily. "Yes Annebelle, a recruit. You are our first recruit to wake up from our first series of knock-out drugs. They are extremely powerful, so the fact that you woke up an hour after getting ingesting them has made us curious."

"Really? So... what am I a recruit of, exactly?" I nervously asked. "Annebelle, you are one of the newest recruits in the N.S.A.A., the National Secret Agents Association," said the voice, which seemed to be audible only to me. I was now not as frightened as before, but once I learned that I was supposed to be a spy, I was stunned, while at the same time terrified. As my thoughts raced along, I heard another pop, and I could hear the screaming of the doctors (or what I hoped to be doctors) surrounding me. I pulled against the restraints to cover my ears, but I only succeeded in making my wrists endure excruciating pain along with move a few IVs around. I started crying, simply because of my wrist's torture and the constant screaming which appeared to be in another language.

"HEY!" I heard my dad above the others. "I just gave her the S.E. shot, so can you all either be quiet or leave now!" he told the mass of people. "Yes, Sir Chief of Training," they replied as well as saluted in unison.

I continued to stare at my dad, almost as if he were an alien. "Are you by any chance my daddy?" I asked anxious for the answer. He laughed a deep heart-filled laughter that seemed to fill the room. "Please clear the room so that I can talk with my daughter. Oh and before I forget, Dr. Lauren will you go hit the release button for the restraints," he said with a form of order in his voice. "Yes Sir," Dr. Lauren replied.

It was almost as if I were hallucinating which for all I know I was, because when I blinked the room was suddenly empty except for me and my dad. He looked me up and down approvingly as I did to him. As he took in how much I had grown up in six years, I noticed that I had started sliding down the tilted table. As I was sliding off the table, I noticed that I was now being set free from some of the machines that I was once plugged into. I winced slightly and my dad pushed a button on the other table, until the table gradually tilted back until it was completely horizontal. I looked at him with a new form of curiosity. "As you probably noticed, I am a higher rank than most of the others," he stated, a hint of bragging in his voice. I stared into his deep blue eyes, which looked like an endless expanse of ocean-side. Suddenly I started pounding him with all the questions that had been swirling around in my head just moments before. As my words tumbled over one another, he stood there patiently, as if he had expected me to break down like this. After I had finished murmuring one of my last questions, a smile spread across his face.

"I promise to answer all of your questions, without giving away any classified information," he said, "if you promise to forgive me for leaving you and your mom." Almost instinctively I blurted out, "I don't know...I mean you left me, with no contact, for six years, starting on my seventh birthday! How can I forgive someone, including you, just like that? I mean, I only know why I'm here from you and some voice that probably doesn't even exist!" I ended, out of breath. He stared at me, clearly not expecting this to come out of mouth.

"What voice?" He asked, as if this were exceedingly important. I hesitated, "Well, there was a voice telling me information..." "Like what?" He demanded. "Well maybe if you had let me finish, I might've told you!" I screamed in his face, quickly regretting it.

"I-I'm sorry... I didn't mean to... I mean..." I stammered. His face had quickly gone from a joyous expression a moment before, to this new one, which I had never seen the likes of before, but it was hiding every expression. But because I know him so well, even after six years, I could tell he was frustrated with me. "Look Annebelle, I'm sorry as well. But please, even after all this time I am only so patient. So, will you please explain to me what you think this voice was and what it was talking about?"

I pondered over what he had said. I tried to sit up, but I quickly reconsidered, since I was still "wired up" to so many machines. "Why are you so concerned about this anyway? I mean you were the one who brought me into this in the first place!" I countered.

"Oh, so apparently, anything that goes wrong in your life now is my fault? How about I tell you why you're here in reality, not in your own little world," he answered. I rolled my eyes, naturally, and he had a hint of a smile on his face, so I could tell he missed every minute detail about me mixing into his life. I could tell he was trying to switch around the mood when he said "Are you ready for your history lesson? Belle?" He had given me this nickname when we first watched "Beauty and the Beast" in the movie theaters, along with Belle was the only character I had liked as a toddler. I gave him a slightly curt smirk. "Of course. Why wouldn't I be, Beast?" I replied, as I always had in the past.

"Well, when I met your mother, she was one of the nicest people I knew at the time." At this point I started to bust out laughing, and so did my dad. "You really had me there for a minute, but then you said "mom" and "nice" in the same sentence" I said in between gasps.

A few calming breaths later, he began to tell the real story. "Well, after you were born, you and the other recruits were chosen, even though you were still babies. Because you see, we have much more advanced technology than anywhere else in the world, so we have technology that allows us to see how potentially athletic, intelligent and such the children will be at the appropriate age.

So we chose the top 100 babies to be spies when they are older. When I found out you were chosen I wanted to cry, because I was already so proud of you, and you were only a day old. But I was chosen to go on a long-term mission, meaning I couldn't have anyone in touch with me for at least 3 years, and if I denied going, then I would've been fired. And they would have erased my memory... again..." He ended in a whisper. "Umm... Dad?" I asked, scared for my dad's health. "Are you ok?"

"What?!" he asked, as if he were a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar. "Oh, I, mean um... I'm fine...Annebelle, right?"

Now I was freaking out again. "Dad? Can you at least tell me where I am?" He appeared to recover as fast as he had freaked out. "I'm sorry Annebelle, but I wish I knew myself."