Summary: What if one day you woke up and your ordinary life was not so ordinary? This is the story about a girl who wakes up in another world, under the guise of a top secret project known as Project 37. Placed in the hands of the most feared man in the world for protection, the girl discovers things about herself she never knew and about the world closely linked to Earth’s past. But not everything goes according to plan, and some of the hardest lessons in life come at a price. But will the price of love be death?

Side note: I came up with the idea for this story almost a decade ago and have been musing on it for several years. I began to write it down years ago, got somewhat far, and then abandon it. Now, years later, I am attempting to reconstruct it once more from the depths of my mind in hopes that one day it can go far, but first I will need your help.

Project 37

-By: Onah-

Chapter 1 : The Girl from the 80s

New York City: 1986

The snow came drifting down in the below freezing February air. It was early evening, but the sun had sunk below the horizon long ago, leaving the inhabitants to enjoy the evening life of the city or to seek shelter from the frigid wind. She stepped off the public bus that had come to a stop at the street corner and set a quick pace for her destination; home. Maybe she was one of the people seeking shelter from the wind, judging by her lack of a warm coat. Her worn out, brown boots rustled up freshly fallen snow as she walked quickly through the crowds, not lifting her head up once to notice of the world around her.

She saw it every day. The people bustling to and fro, the constant glare from the headlights of cars that always packed the streets, even at the oddest hours, the tall manmade structures glittering like black ice against the indigo sky. Lights from rooms within the towers gave patterns to the sides of buildings and neon signs illuminated the lower halves, trying to draw people in. Billboards littered any empty space in between structures and one didn’t have to look far to find a television blaring the news or the newest hit song music video. This city of the late twentieth century was primitively unvirtual and undigital and yet completely alive.

The concept of personal space was null as one had to get use to constantly being bumped into, and yet despite the brushing past of a shoulder or a nudge, the girl was completely numb to the outside world. Only when she chanced upon a group of teenagers her age standing around in front of a shop window watching a Duran Duran video did she mumble an “excuse me” to pass by, breaking her phase but not lifting her head. One of the teenage trendies gave a quick bottom to top glance before making up his mind and stepping aside to let the girl pass. She looked not a day over seventeen. With a pair of blue jeans on, a sweater two sizes too big for her, and bangs hanging down in her eyes, she looked like any other kid. As she passed, the wind blew another reassuring chill. The girl fussed with the scarf around her neck as she walked, untangling her somewhat puffy, curly blonde hair, the popular style at that time.

The lights from the shops and the scents of the small cafes eventually began to fade away as she rounded the corner into the more residential section of the area. Here, more trees could be found, neatly contained inside black ironwork fences that matched the iron railing along the steps leading up to the houses. If they could be called houses. The homes were narrow and packed together so tightly there were no fences to separate properties, and a backyard was considered a luxury. The front lawn consisted of two rectangular strips of grass with a cement pathway between them leading to the entrance steps.

After walking for about a block, the girl made her way up to the entrance of her house, balancing herself on the black iron railing alongside the steps. With her backpack held in place by one strap, suggesting this was her first return home from school, she stopped momentarily before the ominous black door and took a deep breath. The glow from the streetlamps made her breath visible and only reminded her of how freezing she was as she shivered outside.

She rang the doorbell and held her breath.

Please don’t let Annette be here. Please don’t let Annette be---

The door opened and yellow light from the interior flooded across her frame as the silhouette of a man came into view and a hostile voice bellowed, “Get in here.”

The girl was grabbed by the shoulder and forced into the living room of the house, halfway stumbling over her feet to accommodate the weight on her back. She was met with a pair of angry eyes belonging to a man with a dark mustache and beard. “Where’ve you been, Autumn?” It sounded more like an accusation than a question.

“I’ve been at school this whole time!”

“I didn’t receive a phone call.”

“I tried!” She pleaded on her behalf, “No one answered when I rang.”

“You’re lying to me,” the man sneered through his teeth. The girl stepped back at the sound of this. “You lied to me about your grades. Your math teacher called today. He said you’re failing-”

“And that’s why I stayed after today! I wanted to do well on the test tomorrow so I went to the library to have Sarah tutor me,” she pleaded once more.

“Get upstairs!” He shouted harshly. His arm even raising up to point.

Autumn jumped at the volume of his command, unhitched her backpack from her shoulder, and carried it frantically up the stairs as her eyes began to sting with tears. She ran into the safety of her room and shut the door, throwing her backpack on the floor and leaning her back against the frame. The sound of her ragged breath filled the small room and she felt hot tears forming around the rims of her eyes. “I hate this place!” She hissed aloud.

By now her face was red with frustration. “I tried, I really did!” Crossing the room, she threw a pathetic pillow against the wall. I knew he’d yell and scream at me even if I told him I was trying! He always does. She thought in her mind. Him and his wicked girlfriend, Annette, they really deserve each other. Her eyes began to wander around her own room as tears started to escape. Autumn picked up the pillow she threw and turned on the radio to drown out the fresh wave of sobs she felt coming. Yes, she had wanted to avoid an argument tonight, she tried to do something good. Curling up onto her bed, she cried her frustration into her pillow.

At length, she eventually wiped her eyes, knowing that homework still remained. In time, her evening was consumed by the paperwork, which gave a small relief for distracting the girl’s mind, but it didn’t hold for long. She lifted her green eyes to the bland walls and began to get lost as if she could see through them. I wish I was an adult… The pitiful thought let her mind wander, is if such a daydream would solve her problems, or her homework. By now it was late in the evening and her stomach reminded her of this, yet the girl knew that supper was out of the question. Getting homework done on an empty stomach was proving to be a difficult task and the early nights of Winter only made her body crave sleep too soon. Having to wake up early for school didn’t help much either.

Her papers were scattered across her bed and she laid her head on her pillow to find a more comfortable spot to read from her text book. Before Autumn knew it, she was nodding off to sleep… The textbook slowly slipped from her hand and found the floor. Autumn hadn’t even bothered to change into her pajamas or to take off her shoes. The city outside offered a dull hum from the activity to lull her to sleep and the moon outside began to rise higher in the night sky. Unaware to Autumn in her state of sleep that escaped reality, the standing lamp in her room started to flicker. It buzzed in between sessions of light and dark before it flickered out completely, plunging the room into darkness. That’s when it happened.

Light.

Blinding light.

It felt like days before she finally opened her eyes. And when she did, the girl winced in pain as objects began to come into focus around where she lay. White walls, no pictures, a counter with cold looking tin jars, the cabinets above it, a door, strange writing on small objects, a tile floor. Everything about this room confused Autumn and she decided to sit up to better access her surroundings, but the moment she did, she regretted it. The girl cried out in pain as a splitting headache sent its first wave of pain through her skull. She held her hand to her head and winced as the headache ran its course and in due time managed to dull down.

Suddenly, the door opened, and in walked a woman probably in her mid thirties in a professional white lab coat, with a strange metal device around her head. The device was attached to a single spectacle in front of her eye, and her brown hair was packed neatly into a bun. The woman looked at Autumn and exclaimed something in surprise in a language Autumn had never heard before. She wore a smile across her face and crossed the room to examine the girl.

Autumn stared wide-eyed at the woman. “Am I in a doctor’s office??” She asked frantically.

The woman stopped and stared at Autumn as if she was insane. “You speak English? Well they didn’t tell me that. Yes, you’re in a doctor’s office, my office, I’m doctor Denisa.”

“Oh my gosh…” the girl whispered through her teeth as she looked around in panic.

“What?”

“I don’t remember how I got here!” Autumn panicked. “I know this can’t be a dream because my head hurts too much! Something must have happened to me, yes, something awful, or I wouldn’t be here and I’d remember everything!” The girl put her hands to her face.

“Whoa, whoa, calm down.” The woman took a step closer to Autumn and took her hands away from her face. “Nothing terrible happened to you.” The woman held on to one hand. “You’re perfectly okay, there’s nothing to worry about. I’ve been monitoring your stats for the past couple days and you’ve been fine, slightly underweight, but perfectly healthy other than that. I don’t know why you’re here, I’m not the person with the answers, I’m just doing what I’ve been told and that’s to look after you and I’m here to help, okay?”

Autumn’s green eyes met the woman’s gaze as if searching for truth. Not knowing what to say, the girl let the doctor’s words sink in a moment and the doctor began to notice her breathing relaxed. “A couple days…is that true? I’ve been here for a couple days?”

“Well, I’m not sure how long you’ve been here, but you’ve been in my care for the last couple days, and you were just sleeping. They told me a couple days of sleep was normal for someone in your condition, but I know you’re not hurt. As far as why you were sleeping so long and what that condition is, they never told me, only that it was temporary and that it would wear off. And now it appears it has and you have a headache, here.” The woman fumbled through a cabinet and produced a pill and got her a glass of water. “Take this, it’ll help in no time.” Autumn gulped it down.

“I’m sorry I don’t have the answers, in fact, I was strictly informed not to ask you any questions and to direct any questions you had to them. They threatened me pretty bad, so you must be someone important.”

Her head was beginning to feel much better. “I don’t know anything.” Autumn stated. “Does that mean I can’t ask you who they are?”

Doctor Denisa sighed. At this point she began to enter data into a small computer and then returned to Autumn’s side. It began to seem to Autumn that this doctor was not going to answer her question, and suddenly, the device around the doctor’s head came to life. The clear single spectacle in front of the woman’s eye lit up with small green symbols as the device began to move of its own accord about Autumn’s head and momentarily shining into her eyes. The woman would then enter something into the computer. The spectacle would zoom in like a camera in front of Autumn’s face and shrink or enlarge, as if focusing on the girl’s eye for signs. The girl guessed the device was helping the doctor check her in some way and watched in wonder as she had never seen technology like this.

Before Autumn could ask what the strange metal device around doctor Denisa’s head with the zooming lens was, the doctor stood up and let out another sigh, crossing her arms and looking at the girl. “You just look so young…what do they want with you?” The woman asked aloud, as if taking pity on the child.

The girl stared up at her in confusion. Despite the fact that Denisa as a doctor had a professional air about her, something personal was bothering this woman and Autumn wondered if her youth brought out something maternal in the professional. Maybe something enough that would…

“Please, doctor Denisa. Tell me who they are.”

Yet another sigh. “Fine. Fine!” She held up her hands. “But my conscience is clean after this, then I won’t feel like I’m feeding a lamb to the lions. Besides, you would have found out anyways. I really don’t know why you’re here, they would never tell me such a thing. ‘They’ is our government. I’ll just tell you what I do know and it’s not much. All that I know about you is that you are classified information, probably because you are going to be involved in another one of their top secret projects. The truth is, you’re a patient without a name, and like I said, I can’t ask you any personal questions. If you are a project, word will get around fast here at this base. It’s not even on any map, so don’t bother asking anyone where you are either.”

“You mean like ‘Area 51‘?”

“I’ve never heard of that base before, but if it’s a secret base like this one, I probably never will.”

“Right…” The girl stared at the wall in disbelief to doctor Denisa’s words, along with other mixed emotions. “So… let me get this straight. I’m going to meet some people that are going to tell me I’m in a place that doesn’t exist and that I’m a top secret project to the government?”

“Right.” The doctor stated seriously.

“Anything else you want to tell me?”

The doctor couldn’t quite sit easy with the tone in which Autumn asked that last question. “Yes. Now that you’re fully awake and functioning, I’m going to take you to get a change of clothes before you meet the head council. You can’t possibly see them in….that…” The woman eyed Autumn’s outfit from bottom to top. “I’ve never even seen hair styled as poofy as yours, let alone your clothes. Come with me.”

As if going from hot to cold, the inquisitive girl suddenly fell silent as she stood up and followed Denisa out the door. The door opened to a hallway and the girl guessed the doors in this hallway led to other offices like the one they were just in. They walked a little bit further and headed towards a sliding door. “Remember to stay by my side, and don’t look at anyone. We’re in the medical sector and we need to go to the government sector of the base because the building’s divided into different sections.” The woman swiped a card and the door slid opened for them. Now they were in a much bigger hallway, with an open air about it, that no longer led forward but rather left to right. Some other people in white coats were pacing down the hallway as doctor Denisa turned around to punch some numbers into a panel. “And when you meet the head council, don’t speak unless spoken to, remember, they’re all aristocrats, so just keep your hands by your sides and-”

Denisa turned around and the place where Autumn was standing was empty!

Autumn was running down the hallway at top speed. This woman is crazy!!

Her feet took her on a path she knew not where and ran to the end of the hallway before turning and running down yet another one.

“Wait! Stop!” doctor Denisa shouted from behind.

Autumn continued to turn down hallway after hallway in the labyrinth of corridors before finding a flight of stairs. She could hear the woman running to catch up but not fast enough. The girl noted that these stairs only went up and followed them before opening a door at the top and running down yet another hallway. She heard the door slam behind her momentarily as Denisa was starting to catch up. In front of Autumn was glass elevators! Victory!

“Stop that girl!” Came a shout that made a couple onlookers stare on in confusion. Autumn scrambled inside an elevator.

“Wait!” the doctor cried with worry, “Don’t go there!!”

Too late. The thick glass doors chimed closed and the woman became a blur. Autumn had no idea which button to press and the elevator was already programmed to go to one place. All the girl could do was hang on tight as the glass elevator with panoramic views lifted her up to the higher stories. Now that she could see the base up here, it was huge. The buildings of the lower stories had opaque walls, yet the hallways in the upper stories had bluish glass on all sides connecting to the structures like a spiders web. It almost reminded the girl of a movie set with the interlinking glass hallways tunneling into the buildings with such strange architecture. Like something from the future. People were clearly visible moving to and fro through the glass tunnels, and most of the buildings here had enormous windows that made up one side of an entire wall. It looked to be about mid morning judging from the light and sky she could see through the glass. The doors chimed open and the girl was hit with a state of panic as the only visible way to get into one of those glass hallways would be to pass through what looked to be a room full of bustling people.

Autumn darted through the room of busy people, talking into strange devices, typing into computers at their desks. “Hey, watch it!“ Some angry people holding coffee shouted, this room was more loud with commotion. Autumn saw an unfamiliar woman in a business suit close a device she was talking into and point at her as she ran by. “Stop that girl!”

She had managed to pass the majority of the desks by now and a man with a confused look on his face contemplated for a second about what to do before making up his mind that he was fast enough to catch Autumn. Her eyes widened in a state of panic as she saw the man and she felt a fresh burst of speed before her pathway came to end by a pair of sliding glass doors that would not budge as she approached. By the time she reached the doors she was cornered and started pounded on the glass walls.

“Somebody help me!” She screamed. “I’ve been kidnapped!!”