“Please! When is it going to stop?”
Blood ran from my wrists and ankles as I thrashed at the bindings. I prayed for my mind to shut down. I wished that everything would be done with; over.
I wanted to be dead.
When I woke I didn’t open my eyes. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to know what was going to happen next. The room was cold. I was lying on a thin mat, that didn’t form any kind of barrier between me and the cold metal below me.
I looked at my hand. The bones were in pieces, but as I felt it there was no pain. It was as if the incident had never happened.
I turned my head to the side and blinked. There was a pair of feet.
“Sandy?” I turned my head slowly to look at her face.
“Sorry, my name is not Sandy. It’s Rachel.” The girl said kneeling down to bring her face to the same level as mine. She pushed her dirty blond hair out of her face. She was at least my age, but she looked like she hadn’t had a decent meal in months.
I looked around the room; it was only me and Rachel. I was sure that they had already gotten to Sandy and Kenny. The room was small; there was the bed, which is what I was sitting on, a toilet with a small sink on top of the bowl, and a door. Enough room for me to stand. If I had stuck out both of my arms they would both found a wall.
“Who are you?” I leaned against the wall and rubbed my neck.
“I am like you, part of this project.” She sat on the ground, and leaned on the opposite wall.
“What was that stuff that they pumped into my body?” I hoped that she had some answers.
“Sorry again. I don’t have anything for you. I just wanted to warn you.” She stood and moved into the center of the room.
“Warn me about what?” I looked up at her face, the light from above her burning my eyes.
“They are about to do something to you, I don’t have time to explain what. You need to let your emotions take over, let whatever bubbles up around the edge take over.” She looked scared.
“What in heaven’s name are you talking about?”
“Just remember to let your emotions take over and things will get better for all of us.” She said, “Oh, and the others that you came here with, they are all fine. They have all been through the injection and are in separate cells on this level.”
I let my head fall down into my hands, and rubbed my eyes. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to take much more.
When I looked up she had vanished.
I jumped up and looked around. I ran my hands over the door, but I was sure that if it had opened I would have heard it, the metal was thick.
I sat back down, ghosts, what next?
Chapter 5: Heat
My head was killing me and the quiet in the room was not helping. I spent most of my time switching from sitting on the bench, pacing around the room, and laying down. I counted the lines in the ceiling hundreds of times. Each thud of my heart was like a boulder crashing onto my skull.
I thought of the girl who had vanished into thin air. She had said that her name was Rachel and she knew that the others were alright. I wondered if she had been a figment of my imagination that I had created to ease my mind.
It hadn’t helped.
Several times sporadically a small slide halfway up the wall would open. Someone would place a protein bar in an unmarked wrapper and a bottle of water on the small shelf below the slide.
I ignored it the first half a dozen times. When it became clear that they would take the food if I didn’t eat it coupled with the fact that I didn’t know how long I was going to be there, I decided that I should at least drink the water. Then I gave in when my stomach was louder than my heart beat and began to eat the bars.
They were extremely bland but I didn’t feel hungry after I ate them.
“Stand up and face away from the door. Place your hands on the back of your head.” A man’s voice issued from the speaker in the wall.
I sat still on the bench contemplating if submission was a healthier option at this point. The message was repeated with a harsher tone.
I stood and did as the voice ordered.
The wall beside the door hissed loudly, and the gears creaked loudly as it moved into the wall. I could feel the floor shake as the massive door moved.
The man grabbed my hands, wrapped a zip tie around my wrists, and pulled it tight. He pushed me out of the room with a great deal of force. “This way.” He barked.
“Where are you taking me?” I knew that each and every word was a waste of time and energy.
“Dr. Cid wants to make you show.” Someone said behind me. It didn’t sound like the guard. I turned to look, and try to see who had spoken, but the guard forced my head forward.
A skinny man wearing a black silk shirt and pressed pants came out of nowhere and walked right beside me.
“He can’t see me or hear me.” The skinny man smiled.
“Wha…” I started, but he shook his head.
“You don’t want them digging around in your head.”
I nodded.
“Don’t worry about who I am, just listen.”
Nod.
“This oaf is going to take you into a room and lock a door behind you. There is a device built into the ceiling called a Kinetic brain wave inducer. I don’t know how it works, but it’s painful. On top of that, the walls and the floor of the room are electrified. They will be using this combination to force you to show.
My advice to you is to react as quickly as possible but hold back your power. This will end the procedure and label you as low tiered.”
We arrived at the door. The guard slid a keycard into the lock and waited for a click. He opened the door and pushed me into the room. There was no light at all in the room. He cut the zip ties and pulled the door shut.
I was plunged into almost complete darkness.
The skinny man was in the room with me but he began to fade.
“What are you?” I hissed under my breath.
“Remember!” he said as he completely disappeared.
I paced around the room. I knew that I had lost my mind, or this was some way that it was trying to cope with what was happening. The only thing that poked holes in that theory was that most people, who are crazy, think that they are sane.
“New cell, huh?” I yelled at the walls.
All of the lights in the room ignited at once scorching my retinas. The walls were lined with bay windows that housed several people varying from scientists to businessmen.
Dr. Cid sat at the center.
“Here we have Subject 297. I am her mentor. This product has great potential. Once behavior modification is complete she could fetch a premium.” He kept his eyes locked on one particular man desperately searching for approval.
“I’m not a damn product!”
“And on that note, let us begin.”
Above my head a disk like device began to glow blue. Pulsating hums filled the room as the back of my brain began to burn with a searing pain.
My mind began to race with what I should do. I was torn between two strangers or delusions, one begged me to lose control, and the other advised me to contain myself.
I fell to my knees and yelled, trying to tear at the back of my skull. It felt as if a knife had slid into my brain just between my eyes.
Two meters on the walls began to fill with red light. Once full, my entire body locked up every muscle contracting at once as an electric pulse ripped through me.
“What do you want me to do? I’ll do anything, just make it stop!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, as more and more electricity blasted through my flesh.
I closed my eyes and rested my head on the ground unable to hold it up any longer.
All of the noise was gone.