Lights. Sound. Pain.
The only things I can see and feel. My vision is blurry, my head aches. Voices around me echo frighteningly.
I can’t move. My arms are numb. My legs are twitching, my eyes rolling all over the place to try and figure out where I am.
Things start to focus, and I become aware of the blonde woman sitting in front of me.
“Hello,” she says. Her voice is smooth and almost soothing. My stomach tingles. I manage a gargle in response.
“Do you know who you are?”
No. I don’t. I stare blankly, and she seems to get it.
“You are Experiment Number 626. You have survived far longer than any of our other tests.”
I remain oddly calm.
“We are going to run a more physical test on you now. It’s very basic. I’m sure you’ll do perfectly.”
A needle makes its way into the sensitive skin of my neck. Once again the world blurs. Then everything goes black . . .
I wake up in an area that is completely white. It hurts my eyes. I blink rapidly. My head spins as I push myself to my feet. There’s a high whistling sound, followed by static. A speaker turning on?
The woman from before’s voice speaks again, somewhere no doubt far from here. Her voice booms around me.
“Hello, 626. Welcome to the testing arena. What you are currently standing in is a maze. Your test is to get to the other side in the quickest time you can manage. You will be joined by a few of our . . . less successful tests in there, so keep an eye out. Good luck.”
And she was gone again. Well then. I looked down at myself. I wore a pair of white cotton shorts and a matching tank top. Chilly, but better than nothing, I suppose. I took a deep breath, and began moving forward. It was so white and bland I could hardly tell where one barrier ended and another began. I ended up walking into them quite a few times. All I could do was ignore my wounded pride and hope I wasn’t being watched.
I walked for what felt like ages, before finally reaching an open space. Its walls were white, which was honestly no surprise, but here and there, there were spatters and streaks of something red that made me feel highly unsettled. Then I saw the creature in the centre of the area.
It was one of the ugliest things I’ve ever seen. It was part human, part . . . lion? It’s muscles were huge, too huge. The skin over them was ripped and bleeding. It’s hair was a shaggy mess of tangles that hung across its shoulders. Its eyes were pure black, no pupils. All black. It’s knife-like teeth so big its lips bulged. On the end of its hands and feet were huge, sharp nails, covered in dried blood. And the smell . . . oh, Lord. I wanted to be sick, but only managed a small noise of disgust.
The creature’s ears pricked and it turned to look at me. Its lips peeled back in a snarl. Showing more of those awful teeth. It lunged at me and I barely managed to jump out of the way. We kept going in circles like this, him coming for me and me narrowly avoiding him. Then my bare feet slipped from under me. The creature was on me in an instant, trapping me under it. Saliva dripped from its teeth onto my cheeks. Its breath held the coppery smell of blood. I struggled as I began to panic, kicked and flailed, but it did nothing. It seemed to be smiling, amused by my pathetic attempt at getting away. It opened its mouth, teeth glistening, brought its head down against my shoulder and . . .
Agony.
Pure, unbelievable agony. I screamed at the top of my lungs as the creature pulled back, a large chunk of me in its mouth. Tears spilled down my cheeks as I lay there. The monster happily chewed his mouthful.
I don’t quite know how it happened. I don’t think I ever will. But I remember lifting my hands, pressing them to what I could reach of the creature. I focused all my thoughts on the anger and fear I felt towards this thing. Then there was a blinding flash of light. I yelped and closed my eyes tight, and when I opened them again, the creature was gone. Just . . . gone. The walls were covered in fresh blood and I could see chunks of the creature’s hair with it. My palms felt warm, and I turned them just in time to catch the last bit of glowing light fade away in them. What?
I got up. Despite my being mutilated, I felt completely relaxed. Weird. I kept walking, almost disappointed that there were no more mutants for me to make explode.
I finally came to an open space much larger than the last. The walls were pitch black, a startling contrast to the pure white I had gotten used to.
Sitting in the middle of the area was a small dark-haired boy. He was chubby, didn’t look more than six. He watched me, those strange stormy grey eyes cataloguing my every step. I saw a door in the wall just behind him, and gave him a small smile, stepping around him and heading for it. I never made it.
My ankle was grabbed and I was pulled to the floor. I looked over my shoulder to see an inky black shadow wrapped around my ankle.
It had emerged from a writhing mass of them that squirmed beneath the now standing child’s feet. They shot at me, stabbing my arms and my ruined shoulder. I didn’t scream. It was awful, but I didn’t scream. I raised my hand to one of the shadows, focused, and poof, it was gone, disintegrated into nothing, taking the others with it.
The boy screeched as if he were being ripped apart, and as soon as I was dropped to the floor, I ran for him, pressing my palm to his face. It was satisfying to watch his head turn to dust and float to the floor.
I stepped through the door into what looked like an empty laboratory. As soon as I stepped in, a gaggle of scientists began cheering and whooping, one of them being the blonde woman from the beginning. They were slapping each other on the back, saying how they’d “finally done it” and calling themselves geniuses. I was being completely ignored. I felt anger boil inside me.
I was the one who had made it through their stupid maze! I was the one who had done all the work! What had they done? And just what the hell was I?
I felt someone grab me and a deep voice saying it was time to put me away so I didn’t “get broken”, and then I lost it. I broke free of the hold I was in, and pressed my hands to the floor. The current of energy ran through the floor, up their bodies, into their brains. They all dropped like flies. I grinned. What to do with them?
I looked around the practically bare room, and my eyes fell on a table full of syringes and bottles full of oddly coloured liquids, most of which had that toxic warning label on them. I stepped up and grabbed an empty syringe, filling it with a bubbling yellow-green liquid.
I surveyed my once-captors, coming to a stop at the Blonde Woman at my feet. I knelt down, pressing the syringe into her neck, slowly releasing the liquids into her veins. She writhed and screamed, an odd hissing noise coming from her skin.
I looked from her, to the syringe, to the other scientists, and slowly a wicked, no doubt manic-looking grin spread across my face.
Time to experiment . . .
