# The Masterpiece Project



## ElysiumXae (Jul 22, 2011)

This time, I spelled the title right! I will post the first chapter and see what response comes out of it before posting the next chapter. Here it goes!

 Chapter One

            Joseph


Hunger twists my stomach into knots. How long have I been here in this four-walled glass cell? Two hours? Two weeks? Only in this institution is time irrelevant. The kids in here, and even the doctors, are always waiting- waiting to be fed, waiting for water...waiting to see whether the next experiment will fail or be a success. The series of tests is always harsh.
            “G6!” shouts a burly man in a white trench coat, his voice causing my slow-beating heart to jump out of bed, taking me with it. Ugh. He doesn't even _look _smart. Medical degree, my butt.
            “Food! Eat it all.” He opens a small, locked slot in my glass cell and pushes in a gleaming, white plate covered with something that looks like fish and some green beans. I know there's a possibility of it being spiked with something. Everything is always a test.
            Let me explain.
            My name is Joseph, better known to the doctors as experiment G6. I live in poverty, but not perhaps the kind you're used to hearing about. When you think of poverty, you probably envision really skinny, dirty, and cold people clad in raggedy clothes. In our poverty, our clothes are a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt. Around our wrists are thick steel bracelets that display our vital signs. Some of us are sickly skinny, but many more of us are lean and even quite muscular. Really, it all depends on the tests. There are unknown numbers of us here ranging from infant to teenagers, but most kids die by age seventeen. We're just as I've said- experiments. Genetic experiments. They test us to see what will make our nails tougher, what makes our hair grow or not grow. But these are just trivial ones. The more severe ones are the ones _they_ want. The doctors, that is. Things that make us strong as stone and our skin as tough as diamonds are what put those big, evil grins on their sharp faces. They especially love to work inside the womb with the unborn. In the past, all the more complex experiments have failed with death.
            That's why people like me are here to test and test and test until we produce an extraordinary genetic breakthrough. 
            Don't ask me how I got here, because not even I know. Vague memories sometimes flit through my mind of when I was very, very young and in a place very much different than this, but for what I ought to remember, I've always been here. All I know is the present, and I'm living in fear of the future. At any moment, a needle in my wrist could kill me, or a physical examination could cause my heart to fail. I'm honestly lucky that I've lived this long; I'm proud to say that, at fifteen, I am one of the oldest here. 
            I look at my plate of fish, which smells like nothing. I wonder for an instant if I've lost my sense of smell in some kind of experiment. But no- I can still smell the sterile walls. Pushing the thought aside, I grab for the little plastic fork and dig in to the rare meal. Usually it's some kind of mush, a mixture of fruit and veggies and meat and stuff, just to make sure we're getting all the nutrients we need so we don't become, God forbid, malnourished. As the food inches its way into my stomach, the hunger pains in my ribs subside. The man, I now notice, is still standing there with his eyes locked on me, unmoving as I nibble on the end of my last green bean to savor its treasure.
            His eyes narrow; his bald head gleams in the fluorescent light. A smile, I notice, struggles to break free of his stern lips. Okay, this food was definitely spiked.
            A tingle travels through my bowls, but that is all. With a smirk on my face, I lock eyes with the doctor, knowing now that the poison in the fish had no affect on me. I survived the test.
            “Better get your head up, boy,” he bellows. I raise my chin to the air defiantly. The man takes a small notepad and writes down something, seeming pleased. “G6, yesterday, were you injected?” the doctor inquires of me.
            “Yes, sir,” I give a stern reply.
            “And this is your first meal since then?”
            Yeah, actually, you selfish monster. “Yes.”
            “Gooooood...” the brute draws out the word like an appetizing feast. “To satisfy your curiosity, we injected you with a man-made DNA virus that is resistant to poison. The poison, as you have guessed, was in that fish that you just consumed. Congratulations. Two others have failed in this test. We wouldn't want to crowd the hospital wing with another patient.”
            That twisted smile on his face makes me want to punch the glass wall in front of me. Something in my heart tells me this is wrong.

Ω

            The tile floor is cold, not an ideal place for sleeping. I wish I could be tucked inside a warm bed, something I vaguely recall and that Nick has sometimes mentioned them during our recreational period.
            When I pry my eyes open, the view of a young girl, around nine years, is before me. The doctors call her G11, but her real name is Tracey. Her glass room is right across the hall from mine, and I briefly recall her introducing herself to me during rec some time ago. Tangled blonde hair frames soft brown eyes. I remember her smiling innocently, another child caught up in this calm chaos of the institution. Her body gangles awkwardly like all girls' bodies do when they go through that stage between girl and woman.
            At the moment, Tracey’s gangly body is thrashing around wildly, pounding the ground, her eyes without irises. Veins pop out repulsively on her neck, forearms, and probably other unseen areas. Of course, these glass walls muffle the sound of her convulsive shrieks. I and the others nearby stare in silence as the horribly failed experiment's heart beats for the final time. Still we watch as two doctors open the door and take her away, completely unemotional. They don't care that they've killed another innocent child- the third mortality this month. I briefly wonder what it's like to die in that way. Do you feel pain? Panic? Distress? Or perhaps, optimistically, there's some sort of euphoria while the realization that you'll be free from this place forevermore stumbles into your head.
            To interrupt my thoughts, another man comes out in white doctor's scrubs and an infamous clipboard in his hand. The glasses on his face are sharply geometrical. He opens the small window that allows food and speech between my confinement and the hallway. “Experiment G6, you are due for a physical examination soon. But today, you need to step into the surgery room,” states the doctor less harshly than how the doctor the other day spoke to me. It’s true that some doctors are not as repulsive as others. I would call them more sympathetic, but if that were true, I doubt I’d be here right now.
            He unlocks the door to my cell and opens it, extending to me a pair of steel hand cuffs. Walking towards him, I produce my own my arms, and he binds the cuffs to me as a usual precaution. The tapping of our feet in unison is the only sound that echoes through the white hallways. I decide to change that. "So what'll it be today, doc?" I ask.
            "Please do not call me that again, G6. I am Doctor or Sir to you, your superior that you should treat with respect. As for your question, we're going to try a DNA transplant of your major muscles today and run tests tomorrow, giving it sufficient time to spread," replies the doc...I mean, Doctor. 
            Exhaling obviously, I proclaim, "Woo! That'll be a procedure."
            "Indeed."
            A pregnant pause. I look at the floor.
            We finally arrive at one of the surgery rooms and step inside to meet the three surgeons who will be operating on me. The colleagues shake hands while I make my way to the notorious bench- notorious because many have died while in operation here. Because their transplanting system works pretty much the same as a vaccine, I've been told, some DNA transplant experiments have literally become vicious viruses that killed several people. I gulp, hoping desperately that won't be my case.  
            My escort to the room unlocked my handcuffs and set them on a table at the edge of the room. "G6," states one particularly snub surgeon. "We will begin your surgery. Anesthetic, please."
            "Yes, sir," says another doctor in response, handing him a small syringe that will yield my only placidity- the anesthetic so I don't feel the pain of them slicing me open. I will not be put to sleep; my face will not be covered. I'll see it all...I just won't feel it. I guess that's their idea of mercy. The first surgeon grasps the bit of plastic and metal and unzips my sleeve. With the syringe, he punctures my inner elbow. The substance inside is pumped into my blood circulation.
            The surgeon stomps down on the foot pedal that parallels my chair with the ground. The lights around are turned off, leaving one blazing light right above my body. Masks and gloves are slapped on at just about the same time the anesthetic kicks in. It's time to operate.


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## MissTiraMissSu (Jul 22, 2011)

... So creepy... That's just all I have to say. No grammatical complains, or perhaps I was too busy imagining to really notice. Sounds gruesome. And yet I desire to read more.


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## ElysiumXae (Jul 23, 2011)

Yay! Would you like me to go ahead and post chapter 2?


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## Olly Buckle (Jul 23, 2011)

A couple of small nits,



> That's why people like me are here*,* to test and test and test


comma added


> Don't ask me how I got here, because not even I know


'not even' implies no one knows, 'I don't know' might be better.



> something I vaguely recall and that Nick has sometimes mentioned *them* during our recreational period.



Have you read 'Cloud Atlas'? You might enjoy it.


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## ElysiumXae (Jul 24, 2011)

Thanks, Olly! I know how it is when the small things bother you. I shall go into my document and fix them =] Do you think that "because I myself don't know" would be better? I feel like there needs to be an emphasis on the fact that Joseph doesn't know where he himself came from.


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## emusaremylife (Jul 25, 2011)

I would love to see Chapter 2. I'm interested in how this develops. :smile:


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## ElysiumXae (Jul 26, 2011)

Chapter Two


Jaedyn

            Today is the day- _The_ day. This day only happens four times in the 180-day school year. On this day, my heart thuds in my chest like a putting car motor. To discover my quarterly fate, I reach out my trembling hand that drips with cold sweat to open the filthy black mailbox before me. Inside lays…my report card.

The mailbox squeals open, rust flakes gently falling to the ground like snow. I hold my breath. One second by agonizing second, the following events unfold:  the official white envelope slides into my hand, my feet force my stiff body to walk all the way inside the apartment, and the seal of the envelope is cut open by one of my long fingernails. I unfold the crisp piece of paper.

One heartbeat; I gulp.

Two heartbeats; a bead of sweat trails down my temple.

Breath escapes my lips in relief. Straight A’s again, thank goodness! I notice that my class rank is seventh; I was fourth last quarter, but that’s okay. I may be a little insane about my grades, but not even I am that crazy. I enjoy the reputation it gives me- always the intelligent one; the one with the right answers.
            At this point my mother comes out of her room down the hall. “Oh, baby girl!” she exclaims with a southern twang. “Did’ja get good grades?” She knows just as much as 
I what a ridiculous question this is, as I’ve always gotten good grades, but I grin broadly and reply triumphantly, “Yep!”

The paper jerks out of my hand, my mom having yanked it from me. A fresh wrinkle forms nicely in the corner of the page. I watch as her eyes move like a typewriter across the page. They narrow. Between her teeth forms two consonant sounds, “Tsk, tsk.”

“Oh Jaedyn, darlin’,” she begins in an undertone. She pauses. Ominous. “You…are so smart! Seventh in your class! Oh, hunny!” My mother embraces me, which doesn’t choke me, but it’s her strong perfume, rather, that makes me gasp for clean air. 

I’ve always been told I look like my father. Having wavy, dark brown hair that extends past my bust, large chestnut eyes covered by dark lashes, and a small button nose, I don’t exactly fit in with my mom’s bouncy blonde ringlets and olive green eyes. Her plump, big-breasted body structure contrasts with my sleek hour-glass figure with nothing but a bit of Jell-O for a belly.

I smile because my mom is proud of me more than the fact that I’m among the smartest in the school. “Thanks, Mom,” I say.

“We’ve just gotta celebrate! Invite yer friends; I’m sure they’d love ta come ta Highlife with us! My treat!”

Ω

Highlife- A dark place blazing with neon lights and a jumble of music issuing from multiple Chuck-E-Cheese type games, a bowling alley, go-cart track and mini-golf outside, laser tag, and a snazzy restaurant abuzz with children and adults of all ages is the typical fun-day of choice for the local teens in my area. Because of its notoriously high prices, (not the reason it’s called Highlife, but still makes for a good laugh) most people don’t come there that often. Today is a special day though, according to my mom.

“Oooh, I want to do laser tag! I’ve never done laser tag, you know?” squeals my friend Lindsay. 

“After dinner,” I assure my energetic friend. “My mom wants to treat us to dinner before she lets us loose.” 

“Sounds good to me,” Lauren agrees.

Lindsay and Lauren are my two best friends. We go together like slugs and slime, but prettier. Lindsay is tall with pin-straight, insanely dark brown hair; dark chocolate eyes match it perfectly. A single pink streak runs down the right side of her head of hair. Freckles speckle the bridge of her nose. Lauren is a complimentary color, with yellow-blonde hair and very large, sky blue eyes. Her face is soft, round, and gives her a sweet girl appearance. She’s the man-charmer of our group. Those sparkling eyes can ensnare anyone.

Anyway, back to Highlife, where the season is just turning over to springtime and the third quarter of our school year having ended, the four of us seat ourselves in the restaurant. Moments later, our waitress arrives to take our order, swinging her hips around carelessly and rolling her eyes as she approaches our table.

“I’ll have milk!” Lindsay beams at our couldn’t-care-less waitress. 

“And you?” she asks me darkly. She’s definitely not getting a good tip. I can tell my mom’s thinking the same thing.

“I’ll have a Coke.”

“White chocolate mocha, please,” Lauren’s smile is slight, but you can’t help but love the innocent way she goes about things. Her smiles are always genuine; she never says a single bad thing about anybody. I’ve always thought that she belongs in Heaven with the other angels, but every time I want to tell her this, I have to stop myself before I sound like a lesbian in love with my best friend of ten years. I’m no homophobe by any means, but you have to admit that’d be a little like the “did it hurt when you fell from Heaven?” line.

The waitress chews on her gum with her jaw hanging agape. “What about you, huh?” she asks my mom.

“Root beer fer me,” my mom orders with no smile of appreciation on her face. 

As the waitress’ pony tail bobs away from us without a word, Lindsay leans in immediately to discuss her.

“What a B,” she whispers. “You’d think she’d be fired by now with the way she acts.”

“She could have just had a bad day, you know? Maybe she’s not like that all the time,” responds sweet Lauren.

“Like something’s been temporarily shoved up her butt?” suggests Lindsay.

I snort a laugh but stop when Lauren frowns at me. My mom, as always, pretends to not be hearing our conversation.

“Seriously, though,” Lindsay continues. “She’ll be lucky if she gets a cent out of me.”

We get our drinks, and then order our food, which arrives in about 15 minutes. We dig in, wordless for a few minutes, save for the occasional “mmm!”

“I don’t get how you can make such good grades, Jae. I bust my butt studying for a test and still don’t make as good of grades as you,” Lindsay strikes up a conversation.

“I don’t even study,” I state plainly. Their faces aren’t shocked because I’ve told them this many times. They constantly ask me for my secrets, not believing I could be among the top of my class without effort. “Seriously. I just have a really good memory, I guess. Remember everything the teacher says in class and everything I read the first time I read it. Really good note-taker.”

“That’s impossible, Jaedyn! Even the number one ranked person in the class probably studies like a madman,” Lauren gives input.

“Well, I guess I feel sorry for them. Happiness isn’t found in success. I don’t see the need to try any harder than I do when I already make relatively good grades.”

“_’Relatively good grades,’_!? Jaedyn, you’re a genius! Don’t be so dang modest!” Lindsay exclaims, flailing her arms up and outward and nearly smacking a passerby in the face. “Sorry!” she adds quickly for the person’s sake.

I stare at the food on my plate, not wanting to discuss it any further for the millionth time. Besides, I can feel a headache creeping up on me in the center of my forehead. Great, a headache on my celebration day. I discretely sigh.

Ω

A few days later at school, I’m sitting in my seminar class, which is pretty much a study hall. Most people don’t study, however, but prefer to listen as their brains crackle while pretending to read a book. Today, I am finishing an Algebra II review sheet to be turned in tomorrow. ‘Actually doing my homework also helps,’ I think too late to point out to Lindsay. I sigh from thinking about all those people who could improve their grades dramatically just from completing assignments. 

All of the sudden, a sharp pain shoots through my head and underneath my eye sockets. Gahh! I clamp them shut, and the pain settles in my eyeballs. I rub my eyelids and groan, but as always, it doesn’t help.

I decide to open my eyes, but everything is too fuzzy to see. The variables on my worksheet are simply blobs. Blinking does nothing to focus my vision.

Now I’m dizzy and feeling pretty sick to my stomach. Clamminess overtakes me, and I’m quickly glistening with cold sweat. I look around at the blobs in my class, but none of them seem to notice the sudden illness that has overtaken me. But my stomach is coming quick. Soon my lunch will not be in there.

I stand and wobble toward my seminar teacher, which finally attracts some notice. There has been a shift in the still silence of the room, granting them an excuse to tear their eyes from the page of a book. I reach the desk and slump over it, using my arms as props.

“What is it, Jaedyn?” asks Mrs. Bryant with a slight southern accent. 

“I think I should go to the nurse, ma’am.”

“Well, whatever for?” She isn’t looking at me, or she’d give me the pass without question. Instead, her eyes are glued to the computer screen.

“Major headache.” I can feel my homeostasis going seriously out of whack.

“Well, okay. I’ll write’cha a nurse’s pass.”

I stand there in agony while she fills out my pass. I can’t see her wrinkly, dark-toned face. It’s just a blur. When I see the square of yellow, the pass, I wrench it from her a little too harshly and set out for the nurse.

Halfway down the hallway, my stomach gives a lurch. A deep pain shoots down my spinal cord, and I literally shriek. It echoes through the empty hallway. 

My stomach pinches up again, so instead of heading to the nurse, I dart toward the bathroom. The triangular blur tells me that it’s definitely the girls’ restroom. I throw open a stall door just in time to heave into the toilet.

I know that I’m done puking when the pain in my head ebbs away. My vision is a small bit better, so I decide to go to the sink and wash up.

The pearly sink is covered in somebody’s long, dark hair. “Ew,” I mutter to myself, and then notice the wad of gum stuck to the drain. I scuttle to the sink on the left, which turns out to not be hairy or gummed.      

I look into the mirror and gasp. 

My forest-green eyes are non-existent. All that fills my eyes is one giant pupil and a sliver of white on the edge like a solar eclipse. Brilliant red veins snake all over the orbs in my eye sockets. 

I gulp.

I break out into an even colder sweat than before. Dread fills my heart. I let out the F-bomb for the first time in a long time. 

I blink furiously.

Slowly, the green of my eyes return. The red veins recede.

A giggling gaggle of females enter the restroom.

Picking up my bag, I flee the restroom before hearing anything more than, “Oh em gee! She did _what_?”

I spend the remainder of school in seminar after telling my teacher that I felt okay after all. She had looked at me skeptically, but dismissed it because I’m generally a good kid. 

With my algebra finished, I keep remembering vividly my hugely dilated pupils gazing at me from my reflection. Had I been so dizzy that I was imagining things? No- the headache had been practically gone by the time I made it to the sink. There was no other explanation, and one thing was for sure- I shouldn’t drive home. I couldn’t risk another spell like that.

The bell rings to end school, so I pull out my purple phone and call my mom. I explain that I’ve been sick, too sick to drive, and was it okay if she picked me up?

“Sick?! Oh, honey! Do we need ta schedule a doctor’s visit? Ya know ya haven’t had one since ya had strep throat in the fourth grade.”

“No, no, Mom. I’ll be okay. It was just something I ate. School food, you know,” I quickly explain. I absolutely hate doctors.

I successfully placate my mom, and she agrees to pick me up.

I take a look at eyes in the outside display of my phone, which acts as a pretty good mirror when the backlight’s not on. They are normal. I sigh with relief.


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## ElysiumXae (Jul 27, 2011)

Is anybody interested in chapter three? Nobody has posted for a while, so I was just wondering...


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## santhonus (Jul 27, 2011)

I'm enjoying this. A few things here and there jarred my attention, but they were very minor. One that comes to mind is, in the first chapter, "“Gooooood...” the brute draws out the word like an appetizing feast." I had a hard time digesting the simile here. Maybe if you throw in another word: enjoying an appetizing feast. Just a suggestion. Also, halfway-ish through the second chapter, the phrase "Lindsay strikes up a conversation." after her speech just feels a little weird. You might try moving it to the front of that paragraph: Lindsay chooses to strike up a conversation. "I don't know how...."

Those are my thoughts, anyway. I personally would like to see Chapter 3, since I really have no idea how 1 and 2 are related, and am curious to see how. Siblings, maybe?


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## ElysiumXae (Jul 28, 2011)

Thank you so much for the feedback! I will change those couple little things.


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## Razzazzika (Jul 29, 2011)

Was meaning to post when you originally posted you first chapter, along with the misspelled post "The Nasterpiece Project" but both were pulled down before I could respond. I really love your voice. The plot in the first chapter is absolutely amazing. The second chapter threw me for a loop though. You maintain that great voice, and it's still interesting, but without reading onward(which I so totally want to do) I don't really know what's going on. Is she the girl from the other cell who 'died'? It seems she had the same funky eye thing going on. Or is this something that happens to all those kids and the scientists are actually legitimately trying to cure it? Whatever it is, you got me hooked.


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## ElysiumXae (Jul 29, 2011)

Razz- It's so great that you have all these questions in mind! That's what I had intended on. You won't know how Jaedyn and Joseph are linked until the 4th~5th chapters. So I will go ahead and post chapter three!


Chapter Three

Joseph

They cut into my bicep first, making one smooth line from armpit to elbowpit. The blood oozes out, but already an assistant is wiping it away with a sterile tissue. Then the surgeon takes two little picks and pries the two skin flabs apart. Here we see the inner layer of my arm, just a fine sheet of pink muscle, ribbed like a slab of meat they might feed their dogs, but never to us, since such luxuries would be inconceivable.

“I need an extractor now,” states the surgeon. The object is brought to him.

The “extractor” is a small tube, like tool with little pinchers on the end. With it, the surgeon tears the tiniest bit of muscle from me and it falls into the tube.

“Dr. Polland, begin isolation of this gene.”

“Yes, sir.” My figment of muscle is passed via extractor to one of the other doctors in the room. 

He takes it elsewhere to begin the gene isolation process. This is to replace my undesirable genes with those of something else, to test to see whether my body will accept the new genes and succeed. Most likely, it will act like a failed organ transplant, and it can be reversed by cutting off the infected area. If worse comes to worse, my body will go into a complete meltdown. My immune system would become hostile and attack my own body, like what happens with cancer. I’ll contract fevers, shivers, and nausea- the typical first-reactor defenses of the immune system. Then when that doesn’t work, my body will make the emergency shut-down, and I’ll die.

These thoughts ebb through my mind and distract me from another incision. 

They educated us, you know? English grammar, mathematics, and science. When we were young, a large chunk of the day was spent in a room with a teacher, rather than in a surgery room, a doctor’s office, an obstacle course, or our glass cell. They, of course, fed us lies about how creating the perfect human is possible, and that they, humankind’s saviors, would be the ones to create one for the first time. 

They already had, they said, created a child capable of being the smartest person in the universe. They just needed us to unleash the full potential of all elements of life- strength, memory, charisma, ingenuity, creativity…

It wasn’t until I met Nick, who retold his memories of the outside world, that we began to realize the perverseness of everything going on in here. Soon the experiments became emotionally as well as physically painful. 

By now all four portions of my arms (both biceps and both forearms) had been incised, and figments of muscle had been extracted. My skin flabs were lightly covering my arms to prevent germs from rushing in.

“Where are my ligations?” called the surgeon.

The doctor in charge of my gene transformation scurried to the surgeon’s side. “Sorry, Sir. A little annealing problem, but I got it solved, no problem!”

“You’ve been staring too long into the TEM. Get your head back into the macro-reality.”

“Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir.”

The doctor hands my surgeon four Petri dishes containing all the necessaries: E. Coli treated with Calcium Chloride, heat-shocked, and an LTE solution. One doctor pulls open my arm flabs, and another hands the surgeon a little paintbrush tool. The paintbrush is dabbled into the Petri dishes and then painted across my muscles, respectively.  Once that is finished, my skin is sealed with adhesive.

“Good job, guys. Now we will see if the new sequence takes,” exclaims the surgeon as he pulls off his rubber gloves and masks. The other doctors follow his lead.

“And you, G6, will get the privilege of spending the night in here. We need to monitor your vitals very closely while the new genes are taking over the old ones. Enjoy the comfort of this chair.”

Then the surgeon left the room, leaving me to gaze at the four red lines blazing on my arms, and as my feeling returns, leaving me to cope with the pain of having my muscles poked prodded, and treated with new, foreign genes slipping in like a bandit. 

It didn’t take long for my exhausted body to fall asleep.

Ω

I grasp the shockingly cold metal ladder and heave upward as quickly as possible. My body is in its abysmal state where I block all pain in my body. As always, I encourage myself that this could be the last test of my shortened life, so I better make a show of it. No way am I dying like a failure.
_
Just make them happy. Pass the stupid test_. It rumbles habitually through my subconscious. It is in perfect rhythm with my feet slapping through each hole in the wall and the breath in my lungs huffing due to the constraint of my lungs.

At the end of the obstacle course is a fifteen-foot long gorge, that of which I barely leap across. My arms stretch desperately, but I cannot grab the other side. The concrete scrapes up my arms, causing my blood to paint the wall. I hit the bottom of the gorge with an _oof_, smack my head on the floor. My stomach convulses, and I puke.

It is the end of this test.

A doctor’s face appears above me. And here I was thinking you saw a brilliant white light when you die! The doctor mumbles something into a voice recorder, then says to me, “Get outta that hole.”

Grudgingly, I push myself up and climb out of the gorge via a built-in ladder.

Once I’m up there, the doctor grabs my wrist to check my vitals. They blink on the display a little abnormally, I can tell. Probably my heart rate. The doctor scribbles something down on his clipboard. He then pries open my eyelids and shines a light in my eyes to check for dilation. Scribble. He shoves a thermometer in my ear. Waits for the beep. Scribble. He hands me a miniscule cup of water, which had been handed to him by Satan himself. My mouth tasted like puke, for Goodness’ sake, and all they could give me was a raindrop?

Nonetheless, I swallow the tablespoon of water. My stomach is still convulsing in dry-heaves. I slide the clean side of my arm across my face and look expectantly at my proctor. 

“Your performance was above average,” he begins. Duh. “But the test was ultimately a failure. (_As always_, I think.) I will let them know what was achieved (_I was a freaking beast!_ I wish I could reply), but they expected you to make the gorge.”

“They didn’t do anything in my legs. It was all arm strength,” I notify the doctor.

“Are you questioning their biology, G6?”

“No. I’m just confused as to why they would expect me to jump the gorge when the genes are in my arms. Are you sure you didn’t misread their expectations?”

“I am positive, Experiment. You may go to the lunch hall now. I am sorry you failed.”

I allow an attendant to wipe my bleeding arms off with sterile pads and leave in a fury. I didn’t fail! Leaping has nothing to do with your arms, and it had only been a day since my surgery, so the genes wouldn’t have made it that far yet! Besides that, it isn’t my fault the experiment failed, it is theirs! Their ligations, their mathematics, whatever, were the ones at fault, not me! I push myself hard and fast to not disappoint them. But there is no placating them.

I rage internally while journeying to the lunch hall, which isn’t very far away from the gym, just out the door, down the hall, and to the left. If one were to keep going straight from the gym, they would go down the Hall of Glass, our cells and our prisons. I have never ventured further beyond in all my years here. I just keep scratching off the dried blood on my forearms and head straight for lunch, which I’m really not in the mood to partake. The patrolling doctors eye me suspiciously, always suspiciously, to make sure I go where I’m supposed to go without running off. Where the heck would I run to, anyway?

The double doors open and the hum of conversation hits. All thirty-three residents are seated around ten steel tables. I make thirty-four. Tracey would have made thirty-fifth, but the 
Monsters will replace her soon. Lunch and Rec are the only times to get together, talk, and make friends. During lunch, everybody usually sits according to their age. It’s weird for the older kids to be friends with the younger. The youngest kids, about five to eight, sit at the far end of the room. Older kids sit together as well, and they’re constantly moving around the lunch room. Then there’s me and my friends, the elderly of the bunch.

I stomp over to my normal table where my friends and I usually sit, and immediately my head makes contact with the cold surface. It feels incredible against my head burning with rage and exhaustion. 

“Joseph, man, you look like crap! What’d they do to you?” That’ll be Nick, my best man. For the moment, he’s the only one at the table.

“Gym,” I grumble. Nick understands and asks no further questions.

Nick is tall, about six feet, and is fifteen like me, minus a couple months. He’s one of the experiments blessed with a toned body consequently of tests. His light brown hair shags down to frame a face that is soft, but showing early features of manhood. That is to say that I am a skinny boy with no real merit to my facial features.

“Are you gonna eat?” he asks, shoving a spoonful of muck into his mouth.

“Don’t feel like muck. I’ll puke.”

“C’mon…the muck is extra meaty today!” He waves a muck-filled spoon around in the air in front of me.

“No, man. I don’t wanna eat baby hearts.”

Nick chortles before sticking the muck in his mouth. “I looove me some baby hearts!” he exclaims.

The chair beside me scrapes against the floor, followed by a ringing voice saying, “Hello, Joseph and Nick!” It’s Catherine. She is a pretty blonde, whose hair travels down to mid-back, feathery. When I was little, Catherine’s watery-blue eyes pulled me in. She stunned me with how little life seemed to weigh on her, despite our predicament. But now those blue eyes are gone, and grey marbles have taken their place. A test failed. 

I remember the days of the retinal test clearly. They wanted to make her see as sharply as a hawk, and, if possible, they could even try night vision. They told her she was special because if she was a success, they could introduce her to the entire scientific world, give her a little script to read about how she put her trust in the doctors to do this experiment, and make millions. 

People like Catherine would be able to work in Black Ops forces, the CIA, and the FBI to crackdown on criminals and terrorists more stealthily and effectively.

The hawk-vision was a success; they had run many tests on other experiments with a high success rating. But when they tried night vision, they had to work with very particular genes, and it failed. It was a failure on the doctors’ part for not sticking the DNA sequences in the correct place. They hadn’t really tried it before, but they had been so high and mighty that they thought they could do anything. After the surgery, her eyes didn’t feel familiar, but rather they felt an intruder. The alien genes were attacked by her immune system, and they eroded her eyes away in doing so. The poor five-year-old stood no chance, and within three days of the operation she was thrust into permanent nightfall.

My face still presses against the table. My breath makes moist circles on the surface. I feel Catherine’s gentle hand pat my head. “Joseph? What’s wrong?” There is genuine concern in her voice. 

Nick answers for me, “They put him through the course today, Cat. He feels pretty crappy.”

“Mhmph,” I verify.

“And you believe an empty stomach will make you feel better?”

Nobody answers her.

“Hey Cat, where’s Molly?” Nick asks instead.

“I think she’s in surgery…”

The table falls quiet. Nobody here likes talking about the horrible things we go through daily. It’s a legitimate taboo; would you want the only social time you had in a place like this to be spent talking about the misery of your surroundings?

“Guys, let’s escape,” Nick whispers fiercely. I raise my head for the first time during lunch and notice the gleam in Nick’s eye. This isn’t the first time he’s brought up the possibility of an escape. “I look around when I’m in the halls,” he continues, since there is no opposition. Yet. “There are doors we’ve never gone through before! Maybe they’re doors out!”

“Nick. No,” Catherine punctuates clearly, sternly. “The risk is far too great. They would terminate us.”

“Damn them, Cat! It’s worth a try!”

“Language,” I grumble. The only reason I know he shouldn’t be saying that is because he taught us some “bad words” people used in the world outside, and it was proven to me when I tried using a couple on the doctors and got quite the punishment. Nick is probably one of the only ones in here that really remembers clearly his life before this place. He’s told us a lot, but I still believe there are some things he hides from us for our own sake. 

“No!” Catherine halts, realizing she’s shouting. She lowers her voice and finishes, “What would we do if we did get out? We aren’t fit for society. What if this place is far away in a desert, and we die hours after our freedom? Think for one minute of your life.”

“Death is freedom, Catherine. Just like escaping this place. There is no difference.” Everybody can tell that rage boils inside him. It always is when he uses Catherine’s full name like that. But he holds himself back from saying anything else. None of us want to lose each other, especially not over a stupid argument.

Catherine is right though. We would all love to take the chance to escape, but what would we be escaping to? Would it be completely worth it? We may not die, but the outside world could be harsh. We wouldn’t know what to do. We assume it’s safer inside, despite how much we loath these oppressive sterile-white walls and malicious tile floors.

The intercom crackles, which means something is about to be spoken to us. The atmosphere of the lunchroom falls into depression. And yes, you can feel it do so. “Lunch is over. Return to your rooms immediately,” orders a monotone voice.

A couple people grumble in the mix of chairs scraping on the ground, trash being thrown away, and goodbyes being said.

“C’mon, man. It’s time to go,” says Nick while grasping my shoulder. I’m still sitting, still too woosey to want to stand up.

Reluctantly, I pull myself up to my trembling feet. My arms have at least stopped bleeding, but I still have to wipe the cold sweat from my face. I feel the indent on my face made by the table and groan.

“Baha! Table-face,” Nick jokes.

I shove his hand off my shoulder and give a half-laugh, though my world is still rocking. I stumble down the hall and into my glass room without his help, which is soon locked behind me by a patrolling doctor. Once on the comforting, cold floor, I pass out.

Wonderful sleep.


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## Olly Buckle (Jul 29, 2011)

> I stumble down the hall and into my glass room without his help, which is soon locked behind me by a patrolling doctor.



I was really just whizzing through, seeing how the thread was going when this caught me, It's the old thing of putting things together that go together, it wasn't his help that was locked by a passing doctor. I suggest:-

Without his help I stumble down the hall and into my glass room, which is soon locked behind me by a patrolling doctor.

I have not been reading fully because firstly it is not my sort of story, nothing wrong with it as a story, in fact it looks pretty good, just not me. and secondly you look like a pretty competent writer and I am not sure I could contribute that much. Good luck with this, as writing goes it has a good feel.


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## ElysiumXae (Jul 30, 2011)

Thank you so much, Olly! Anything to improve my writing ^_^


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