Experiment XXX

“Hey there. Are you in pain? I’m sorry they did this to you. I’ve been here a long time. Can you speak? Can you understand me?” but the creature did not reply. It only moaned and rolled up into a corner in its cage. I watched as it fell asleep and within minutes it died.
I saw the white coats come in and look at the creature. They did not seem disappointed in his death, although I knew they were. I read their minds and could make out that they were hoping the creature wouldn’t die, but somehow knew it would, like all the other creatures before it. Then someone hit my cage.
“Stop reading our minds!”
“How do you know it’s reading our minds?”
“I just know. This one should be dispose of.”
“No,” said an older man in a white coat, “we still need it,” Then he turned to face me.
“How are we today? Are we ready for some more tests?” he asked with a grin. I gave him a glare and would not answer him.
“Stubborn as ever. Take it to the stadium, we have work to do,”
     The stadium was like any normal stadium except most likely it was underground or in a secret location. The floor was part dirt and part mud. It was hard to stand in some spots and a few trees grew in the arena. I knew that from the look of the environment, they were going to test my fighting ability. From the other side of the arena, a large animal emerges. One of the chimeras the white coats created.
The chimera was part lion, wolf, and bear. It stood on two feet and was about 7ft tall.
“Food, food, food,” it kept saying. I was surprised that it talked, very few chimeras could talk. That also meant that it was 2% human.
     The chimera rushed towards me and I jumped into the air at about 8ft and landed on the other side of the stadium. The chimera ran towards me again and I ran towards it as fast as I could and jumped up to punch it in the face. It was a success and the chimera got even more annoyed and angry. When it was wide open I did a roundhouse kick to its stomach and caught one of its arms and broke it. But the chimera would not stop and kept saying, “food, food, food”. That’s the thing about any chimera, they don’t know when to quit. They are trained to fight to the death.
After what seemed like forever, the chimera died down and started to crawl toward me, thinking it could still kill and eat me. I ran towards the chimera and jumped in the air, ready to smash its skull into the floor. Before I hit the creature I said, “I’m sorry,” and killed it. After the chimera was presumed dead, I heard clapping coming from the room where the white coats were watching. I listen in on what they were thinking.
“Amazing, a new record,”
“It took 20 minutes to defeat a chimera, impressive,”
“A new discovery! Better write this down in the file”
“We should send in another chimera, a much more difficult chimera,”
“It’s talents keep impressing me. We should do more test on it today,”
The thoughts were mixing into my head and it was hard keeping track of which words belong to which sentences. My brain started to hurt from concentrating so hard. I stared at the dead chimera and seeing a creature defeated for results of an experiment made me angry. I sat down on the ground.
“Get up experiment 213,” I didn’t move. Then I felt a surge of pain through my whole body. It felt as if I was hit by lightening. Somehow, the white coats were able to electrocute me. I was still on the ground and I felt the same pain again. And again and again until I finally got up.
Two white coats came out and took me to a room where there was only a chair and straps to keep me still. There needles everywhere and I knew they wanted to insert new drugs into me. Before putting the needle in, a white coat said to me, “now one of the side effects of this drug is that after being injected with it, you will be in a lot of pain, so don’t be surprise. Don’t worry, after this, we got 30 other drugs to test on you,” He had a grin on his face and after the injection went in, I started to feel the pain.

     Someone was at my cage, screaming. It gave me a headache. I was lying down after all those drug tests and my vision was a bit blurry before I could really focus and become conscious.
“She’s just a kid!” I heard someone yell, “she doesn’t belong here!” and then I heard a scream and a whip in the air. I heard it again, the whip and the scream. Someone was getting a beating.
“Be obedient experiment 314 or you’ll be dispose of,” Then I fell back asleep.

“Mary, Mary. Mary wake up. Don’t be dead, please don’t be dead,” and I slowly open my eyes to the cage next to me.
“Matt?”
“Yeah, it’s good to see that you’re alright. What did they do to you?”
“Drug tests and they made me fight a chimera,”
“If we ever get out of here, I’ll kill them,”
“Same for me,” said another voice.
“Count me in,” said a different voice. I sat up straight and saw Matt’s face with a few tears but he tried to hide them. I looked across the room and saw Richard and Jason.
“What happen to you?” I asked Jason. His left eye and right cheek were swollen and purple. He probably had other bruises that were hidden away under his clothes.
“They made me fight Joseph. They did something to him. He was high and out of character. Like a fighting zombie,”
“Probably a side effect of one of the drugs they gave him,” replied Richard.
“You think he’ll be dispose of?” I asked.
“He’s already dead,” said Jason looking down in his cage.
“I’m going to get us out of here, somehow I will,” said Matt. Then the white coats came in.
“Take experiments 332” and the guard unlock Richard’s cage and they took him away. Matt and Jason both looked at me but I nodded, saying that they didn’t plan on killing or drugging Richard. Not yet anyway.






“Wake up! Hey, kid, wake up!” I heard someone say. I opened my eyes slowly to the dark room and I squinted to see who was waking me up. I was wondering if it was one of the guys in white coats that wanted to do more tests. More of those agony and painful tests.
“Get a way,” I hissed tossing the hand aside. I slid to the corner of my cage and waited for someone to drag me out.
“Mary, it’s okay. It’s me. We’re getting out,” and I stopped fighting and stared harder at the face that was looking at me.
“Matt? How did you get out?”
“No time to explain. Come on, the others are out of their cages and we are going to get out of here,” and Matt grabbed my arm and I was pulled out of my cage.
“Hurry before they notice,” and I followed Matt down some hallways and making many turns. Right and left and left and right. It was so confusing but somehow Matt knew his way.
“Where are the others?” I asked.
“Waiting for us,” Matt replied.
“Hey!” we heard someone yell and the two of us started running faster. The man who was chasing us turned into three or four guards chasing us.
“This is the last door,” Matt said and he grabbed my hand. He opened the door and he shot into the air. We flew high into the sky and below us, the guards got smaller and smaller and smaller.

     Matt and I landed in the mountains deep in the woods. We didn’t know where we were or where to go. I didn’t care, as long as we were free. Then a figure came out from the shadows.
“Richard!” I exclaimed as I saw him waiting for us and as I got closer to him I noticed something different.
“What’s with the glasses?” I asked.
“Sun glasses. I don’t think normal people would like my eyes,” he replied.
“But I like your scarlet eyes. They’re really pretty. Don’t they give you night vision, doesn’t the sun glasses block that?”
“I still have my night and X-ray vision, but I don’t think the ‘outside’ world would appreciate a man with red eyes,”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not normal,” said Matt. That was when I noticed that there were only three of us.
“Where’s Jason?”
“Right here,” said Richard pointing down to a rabbit. The rabbit started to shift into something bigger and bigger and bigger until it turned into Jason.
“That power comes in handy,” said Richard.
“I like it, but it’s hard to do small animals like rabbits. I prefer big animals like deer, lions, wolves, cats, you know, animals on four legs,” Then it was quite. None of us knew what to do now that we escaped.
“I want to go home,” said Richard. I forgot. Richard, Jason, and Matt were kidnapped from colleges before becoming lab rats.
Matt wasn’t in college for a week when he was taken to the lab and was locked up for four years. Richard and Jason arrived to the lab one month apart about two years ago shortly after their first year of college. The white coats found out that many of the experiments were successful if tested on young adults. Matt, Richard, and Jason all had families who were probably looking for them and waiting for them to return home.
     But not me. I was a rare experiment. The lab was my whole life. Raised by white coats since I could remember. I was one of the few experiments who made it from infancy, to childhood, to adulthood. So as far as I knew, I had no family and no one in the world was looking for me.
“Hey Mary,” said Matt, bending down to look at me in the eyes. Despite being 18, I looked like a 13 year old because of my short height, probably a side effect of a drug they gave me.
“I know you don’t have anyone out there, but maybe, you can stay with me. I’m 24, almost 25, I can get an apartment and you can stay with me. If that’s what you want. I promise that I will never leave you,” I then looked at Richard and Jason who both nodded at me.
“How about if the four of us live together? I mean, we’re all adults, even though Mary just turned 18, but it’s likely the white coats are after us and we don’t want any of our families getting hurt, so maybe it’s best if we don’t see them and lie low for awhile,” said Richard.
“I agree. My parents are very religious and I think they will think that I was taken over by Satan. You know, the whole I can change into whatever animal I like thing. Might freak them out. Maybe they might shun me,” said Jason.
“Thank you guys. You’re the best brothers I ever had!” I said and the four of us had a group hug.

Bloodline

     It’s been 20 days since the head of the Reyes family died. The whole family gathered in front of the main house and waited for the successor to share his prophecy of the one who will rule the family after him. Over 120 members gathered to hear the prophecy. Men, women, and children of all ages waited and slept in front of the main house. The only ones allowed in were the shamans who were advisors and holy men and women of the family. It was shortly after midnight when the drums were heard and the new head of the family stepped out onto the balcony. When they saw him, everyone got on their knee and bowed.
“Blood Jaguar, head of the Reyes family,” announced the head shaman. Everyone sat and looked up to hear what they had been waiting for.
“My successor will be the youngest on 0 Pop of this year on the Haab calendar,” The crowd started to whisper and then they fell silent and bowed at their new leader and his prophecy.

     It was a dangerous year for children of the Reyes family. Each household wanted their child to be the successor of Blood Jaguar and tried every effort to have a child near the month of Pop. Families tried to find favor with Blood Jaguar, women fought over their children, and men raped other women to avoid competition. The family was in ruins and disgrace.
     The head shaman, Shaman Sun Rise shared his vision from the Gods to his family. A plague would affect the family and take away many children because the Gods were upset over the family’s disgrace and disloyalty to one another. When winter arrived, Shaman Sun Rise’s vision came true. A terrible disease struck the children and no doctor inside the family or outside could do anything. Women had miscarriages over and over again. None of the Reyes children were safe until the successor was found.
When morning came of 0 Pop, all the shamans went out to find the child of prophecy. Every shaman gathered a mother and her child. Any child that was under the age of 2. That year, only 13 children were born between the month of Wayeb to 0 Pop. But only one was born on 0 Pop and that child was born right when the sun rose, but the moon was still out.
     The shaman took the child to the main house where Shaman Sun Rise and Blood Jaguar waited. Shaman Sun Rise took the child into his hands and presented it to Blood Jaguar who noticed that her eyes were of two different colors. One was brown, while the other was blue.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said. Shaman Sun Rise blessed the child with an ancient Mayan blessing and then handed it over to Blood Jaguar.
“It’s a girl,” he said.
“How did you know?” asked Shaman Sun Rise.
“It was in my vision,” and he kissed the child. Blood Jaguar took the child to the balcony where every family member waited to see the heir of the family.
“In my arms is the child who will succeed me when I pass from this world. This child will be given the name, Moon Sun, since the moon and sun are still out, watching over us.” The crowd that gather outside the main house cheered and Shaman Sun Rise looked up into the sky. The moon and sun still high in the sky, as if, welcoming the child to the world.



13 Years Later

“Wake up Moon Sun. It’s time to get up,” said Blood Jaguar. Moon Sun turned over and put her head under the pillow. Blood Jaguar chuckled and took the covers off.
“5 minutes?” asked Moon Sun.
“No, not today. We have to go out today,” replied Blood Jaguar as he pulled back the curtains.
“Okay, I’m up,”
“Get dress. I’ll be back in ten minutes,” and Blood Jaguar left leaving Moon Sun alone to get dress. Moon Sun opened her draws and got out a pair of jeans and a red shirt.
     Moon Sun never had the normal life like the other children who lived on the family property. Blood Jaguar raised her with the help of the shamans. She was home schooled and learned the history of her ancestors, the Mayans, studied math, astronomy, and was also taught to read in English, Spanish, and Mayan hieroglyphs. The shamans also taught her the Mayan religion and whenever there was a festival or a meeting, she was always seated at the right hand of Blood Jaguar. Even though Moon Sun played tricks on the shamans, she was always respectful to Blood Jaguar and looked up to him.
“Ready?” asked Blood Jaguar and Moon Sun went down stairs to get ready for the day.
     The people of the Reyes family were out and ready for the day. Some were in suits and ready to get in their cars and leave for work, some stayed home to work on the farm, and children were getting ready for school. The children either went to the local public school or attended a private academy depending on their parent’s choice. Everyone greeted the two with “good morning” and a slight bow.
“Look over there,” said Blood Jaguar pointed towards a field. Some men and women were setting up for the festival of Hunab Ku. A few more groups gathered to practice for their dance to present to the festival. Some of the dances even included fire and the participants had to practice every chance they got. While practicing, everyone was singing either a Mayan hymn or an English song.
“Can we see?” asked Moon Sun.
“You read my mind,” replied Blood Jaguar and Moon Sun took off towards the open field. She then joined a group of dancers who started to dance in a circle around her. Moon Sun started to dance and move her feet to the beat of the drums and joined in the hymn. Blood Jaguar watched and clapped while watching her. When the dance finished, everyone clapped and Moon Sun took a bowed and then ran back to Blood Jaguar.
“How are the set ups going?” Blood Jaguar asked White Fang, who was in charge of setting up the festival and preparing everything.
“It’s going very well. The only ones not here are the children, but as you know education is important! But everything is going very well and this will be the best festival ever! Praise the Gods! How are you young Moon Sun?”
“I’m good, a bit tired. I’m excited about the festival. Can I dance?”
“Of course, if it’s alright with the head of the family,” and the two stared at Blood Jaguar.
“Of course you can dance. I will participate too,”
“Wonderful,”
“Blood Jaguar! Blood Jaguar! Blood Jaguar!” exclaimed a messenger.
“Yes?”
“The Mayor of the town is here. He wants to meet with you in private,” the messenger said while looking at Moon Sun. Blood Jaguar had a huge sigh before he agreed to meet with the mayor.
“What should I do?” asked Moon Sun.
“Whatever you like. I’ll be busy,” and he started walking off leaving Moon Sun with the messenger.
“Hey what’s that!” exclaimed Moon Sun and the messenger looks up and then Moon Sun kicks him and runs off.
“I will get you! I don’t care if you are the heir to this family! I will teach you how to show respect to your elders!”
“You! An elder? You’re only 5 years older then me! Plus, you started teasing me first! Ha!”
“I’ll tell the head of the family about this!”
“He’ll be on my side! After all, I am the heir to this family!”
     The two ran into the forest and before Moon Sun realized it, she made it to a wall. One of the walls that separates the family’s property to the outside world. Moon Sun has never left the family property and doesn’t know what’s beyond the wall. She’s forbidden to climb it and wants so badly to see what’s out there.
“Just a peak,” she tells herself and she starts climbing a tree and when she gets to the top of the wall she sees a huge city in a valley.
“What is that?” she starts to think and while looking she sees a plane land, an ocean on the other side of the valley, and very tall buildings.
“Moon Sun!” yells an angry voice. Moon Sun turns too sharply that she falls from the wall, but then someone catches her.
“Blood Jaguar!”
“We’re going home,”
“But-
“No buts! We are going home now!” As they are walking, many shamans accompany them, including the messenger who only looks down at the ground.

“Moon Sun,” says Blood Jaguar when he finds Moon Sun staring at the moon on her balcony.
“I’m sorry. I was just curious. I’m really sorry. I just wanted to see. Why am I not allowed out?”
“When you become head of the family then you can go out and see the world. But not now. It’s too dangerous out there. Climbing that wall is dangerous; no one is allowed to climb it. You almost got hurt! I’ve told you many times not to climb that wall! And you disobeyed me. Someday you will be able to go out, but not now.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not safe. But I promise you; someday you will be able to go outside the wall. You just need to be patience,”
“Why was I chosen? Why did you choose me?” asked Moon Sun. Blood Jaguar looked up at the night sky. He looked at the stars and the moon before answering.
“I didn’t. The Gods, our ancestors did. We were all chosen. The head of the family before me and the one before him and the one before her and so on. It’s been that way for over 100 years. We are not like the other family members, we were favor among our ancestors,”
“Did you know my parents?”
“No. I don’t know who they are. But even though you are not my daughter, I still love you. We have a special bond, it’s more then blood. It’s in our hearts and in our spirit. Our bond will continue in the after life and in the decedents after us. It can not be broken,”
“It can’t?”
“No,”
“Will you always be here?”
“Yes, always. I will always be here to help you. Even after I am gone. I care about you, Moon Sun.”
“I care about you too Blood Jaguar.” Moon Sun gives Blood Jaguar a huge and tells him that she loves him and wish that he could have been her real father.
“What’s that?” asked Moon Sun looking towards the entrance gate of the family’s property. Blood Jaguar stares at it for a moment, until they both realize that it’s fire.
“Stay here, I have to gather the shamans and the family’s army,”

     The smoke and fire started to spread throughout the whole family’s property. Men on horseback entered the property and started shooting at the Reyes family members. Many of the men, women, and older children fought to protect their homes, but many were shot dead. Families with young children ran into the forest and opened the emergency doors into the forest.
“Moon Sun!” yelled Shaman Sun Rise, “you must get out of here. Come with me,”
“Where is Blood Jaguar?”
“He’s out fighting,”
“Then I want to fight too!”
“No, you’re too young and heir to rule this family. We need you! Otherwise there will be no one!”
The two ran outside, where there was chaos and everyone screaming. The two had to get low to escape the smoke. But Moon Sun got separated from Shaman Sun Rise easily and stood up. She watched the flames on people houses burn and people crying over dead bodies of family members. Moon Sun felt a huge rage to fight and grabbed the nearest weapon to fight with. She knocked a man off his horse and grabbed the horse and got on.
“Blood Jaguar!” she yelled and rode the horse as fast as she could to find him. As she passed family members she warned them to leave the dead behind and run into the forest to escape. Then when she found a vacant area, she found Blood Jaguar fighting.
“Blood Jaguar!” she yelled and got off the horse.
“What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be with the shamans and hiding in the forest!”
“I want to fight!”
“No, this is not the time to be brave. You must run! You’re the future. You must hide!”
“Not without you!”
“You must!” Blood Jaguar then picks up Moon Sun and puts her on the horse. He takes off his amulet and puts it around Moon Sun’s neck.
“Don’t forget who you are! You are Moon Sun, heir to the Reyes family. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” The two of them then hear men on horse back riding towards them. Blood Jaguar hits the horse and the horse starts to run with Moon Sun on it. Moon Sun turns around and watches as Blood Jaguar is shot and killed. Moon Sun screams “no” but only the men on horseback hears her. Then they start chasing her, but Moon Star losing them in the smoke of the fire and runs into the forest. When she arrives at the wall, she sees an opening and gets off the horse and runs through it. She runs into the forest alone and she keeps running and running. She makes it to the top of a hill and turns around to see her home in flames.
     The following morning, Moon Sun wasn’t able to sleep. She stares back to what was once her home, but everything turned to ash. Tears roll down her cheeks at the lost of her family and Blood Jaguar. She looks up at the gray sky and prays to the Mayan Gods to be her guidance and restore her family. She looks back at her home one more time and then walks into the forest to begin a new life.

“Shaman Sun Rise?” asked a boy sitting next to him. The shaman opens his eyes and stares at the few who survived the massacre. Children wondering about their homes, women cooking, and men wiping blood from their hands. Shaman Sun Rise looks in his bowl of soup and puts a smile on.
“What is it?” asked the boy and Shaman Sun Rise pats him on the head.
“Moon Sun is alive. Our family will be restore. This was supposed to happen because it is her destiny and we will be greater then ever because of her. She will be the greatest head of the family that this family has ever seen since Pakal the Great,”