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.