Demise of Experiments

The future is bleak. An expanse of grey buildings awaits the arms of the giant. The giant is a mediator, a symbol of the grandeur of the city. An imaginary grandeur, as with the folie a 10000 that propels residents to believe in the giant in the first place. It could always be a boulder, and they would never consciously choose to be any wiser.

But the future is bright. Bright green grasslands shone with the vibrancy of toads jumping up and down in empty soup cans. The eye of the child filters the world through illuminated lenses. Innocence plays house with ignorance. Later, ignorance would disown innocence as they went home. But there is that period of time where they would play. Like a playdate, good things come to an end. 

The giant peers into the branches of a tree. There is a cat, and it scoops it up to toss it into its mouth. Onlookers are horrified; the cat slides down safely and runs away. Children notice, and climb onto the boulder so they may partake in the simple pleasure of sliding down too. 

The bubble machine turns blue, and the coffee blackens. A child tries the coffee and cries at its bitterness. The clouds mobilize, thunder beating like war drums. The signal to storm is given, and lightning flashes across the sky. It is the first storm in over a decade. Newer lives will note this as the first and only storm they have ever seen. The older ones will turn it into a trend, something to look at, form opinions and theories on, and laugh at in the future. However far the future may be. This is only the beginning. 

There will be more storms. There will be more boulders. But for now, nothing matters. 

The only thing that mattered was–

Deep underground lies a facility, hidden from the peculiarities of above. An experimenter in a lab coat weeps over the corpse on the operating table, influenced by what has become a gas chamber to induce mild hysteria. Her behavior as she went through the processes was observed. The results came back inconclusive because she didn’t act as frantic as the observers would have liked to see. They would increase the amount of gas next time. Next time, it would be lethal. 

I look up from my book, wondering how the words turned to thoughts. My sister, on the table. She wasn’t even part of the actual experiment. They saw us as expendable because we were different. Rejects from society. Nobody wanted us. We were erasable because there was nothing left for us up there. 

Up there. 

One day, I will get up there and expose all the lies and disgusting experiments happening here. They hid us for a reason, but we won’t stay down. I will make sure people saw. I will shine the light. My sister’s last stand; I will avenge her. As if it were her dying wish. She never even got to make one. I wish it had been me. She didn’t deserve any of this. It wasn’t her fault. I’m so scared. Now that I know what goes on behind closed metal doors, it hasn’t been the same. Basically, I know what the others don’t. How do we leave? Should I tell them? I keep seeing monsters in the shadows. At night I hear my sister’s screams. She only screamed once. In the Room they thought she was sedated. But it wasn’t enough. I watched them inject her again and again until she was silent. She could only scream once, but I hear it echoing. I pretend to sleep; I mastered it well over the past year so they don’t take me away too.

I wonder if the experimenters think of what they do. Do they think it’s wrong and do it anyway? But I could never see their faces. They wore such heavy masks, like they were hiding. Hiding from what they did, their identities. I wonder if they were forced to be here too. I wonder if they think about us in the middle of the night. Do they believe in what they do? I hope not. I like to think of them like sheep in wolf’s clothing. I really want to. Mama always said to believe in people. Even as they took her away she mouthed it to us. I wonder where she is. What if she was here too? That was terrifying. I think a lot more than I used to. Maybe it’s the secret books I read. They would never let us read those kinds of books. It was from a collection of poetic little descriptions. They told of the world above. I wonder where it came from. I found it under a bench in the Great Commons, a cafeteria that looks more like a hospital room. But there wasn’t a lot of food. People fought, so me and my sister hid. I found the book, all thin and stapled without a cover. Maybe someone from here wrote it. 

Today I was talking with my only friend, Derrick. 

“Hi, how are you?” He asked. We weren’t supposed to keep our names, but he kept his in private. I want to forget mine. I am called Four-Five-One. 451. A number. I don’t know why, but I like it. It fits somehow. 

Derrick is good with numbers. He told me it was 41x11. He told me about a pattern. I thought nothing fit in 451 because it ended in one. Odd. No division by two, and I didn’t care about the rest. 

“I’m fine,” I reply, conscious of the lurking experimenter behind Derrick. They didn’t like it when we made friends. They don’t like fights, either. 

“Do you want to eat together?” 

I nod. We sit far from the others. We sit near the trash. Derrick peers inside. He shakes his head. Nothing. 

In the middle of the night, we whisper. 

“I need to tell you something,” I start cautiously. I explain what I saw a week ago. I speak into my pillow so it still looks like I’m sleeping, and to muffle the noise. Derrick cups his hands around his ears near my pillow to hear. Something we learned from the older kids. 

Derrick is silent. Then, he whispers back. 

“I know.”

“We need to get out of here,” I say, voicing what we have both been thinking. 

That night we lay there, thinking. 

What could we even do? 

“You know, there’s an old tunnel. One of the experimenters used it to escape an experiment gone wrong,” whispered Derrick. “There’s a panel with a bunch of buttons.”

Buttons? That was interesting. Maybe we could do this after all. 

We chose to sleep that night. We would need rest for the morning. 

There was a loud beeping noise. Red flashed everywhere. A siren blared. We could hear footsteps. I looked over at Derrick. He was in a puddle of red. I hear scuttling footsteps. My heart races. I want to throw up, but can’t. I run with the others. My foot slips on something, and falling hurts so much. I hear a robotic countdown. There’s a jagged shadow over me. Not an experimenter. One of the experiments. The robotic voice counts the seconds to my demise. 

5… 4… 3… 2… 1…

Nothing.