Experiment Number One

Before I even came to, I knew I was somewhere I shouldn’t have been. Do you ever wake up before you even open your eyes? Like, you are entirely aware that you’re in your conscious world, yet you’re still surrounded by darkness? That’s how it was when I first woke up in the compound. A heavy feeling settled in my stomach and butterflies prodded at it. My skin itched with the unfamiliar setting before I even knew where it was.

I laid there momentarily, trying to investigate my surroundings without alerting anyone that I was awake. I listened intently for anything: talking, breathing, footsteps– something to tell me that I was in the presence of another. All I could make out was a faint buzzing that seemed to surround me. An overwhelming fume of fresh paint clouded my senses and squeezed my brain. Goosebumps pricked my skin as I had to fight the urge to not throw my arms around myself to restrain my warmth. After I carefully came to the conclusion I was alone, I blinked my eyes open. A heavenly light exploded into my sight, leaving me discombobulated for a split second.

With squinted eyes, I pulled myself up and immediately got hit with rushes of pain in my muscles. I winced and my body’s first response was to lie back down, but I knew if I was alone, it was best to look around before someone came back. So I ignored the soreness radiating from my head to my toes and pulled myself up to a full sitting stature.

Something squeaked beneath me and when I looked down, I was sitting on a bed. And let me tell you, that was the worst bed you’ll ever experience. I could feel the springs digging into my skin. It felt like I was going to fall through at any moment. The mattress was basically nonexistent, the pillow looked like a piece of bread after being crushed by a hundred-pound weight, and the folded blanket at the edge of the bed looked like nothing but a sheet. Everything else in the compound looked fresh out of the box as if they built the structure just for my arrival. But that bed, they had to have gotten it from a random Volent landfill. It even smelt like one.

Once my vision adjusted to the fluorescent lights above me, I was swimming in a cup of milk. Everything was a hygienic white: the tiled floor, rickety bed, and toilet that sat no more than five feet away from me, and when I looked down at myself, my tan skin stood out against an all-white jumpsuit. And the barrier around me weren’t walls but a thick layer of glass in the shape of a cylinder. There’s no privacy whatsoever, not even a separate room for the toilet.

Faint scars littered my arms, capturing my attention. They looked like tiny bruises but were puffed up like hives. I had never had an allergic reaction before, but I knew that Mariana always did when we used the cheap laundry soap. Any cheap soap at that. I spent a lot of nights trying to soothe her itchy skin and wiping her tears as she cried in pain. But strangely, as I looked over the marks, they didn’t itch. They were just there as if they were a regular part of my skin. It honestly was disgusting and I got chills across my body just by looking at them.

Around the moment I was examining my skin, an alarm blared throughout the room so loud that it caused the glass to vibrate. I slapped my hands around my ears and felt my bones rattle from the intensity. I look around for the source to be met with a group of people a few feet from my cell behind a glass pane of their own. It reached high to the ceiling and you could see there were multiple floors. On each level, five to ten people were looking at me dressed in black jumpsuits similar to my own, but they had an orange symbol resting above their breasts. They stared at me; watching me wither away with the brain-eating sound, and they seemed to be smirking.

After a while, the sound stopped, and once I caught my breath and let my ears adjust to the silence, I got up and walked toward the group. The closer I got, the farther they seemed to step away, as if we didn’t have two layers of glass and feet of concrete between us. I stopped as close as I could get to the edge of my room, my face just inches away from the glass, causing my warm breath to fog it up. I wanted to get a closer look at them. It was strange; they were staring at me like I was an animal at the zoo. Maybe that’s all I was to them. That’s why they had smiles like my suffering in isolation was what brought them joy.

That’s why they pressed the alarm button again so that they could see me in pain, knowing they had control over my reactions.

You’re probably questioning; where the hell are you, and why aren’t you freaking out? Any normal person would have that reaction, but when I first came to the compound, I knew exactly where I was. Or, at least, I thought I did. I thought I was detained by the Lusha Police Department. I knew that I was being accused of murdering my parents, so it was only plausible.

On top of that, I concluded I was probably also being charged with resisting arrest, harming an officer, and child endangerment– if the court really hated me. So, being in that glass beaker with a group of people observing me did not leave me confused but rather annoyed. I didn’t do anything to deserve it. I worked my whole adolescence to make sure my siblings could live life, just for it all to be pulled out from under me. Suddenly, I was a misunderstood bear, and a pesky child was throwing popcorn at me.

Although it looked like I was pretty okay with being locked up and put on display, that wasn’t the case. My heart never stopped aching from the moment I entered that compound. I resented myself for what I did to Amilio and Mariana. I was locked up and only the gods knew where. I was smart enough to know it wasn’t the LPD’s county jail– the city could not afford something that elaborate. Maybe they transported me to Groce City or maybe Blitz. Ceito. Doporanda. Whatever, it’s not essential. I’m trying to say that I didn’t know where I was but knew it wasn’t in Lusha. I was tens, hundreds, thousands of miles away from my siblings. I couldn’t stop thinking about them in that cold and painful world. They were all alone. They believed that there was no one left to love them. I was their protector. Their provider. And I made the mistake of sheltering them from the world’s nightmares. Without me, they are thrown out to the wolves.

I knew there were only two ways to get back to Amilio and Mariana: convincing the judge that I did not murder my parents or escaping on my own.

The alarm bounced off the glass, causing a ripple effect to take place in my brain. Through the ringing in my ears, I could hear a muffled voice. It was saying something between short pauses, each time more intense than the other. I looked around my room to see a figure standing on the other side of the cell. He just looked like a regular guy with his faded blue jeans and blue shirt. His pale skin contrasted with the mop of ginger curls at the top of his head, which together made the blue of his eyes stand out. He had a bright smile slashed across his face. He waved at me. My ears were on the verge of bleeding and he waved at me.

The alarm paused when I approached him. I had a brief moment of silence before he said my name and it echoed throughout the room. I threw my hands over my ears. The people behind the observation window were actually trying to blow my eardrums out. Again. But after a few seconds, I realized there was no annoying rhythm in my head, and I slowly looked up to the man outside my cell. He stood there unmoving, with his stupid smile. He looked like a ventriloquist.

“Emerye Mendoza,” he repeats. That time, the most I do is flinch. I looked around the room, trying to find where the speaker was, but I couldn’t see anything except a bath of light above me. The lights concealed everything that sat up there.

“Sorry about the alarms,” his voice echoes. “It was just to let us know that you were awake. We didn’t mean to spook you.”

I narrowed my eyes, “Who are you?”

For a second, the corners of his lips twitched, and a shade of red began to creep up his neck. He looked… hurt-to say the least-that I didn’t know who he was. So I focused on his face and I can say that I did recognize him, I just didn’t know where from. He looked familiar; like someone you would see on a commercial all the time when you were a kid, and then you grow up and see them in a random movie, and you’re like, where do I know them from? You know? Probably not. Anyway, I couldn’t put a name to the face, so I just stayed silent.

“My apologies. You know, it’s such an honor being here and doing this with you. I worked a long time to get to this point and just to be standing right in front of you and this–”

“Ren Clash,” a woman strutting down the stairs outside of my cell yelled. She wore a red blouse tucked into a pencil skirt underneath her lab coat. She had cat eyeglasses, a red lip, and black heels. And her hair was pulled back into a pony with a bump at the crown. And I could see the sneer on her face before it even came into focus. I knew from right then I was not going to enjoy her presence.

The lady was followed by a tall man in a navy blue suit. As they got closer, I could see it had the shield of Volent’s military embroidered on his chest pocket. That explained why he was walking so stiffly and didn’t divert his eyes from what was in front of him. But what threw me off was that he was from Volent’s Military. Did they really think I was that serious that they had to bring in the special ops?

Did they lock all their murderers up in glass cages and assign military specialties to them? Did they have workers watching their every move? For someone innocent, I began to feel overwhelmed by the abundance of attention.

“Didn’t George tell you to wait for Lieutenant Wallace and I?” the woman questioned when they took their places. My back straightened at his title. Like, seriously? It wasn’t some random military goof, but a lieutenant? It was ridiculous.

“Yes, of course,” Ren said bashfully. “But I just couldn’t wait any longer. I just had to come and see our sa–”

“So, this is her?” the woman cut him off. “The girl who stabbed her mother, electrocuted her father, and bombed a block of government vehicles?” She approached the glass, the clacking her heels knocking against my skeleton. She looked me up and down with judging eyes. I stood my ground. “She doesn’t even look like she can lift a fork.” She spat.

“Well, you know the theory about her kind,” Ren offered.

As you can imagine, I was feeling all kinds of emotions. Offended, confused, angry. I was yet again being blamed for my parent’s death, but that was nothing new. What struck me was the fact that my father was electrocuted. Like, now it seemed even less plausible that I somehow killed him right before I passed out without knowing it. Like, how the hell would I have been able to shock him to death if I was being strangled in the middle of our kitchen? Yeah, no. I did not kill my father. There was no way. But the question is, then, who did it? If it wasn’t me, then there were two possibilities. One, my father took the cowardly way out after he killed my mother and, presumably, me. The other explanation haunted me the most; Amilio or Mariana did it. It would make sense. They were the only other people in the house and when I saw them right before I was arrested, they could barely look at me. Maybe they were ashamed. And if that were true, it complicated everything.

“I don’t know what’s going on here, but it’s not the truth. I– I didn’t kill my parents. My father, he killed my mother and–”

“I’m going to stop you right there, Mendoza,” the woman bared her teeth. “We are not here to judge your case. Frankly, I don’t really care if you murdered someone or not. What I’m worrying about is whether or not I should take it up with George to lock you deep inside the Earth. A dangerous mutant like you should not have the freedom you do.” I could have almost rolled my eyes. Yeah, sure, I was totally free. But what prevented me from doing so was the word mutant.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Ren chimed in. “She’s pretty valuable.”

Ignoring his comment, the woman continued. “Seeing that you’re the only thing on this planet that can save us from the mess he created,” she cocked her head towards Ren, “I’m going to complete what I came here to do and I’m not going to hear you whine about your innocence. You are, in fact, not innocent. Not with the DNA that coursing through your veins at this very moment.”

The three figures stood before me, waiting for me to respond. I didn’t know what they wanted me to say. All I could muster from my over-fried brain was, “I don’t know a single thing about what you just said.” I honestly didn’t. They were speaking as if I had been in the same room with them for hours rather than being knocked unconscious. “First of all, I know nothing about my father being electrocuted. There was no possibility–”

“I said I was not to hear you whine, Mendoza.”

“None of this makes sense. I couldn’t have electrocuted my father. I didn’t kill my mother. And even if I did, you’re telling me that I’m here for some other purpose? You’re calling me a mutant? Like some half human hybrid? That’s ridiculous!” I had to be going a little crazy. Surely I was just dreaming. Maybe that was how I was being inducted into Heaven. It would explain the overabundance of white. Perhaps I was in Hell, and that was just a method to torture me. Whatever it was, I was on the brink of freaking out. I was going insane.

I clenched my fist and jaw. I watched my nostrils flare in the faint reflection projected on the glass. They looked at me with wide eyes and took wavering steps back.

“Alright, let’s start over,” Ren Clash sounded slightly parched. “We got off on the wrong foot. So let me introduce us.” His smile returned as he placed a hand on his chest, “I’m Ren Clash, internet entrepreneur. This is Doctor Taylor, award winning biologist and neurologist. And this is Lieutenant Wallace from the Volent army,” Ren continued as he pointed to each person in turn.

Ren’s freckled face finally clicked in my mind. “Ren Clash? Aren’t you that guy that got jealous because his sister got some type of award, so you tried to burn down the ceremony? What was her name? Tracy Clash?”

Ren’s smile faded and Doctor Taylor smirked. I think I even saw the stiff soldier twitch his lips from the corner of my eye, but as I looked back at him, his face was stone cold. His gaze locked onto mine and I shied away.

Let me tell you, Lieutenant Wallace must have killed thousands of people just by the blade of his eyes. They were sunken, and his thick, dark brown eyebrows did nothing to lessen the intensity. The blue of his iris made you feel like you were outside on a snowy day. But not the kind when you were a kid where you would build a snowman and have snowball fights. No, his eyes were the type of blue where you were traveling on a frozen lake in below-zero-degree weather, and you happened to fall in and emerge with the icy water. Somehow, you miraculously survive, but now you must keep traveling soaked. At the same time, the skin slicing wind blows against you, so eventually, you lay down on the ice and become one with the lake. Does that make sense?

Sorry, I got sidetracked.

Ren was all hot and red when he responded, “Her name is Grace and that’s neither here nor there. Let’s focus on the task at hand.” He cleared his throat. “Us three were tasked by SIA to figure out who you are.”

“Well, I can save us all the trouble. I am Emerye Mendoza, born in Lusha, Vol–”

“No, no,” Ren interjected. “We want to know who you are on the inside. SIA wants to know how you have mutant abilities.”

I furred my brows as I tried to decipher his words. “Mutant abilities… like, superpowers?”

He must’ve seen the confusion on my face. “Yes, your powers, Mendoza. You know, the bright light that goes boom.”

I looked at Doctor Taylor and Lieutenant Wallace, who were staring back at me with serious expressions. It had to be a joke. The government was playing some prank on me as a punishment for being accused of my parent’s death. I laughed in their faces. “What do you guys take me as? I might not be the most educated woman in the world, but I’m not that stupid. I’m not falling for it.”

Doctor Taylor rolled her eyes. “Let’s skip the theatrics, alright? Mendoza, this is not a game. You have a power stored inside you that hasn’t been seen as possible for thousands of years. We are here to figure you out. To run tests and experiment to create something revolutionary. All we need you to do is work with us so we can get this done with as soon as possible.”

The room fell into an eerie silence after Doctor Taylor’s outburst. I had so many questions, but I was sure if I was to ask, she would shatter the glass and tackle me to the ground. But they were all staring at me. I said, “You’re telling me I have some kind of magical power that I know nothing about, which makes me a mutant, and the government wants to cut me open to figure out why.”

“Precisely,” Doctor Taylor sighed, seemingly satisfied.

“I don’t believe you.”

She scoffed, “What is there not to believe? If we were lying to you, you’d be in some low of the dirt jail cell rotting away for the murder of your parents.”

“I didn’t kill my parents and I don’t have powers.”

“Okay, Mendoza. You didn’t kill your parents. You also didn’t use your powers to set a block of government officials and your siblings on fire. Surely the video footage we have of that is someone else.”

My heart dropped at the mention of my siblings. I went back in time in my head, trying to remember the last moments before I passed out. I remember falling to the ground and getting hit by a wave of electricity that grew throughout my body. Everything went black. There was no way I set everything on fire; I wasn’t even awake. First, they blamed me for my father’s death after I passed out, and now they are doing the same with me harming my siblings. There was no way in my being that I could’ve hurt Amilio and Mariana. No way.

I told them just that. All I received was a warranted laugh from Doctor Taylor, that stupid smile from Ren, and that death-eating stare from Lieutenant Wallace.

My head began to pound at their lack of belief– I was exhausted from trying to explain myself. From the pressure I was put under with the whole mutant crap. I just felt like I was going to explode. My skin burned so much that it itched, and I could feel my heartbeat picking up speed. If I had to keep talking to them for another minute, especially Doctor Taylor and her antagonizing voice, I swore I would’ve screamed so loud it cracked the glass of my cell. Maybe blow out their eardrums like they tried to do with me. Then, I could make my escape.

“Emerye,” Lieutenant Wallace’s rich and smooth voice let out exasperated, pulling my attention away from that deep cavern of my mind. He repeated my name with wide eyes. Like a water projection, I noticed a blue light dancing upon his sharp features. “Look,” he nodded his head towards my lower body. I looked to Doctor Taylor and Ren Clash, who mirrored the same face as Lieutenant Wallace. A look of amazement. I did what he said, slowly looking down, only to be met with the sight of my hands engulfed in a blue lightning storm.

“What the–” I screamed as I jumped back. I tried to shake my hands to get rid of the sparks, only for them to follow me wherever I went, slowly climbing up my arms.

“It’s your power,” Ren Clash said as he approached the glass. “The bright blue light that goes boom.” I looked from him to my hands, amazed, confused, scared. My hands… they were being electrocuted, and I couldn’t feel a thing. The power was coming from me, and that meant that everything Doctor Taylor and Ren Clash had told me was true. I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

I struggled to say it out loud. “I– I’m a mutant.” But the words fit perfectly on my tongue.

“You are, and we are going to figure out why.” I looked at Doctor Taylor, who wore a smooth smile that felt genuine compared to her attitude not less than two minutes before.

“I don’t believe it,” I said as I tried again to shake off the blue bolts. “I’m not special.”

“You are special,” Ren Clash said. “To us,” he motioned a hand among the group.

When I looked at the lieutenant, my blue light still highlighting the contours of his face, I watched as his throat bobbed. His lips were pressed together, and a line of sweat seemed to coat his forehead as his gaze shifted from my eyes to my hands. I didn’t know what to make of the look, but I knew it wasn’t because he was afraid of me.

And somehow, that made me afraid.