The Inadequate Experiments: 1. White Noise [Rough Draft]

Part 2; Inequity - 14. The Compound

“Subject A 67, Seraphina Elizabeth Grey, aged 17, is awake and awaiting further instructions.”

The dreams that had been drifting just at the edge of my mind flitted away and I jumped out of my skin at the sound of the monotone robotic voice. It sounded like some sort of HANA system, but it sounded far more advanced than mine. Despite the voice announcing that I was awake, I felt groggy and couldn’t bear to open my eyes. A sharp pain shot through my brain as I recalled the last thing Cooper had said to me. Sera, it’s the Scientists. They’re found you. And Oliver. They’ve come to take you away.

Already, I could feel my memory of his face slipping away, along with the sound of his voice, the way it felt when he kissed me, and the way his eyes reminded me of oncoming storm clouds floating peacefully across a blue, sunny sky. No! I screamed in my head. Please! You can’t take that away from me!

“I’m afraid we have to, sweetie.” A voice said from beside me. A woman. I didn’t recognise the voice. “That boy isn’t yours. You can’t have those sort of feelings for him.”

I jumped a little at the sound of the strange woman’s voice, and forced myself to open my eyes. My gaze met with bright white surroundings and I was forced to blink a few times before my eyes adjusted. Not only did my eyes adjust to the light, but they adjusted to the roof above me. Weird. I must have been put in here with my glasses left on. I went to pull them off my face to clean them, knowing that if I slept with them on, they would be horribly dirty, but instead of gripping my thick, black frames, my hand collided with my cheekbone. I blinked, and moved my hand about a foot away from my face. Normally, without glasses, my hand would have looked like a peachy blur, yet that time I could clearly see all the veins running up the back of my hand, along with the creases in my skin. My vision seemed perfect.

“We took the liberty of fixing your eyesight for you. Laser treatment. Took the most of five minutes. And don’t worry about a cost – glasses are such awkward things these days, especially if they’re not needed. Eyesight is far too easy to fix.” The woman beside me said.

“Did I… Did I say that out loud?” I asked, dismissing the fact about them fixing my eyesight. I would think about that later. I turned to face the woman sitting beside me and jumped again when I realised she was nearly transparent. A Projection. She wasn’t really in the room with me. I couldn’t properly tell what colour her hair was, or the colour of her eyes, but they looked dark in comparison to her pale, translucent skin.

She blinked. “Did you say what out loud, sweetie?”

I wished she’d stop calling me that. “About Cooper.”

She stood up from her seat and walked a few steps away from me, facing the only window in the room. It overlooked another part of the building that looked more like a school classroom block rather than part of the Scientists’ Compound. Next to it, I could see a water tank rising just over the side of the roof.

“So that was his name, was it?” She asked. “We imagined we’d never know.”

“You didn’t answer my question.” I snapped, narrowing my eyes. I already didn’t trust this woman. The fact that she was a Projection made it obvious that she clearly didn’t trust me.

“Which question was that, sweetie?” She asked innocently.

I clenched my teeth to stop myself from screaming. “Did I say that out loud?” I asked slowly, the question a clear threat despite its innocent nature. “About Cooper.”

“You’re a curious one.” The Scientist commented. She paused, seeming to think about whether or not she should answer me. “No.” She said eventually. “You did not, in fact, say that out loud.”