Subject 001

Changes

TRIGGER WARNING: Depiction of a panic attack and PTSD.

1995...

6-year-old Em was strapped to a chair, the scientists surrounding her put her feet in a bowl with water, her head had wires attached to it connecting her to a machine. She was as scared as ever, it would hurt, that much she knew for certain, but she learned her lesson, and voicing her fear and pain would only make things worse so she kept her mouth shut.

"Subject 001," one of the scientists called sternly, making the little girl look up. "Open," he commanded and she opened her mouth obediently, he placed a mouthguard in her mouth.

She bit down on it, watching him give a thumbs up to his colleague at the machine.

"Let's start then," another scientist said, the others nodded, and most left the room to watch from the other side of the glass, the man managing the machine and a man with a clipboard were the only ones left with Em.

The two nodded to each other and Em forced her eyes closed waiting for the pain, and it came, she felt a painful shock run through her body making it shake and convulse. The pain stopped and she opened her eyes, she was in an open field, a beautiful sunny sky looked over her and several beautiful flowers surrounded her.

Em smiled softly, "Hello sun, hello flowers," she said happily, twirling in a yellow dress rather than her hospital gown.

She sat on the ground, it was soft like a pillow and she giggled, it was all like she remembered.

"Hello there," the little girl whispered, letting a ladybug crawl on her hand. "What's your name?" she asked, receiving no response. "Will you be my friend? I don't have any," she told the ladybug sadly. "Can I call you Kay? Because I don't know what you are... And everything will be o-Kay," she giggled. "My name is Subject 001, see?" Em said, showing her tattoo to the ladybug. "You can call me Em, it's what I call myself when I play pretend in my head. We can't play in front of the bad men, they don't like it when I play and I don't want them to hurt you like they did to your friend... Don't worry about your friend I helped and it flew away, but shhh! You can't tell the bad men, they don't know I can do that."

Em sat in silence for a moment pensively before talking again, "I learned how to read last week, the bad men wanted to test me, I think, and I learned really, really fast! I really like reading, but they don't give me any books, I asked but the answer wasn't good," she noted, shaking her head. "When I learned they let me read one book, it was about a princess in a castle. I want to be a princess one day and live in a big yellow castle! Yellow is my favorite color, it means happiness!"

She told Kay everything that went through her young mind until she yawned.

"I'm getting sleepy," Em said grimly, laying down and letting the ladybug crawl onto the floor. "I go away when I get sleepy, but don't worry I come back almost every day unless I sleep for a long time. This sleep is so cold, when I sleep in my room I don't feel so cold. Oh, sun, why can't you ever keep me warm?"

Em's eyes closed, her body couldn't resist the torture anymore even if her mind didn't feel it. She woke up alone in her room, the floor, walls, and ceiling were white, there was nothing in the room and it couldn't be much bigger than a cleaning room. Em sighed quietly, dragging her little body into the corner and hugging her knees.

"I hate small places."

Present-day...

"We need to get her inside," Em instructed as they left the car, running into the Academy. "We have to make sure there aren't any injuries I missed."