Whirlwind | W.M.

10

Novi Grad, Sokovia
2013

Something about this place felt worse than the last. There was something dark in the air, menacing, creeping in the shadows. I thought I was done with experiments, so to be back holed up in a cell was a little more than disheartening. The looming feeling of anxiety had begun to resurface, forcing my mind into a downward spiral of conjuring up maybe the worst visions I could have ever had.

I preferred the heinous missions over being a lab rat— over never knowing what kind of pain you'd be submerged in next. It's like standing in a pitch black room, your muscles tensed up and waiting for a blow that you're not sure is even going to come, and if it does, no matter how ready you think you are, it always hurts a thousand times more than you could have ever imagined. At least on missions, I wasn't the one at the mercy of another's hands. It was a vile thing to even think about, but honesty to myself was all I had left.

They didn't tell me much before sending me here, but i've picked up enough to hear about a shiny new experiment regarding some sort of matter they've gotten their hands on. A sceptre, I heard one man say in passing. His smile dripping of merciless wonder, and his mind was probably just as revolting too. It wasn't like the others where the doctors would pretend to be nice, put on some slimy smirk and call me a good girl when I make it out of their poking and prodding barely breathing.

This was different, this was darker.

When I got there, the testing had already begun. It was seemingly in the early stages, before they got anything right because those I'd see being dragged away, they don't come back. Not even in wheelchairs or gurneys, they just disappear. What i've noticed is that they save the candidates with the most potential for last, the ones who were more likely to withstand whatever heinous program they've created and the weaker volunteers— they'd be dispensable.

Every time I see another being dragged to their doom, I wonder if they know they wouldn't be returning. I always wonder about what sickly lie they've been told, if they were made to believe their sacrifice was for some greater good or some bullshit to mask the real intentions. There was no greater good, this place, and all the others were anything but. I didn't know which nightmare would tear worse, to watch as unknowing victims are dragged to their death or to realize that they knew, that life was just worth an experiment, a last ditch effort to mean something- anything.

It was my first night there and as usual, I did what I could to try and drift off. I never liked the sinking feeling those cells brought, no matted how different they looked— they all felt the same anyway. So I shut my eyes as tightly as I could, did everything from counting sheep to slowing my breathing and yet I couldn't seem to shake the vile fragments that seemed to float in the air. It didn't help that I could hear everything that transpired outside of my walls.

Every thundering footstep, every muffled conversation, every buzzer and slamming door and... humming. It stood out against the mundane sounds of my surroundings. It was a steady tune, almost cheerful tune that masked a thick emptiness beneath. It was faint, barely a ripple in the air as it bled through the ventilation right at the foot of my hard bed and it didn't stop for hours. Just the same tune, until the early hours of the night until whoever was singing had drifted off.

Admittedly, I did too.

I thought i'd have found it unbearable, that repetitive sound seeping from the walls. I don't really understand why I didn't hate it, why it didn't make me want to rip my hair out despite the relentlessness. The next couple of nights would be the same, that tune ringing ghostly in the wind as I'd close my eyes and focus on the sound. As weak as it was, it drowned out enough for me to actually sink into slumber despite my burning curiosity of who was on the other end of that vent.