His Experiment [FIRST EDIT]

The Tour of Lab Arcelia

Chapter 6

 Arcelia

I sat in my room, looking at the wall. “On.” I said, watching the wall flicker before it became alive, turning a dark blue.

“Hello Arcelia 14786. What would you like to do today?” The wall asked, sounding cheery despite its monotonous voice.

“Give me the Weekly Mental examination please.” I murmured. The wall processed my request before it started to whir softly and the screen turned black. They used the color black during quizzes because it helped the experiments concentrate.

“What is your name?” It asked and I smiled like I always did. The request was always amusing to me because not a second ago the wall had just said hello to me. The only thing missing was ‘experiment’.

I answered anyway. “Experiment Arcelia 14786.” The wall whirled again before asking its next question.

“What is the current date Arcelia 14786?” It asked and I paused. For me, the date was always the most difficult. I couldn’t seem to keep track of when a full day passed like they expected us to.

“The 27th day of the third month.” I replied, and was rewarded with a whir. For every wrong answer I was given a shock from my shocker.

He had told me that we used to be more specific about the date. They used to have years and names for the months. But over time, they’d gradually forgotten about them. New advancements and discoveries in the world meant that there were more important things to remember, and the months and years became trivial pieces of information. Thus now we just had four months, one for every season. There were generally 89 days for every season, unless a season lasted longer than anticipated.

“How are you feeling today Arcelia 14786?” The wall asked and I didn’t reply, not knowing how to answer. How did I feel?

I knew the right answer. I was expected to tell the wall I felt stable and healthy. If I told the wall I felt unstable or unhealthy it would tell me to wait a moment before the lab coats came in and thoroughly examined me. If they found something wrong, I would be terminated. If they didn’t I would be put back in my room, but watched carefully.

My answer was betrayed. I felt betrayed by Him. He’d been the person I trusted, the person I’d become reliant on. But He’d tortured me and ignored my tearful pleading before He disappeared. Had He just been torturing me for His amusement? Had He really been trying to save millions of lives like He promised me?

I never got the chance to answer the wall though. My door slid open and I turned, seeing the same female lab coat and Dimitri.

“Off.” I said, watching the wall as it disappeared and became nothing more than a white wall.

"Hello Lia. I forgot to introduce my assistant, Linsey." He said but I vaguely paid attention because his clothes were distracting me.

Yesterday he'd worn a lab coat and black pants like everyone else had. But today he wore a shirt with holes and it was black. It looked thinner than the regular crisp suit shirts the lab coats wore. Then he wore blue pants that looked very different to the black ones the lab coats had.

"Why are you dressed weird?" I asked tilting my head and saw the lab coat cringe when I asked the question. I sympathized because inside I was cringing too, waiting for him to revoke the pleasure of asking questions and receiving answers.

"Because it's a lot more comfortable than those damn suffocating suits, that's why. I don't see why everyone seems to like the suit style nowadays." He muttered, looking down at his clipboard. I glanced at it and saw Arcelia 14786 in bold letters on the top.