THE EXPERIMENTS

Chapter 1

There was a bright light.

I was in bed, basking in warm sunshine and enjoying the peaceful bliss. Birds were chirping their morning song, and all around was peace and quiet. I could have stayed like that forever.

Mum didn't seem to agree on that, though. Right before I dozed back off into mindless rest, she barged through my bedroom door screeching at me. Not like I got a sudden shock (I could hear her bounding up the creaky staircase with those big feet of hers), but I was certainly annoyed by her unsettling disturbance. I hid under my cushy blanket to block off her unholy screaming, much to no avail since I could still hear her pretty clearly. 

"Wake up, Christina Shadowline! It's a bright, sunny day with school ahead of you, so get up instead of slopping around!" she bellowed mightily, like her usual self. 

I gave a soft "mmph" as I crawled out of the comfy sheets. When I look up, mum had already gone bumbling down the stairs. At least she didn't stay to make me deaf.

Things would have been pretty normal after that if a trail of red liquid had not begun sliding off my temple.

That was another reason why I was grateful that Mum went to be preoccupied with something else downstairs. Otherwise, she would have noticed the dripping crimson red droplets falling on my carpet.

As raw and sheer fear gripped me by the throat, I scrambled to the small bathroom I had. Throwing the door open, I found myself staring at a reflection with blood flowing down from the sides of her scarred face. Her hair was a tousled mess and her eyes were bloodshot and wide. They were streaming with tears. A thin pair of cracked and bleeding lips hung loosely on her face, making it look as if they were clumsily sewn on. She looked like a broken doll, except that she wasn't a broken doll. She was me.  

'No, no, no... not now...'

The reflection just smiled quietly.

I shut my eyelids, getting the image of my horrible self out of my head. 'It's just an illusion,' I told myself.

'Nothing but an illusion...'

All of a sudden, I feel as if I had hit my head on a hard marble floor. When I open my eyes, I realized I had fallen down and landed on the bathroom tiles. Reluctantly, but with eyes closed tightly, I stood up to look at myself again, wishing with all my heart that everything would be okay. Then I opened them.

I was fine.

There was no more blood, no more bulging red eyeballs...I looked perfectly fine, as though nothing happened at all. Despite all this, that wasn't the case inside me. 

I was terrified.

And it's been like this ever since dad was reported missing.