Midnight

Drained

*Justin's POV*

"So, Justin," Director X muttered, pulling on a pair of white latex gloves.

"Why don't you tell me about yourself?"

After several grueling tests in the gas chamber, the director determined that I could only breathe air.

He injected me with more of the solution in those pointy tools, which I found out were needles, and brought me to a new place.

The area was dark at first, but the director pressed something on his control panel from outside the glass and big bright lights flooded the room.

"What would you want to know about me?" I asked in a purposely snarky tone.

"Anything," he replied in a voice that was all too optimistic.

"Your hopes, your dreams, your darkest secrets..."

There's no way I'd share any of that with you, pyscho.

Upon close observation, I realized that the room was mostly just a bigger version of the last container that I was thrown into.

The walls were plain and stark white.

A rectangular glass panel was facing me about twenty feet away.

That's where the director was monitoring me from.

I was standing on a sort of conveyor belt that extended upwards.

My hands were cuffed down to thick metal handle bars attached to the structure.

A stiff object circled my neck, and I was oblivious to what it could be, but knew that it hadn't been there before.

"This is a treadmill," the director explained.

"You are going to run on it so we can document your speed."

"What if I don't want to?" I questioned.

"Now, you may have noticed the collar around you neck," he spoke calmly but spitefully.

I hate how he answers my questions - it's as if he's talking to me and speaking in general at the same time.

"If at anytime you decide to stop running, you will get a little shock from that collar. Now of course when I say 'little', I mean 400 megawatts, or 400,000,000 volts of electricity, to be precise. Don't worry, the shock is only another test to see if you're immune to electricity."

From the devilish way he looked at me, I could tell that the shock was more of a threat than a test.

"The test will begin shortly," he stated.

"Prepare to run like you've never run before."

After a minute or two, the conveyor belt began to move.

I didn't follow along with it, tired of obeying the director's ridiculous orders.

As promised, the collar zapped me on the spot.

The electricity coursing through me felt as if millions of wasps were stinging me repeatedly all over my body.

Calling the experience painful was an astronomical understatement.

I could barely move, so much as run after being shocked once.

If one shock hurt so much, what would happen if I was electrocuted five times?

Or ten?

"If you don't run, you'll be shocked again!" Director X reminded me.

I burst into a sprint, not wanting to experience such pain again.