Oof Idk

Part 1

I woke up slowly, taking in my unfamiliar surroundings. A small room, a bed with light blue sheets, a steel door, grey walls. My brain was foggy from the long sleep. I felt like I had been out for days.

The room was bright, much too bright to be natural. I tried to cover my face but quickly realized I was restrained. Thick handcuffs attached to the metal bed rail held each of my hands down, restricting my movement.

I struggled, violently, getting angrier as I wasn't able to break free. The stupid things wouldn't come off! I screamed out one last try and collapsed back down onto the bed, defeated. I was still too tired for this.

The steel grey door on the side of the room opened, permitting entrance to a middle aged man in a lab coat.

"Good! You're awake. How are you feeling?" He was quickly by my side, shining a flashlight in my eyes.

"Get away from me!" I struggled as he tried to press a stethoscope to my chest, making him stop.

"What's wrong?"

"Who are you?" I asked with as much intimidation as I could muster. Was my voice really that low? Why did I not know that? Should I know that?

"What do you mean?"

"Who are you?!" I asked again, more frantically. "I don't know who you are!"

"John, seriously."

John? Is that me? The way he was staring at me suggested this, but I didn't feel like a "John."

"Quit messing around," he said, tiredly. It was almost as if he was tired of me and my pranks. "Do you feel any different?" He moved in again with the stethoscope, but I crawled back, getting as far away as possible. The man stopped, looking confused. He looked like he was about to say something, but he stopped himself. Instead, he turned and left the way he came.

I relaxed back onto the bed between my splayed out arms and closed my eyes, the anger flooding out of me. "This can't be happening." I whispered to myself, almost willing reality to suddenly pop out and say "Psyche! This was just a dream. Now, wake up!" But when I opened my eyes I was still in the tiny room, still with a thousand questions swarming my head.

The most important one, that should have been the easiest to remember: "who am I?" continued to pop up. I had no idea what the answer was. I didn't know my name, although, it was supposedly John, I didn't know what I looked like or how old I was, I didn't know where I came from, who my parents were, anything.

I was pulled out of my thoughts by the steel door being pushed open. The same man entered, this time with a lady and another man, all dressed in lab coats.

"John, I sincerely hope this is a joke," the lady said, voice stern. She had thin, drawn on eyebrows and cat eye glasses that kind of creeped me out.

I shook my head, not knowing what to say to her. Maybe a nice "who are you and why can't I remember anything?"

"Very well. I take it you want an explanation, then?" She sighed, not waiting for an answer before continuing. "Well, memory loss was one of the possible side effects, but you wanted to test the drug."

"What drug?" I interrupted.

"Will you let me finish." I could tell she was trying hard to stay calm. I decided to not push my luck, so I shut up.

"The drug... was meant to remove your enhanced human abilities. You signed up to be our... guinea pig. This was our first test. Although it clearly didn't go... as planned, we would like to run some tests to see if the drug will give us the results we are looking for." She paused. "You do know what the enhanced are... right?"

I shook my head, not risking speaking.

"People born with 'superpowers,' as one might call them," she said with air quotes. "They've been terrorizing society for years and we are trying to put a stop to that." She smiled warmly, something I was not expecting such an intense woman to be capable of. "You were a huge part of making that happen. I'm just sorry it had to come to this." She pressed the stethoscope to my chest and guided me in taking a few deep breaths.

"Could you take these off?" I raised my hands as high as I could, gesturing towards the restraints.

"Yes, I'm so sorry about those." She took out a ring of keys and clicked a button on what looked like a car key. The restraints fell off my wrists. I sat up slowly and rubbed where the handcuffs had left deep marks in my skin. They hadn't been very tight... The doctor saw my confusion. "You tried to attack a few doctors. That's the only reason we had you in those."

"Why?"

She glanced at the men, unsure how to answer. "We're not entirely sure. It happened directly after you were injected. It may have been your body's way of rejecting the drug, but we'll have to look into that."

"Did I hurt anyone?"

She looked at her clip board and swallowed. "Yes. You... gave one of our doctors third degree burns."

My hands shook, my stomach did a flip. How could I have done that? "I'm so sorry." My voice was barely a whisper.

"John, we know it wasn't you. This is part of the reason why we need this treatment: there are other kids out there who can't control their own bodies, who are hurting themselves and others, who need help!" She put a hand on my shoulder but I shrugged her off. She didn't seem too surprised by this, but I immediately felt bad. She was just trying to help me. "We need your help to make them listen. You wanted to test this drug to show your peers that it was safe, that we could be trusted."

"Why don't they trust you?"

"They have it in their heads that we are trying to oppress them by taking their 'super powers,' but we need you to show them that that is not true."

I flicked my wrist repeatedly and closed my eyes.

"John?"

I took a few more breaths before opening my eyes and settling my hand back in my lap. A million questions ran through my head: how can I trust you? Why did I take this drug? Who am I that I felt I could get others on board?

"John, I know you're scared, but we need to run a few tests."

I nodded, not meeting her eye. "Can I ask a question?"

"Anything." She wrote something on her clipboard then started recording the data on a few machines I was attached to.

"Do I have any family? Where am I from? How did I get here? How long have I been here?"

She smiled softly. "There will be time for all of that later. Can you stand up?"

My shoulders loosened and I swung my legs over the side of the bed. I was unsteady on my feet but one of the doctors let me lean on him. They guided me into a dark room for a few hours of tests with a group of scientists watching me from behind a window.