The guards pushed me into the same waiting room as always. I caught myself as I stumbled and hit the floor, scraping my elbows instead of my face. That seemed like a favorite pass time to the guards; see how hard you can push the weak little prisoner before they stumble and fall on their face. 

         With a bitter look towards the closing door, I get to my feet. But then I immediately freeze. The normal pair of stacked clothes near the wall isn't there. 

          An icy feeling of fear creeps up my limbs. Okay. Okay, don't panic. Im sure there are plenty of reasons why they didn't provide me another uniform. Maybe they just didn't want to spend the time on the washing when my clothes didn't really need it. That was true. The plain white material was practically blood-stainless. Whatever they had done to me before hadn't caused me to lose a lot of blood like normal. So my clothes were relatively clean. 

         But the logic behind that still didn't stop my brain from running scary scenarios through my mind. And it still didn't stop the undeniable feeling that the real reason I wasn't provided with another outfit was because they didn't want to waste it on the dead. 

         Before I could stop myself, I started thinking about all those faces in the hallways, how hopeful they had been, how much more fearful they were going to be when they didn't see me return. This is what happens when you don't obey without question would be the message on everybody's minds. Without ever really realizing it had started, that little bubble of hope that had been building in my own chest suddenly sputtered and went out. How can anyone believe in something as puny and pathetic as hope is this kind of world? The world prayed on hope. Once even a tiny flame of hope sprang up anywhere, the shadows made sure to squash it. 

         Hope, just like love and kindness, was a myth. A myth I was better off staying away from. 

         I slouched down on the wall at my usual spot beneath the camera. Almost immediately, I sprang back up. 

         One of the double doors was pulled open by a guard, and a women that I recognized entered the room, carrying a bundle in her hands. Dr. Hailey's dark hair was pulled back from her face in a severe bun that pulled at her temples, and her eyes were dark and grim, surrounded by light purple semi circles. She was so different from the bright, sunny women that I had met the other day that I was almost convinced that this was Dr. Hailey's evil twin. But no, because she came to a stop in front of me crisply, her dark eyes cold, and said in an emotionless voice, "Subject  Oc1554, please put this on, then proceed into the hall, where the guards will bring you to your next station."  

         She then shoved the bundle into my hands and turned on her heel and walked out. The door was pulled closed behind her. I looked down at the clothes lying in my hands. Well, this is new. Instead of the traditional white, the clothes I held were black, and I could just see a stripe of gray running through the fabric. I was so glad to see another color other then white and red that I just stood staring at the bundle for several seconds. Finally, I snapped out of it and unfurled the fabric pile. 

         I was almost immediately dismayed at what I saw. Instead of having two different pieces, a shirt and trousers, the black fabric was completely sewn together. It was a one piece suit of some sort. Stifling a groan, I slipped my old clothes off and placed my foot in the suit. 

         I didn't have to see in a mirror to know that I looked ridiculous. The black suit was obviously supposed to be skintight, but with my body so malnourished, the fabric hung off of my frame awkwardly, so it looked like my skin was sagging. My feet were bare, like normal. In total, I probably looked exactly like the lab rat I was trying so hard not to be. 

         With a deep breath, I knocked on the hall doors. This was confusing. I had never been given instructions before. Before, it had always been them dragging me everywhere and not giving me a choice. While the choice part was still obviously an issue, the rest was just plain astonishing. What were they planning to do with me? Okay, maybe that part should be obvious. They were going to do what they always did; experiment. But the whole 'stations' thing? And the new black suit? I had no idea what to make of any of it. 

         The doors were pulled outward, and two guards pulled my arms out the door. They forced me down the hall. The white walls and cell doors shot past. We walked, or they walked, I was pulled, down more and more hallways, through a seemingly endless maze of white. Maybe it was just my brain imagining the worst scenarios, but for some reason I couldn't help but think we were going down a different hall then I recognized. My suspicion was confirmed when I saw the nearest cell door number; 676. Icy tentacles of fear wrapped themselves around my neck, squeezing until my vision was outlined in black shadows. I had never been past my own cell, 554. 

         Where were they taking me?

         The numbers on the cell doors continued to climb. I passed 736, then 808, 942, continually growing higher. The floor was now set at an almost undetectable slope down. Oh, god... They are bringing me into the bowels of their evil institute. The horror I felt steadily increased as we passed through hallway through blank white hallway. I never thought... I mean, I knew they had a lot of us here, but as the numbers slowly increased, going from three digit numbers to four, the revulsion in my stomach made me want to puke the small portion of meal I had gotten that morning out. 

         We walked for what seemed like hours. Finally, the guards slowed as they neared two unremarkable white double doors. The last cell number I read before entering the room was 9,984. 

         9,984 children held as prisoner science experiments... 

         But before I had even really had the chance to wrap my mind around that excruciatingly high number, the guards had dragged my through those doors. My body automatically braced itself, muscles tightening and coiling in mindless preparation for the torture it was so used to. But instead of hard metal tables and cruel polished instruments, with even crueler and mindless people in white lab coats, I was baffled by only a single chair of white painted metal, placed at exactly the center of the small room. One wall was made of polished reflective glass, and for a very brief moment, I met my own eyes in that surface. Eyes that were wide, frightened, and very green placed in a dirt smudged and hollow face, framed by untamed, filthy red hair that almost reached the stick thin girls knobby knees. 

         I snapped out of the temporary trance when the guards pushed me further into the room, led me to the chair, and pushed me down. Scrapes were pulled up and fastened around my ankles, waist, wrists, and neck. A second later, the guards retreated, pulling both doors closed behind them. I was left alone in the room.

          The chair was placed to where it faced the reflective glass, and so I got a full view of my pathetic self. I could barely stand looking at my reflection. I tried to keep my eyes downcast, but I could still see the reflection at the center of my vision. This was going to drive me insane, more so then I already was. I needed to move, before I really did get driven crazy with anger at what they had reduced me to. I jerked my body to the side, not really expecting anything to happen. I was gladly surprised when the chair moved slightly to the left. I repeatedly jerked my body to the side, slowly but surely moving the chair, until I had managed to turn the chair enough that my reflection was no longer center stage. Now my chair faced the other wall, and all I could see of my reflection was the outline out of the corner of my eye. This would have to do. 

         Just from that little exertion, I was panting and my head was spinning, but I was smugly satisfied. 

         And now... I wait. 

         Slowly being driven insane by the fear eating away at my body. By the confusion of not knowing. By the questions pounding repeating at my brain, perfectly in tune with my heartbeat. At least I knew what to expect before. But this? 

         I had no clue how long I stayed in there strapped to that chair. An hour? Two? For all I knew, it could have been an entire day. My conceptions of time were completely screwed up. The one thing I became increasingly aware of, though, was the soft sound of voices. I couldn't pinpoint exactly where they were coming from. I only heard the soft murmur as whoever it was talked, and the different varying tones told me there was at least three people talking. 

         I strained my ears, trying to hear what was being said. I was concentrating so hard, so intensely, that I didn't even notice the fever until it blacked my vision out. It was the same weird sensation that I had been experiencing for the last couple days. It completely darkened my vision for several seconds, bringing with it blissful darkness and soothing unawareness, and I knew that if I hadn't been strapped to this chair, I would have been sprawled on the cold concrete of the floor. When my senses once again returned, I had to blink several times to readjust my vision, which kept swimming in and out with strange bright flashes of color. When my eyes finally adjusted, there was several things that I immediately registered. One, I could suddenly see a lot clearer then before, as if before now I had been seeing the world through a tubful of water, and now I had finally risen above the surface. The other thing was I could see through the wall in front of me to the hallway outside of the door. 

         Frantically, I moved my eyes around the room, panic searing through my veins. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw several people wearing white standing behind the reflective wall. With a violent jerk wrought purely from blind fear, I moved the chair I was sitting in back towards that wall. Surprisingly, it turned more then half of the way back, making a horrible skidding noise. I could now see into the room behind the glass, which now became painful obvious had been a one way observation window. More importantly, I could now see the three scientists who were talking behind that glass. One was Dr. Hailey, with her newly severe dark bun, and another was Dr. Porter, with his balding head that gleamed under the harsh fluorescent lighting. The other was someone I didn't recognize, but I could tell he was someone important, with his perfectly tailored gray suit and impeccably groomed brown hair, shot through with gray at the temples.  They appeared deep in conversion, and as I stared, soft words grew steadily in volume until I could hear what they were saying. I had no clue how, but suddenly their words were clear to my ears, words that were being said on the other side of a wall of glass.  

         "...It should began in just a second," Dr. Porter said casually, bringing one wrist up to his face and rolling down his sleeve. "They should be flipping the switch any moment now... Aww." As he had brought his wrist down, he glanced briefly at the glass separating us, and had caught my eyes. His small eyes widened as he noticed me watching, and an eerie smile twisted his lips. "It appears our wait is over!" 

          Dr. Hailey and the stranger spun to face the glass. I hastily dropped my eyes, pretending I couldn't see or hear anything they were saying. But Dr. Porter had already seen me notice them, and so looking away just made me look even more guilty. 

         The stranger suddenly spoke, with a voice surprisingly gentle. "Subject Oc1554, can you hear me?"

         No, I almost said, and just managed to stop myself. Instead, I just stubbornly kept my eyes on the floor, pretending obliviousness. A soft laugh sounded, and the stranger spoke again. "I know you can hear me." Nope. "I want you to know that I think what you did, volunteering for that girl, was very brave."

         That girl is my sister, I wanted to spit. I just held my lips in a tight line and continued ignoring him. I don't know how long this will last, but I was determined to drag it out as long as I could. Who knows what they might do to me once they figure out that I could. The silence drags on, with just the ever present buzzing of the electricity filling the empty space. 

         Finally, once the silence had became awkward, the stranger spoke, and this time his voice had lost its gentleness. "We all know you can hear us, so really there is no need to play these childish games." When I still said nothing, he sighed and spoke to Dr. Porter. "Turn the sound on."

         Dr. Porter smiled his traditional satanic smile. "Gladly, sir."

         Before I could truly think about what that meant, a piercing wail sounded as if from the walls themselves, digging itself with razor sharp blades into my brain. Because my wrists were strapped down, I couldn't cover my ears, and so all I did was sit there, my eyes squeezed shut with an expression of agony twisting my features. 

         Almost immediately after it began, the wailing was shut off, leaving me with just the echos in my brain. 

         I lifted my eyes from the floor, not caring anymore about pretending or what they would do, and glared at them, all three of them, and their stupid smug faces and demented morals. I was tired of the torture, the oppression, the constant pain and fear of the unknown, the lack of proper nutrition, the snatching of our voices. All they saw was a malnourished, insane girl that they could use and discard in any way they wished. I wasn't even a person to them, but a toy, a piece of paper, a flimsy scrap of garbage that they could do anything with. But I wasn't that. I was a person, I had a voice, a purpose. I wasn't their property. 

         They would never own me.

         But before I could open my mouth and give them a piece of my mind, the stranger spoke again, and now I could plainly hear the smugness in his voice. "Now that we have your attention, we may as well proceed. Im Mr. Greyson, and I will be supervising your training from now on." He smirked and answered my unasked question. "Yes, training. From this point on, you will be brought here every day, where we will proceed to place various tasks on you."

          "And if I refuse to listen to anything you ask of me?" I snapped.

          I was pretty proud of this question, but he tsked like he was disappointed in me. "You appear to be attached to the subject beside you. From what we picked up on the camera audio, we have determined she is your sister, correct?" Horror washed through me at his next words. "It would be a shame if something happened to her."

         They were going to use my sister to make me do what they wanted. Anger smothered in my veins, building, spreading until the fire consumed my entire body. These people were monsters. Monsters who weren't afraid of the fire they were playing with, running unchecked. And what do you do with monsters?

         You slay them.

         Oblivious of the dark thoughts running through my mind, Mr. Greyson continued. "Now, lets get started." He spoke into a small mic in his ear, and a second later, a hallway shaped panel in the wall opposite the door slid open, revealing a secret doorway. I could just make out all kinds of strange equipment. Through the door, several guards entered the room, guns held at the ready. One unstrapped my restraints, and I got shakily to my feet. I tried to walk forward towards the open doorway, but before I had even take more then a step, my knees wobbled and my body crashed towards the floor. The sensual high I had been experiencing suddenly burned out, leaving me dizzy and weak and barely able to stand. 

          As I was struggling back to my feet (with absolutely no help from the guards), the door behind me swung open, and Dr. Hailey, Dr. Porter, and Mr. Greyson entered the room. Dr. Hailey broke from the stiff composer she had been maintaining throughout the entire last conversation, and hurried to my side. "Are you okay?" Her eyes were concerned and she assessed my body, as if looked for physical injuries. I yanked my arm from her grip and glared at her, backing up a few steps. How dare she? How dare she be so ice cold one moment and have motherly concern the next? 

         Mr. Greyson frowned, then did his own assessment of my body. Apparently, what he saw was disappointing. It was like he expected more of me, instead of the sack of skin and bones standing before him. "This wont due," he tutted. With a simple gesture of his hand, a guard approached from behind me. "Get her a B689 and a nutritional pack. And hurry."

         As the guard marched off to receive those items, I couldn't help but ask, "A B689?" Even as the words came out of my mouth, I mentally slapped myself. Of course they weren't going to explain what that was. But curiosity had always been a weakness of mine. 

         Surprisingly, Dr. Hailey actually answered me. She explained, "A B689 is a pill, very similar in results to steroids, but without the bad side affects." At my look, she added, "Don't worry, it's harmless."

         That wasn't at all why I had been looking at her strange. The look I was giving her was more of a 'Why the hell are you giving me steroids?' kind of look. Because I really wanted to know. Why give the prisoner, who they had always wanted to keep weak and obedient, a substance that can build muscle mass in short periods of time? For that matter, why train said lab rat so she can turn against them when she was strong enough? Because that's what I was planning on doing. No doubt about that. 

         The guard returned in record time, carrying a small package of some type of green mush and a water bottle. He handed me the water and green mush package. I just stared at the items in my hands for several seconds. Then, with a whooshing sound Im sure was supposed to be a sigh but really just sounded like buzzing coming from the robotic monotone, the guard yanked the package from my hands and ripped it open. Then he shoved the contents back into my hand with a grunted, "Eat."

         You eat this stuff? I took a suspicious look at the green goop. Normally, I don't have a problem with eating whatever they give us. After all, food is food, and I can't afford to complain. But this didn't even look like food. It looked like something you would scrape off the side of a fish tank with no access to fresh air. Hesitantly, I took the small spoon attached to the package off, and dipped it into the substance. Everyone stared as I raised the spoon to my mouth and swallowed the green goop. Huh. Not bad. If you could get over the color and weird texture, then the rest was practically tasteless. It was almost like I was eating water. 

         A little subconscious that everybody was just staring at me as I ate, I quickly shoveled the rest of the goop into my mouth, then opened the water and took a swig to wash it down. The meal settled into my stomach, strangely solid feeling for such a soupy substance. Next, the guard shoved a small white pill into my hand. Furrowing my brows, I popped it into my mouth, washing it down with water. When I didn't immediately spontaneously combust, I felt a lot better. The mushy meal had settled my stomach, and I felt strength