It was August 25th. The day seemed completely normal until two strange men arrived at our small house. I wasn't sure exactly what was happening, but the next thing I knew, I was being dragged away while my mom just watched, doing nothing to stop them.

  For days, weeks, or perhaps months, I was confined to a white room with harsh fluorescent lighting. They only let me out for two reasons, to torture me until I gurgled in pain, or to make me train until I was gasping for air and vomiting.

  At first, I was defiant and fought back, but as the days blurred together, time became irrelevant. They eventually assigned me a designation: V-137.

  To stay alive, I clung to the memory of my mother. She wouldn't have let this happen, I told myself.

  But as the months passed, even I succumbed. Endless hours of staring at the white walls had dulled my mind. Any hope of leaving this place was banished. I simply became an obedient tool.

  Then one day, they removed me from my cell and took me to a medical area where many other kids were standing in a row. I was ordered to join them. I waited quietly until it was my turn to enter.

  When I entered the examination room, a man in a lab coat sat waiting. Without looking up from his tablet, he pointed to a chair.

  His inspection was invasive, checking everything from my pupil dilation to the soles of my feet. He tapped a few commands onto his screen, then reached for a syringe.

  I didn't flinch as he drove the needle into my shoulder. Before the burning sensation faded, a guard had already grabbed my arm to drag me back to the white room.

  After the injection, I noticed immediate changes in my body. Training became oddly easy; I could lift weights that were impossible before, and I could run endlessly without my stamina draining away. Even their torture methods lost their effect. When they tried to drown me, I could hold my breath for impossible lengths of time. When they cut me, the wounds healed almost instantly.

  But the power came with a price.

  During mid-sprint, a jagged agony tore through my gut, buckling my knees. I hit the moving treadmill belt hard. Warm red liquid gushed from my nose, eyes, and mouth, pooling on the machine.

  The scientists monitoring me didn't help immediately. Instead, they stood back to take notes and observe my reaction. Overwhelmed by the pain, I eventually blacked out.

  [Day 1]

  I woke to the sound of coughs. I was lying in a dimly lit dormitory with an IV tube taped to my forearm.

  The room was crowded with bunk beds, every one of them occupied by sick children in the same condition as me.

  I tried to push myself up, but my body felt heavy and weak. Suddenly, a voice drifted down from the bunk above me.

  "Hey, are you alive down there?" A voice cut through from above.

  Throat dry, I replied, "Yeah."

  "I'm S-872," the voice said. "What's yours?"

  "V-137... I'm V-137." I hesitantly said.

  "Welcome, V," the boy above said. "What are you doing in a place like this?"

  I stared at the metal slats of his bed frame for a long moment before answering. "My mom gave me away. I still don't know why."

  "I'm an orphan," S-872 replied. "Never had parents. To sell me, so I guess I'm lucky, haha."

  A soft giggle came from my right side. It was a girl clutching her pillow tightly against her chest.

  "I have parents," she whispered. "Good ones. Not like you two. Also, I'm M-02."

  "Good for you," S-872 scoffed from the bunk above me. "Where are they then? Why would they leav-?"

  "They love me!" M-02 snapped, though her voice wavered slightly. "My dad used to take me to the... the..." She paused, her brow furrowing in concentration. "The place with the sand. By the water."

  "The beach?" I asked.

  "Right," she said, sounding uncertain. "The beach. We went there... Last week? No. Maybe a month ago?"

  "Stop trying," S-872 warned. "You'll only get a headache if you think too hard."

  "Shut up! I can still remember…" she hissed, turning her back to us.

  [Day 6]

  As the days dragged on, the room became unnervingly quiet.

  At first, the nights were filled with coughing, crying, and the rustling of sheets. But slowly, the noise faded.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Eventually, nurses arrived wearing full bio-suits. They silently collected the children who wouldn't wake up and carried them out of the room.

  "They're killing us," M-02 whispered one night. She was shivering. "We're all dying. Just like them."

  I felt the cold dread settle down in my stomach. It’s true even I could feel my own strength leaving, leaking out of me.

  “Don't be stupid," S-872's voice rang out from above. He sounded annoyingly cheerful. “They aren't dying."

  “They stopped moving, S. They got carried out," I said.

  "Yeah, to the recovery wing," S-872 said. "You think they'd spend all that money training us just to let us die? Use your brain. They get escorted out when they get better, and the sick ones are left here."

  "Really?" M-02 asked, hope trembling in her voice.

  "I promise," S-872 laughed. "I'll be out of here soon too, so you guys better hurry up and get healthy or I'll leave you behind."

  [Day 15]

  A week had passed as I grew even weaker. I tried to conjure my mother's face but couldn't. Why, I wondered, why couldn't I remember my own mother's face?

  "Hey S, are you awake?" I softly said, knocking on the top bunk.

  "Yeah, what's up?" He calmly replied.

  "I can't remember my mother's face. Do you think I'm dying?"

  "Nah, you're just stressed. I'm fine, so I can still remember the people in my orphanage."

  "Shut up!" I shouted. "You're lying, aren't you?"

  The room went silent before he calmly said, "I can see them, you know," S-872 said suddenly. "The kids they took away."

  I frowned. I sat up, my joints popping painfully, and looked around to my left. The walls were solid concrete. "See them how? There isn't a window."

  "There is," S-872 insisted. "Up here. You can't see it from the bottom. It's high up on the wall."

  M-02 shifted in her bed. She hadn't spoken in two days. She turned her head slowly to listen.

  "What do you see?" I asked.

  "Blue sky," S-872 said softly. "Not the fake lights. Real sky. And huge white clouds like cotton balls. And there's a park."

  "A park?" M-02 breathed out.

  "Yeah. The kids from our room... I see K-09. And T-44. They're running around. There are no guards. They're just playing tag."

  I laid back down. My chest tension eased a little. A park. "Are there birds?"

  "Tons of them," S-872 said. "There's a white dove."

  M-02 smiled as she closed her eyes.

  The next morning, the silence from M-02's bed was eerie. She hadn't moved since S-872 told the story about the doves.

  Fatigue weighed me down, but I forced my body to turn right, desperate to catch a glimpse of M.

  "M?" I whispered, my voice trembling. "Hey, M... wake up."

  My calls faded into the room, but she didn't so much as twitch. She sat unnaturally motionless with her head slumped slightly to the left, her hair spilling over her shoulder to hide her face.

  Stomp… Stomp… Stomp… Stomp…

  Then a sound of heavy boots approached. A nurse in a yellow bio-suit stopped at her bedside. I watched, paralyzed, as the nurse placed two gloved fingers against M-02's neck, held them there for a second, and then shook her head. They lifted her small, limp body, her hands swinging as she was carried away.

  No, no, no!" The words tore through my mind, but my throat was too weak to voice them. I strained to reach out to her, yet the effort drained the last of my energy, and everything faded to black.

  [Day 32]

  When I woke up, I noticed the other beds were mostly empty. Fearing the worst, I looked up.

  I knocked on the slats of the top bunk. "S... are you still there?"

  "I'm here, buddy," S-872 answered immediately, though his voice was weak and trembling.

  "Did you see her?" I asked quietly. "Did M-02 make it to the park?"

  "I'm looking at her right now," S-872 rasped. "Yeah. I see her."

  "What's happening?" I asked, desperate to know.

  "It's a party," S-872 described. "There are balloons, hundreds of them tied to the benches. Everyone is there, and they have a massive cake right on the picnic table."

  "Is she happy?"

  "She's laughing," S-872 whispered. "She's waving at the window, V. She's waving at us."

  I smiled softly. I was about to close my eyes when he spoke again.

  "Hey. When I get there... I want you to move up to this bunk. That way, you can see us too."

  "See us?" I asked, confused. "You mean see her?"

  "Yeah," he breathed.

  "You sound like you just need to recover more," S chuckled. "You sound terrible."

  "I will," I muttered, drifting back to sleep.

  [Day 76]

  It might have been an hour, or maybe a day. When I finally opened my eyes, the crust in the corners sealed them shut for a moment. I blinked it away to find the room silent.

  I lifted a hand. I knocked my knuckles against the bunk above me.

  Thump.

  I waited.

  "S?"

  Silence.

  "S, are they playing outside?"

  Nothing.

  I stared into the dark slats of the bedframe above. The hollow quiet settled over me, heavy and suffocating. I realized I was the only thing breathing in the entire ward.

  The electronic lock on the door chirped.

  A nurse walked in. She wasn’t wearing the Hazmat gear from before, just standard blue scrubs and a face mask. She checked the monitor on the empty bed across from me, then turned to leave.

  "Hey," I rasped, forcing the word through my dry throat. I called out to her with every ounce of strength I had left, begging for even a small reaction.

  The nurse stopped. She looked down at the bottom bunk, surprised to hear a noise from the end of the room. She walked over.

  "S-872," I wheezed, pointing a shaking finger upward. "Is he... is there anyone up there?"

  But she only looked at me confused.

  I lay there for a long moment. The nurse turned on her heel to leave.

  "Wait! Please.." I shouted with all my might.

  She paused, before walking over. "You need rest, Subject."

  "Put me... up there," I said.

  The nurse frowned behind her mask. "The upper bunk? Why?"

  "The window," I rasped. "I want to see the window. Just for a second."

  "There is.." She stopped herself, looking at my wasted limbs and the sweat pooling at my collarbone. "You are non-ambulatory, 137. Protocol dictates you stay on your bed."

  "I can do it."

  "You can't."

  I gritted my teeth. Something deep inside me desperately wanted to get up.

  I gripped the metal frame of the bed. With a guttural growl, I hauled my torso up.

  The nurse stepped back, her eyes widening. I shouldn't be moving. I shouldn't even be conscious.

  I swung my legs out. They hit the cold floor. I stood. My knees buckled, but I locked them out, shaking violently, forcing my body to obey through sheer mental domination.

  "Help me," I commanded.

  The nurse, stunned by this impossible display of adrenaline, stepped forward instinctively. She grabbed my arm, supporting my weight.

  "This is irregular," she muttered, but she guided me to the ladder.

  I clawed my way up. Every step was painful. My breath came in shallow, sharp gasps. One step.

  Two steps. I threw my head over the edge of the top mattress.

  There was nothing.

  Just gray, cold concrete. Solid blocks. Scratched paint.

  No sky. No sun. No park.

  I stared at the blank wall. I reached out with a trembling hand, my fingertips reaching out, where the window should have been.

  "You liar," I whispered, my voice breaking. "You big liar."

  Despite that I pulled my entire body up as I collapsed onto the pillow, curling into the space S-872 had left behind.

  I stared at the gray wall, my hand reaching out against it.