One night I snuck into the x-lab when everyone was supposed to be asleep. It was quiet. The clock ticked seconds by as I slowly crept across the concrete floor. My bare feet padded against it like rubber; by now I was kind of surprised they hadn’t turned to rubber.

I live in England—under England to be exact. I’ve only been taken to the surface once in my life, and only for a moment. Oh, to feel the sweet sunshine beating down on my chilled skin was like honey to a honeybee. The streets were noisy and jammed, but I didn’t care. The bright yellow casting shadows around tall buildings and high arches, the best sight you could see in the world. But I guess that’s just to me because I live farther down than the sewers of London. The London tube goes overhead every few hours. Most people can’t hear it, but we can.

My number is 35874—at least, that’s what they call me. I was rather frightened on that particular night. It was my birthday the following morning, and for a sixteen year old, that’s not a good thing. The last girl who lasted long enough to turn seventeen down here was terminated the morning of.

My hands were shaking and my palms beaded with sweat. This machine, it did stuff. Okay, blunt I know, but I had never seen anything like this machine before. Not in all my seventeen years growing up in a a lab, being experimented on every day. This thing was new, it was dangerous. The more sensible side of my brain got the better of me, and I slowly backed away from it. Metal glinted all over it, and a plastic encasing layered the inside. I could see needles sticking out of every available surface just passed the plastic. Needles, hated ‘em, ‘nuff said. A shiver ran down my spine as I watched one needle shift positions. I didn’t hesitate to scurry out before the conductor of the magic needle decided to show his face.

I walked straight to the girls’ lavatory to avoid being beaten for being out of bed at that hour. Splashing cold water on my face, I started to relax. It was just another machine, just like the rest of them. I couldn’t convince myself no matter how many times I repeated it in my head. I took a paper towel from the rack next to the sink. The paper was so rough against my skin it felt like scales on my face. I couldn’t get it off fast enough.

I slowly raised my head to look in the mirror. My blonde hair was tangled all the way down my back. There were cuts and bruises all over my face and neck, hardly drawing the attention away from the giant whelps that lined my shoulder blades. My silf was ripped and torn in various places, I would have to get a new one soon because girls weren’t allowed to go around shirtless. Not that it would matter if we did because most of us don’t last long enough to even develop things worth covering.

I knew my time was running out. It wouldn’t be long before I was missed, but I just couldn’t take my eyes off the girl in the mirror. This was the only lavatory that still had mirrors, but we were only allowed to use it at night. We would get whipped if they found us gawking at ourselves in the mirrors, so I savored the moment. My green eyes, that once looked full of life, looked dead, as if I had lost my soul. My hands gripped the sides of the small white in desperation; I wanted out of that hell hole as much as the next, just had to figure out how to get out.

I heard the door swing open behind me, and a figure walked in. I turned around like nothing was wrong, but I knew his questions would come eventually. “What are you doing up so late, 35874?” the man strolled over to me and took my hands in his. He was checking to see if they were cold from the water, or if I had just been sitting in here. I was relieved when he dropped them and backed up a few feet. “35874, what are you doing?” he crossed his arms over his chest and shifted his weight to one foot.

“Wasn’t feeling too good.” I sent my thought to him with ease in my voice.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, the kids that get experimented on never learn how to talk. We were taught how to sent thoughts with our minds, but I had never actually spoken a word in my life. “Well, you should have gone to Tom. He would have given you a dose of sparce” Tom was the night nurse, and sparce was the fix-it drug. Sparce could fix anything from a period cramp to a broken collar bone. One dose and you’d be good to go. We hated the stuff. It made us feel things we have never felt before, bad things. Things that should never be experienced. Things that make the Boogyman look like Santa Claus. Things that scare you for life.

“Didn’t think, sorry.” I could never look him in the eye. Yes, he only had one eye, his name was Brendon. He was tall with square rimmed glasses, and perfectly combed and straightened red hair. His eye was the only thing I had seen under the surface that had color. It was brilliant orange, almost a deep copper. He always had on a white lab coat and black square-toed shoes. My friend 4970 once said she thought she saw him sleeping in them, which is very possible. But not long after she told me that, she was terminated. It had been three years since my only friend was taken from me, and I had grown rather quiet. I didn’t talk to many people, and I didn’t socialize during free time. I was constantly sneaking around, looking at new things and figuring out what they do. 4970 was always taking me on adventures at night, so when she was terminated on her seventeenth birthday, I vowed to keep the act going. I was always finding new, new equipment, new machines, that hadn’t been there before. This was just another ordinary night for me.

“Well, did you get sick?” Brendon looked skeptically at me over the top rim of his glasses. Brendon always seemed to have a soft spot for me.

“No, I feel better now. Just had to wash my face.” I slipped passed him and hurried back to the dormitory. The dormitory housed seven-hundred kids. My room was cell block D, entrance nine. It housed two-hundred kids, all of whom were above the age of fourteen. Cell block A housed one-hundred kids under the age of three, block B housed two-hundred kids from four to nine, and block C housed two-hundred kids from ten to thirteen.

Everyone was asleep as I passed through the cracked door. Every bed was lined up in two rows, each on opposing walls. My bed I shared with 6328, she had the bottom half and I the top.

I made sure not to disturb her as I crawled up to my little hut. These bunk beds weren’t like regular beds you could buy in stores, they were specially made. My bunk had a wooden floor, bamboo walls, and a metal roof. My bed was a hammock positioned in the far corner of the hut. That was all that was in my room. Other kids had iPods or dressers or something to make them feel more comfortable, but not me. I didn’t want anything I wasn’t willing to lose. You may think it’s not so bad if we get iPods and stuff, but in truth, we have to go through enormous amounts of torturous experiments to get the iPods, even more so to get extra clothes and the dresser. I wasn’t willing to put my life on the line to make a night’s sleep be more relaxing. Sleeping in this place would never be relaxing.

As I shifted uncomfortably in my hammock, the alarm sounded for bottom bunks to get ready for morning workout. They would have to go first because there was so many of us, but I wouldn’t have much time to sleep before my day began.

We don’t dream. It’s just an endless sleep until we are woken up. The alarm sounded for top bunk to get ready for morning workout, but I wasn’t ready to get up. I rolled back over and fell asleep once more before everyone had left cell block D.

“Get up!” I was thrown to the floor and kicked in the head. A man with a cane stood over me. He had thinning grey hair and a dark wooden cane. His dark blue suit was extremely wrinkled and four sizes too big. His shoes showed excessive wear and the bottoms were falling off. His pointed nose stuck out far from his face and had a witch’s wart in the crease with a single hair staring me right in the eyes. His arms were made like noodles, but his cane made up for his lack of power in which he used as a weapon. He had cracked lips that formed a smile that highlighted the paleness of his high cheek bones, almost like concrete. His neck was thin around and consisted of several freckles that were ten times the shade of his neck and the same color of his eyes.

I moaned with agony. Being lifted to my feet and stuffed in a blue storage tub, I sucked in a deep breath right before they latched the lid. My knees were under my chin and my arms tucked tight to my chest. I could go up to an hour holding my breath, so as long as they didn’t take me far I would survive. It only took one guard to lift me and my insanely small prison off the floor. I only weighed approximately fifty pounds or maybe even less, I’m not for sure. Don’t really have a lot of time to get on the scales.

My eyes were closed the whole time they carried me. All I could feel was the swaying motion as the guard had to shift my weight back and forth. The guard managed to get me set down on a stack of other kids in storage containers six feet tall. I could feel the impending death closing in on me as I sat locked in a prison the size of an emperor penguin.

Suddenly I felt the wild sensation of freefalling, but not long before the jarring stop of a hard concrete cracking through my only shield. The lid on my tub snapped in half and I tumbled out. My hands shot out in a flash to keep my head from slamming against the floor. Momentary paralysis kept me from getting up, but I was quickly dragged to my feet and strapped to a metal wall.

“Brendon, make sure this one doesn’t get loose.” Brendon appeared out of nowhere and tightened my restraints.

“I don’t think I can get them any tighter, Dr. Bomb.” Brendon turned back to me for a moment. “35874, this is Dr. Henry Bomb. He is the head of the department of Genetics here at the x-lab. In a sense, he is your creator.”

My heart stopped beating and my jaw dropped open. I had been programmed not to feel any human emotions except fear and anger, at that moment I was feeling a little of both. “What?!” I screamed out in my head.

“35874, calm down. Dr. Bomb is a much respected man in his line of work. He created the very first embryo from nothing more than plasma and iron concentrate.” He patted my shoulder like I was some kind of living artifact.

“But why me?” my thoughts slowly formed together to actually send to him.

“Because you are the smartest being to walk this planet, the most strong and powerful living breathing organism! Why else would he create you?” it all made sense now. I had always been experimented on more than everyone else, more than everyone else combined! There was a reason they pushed my harder in morning, noon, and night workouts. There was a reason my daily schedule was different from everyone else’s, because I was different from everyone else. All the other kids were stolen from their parents at birth, but me? I was created!

“So I’m smarter than him?” I nodded my head toward the ‘good’ doctor.

“Technically speaking, yes.” Brendon shrugged his shoulders like it was no big deal.

“But I’m not speaking, technically. I’m thinking.” A devious smile shot across my face. I loved when I got to mess with him, he always got so mad.

“Now hush up, don’t start in with the attitude.” Brendon walked back over to Dr. Wart-nose and tried to keep his voice low enough I couldn’t hear, but he forgot about my enhanced super hearing the idiot gave me. “Sir, you will have to forgive the malfunction in her. She tends to get a pretty ripe attitude when she has a long day.”

“Only because you losers make me go twenty-two hours straight most of the time!” both of them jumped in astonishment as they glanced at my anger stricken face. “Would you mind telling me how many of you would last that long in the crap you put my through?! None of you!” I was fired up and they knew it. Too bad that’s what they wanted.

The longer I was mad, the longer I would last through experiments. The more I got experimented on, the madder I got. It was like one giant circle of pain.

The testing lasted about for hours. Maybe it was just me, but they didn’t seem to be working us as hard today as usual. As Brendon walked me back to cell block D, he nudged my arm as if to comfort me.

“Don’t look so down 35874, today is a special day.” His smile rung out in the corridor, echoing farther and farther down.

“Why is it so special? I noticed even the guards seemed happy today.” I never knew if he could hear all of my thoughts or just the ones I wanted him too. If he did hear all of them, he knew exactly how I felt, about everything.

“A new boy is being brought in for us to examine.” His voice hushed to a whisper as he continued to look around frantically. “Actually, do you want to know the truth?” Brendon was terrible at keeping secrets.

“Yeah, what’s going on? We get new kids all the time, and no one ever makes a fuss about them.”

“The truth is he’s different, special. Like you.”

“I’m not the only one made?”

“Nope, you’re the first made, he’s the second.” He was also created to be a military weapon.”

“Wow, a military weapon? How fascinating.” Sarcasm dripped off every word.

“Look, he’s the future. To Dr. Bomb, you’re last year’s model.” A sharp knife jabbed into my heart. I hated being called a project or experiment, but hearing I was already out of date really hurt.

Brendon quickly opened the cell block D door and shoved me inside. There was a boy sitting halfway down the rows of bunks. His white hair was barely visible because it was shaved so close to his head. His muscles rippled with adrenaline as he clenched his fists and bounced his knees. As I got closer, he looked up at me with eyes the color of the fire, brilliant red. A large head wound dripped red, sticky blood all over his face. He wore nothing but a pair of blue jeans like the people on the surface. I had never seen one of us with something on besides our special clothes. As he stood, he towered over me. My ability to feel fear kicked into overdrive and I instinctively took a few steps back.

We were the only two people in the room. I knew I had to get passed him to get to my bunk, but it still stumped me that he was sitting on the bunk under mine. “What is my purpose?” His thought was crackly and weak. He looked as if he had been crying; I hadn’t seen many people cry in that place. His eyes were bloodshot, and dark grey bags hung high on his cheeks. The blood started to drip to the floor.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

I could see his muscles flexing every time he would breathe in and out again. “What is my purpose?” he thought once more. A small quiet voice came over the intercom system: “Kill her 29846.”

My eyes had wondered up to the speaker system in the corner of the room, but now flashed to the hulking boy in front of me. He shifted his weight back as he looked me up and down. “You are 35874?” his hand gestured to mine.

I mustered the courage to think. “Yes, I am.” I no more than got the words out of my head before he knocked me to the ground. I quickly realized the blood running down his face wasn’t his own.

I couldn’t find a footing to stand back up. His massive body came down on me with an elbow to my side. I don’t think he meant to, but it was effective. My breath was sucked back out of my mouth and I couldn’t make it come back to me. Struggling under him, I grabbed for something, anything! Anything to get him off! My hand clenched the bare air in front of me, being able to reach nothing.

Suddenly he was off, standing. My lungs filled with relief. “God!” I thought as loud as possible.

“Are you alright 35874?!” Brendon was pulling me to my feet. “They told me to get you in here, but as soon as I got to the monitors and saw why, I rushed back as fast as I could.” He was brushing me off and patting me down while he talked.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I watched 29846 carefully leaning against my bunk. He wasn’t even breathing hard, not even disturbed. I was still in shock of this boy.

“29846 will be sharing the bunk with you from now on, but 6328 will still have the bottom bunk.” He tried to hand me a water, but I pushed it away.

“Wait! So you expect me to share a room with a boy that just tried to kill me?!” this day just got better and better.

“Yes I do! Do you want to be able to sleep or not?!” I crossed my arms over my chest and sighed heavily. Brendon pushed me toward 29846 in an attempt to make up converse.

“You are 35874?” he gestured to my hand once more. I reluctantly protruded my hand because I didn’t want to be tackled again.

“I’m not sure I want to answer that again.” I carefully chose my stance, making sure to be able to move quickly if he attacked once more.

A loud noise rang from his mouth. His chest bounced up and down along with his shoulders to the rhythm of the noise. “Well, you’re a right fine lady aren’t you.” He pulled away from the bunk and began to circle me.

“How do you speak through your mouth like the humans? Aren’t you one of us?” my eyes carefully followed him, slicing through the silence.

“Well, you are human too, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes. But we don’t count as humans.”

“Why not? You’re just as much human as they are. You just need to learn how to do the things they do. To put it in simple terms” his shoulders rose and fell with every step he made.

“What, are you saying I’m stupid? I’m smarter than the man that made me!” I shoved him away from me, knowing he could easily throw me across the room.

“Excuse me, the man that made you? Contrary to your assumption, he made me as well.” his smirk made me cringe.

“How are you so smart? Wait what?!” it took me a minute to process what he was saying. “You’re the other made kid?!”

“Yes ma’am. They’ve told me all about you. You’re the one they said doesn’t have feelings, right?” he seemed to be taunting me while circling.

“So what? It’s easier that way.” He followed me up the ladder—well actually he jumped up after I climbed up.

“Maybe, but I guarantee it’s not near as fun.” This puzzled me. “Just let me teach you stuff. Don’t you hate having to listen to these idiots? I know I do, and if you let me teach you new things we can easily get out of here.”

“Why can’t you just do it by yourself? You can probably take down a steel door, so why are you still here?” I always seemed to be self-conscious around new people, so I gently set myself down in my hammock, making sure not to make a fool of myself.

“Well, you’re the only other one like me, so I figure we could make it together a lot better than me alone.” Our hut shook gently as he paced back and forth.

“Okay, so you want us to work together?”

“Exactly! We can help each other with our strengths and weaknesses to become unstoppable!” this guy seriously needed a reality check.

“Whatever you say Sam I Am.” His head shot up in puzzlement.

“Sam?”

“Oh, its from some book Brendon used to read me when I was little. I don’t know, just a name.”

“A name?” he towered over me now.

“Yeah, you know, a name? Something to identify people with?”

“Like our numbers?” he was leaning closer and closer to me.

“Kinda, except their names don’t have numbers in them, only letters.” I was starting to get creeped out by the closeness of our faces, so I scooted back a few inches.

“That’s weird, but why are we different?! We’re people too!”

“I don’t know, they treat us like lab rats.”

“Well, we should get names too, don’t you think?” I slowly replied with a shrug. “Come on! You can name me! And, if you want, I’ll name you. We’ll be the only ones with names, ‘cause we’re different.” I had never seen someone have so much pride in standing out. Everything that seemed to upset me, he found the parts to feel pride in.

“Fine, you can be…” I had to stop and think. I had never really heard any first names besides Brendon, and I didn’t want him to be called that. It was the only other name I had heard of before, so I had to go with it. “…Sam. You can be called Sam.”

Copyright © 2011 Amanda Woodson. All rights reserved.