M. U . T

Chapter 1

'Welcome to the Intuos Facility. You have been chosen to be a vital part in our experiment.'

 My eyelids feel weighted with lead as I attempt to raise them, wincing as I notice a pounding headache racing down the side of my skull where it's rested against the wall. The room around me slowly comes into focus, the dark blob that feels burned onto my eye slowly changing into a looming metal door that stands closed in front of me. There is no hatch or glass to show me any indication of what stands beyond it, but as I look around I see that I don't really have anywhere else to go. Bracing myself, I climb to my feet, resting one hand against the wall to support myself. A thick, warm substance begins to run down my neck, and when I reach up to touch the side of my head, my fingers come away stained red. 

'Welcome to the Intuos Facility. You have been chosen to be a vital part in our experiment.'

I look up at the ceiling to see where the sound is coming from, but no speaker presents itself to me. Irritation throwing away all earlier reservations, I decide to try my voice. At first, all that I can produce is a choking, strained whisper, but as I speak more my voice begins to return. 'What do you want me to do?'.

***

'You have been in stasis for 5 months. Please take some time to make sure that you are still in peak condition before returning to your stasis chamber.' Once again, it's cold, emotionless and robotic sounding voice is that which wakes me. I lie on a hard metal table, similar to that which you would undergo some kind of surgery. As I sit up, I see that the room that I have spent the last 5 months sleeping in still stands the same - A small kitchen, which offers no more than it has to: White counters, white cupboards, and within these cupboards, many many packets of tasteless powder that contains every ounce of nutrition that I could need to keep in 'peak condition'. They said that to me a lot when I first came here, like they were accusing me of something. Only a single decoration adorns the wall - a large painting, which I long since figured out is purely a method of spying on me. No privacy from the onlooking eyes that are only there to study me, to poke and prod and tell me that I'm not good enough. However, another thing that I long since discovered is that there is no escape from this - No entrance or exit other than the door that I first used to enter here, and that has stayed closed ever since. They kept me awake a few days after I first came here, said that I needed to adjust. My argument is that I should never have been forced to adjust in the first place, but I never voiced it - Of course, I had no idea of what my life before this had been - all my personal memories that had any sentimental value were thought of as a waste of space, and had been wiped from my brain like they had never been there. Even the more important stuff took a few days to come back, my name taking almost a week. Breathing came difficult as well. I walk over to the kitchen and pull out a few of the small silver packets (They tell me that one should be enough, but I'll take any liberties I can get) and pour them into my mouth, choking on what tasted like dust. Grimacing, I throw the empty packets in a bin and pour myself a small glass of water to wash the taste out of my mouth. I set the glass down on the counter and resign myself to reorganising the books on a simple bookshelf next to the painting as I have done a million times before, finding a way to bide my time before I am once again visited by them, and sent back to sleep. I have no idea what it is that they do to me while I sleep, but I always wake with a new set of stitches, like they tear me open and stitch me up again. Scars savage my body, the largest stretching across my stomach. I avoid looking at myself as much as possible, so that I don't have to see the zombie that they've turned me into.

'You have been in stasis for 28 years. Please take some time to make sure that you are still in peak condition before returning to your stasis chamber.'  I shoot awake, the voice puncturing my hearing like a gunshot. 28 years? I've been lying here, asleep for 28 years, not aging a day? Its then that I notice that the room is in a much different state than it was when I had last fallen asleep. Vines creep in and hang from the ceiling, grime climbing up the walls. The floor is cracked and bursting with weeds and plants, trying to escape. I set my feet down onto the floor and walk carefully across the floor, seeing that my suspicions were indeed correct - the painting had fallen face first onto the floor after being forced from the wall by thick vines, and the entire backing of the painting was made of glass that shone right the way to the floor. They were spying on me. Where the painting had sat on the wall, beyond the greenery, a large room stands, filled with office chairs and computers. A window had once separated the room from my living quarters, but now that mother nature had overtaken this place the glass is smashed, the remains strewn across the floor as if they had been walked around the place by some wild animal. I decided that I didn't want to be refined to this single room any longer many years ago, so climbing up through the vines and glass and out of that room was no mental struggle. I look about the place, seeing all but one of the computers had been completely destroyed, and even the last was looking beaten, only about 50% of the screen still working. I'm surprised that power can still run to this place, after its been in this state for...however long. I walk over to the working computer, and see that a document is open on it's screen. It's titled with a name, Gwen. My name. I look down to begin reading the rest of the document but I'm startled by a loud rumbling, causing rocks in my old room to fall. Deciding that I can find out about whatever went on here later, I look about for an exit, finding a metal door similar to the one that I had first entered here through.

 I slip through it into an unlit corridor, looking about me to see that it reaches both ways further than I can see. Letting out an exasperated sigh, I begin walking down one, hoping that I come to some form of exit. I soon find that this place is just as irritating as a maze, if not more so. More and more left and right turns, getting me more and more lost in the depths of this place. It's then that I hear a voice, coming from one of the corridors ahead of me. I immediately slink up against the wall, suddenly worried that perhaps this place isn't entirely abandoned. Then, as the voice gets closer, I realise that they are not that of any woman like the one that had spoken the same few phrases to me for years, perhaps not even a girl. This is a voice that I haven't heard the likes of before, and what I'm going to assume is what they call a boy. I've never encountered one before, but from the slight remainder of knowledge that I have about them, I can recall that they are strange creatures. They grow closer, close enough that I can hear their individual words. 'I don't think there's anyone down here, Robin. We are going to get lost.' This is the boys voice, but then another fills the silence, this one also male. 'No, I heard footsteps just now. I swear I did.' The boy scoffs, and then he appears in the junction next to me. I freeze in place, eyes wide in fear. Does he mean to hurt me? Luckily, he turns his back to me and walks away, and as he does so I notice that he is alone, save for a small bird on his shoulder. Is that the Robin he was referring to earlier? I don't recall people being able to talk to animals, that's for sure. Curiosity getting the better of me, I begin to creep along behind him, wondering whether to reveal myself. Before I get to decide, I realise that his bird has spun around on his shoulder and is staring at me. This time, I decide to run, rather than being frozen like a deer in the headlights. However, having only just waking up from an almost three decade sleep only around 15 minutes ago, my idea of running is far from the tumbling, tripping mess that I become as soon as I begin trying to move faster than a walk. I hear the Robin shout out behind me, and then the running footsteps of the boy, but I can't look back - I'm having trouble walking straight as it is, and looking where I'm going is an important factor in this. I'm not exactly running fast either, and I'm slowly fading out of energy. He's going to catch me, whether I like it or not. I just have to hope that his intentions aren't as malicious as the those of the ones that kept me here for 50 years. Yes. I counted. I didn't exactly have much else to do. 

And that's when a flurry of images infect my vision. Not expecting the sudden flash of colour, I fall to the ground, not having been particularly stable on my feet anyways. Now they hit again, this time giving me enough of a view to make out what the subject was. Scientists gathered around a bed - my bed, like they were performing surgery. An explosion, large enough to destroy this entire place and leave it in ruin. Hallways filled with corpses, being feasted upon by large creatures that I don't recognise. It's then that my vision returns to normal, and I experience the strange sensation of someone carrying me. Without the energy to even try to retaliate, or say something, I let slumber take a hold of me, and lose consciousness. 

My name is Gwen. My mind was wiped by scientists who only meant me harm, and kept me trapped in the same room for over 50 years. I don't know where I'm going, or why I was so important. But what I do know, is that I'm finally getting out of here.