Codex

Chapter 1

I counted the days in my head. It probably was the fourth day of the week, meaning it was exercise day. I stretched my arms and legs, preparing for the day. They wanted me to be up when they came in, but I always woke up earlier. It wasn’t that I wanted to, I just did. It could be just me rebelling, but whatever.

I sighed, closing my eye. That’s right, one eye. I don’t even remember when or if I ever had two eyes. It wasn’t like I could ever look at myself and know. The dim light of my cell flickered. I could see the colors in my head changing with every flicker. It was the only time I ever saw color, and it made me smile.

I heard the lock on my cell door clicking. They were coming in. I only knew them as my guardians. Heh, some guardians they were. They only came in when it was time for me to “go to work”, as they called it. The same was for today. I could never tell what gender they were, as they all wore the same thick haz-mat suits. 

One of them stepped toward me and grabbed me by the arm. I flinched. The other day, they had done some kind of surgical work. I could hear one of them muttering to another something about giving me extra strength in my arms. I wasn’t completely healed at that point, so of course it hurt if they touched me. I had learned from early on never to complain, just go along with it.

I prepared my eye for the oncoming bright light that followed with them taking me from my cell. There were two in front leading me out, two behind making sure I didn’t decide to high-tail it. Two followed on the opposite sides of me, taking notes in their e-clipboards. I ignored them all, taking a look at my surroundings. The halls were grey, blue lights glowing different shapes. I closed my eye, walking normally, watching the different colors in my head pop up every now and again. It was an interesting spectacle.

One of my guardians stopped at the end of the hall. The others and myself stopped a few feet behind. The guardian punched a number code, one I could never see, and waited for the door to open. When it did, I noted the various exercise equipment, the huge obstacle track, and the pool.

It was definitely day four.

☣

I didn’t even break a sweat when I was running on the treadmill, and I’d been doing so for an hour. They allowed me to listen to a track of music, so that kept my mind off them watching me. As the beat flowed faster or slower, so did my movement. I realized I should probably not be doing that, as they might take my music away.

After listening to the track for another couple of minutes, the treadmill stopped. I sighed. I was kind of disappointed. I loved running. It was one of the few things I enjoyed about being here. That feeling I had in my legs after I ran was amazing. I could feel a surge of strength flow through them.

However, it was time for the real tests. The next item on the list was weight training. My arms were well enough to try lifting weights, at least in their heads they were. One of the guardians placed a two weights on either side of a long pole. I glance at the number: ten pounds. I lifted the weight with ease, even showing off a bit by holding it up with one arm. They didn’t seem to enjoy my showing off, they just added more weights.

The number of pounds continued to grow heavier until I had to use two arms to lift up the bar. I tutted. It was probably my own damn fault that this was happening. I had to show off that I could lift ten pounds with one arm. At least whatever they did to my arms the other day worked. I felt stronger.

The last thing they wanted me to do was the obstacle track. I braced myself. They always changed it to whatever they saw fit for me every time I used it. Since they were testing my upper body and arm strength, I figured that’s what the track would be like today.

I was right. When they blew the whistle, I ran quickly into the grey building that was the obstacle track. It was dark, too dark for my eye to see anything. I closed it, knowing I had to rely on the colors to find my way through this part. There was a pattern of blue footprints on the ground, as well as a path of red footprints. I knew what that meant. Two sets of footprints, two ways I could go. I always preferred the blue one first, but today I decided to go with the red path. 

As soon as I entered the doorway of the red path, a flash of orange flew towards me. Unnerved, I punched it. It broke in thirds and fell to the ground. I knew what this meant: the disk war. It was to test how fast I could block them and how strong I was to break them. They all came at me at the same speed, they were just different weights. I’ll admit I cheated just a bit by using my feet to kick them out of the way as well. When I exited the room, I entered into another hallway, this time I had a choice of the blue footprints or the yellow ones. I picked yellow.

This room had the illusion of no floor. I still had to be careful, though. The bars were on the ground or above me, and the floor changed its flow of solid or empty hole. I knew what colors to be aware of. Green meant the floor was a hole, and gold meant the floor was safe. I flipped and swung my way through the room, being careful of the colors on the ground.

By the time I was finished with the obstacle track, I was beat. My arms ached and my legs were numb. The guardians didn’t care, however. They just looked at each other, mumbled a word or two, and wrote the data on their e-clipboards. While they finished loading the data, I stretched again, letting life come back to my body.

This was the end of day four for me. They would walk me back to my cell, give me a change of clothes, and instruct me to clean up for tomorrow. After I showered, they would send in a tray of wrapped, processed food. I had adapted to eating it, even noticing a taste every now and again. Then, they would instruct me to fall asleep.

You can’t force someone to sleep, however.

At this time, I just lay on my cot, thinking. Wondering about what it was I was meant to do. I think it’s something deep inside me. I never tell my guardians about it. I liked having this feeling. This feeling of wanting purpose. To have a meaning for living each day. It also let me feel like I wasn’t just a lab rat. I was something else. What that was, I would never know.

Then one day, I would.