18:00

23 : Welcome Back!

Test Tube trudged down the hallway of her lab. Her 'baggage' had started to weigh her down quite a bit, especially with her whole walk through the forest. Luckily, Lightbulb was still sound asleep, and Mephone4 didn't appear to be able to power on by himself, so there were yet to be any other difficulties.

She walked into a familiar hallway, taking in the stale white tones which covered almost every inch of it. It was dusty compared to the outside air she was stepping out of.

There were 14 doors in the hallway in total. Test Tube had made each of them herself, and then fixed them herself almost a decade later. She knew this hall, and every hall in this building very well by this point.

Unfortunately, this wasn't the infamous hall this experiment originated from. That one had been destroyed beyond Test Tube's repair, having been too close to the source of the fire. So she abandoned it, leaving it to remain in shambles. It wasn't like there was anything she needed it for when she still had other rooms though, so she didn't care much.

As she walked a bit further down the hall, the sound of surprisingly cheerful chatter came from one of the doors on the left. It was undoubtedly the subjects talking, something they did for several reasons. At this point, one of those reasons had to be hunger with how long Test Tube had left them.

Before the sound was ever really there, the sound dissipated. It made sense, the walls were far from soundproof in their room and they tended to keep an ear out for Test Tube passing by. Didn't make it sting any less every time it happened.

It didn't matter though. She had a different door she needed to go to at the moment.

She walked by the door, still dragging Mephone4 and the duffel bag behind herself. She couldn't help but wonder if the subjects could notice the difference between her usual stride and when she was dragging something, or someone, along with her. The subjects were quite keen, so she wouldn't be too shocked if they did.

It was only so many more steps until Test Tube reached the door she had been trying to find. It was across the door to the left of the subject's room, so they'd probably be able to hear what came from it. That was, if Test Tube hadn't already gone through the effort of soundproofing this particular room.

She walked inside, taking a second to lock the door behind herself. She set the duffel bag on the ground, and was glad to find Lightbulb was still sleeping. Then, she took Mephone4 by both arms and dragged her over to the contraption she had prepared the room for.

It was fairly simple, and reminded Test Tube a lot of the metal table she tended to do operations on. There were four chains for each limb, per usual. It looked like it was some sort of torture device, but there was nothing that could actually harm somebody on it. Of course there wasn't, torture was far from its intended purpose.

She sat Mephone4 up against the wall, his screen still black. She carefully attached the two chains at the bottom to his ankles, then lifted him up to attach the two higher chains to his wrists. The positioning of the binding forced Mephone4 into a standing position, despite the fact he was still turned off.

With caution, Test Tube pressed the power button, making Mephone4 spring to life. At first he seemed more confused than anything, but after a couple seconds, he seemed to realize the situation.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing with me?!" Mephone4 shouted, trying to jump at Test Tube. Unfortunately, the chains kept him from doing more than standing, so the action was more of a useless threat than anything.

"I forgot how annoying you can be..." Test Tube mumbled, glad she put in soundproof walls with how much fuss Mephone4 was making. She held down his volume button, forcing him to go silent. Although nothing came out, Mephone4 still tried to shout at the person in front of him. It was nothing more than mouth movements, though Test Tube could faintly make out the unfulfillable threats Mephone4 tried to give.