The Aria Project

                Hey everyone! Sorry I haven’t uploaded in almost a month now, I promise there will be more Shadow Games and Forever Dawn soon, and I’ll be starting some more new stories, Dainty Death and Filthy. For now, I hope you enjoy this! I’m sorry the beginning’s a bit slow, I promise it will pick up a bit once I’ve explained everything and gotten comfortable with the character!

My name is Aria Black. I just might have the most outrageous story you’ve ever heard. Might. Please don’t hope for a miracle, it might not be that interesting. But it also might be. I’m an experiment. There. It’s nice to have those three words that have been gnawing at me my whole life off my chest. I’m an experiment.

                I wasn’t even born when I was designated. I was just one tiny cell. A cell that was sadly chosen for the Aria Project. They altered my DNA completely. I have no bones. Now, before you jump to conclusions, I’m not a shapeless blob. I have just rigid cartilage. But that’s strong and flexible and I can still stand. The scientists wanted a super flexible and lightweight fighting machine. I’m five foot six, but I only weigh 65 pounds. Which makes them happy and keeps me alive one day longer.  I also have superstrong muscle and fast reflexes. Very fast. Being flexible and fast is a very good thing. Because I’m supposed to be a bloodthirsty killer.

                Now, don’t get your hopes up, I’m not a vampire, even though I don’t eat. I’m engineered to not need food, just sunlight. Food would weigh me down and make me feel sluggish. I’ve tried it before. Instead, I need sunlight. Warm light flowing into my skin and into the chloroplasts in there that feed my body. This way my survival depends on light, not food. Which is smart when you’re creating the perfect assassin.

                My country is made up of only scientists. Only people who want to create new ideas and innovations and live a life of luxury. They’ve created their own plants and foods, and they’ve also created the projects. These are people like me. Or creatures, as they call us. Some are sold off to the wealthy in Tooth and Arabasque. Some are made to farm and help the poor of Menap. And then there are experiments like me, made to kill these countries so that they can be taken over by Vanderbilt.

                There are five of us Arias.

                Aria Black, because I have long black hair that might be natural or might be fake. Aria Brown, because she has short light brown hair. Aria Red, who has long red hair that looks like it was dyed over mousey brown hair. Aria Blonde, who has thick rippling blonde hair that cascades in curls over her shoulders. Definatly fake. And Aria White, whose unnatural silvery-white hair is definitely fake. That is the only destinction between us. We all have the same dark green eyes. But no one notices that. All the scientists notice are the hair and the dark black barcode tattoos on our wrists.

                We’re not the only projects, though. There are the Fivers, the Ash, the Avi. Tons and tons of creatures kept in this never-ending maze of labs and offices and squeaky grey hallways. The Aria sector is rather large. We each have a scientist assigned to us, because we’re supposed to be “Dangerous”. Mine is a short plump man who always wears a scowl. He has a large fluffy halo of black hair around his head.

                I looked at my wrist. 6:59 was flashing alarmingly in an inky black. That meant that my hour in the exercise room was over. I sopped on my 204 pull-up and walked hastily over to the door. I didn’t want to be dragged out. Outside the wall of steel and metal bars and plexiwindow stood my scientist, Herbert, and the escort. Two men with guns. They slowly opened the door and forced me, at gunpoint, to start walking. My room was the farthest from the gym, closest to the main door into the Aria sector. That meant on the way back to my room, I passed all the other Arias. They were as close to the plexiglass windows of their doors as the bars inside allowed. They all stared at me as I passed.

                Every night we had an unspoken ritual. We’d never actually talked to each other, but since we were being taught to read and write by Noel as well as talk, we’d had a bit of communication. One time, when I was seven, I had asked her why I never saw the other girls, but why they sometimes saw me and talked to her about it. She said it was because I was at the end of the hall. So I asked her if she could tell them to wait for me at their windows every night, at 5:00 and at 6:00, so I could see them and they could see me. It caught on, she told me, and she gave me a list of everyone’s times in the exercise room. She also gave me a notebook and a book called The History of Experiments. In the notebook the times are written in my clear, precise handwriting.

9:00 to 10:00-Aria White

11:00 to 12:00-Aria Blonde

1:00 to 2:00-Aria Red

3:00 to 4:00-Aria Brown

5:00 to 6:00-Aria Black

                Even Noel calls us all Aria. No black or red or blonde at the end, because it doesn’t matter to us, does it. All that matters is that this monotony of our lives gets better.

                Herbert opens my door for me, and I climb onto the bed. The door clicks as he shuts it behind me, and I hear the loud bangs as the lock outside is closed. I get on my knees and peer around the bars in front of my plexiwindow. I watch as Herbert crosses the hall to his office and bedroom. His door swings shut, and he locks it from inside. I know he will be the last person out tonight.

                I look around my room. It’s the size of my bed, a lumpy white thing raised two feet above the hallway with a navy pillow. There is my plexiscreen, which shifts through views of forests and oceans and meadows and sits right above my pillow. I keep my notebooks, The History of Experiments, and a pen under my pillow. The ceiling is high enough that I can get up and stretch when I must. And there is a single light, recessed high in the ceiling, that emits a white glow at all times.

                There are very few things that keep me sane in this prison. First is the notebooks. I write in them and scribble and draw in them and practice spelling words Noel has given me in them. I write about what I watch on my plexiscreen and through my door. She reads them and smiles and laughs at them and then tells me she is sorry. Noel keeps me sane. The History of Experiments keeps me sane, because it is the only thing I am allowed to read. I’ve read each page countless times, and its thicker than my head. I have no idea how I absorb all those words. I’ve dog eared the Aria Project’s page. Watching my plexiscreen and the hallway keep me sane. The only other thing is my daily trip to the Exercise Room. There is nothing else to do.

                I close my eyes and drift into sleep. I dream about leaving the Aria Sector and entering the grey hallways…