Illusions (Alt. Ending)

Chapter 16 (PAST)

FRANCESSA'S POV

Mom?

I furiously swipe my tears out of my eyes.

Am I hallucinating?

It can't be. It's her! It's my mother. Patricia Ferreira.

I stood up from the floor and moved my feet towards her. I'd merely taken two steps when the room again went black. The world that was intact seconds ago, started falling into the darkness.

I grasped a fistful of my hair insanely. I don't want to stay here any longer. I don't want to continue this experiment. I want to quit. I quit.

I tried to call Uncle Dave to stop this experiment right now but not a word was coming out of my mouth. Like a newborn child trapped inside a grown human's body. Desperate to be freed.

Minutes later the room again turned into a brightly illuminated white room. My eyes squeezed shut in those scorching bright fluorescent lights.

And for the first time, I regretted my decision of admitting myself into this experiment. I felt like a mere chess piece, controlled and manipulated without my will.

I fell back on my routine and I was punished. The number of books and exams were doubled. I cried. A lot. Is it what my father had invented? Now I hoped this experiment just never becomes a success. I don't want this traumatic things to happen with a child.

But i couldn't just quit because it was written clearly on the instructions that the subject can once be freed after the given time line but only if he/she has been followed all the instructions properly and completed all the given exams(levels).

I was understanding the patterns of the room slowly. The room would suddenly turn into pitch black and when the lights again glowed brightly, something new would've been kept inside the room. That's how they're communicating. Also very wisely blocking every possibility of me running away from this experiment.

One day, I protested and didn't followed the rules. The next day, a warning came that if I didn't start following the rules again, the days will only keep getting increased and I'll be stuck in here forever. That scared me more than death. And I again started to follow the routine.

Days later, it again happened. I was suddenly thrown into that darkness again. No matter how many times it happened, it still affected me like the first time or maybe worse. The panic. The fear. The terror. The madness. I felt them all raw in my blood & bones.

This time I saw my mother but she wasn't the only one who was there. My father too stood, opposite to my mother. Although their faces were hardly visible, even then I couldn't have mistaken in recognizing my parents. It's them.

They stood facing each other few feets apart. After that torture of getting my senses forcibly robbed from me, I was always left in a state where I was neither completely conscious nor completely unconscious, I was hanging in between like drugged. It always happens after spending minutes in the sensory deprived room.

My eyes saw my parents but my mind questioned it, raising doubts. Is it real what I'm seeing? Or was it all just an illusion? Had I become crazy? And the long line of questions just followed one after the other.