The Henhouse

June 9th, 2019 - 10:00 AM

Justin rubbed a sore patch of skin on his right forearm. He wondered how much they'd take this morning. Yesterday morning it was about a quarter-cup, in the evening it had been a half-cup, and by the end of this round of tests he didn't doubt they'd have drawn nearly a pint in total.

His anxiety wasn't sated in the least by the what the screen read that morning. It had stuck out at him like a thumb as sore as his arm:

JUSTIN LEDFORD -- #7

Peter was room #7's usual subject. He searched for Peter's name, eyes zig-zagging up and down the list as he gradually realized that everyone had randomly shifted for this round of testing.

But even the room change wasn't worrying Justin so much as what else he'd seen on the screen – or rather, what he hadn't seen....

Stop worrying, he told himself. Test first.

He hadn't realized just how much he'd appreciated the familiarity of room #5. He looked behind him, expecting to see Ella by #8 as usual but found Jonah there instead. Ivy looked like halfway to passing out, and even Artie's typical cool demeanor – hands in pockets, swiping hair out of his eyes and tilting his head up at the ceiling - couldn't quite hide his rapid blinking and the gulps making his Adam's apple bob up and down like a yo-yo.

Justin strained to maintain his new practice of mentally forcing his fingers into stillness, but it didn't work this morning. Instead he started to flex and unflex each muscle of his body....

Left hand, right hand... left arm, right arm....

Ding, ding. The doors slid open, and he walked inside.

Room #7 was nearly empty – no chair, no screen... nothing save a familiar helmet dead-center in the room, a treadmill shoved against the left wall, and a panel embedded at the right, identical to room #5. Justin knew he was meant to approach this panel to have more blood drawn, yet again he froze.

"Justin, please," a gruff voice said impatiently. The voice had been different for every test, ever since the first woman had left him.

Justin nodded, and offered his sore arm as usual. He'd begun to notice yellowy callouses developing at the midpoint where the needle usually fell. Unfortunately, the contraption had uncanny accuracy.

Today the needle was met with some resistance by a callus, but a gentle wiggling motion forced the tip through.

"Next time we'll need to ask you to use your other arm. We'll go back and forth with it. Alright?"

Justin nodded at nothing in particular, knowing the speaker could already see him from all angles. Unable to pull his eyes away, he watched the crimson red rise in the wide syringe cylinder.

Only when it reached about 3/4ths full did he grow worried.

"Ah, is it supposed to stop soon?"

When he heard his own voice he noticed how weak he sounded. His words were coming out more as breathy gasps instead of coherent sentences. The edges of his periphery were subtly beginning to blur.

No one answered. His breathing quickened. The syringe continued to draw, relentless. It was nearly full, now. He thought it might just overflow, or build up enough pressure to explode.

"H-hey," Justin called out again, still weaker. Quieter. His fingers were starting to not twitch, but shake compulsively, as his legs grew wobbly.