The white, squared building rested on the edge of the lake. The cement foundation poked out of the top of the calm water and the gentle breeze that urged the waves along pressed on the grasses sweeping over its edge, making them sway. I breathed in a sweet breath of fresh air and gently pressed open the metal door that led inside.
I now stood in a single room. To my left the wall was covered with a massive white sheet. Its wrinkles caught the motion of the stiff wind that the spinning fan blades across the room sent at them. The most prominent feature of this sterile place was the table that sat in the center. Titanium steel, as flat and smooth as a knife's blade, and loaded with shining weapons. Clamps, tweezers, surgical knives, scalpels, mallets. My heart sank at the sight of them and I groped for whatever it was clenching my throat. My fingers grasped only air and I glanced down to find myself wearing a loose-fitting white coat.
From the opposite side of the room that I had entered came a woman with bobbed brown hair and squared glasses. A light brown beauty mark covered her upper lip; a typical librarian. But this woman sported a white jacket similar to mine. She shut the door behind her and the gold bells around her wrist jingled. She glanced at me and then the tools spread out before us on the table before turning her attention to the white sheet.
"Shall we uncover the subject?" the woman asked. I was speechless. I didn't know what to think. Did I work in this institution? I couldn't remember ever having been here before. Without waiting to hear my answer, she gave a yank on the white sheet. It ripped and fell to the floor in an organized stack. Glare from an enormous window reflected off of the woman's glasses and I turned to it.
It was a glass box.
Inside sat a squat woman, though she was easily one of the largest creatures that I had ever seen. She was easily the size of a rhinoceros and was drooling on the floor of the glass box. I flinched at the sheer size of her. Her features were so distorted that I could barely see her irises. Her nose was nearly pinched fully shut by the fat that swelled in her flushed cheeks. Monitors ticked with her every movement, and wires ensnared her arms and legs, barely allowing her to move.
"This is experiment #5. A volunteer for cancer research," the woman said. I furrowed my eyebrows and brought my hand to my chin quizzically. What kind of person would volunteer for something like this? Was she even a suitable candidate? Thoughts raced across my insatiable mind.
When the dark-haired woman stepped closer, the woman trapped in the glass box scrambled toward the opposite corner. She crammed what she could of her squishy body into the corner and whimpered. I clenched my fist. On the other side of the box was gentle rolling water. All that could be seen was water, although based on the light blue sky and the gentle breeze that rippled its surface, I knew that experiment #5 longed to feel it.
"Let her out," I demanded. The dark-haired woman looked at me as though I were crazy.
"We can't let her out now, that would violate her contract."
"Does this woman even have a contract? It looks as though she's-" I stopped talked when a low grumbling began from the inside of the glass box. My head turned toward the woman that crouched there.
"I... agree... be... here..." she groaned, although now it sounded more like a sob.
"Why would you agree to that?" I scowled, angry at the woman's stupidity. "Do you have any idea what they're going to do to you here?"
"Doesn't... matter..." the woman sniffled, refusing to face me. I snorted at her ignorance.
"It does matter!" I shouted, flailing my arms for addded drama. "It matters to me!"
The woman's smashed-in face turned to me and I winced. I had never seen a person who had destroyed their body to such an extent like this until now.
"It doesn't matter," the brunette woman concluded and pulled a cigarette from her coat pocket. She patted the other pocket in search of a lighter, but failed to find one. She spun on her heel and propped open the doorway to the back room from which she came. "Don't touch anything," she said, stopping in the middle of the doorway, "I'm just going to find my lighter."
And with that, she disappeared.
"I'm so sorry," I said to the woman behind the glass. I wanted to believe that she could hear and feel how sincere I was, but I had no idea who she was or how she got there. And if she did consent to being there- why was I apologizing? But without thinking, I rushed over to the corner of the room, somehow knowing there was a microwave there. I instinctively reached inside and pulled out a plate of rice topped with chicken bathed in rich, brown sauce.
I carried the plate to the window and set it on the sill, allowing the food to pass through the gate once I'd entered the passcode in the key code verification pad. The woman looked at the food scornfully, but proceeded to grab it by the fistful and shove it into her mouth. She threw the plate into the return box, which spit the plate back out at me once she'd finished. She plucked the rice that had fallen to the bottom of the glass box, eating each and every last grain.
She quickly thanked me, but it wasn't enough. I wanted to set her free.
I fumbled with the control box beside the glass box, entering pin number after pin number. None of them seemed to be working. My fingers began to tire. After my 45th try, the key code initiated lockdown. Red lights fell from compartments in the ceiling, casting a bloodred glow across the room. It bounced off the floor, and the accompanying screech of an alarm deafened me. I covered my ears, and the woman in the glass box motioned toward the exit. She mouthed "go," and I took her advice. I bolted out the door, shrugging my white coat from my shoulders as I ran. I followed a dirt path into some thin woods, and when I reached the end of the trail and sunlight pressed down on me again, I threw the balled up coat over the cliffside and into the ocean.
I watched the waves carry it away a bit, and then pull it hesitantly back toward the shore. I fell to the ground with my head in my hands, thinking of anything, anything, I could possibly do to help her... and before I knew it, I'd fallen asleep beneath the sun.
When I awoke, it was still light out. Early morning, or mid-afternoon, perhaps. The two looked identical without a clock to aid me. I helped myself up, but a hand on my shoulder made me jump.
"You need to come back to the lab with me," the librarian woman grumbled through her cigarette.
"Why should I? What you're doing is disgusting," I spat.
The woman shook her head, "Don't forget: you were working alongside me at one point." I stared guiltily down at my feet. "In any case, that's not what I want from you. I've come for your help, coworker or not."
I cocked my head and crossed my arms, "I'm listening..."
"Experiment #5 has escaped her containment unit."
YOU ARE READING
Dream Journal
Random"Dreams are the illustrations of the book your soul is writing about you." - Anonymous.
