Maximum Ride: If I Never Come Home Again

The Test

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Chapter 2

*2 Years Later*

                I stared up at the blank white ceiling. The buzz of the florescent lights above me was the only noise I heard. Its steady buzz filled my mind, not allowing any other thoughts in. I was grateful for the white noise. I knew I would have gone mad if I was left in complete silence. I knew if my mind wasn’t preoccupied, I would find myself thinking of…

                No Max. Think about something else, anything else. Umm Doritos, jellyfish… I remember when we had that incident with the jellyfish in Hawaii…

                NO! I groaned in frustration and turned onto my stomach with my face in my pillow. The scientist had so kindly (note the sarcasm) given me a hard cot to sleep on in this completely white room. If I stood in the center and stretched out my arms, I could touch both walls. It was definitely an upgrade from the dog crates, but it was still a prison.

                My whole body was so sore. For years now I endured test after test, electric shocks, burns, and fights with other experiments, injections, being poked and prodded, studied, analyzed, and anything else the white coats could think about.

                But I endured it all while being completely quiet. I never said anything. I knew that if I resisted, back talked, or gave up, the white coats would go after… them. And I couldn’t let that happen. I would endure it until I could find my way out of here.

                And I knew that I would eventually have to do it, and most likely sooner rather than later, because my body wouldn’t be able to handle all of the tests. I was already weak. I remember catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror a couple days ago when they were taking me back to my prison. At first I didn’t realize that it was me.  My eyes were sunk into my head, and dark shadows underneath both of them. I was pale and skinner than should be humanly possible. I had bruises and scrapes all over my body. My eyes were bloodshot and lifeless.

                I needed a plan to get out of there.

                As soon as I thought that, my door burst open and a huge Eraser walked in with a whitecoat. He had a long needle with him. I knew that it was to sedate me if I ever struggled. I never did, but they still carried it with them. I sighed and stood up. Some days, I was horrified at myself for giving in so easily and not fighting. But, I did know the consequences.

                The Eraser who was escorting me today was one of the nicer ones. He didn’t want to be an experiment, but he gave in because he had nowhere to go now that he was already a freak. He put a strong hand on my shoulders and led me out, but he was never as rough as the others. He knew I wouldn’t fight him and I knew he wouldn’t want to hurt me.

                They led me to an enclosed field. Crap… Today would be a fighting day. The whitecoats liked to slowly increase my number of opponents to see what my limit was. Last time I had 10 after me. It was pretty easy, and the whitecoat slapped me because she was frustrated that I had finished so fast. I had to resist the urge to spit on her.

                My body was sore from the maze running yesterday, and I hoped that it wouldn’t be too bad today. Fighting days were ok because I usually got the rest of the day off while they analyzed the fight.

                I had noticed that the whitecoats were surprised by my submissive behavior, and as a form of a reward, they would tell me what test I was doing, and sometimes they would share what they were planning on looking for during that particular test. I still hated their guts and I always had to resist the urge to smash their heads together, but I knew that they were being as nice as their sick twisted minds would allow them to be to me. I was still only an experiment, a thing to be studied and abused.