Subject Start

Subject No. 0

Brilliant, blinding white light was all I could see in the silence, a silence that used to be filled with a steady "beep...beep...beep..." and shuffling of feet. That. That was the first thing missing, first thing I noticed anyway. I squinted my eyes to try and find the details of the room I was in.

My head suddenly felt like a hammer was being smashed into my skull repeatedly. My fingers twitch, beginning to reach for my head with the aim of soothing it somehow. As I reached for my head, arms feeling heavy and numb, I realised my arm was still and in place. I look over. My arm had been turned into a tree branch, covered in plastic, pale, opaque vines that wired me into one spot. My eyes follow the tubes to see them connected to an empty bag hooked onto a large metal stand with wheels. Puzzled and confused I turn to my other arm that, surprisingly, was more or less free and was not in the same condition my other arm was. Just a few clips were attached to my fingers.

"what on earth am I attached up to..." I think to myself, letting my own thoughts trail off as I eye the clipboard at the end of my bed.

Without hesitation, I jolt forwards to sit up, but it only ended with the room spinning and the hammering in my head to get worse. I collapse back onto the bed, fully feeling all the hard springs with no bounce and crusty yellowish covers that had appeared to be left on the bed for years. Squeezing my eyes shut, I groan at the pain and discomfort and lay there for a few minutes as the hammering seizes to stop.

Long, antagonizing minutes pass before the nausea stops and the hammering eases up a little. Slowly and steadily I sit up using the last of my strength. My eyes stung and my vision was blurry but I still was determined to examine the clipboard at the end of my bed. It surely had answers, no it had to have answers. Slowly stretching an arm out, with all my effort I reach for the clipboard. My fingers lightly brush the top edge of the board, spikey splintered wood lightly grazes me as I clutch the clipboard and bring it closer to me. Finally sitting up, back sore and stiff feeling like I had no possible way of bending my back, yet despite this, I sit slanted and try my best to read the smudged black ink running along the old grey crinkled sheets of paper. As my eyes slowly adjust, there were only a few things I could make out through the wrinkles of the paper.

"Twenty-Four years of age, uh date fourth of something... 3017...due to wake up on the... What?" I pause. What did it mean due to wake up? I start to panic and a million questions flood my mind, too many to think. My chest gets tighter and tighter the more I start to panic. Taking a few seconds, I pause and clear my head and take a few heavy breaths. A coma... I must have been in a coma. Coming up with a solution I didn't quite believe, I stuck to it.

Burrowing my brows together I continue to read, intrigued, the desire to know more grew, so I started to read again. "3025, due to wake up... 3025... that's eight more years! That can't be r-" half way through mumbling to myself I'm cut off by a terrifying, unhuman screech. Adrenaline shoots through my veins and I suddenly get the urge to run. Flinging myself off the bed, I instantly collapse and tumble to floor. The cold, hard, dirty white creamy tiles catch me, sending pain through my side and causing the hammering to start once more as my head bounces of the tiles. My reckless actions caused all the things hooked up to my arm to be wrenched out, sending jolts of pain up my arm, paralysing it. Then as if in slow motion the tall grey stand, suddenly seeming a thousand feet tall, started to tilt down, towards me. I prepare and brace myself, putting my arms up in front of my face as quickly as I can, just to catch the cold hard stand as it hits my arms and clashes to the floor filling the silence with a loud metallic clang. The noise hurt my head, despite the pain I rush to get up as the creature starts to scream again. As I stumble trying to get up, the room starts to spin. I stumble over my own feet, clumsily losing my footing and fall against the rotten wooden door frame that, surprising was empty and held no door, the old white, now yellow and grey paint peeling off at the slightest touch. I could see the old, rundown corridor with years of neglect and water damage in front of me. My legs feeling numb, I stumble toward the wall in front of me, pushing my body's limit. I had to get away. I needed to get away from what ever that horrible creature is. Its at that moment the smell starts to set in. it smelt like mouldy rotten food and some other strange and sickening smells I couldn't recognise.

BANG!

I jump at the abrupt noise and fling my head around to just behind me where the noise came from. Before I even had time to comprehend what the loud noise could have been that horrible scream came again, but this time it sounded furious, so angry it was barely screaming and more like a horrifying screech of agony. Suddenly my senses started to kick in and my eyes scan the strange place I was in. Down the old halls and corridors were empty rooms, much like mine, an abandoned desk was located in between where I had come from and further down the ruined halls. What was odd though was the strange, old and rusted metal iron doors a little ways down. In-fact the desk looked ordinary enough but had the same rusty metal, only in bars around what could have been open space just above the desk, it was almost as if it was there to protect who ever was behind it. As my thoughts begin fit the puzzle pieces together my thoughts are interrupted yet again.

BANG-BANG-BANG!!

Three rapid bangs rattle one of the iron doors from behind me. Nearly jumping out of my skin and being pulled from my thoughts I stumble forwards, still shuffling against the old brick wall for support. I start to focus and push my self forwards as fast as I could, legs feeling weak and shaky and my chest feeling tight. My rattled breaths struggling for clean air. It was like no doors or windows had been opened in years and instead of oxygen, a horrible suffocating musk filled air. I struggle forward but in agony, fall to knees and clutch my head as it erupts in pain, just as that thing behind me starts to screech again.

"Gah- god damn it!" I mutter under my breath, criticizing myself for being so weak when I desperately needed to leave and get out.

Slowly a long scraping and creaking sound of metal replaces the banging and screeching for a bit. I slowly look back, hoping that sound wasn't what it most definitely was. The iron door only a few feet away from my room, started to bend inwards, but only slightly, barely noticeable. A soft thud is followed by a few silent seconds, then a slightly louder thud, then more waiting, but longer this time. I start to get up and try to walk forward again. I successfully manage to shuffle further down the hall to a set of double wooden doors that, by the looks of it, had nearly rotten off the hinges. I cautiously look back to where the creature had been hammering the door that locked it in one of the rooms. It seemed as if it had worn itself out, well it didn't matter anyway. It had stopped. Now I could leave without it trying to kill or attack me. As I start to try and open the door but the handle barely moves. I push down harder making no progress. I rattle it, getting more and more frustrated. It still wouldn't open. I push down on the cold metal handle with both hands as hard as I possibly could.

"Damned thing...OPEN!" as if on command, the handle finally breaks loose from the rust and unlocks the door, allowing me to finally open it... but something else opens too...