The woman pulled P27B out of the chair and tugged her to the patient quarters. After ripping her hand away, the woman stormed out, slamming the door in anger.
"What was that?" Patient 47D, a lanky, tall boy stood up from the ground, brushing off grime.
"I don't know.." Her gaze flitted throughout the room, stopping at the small round mirror that was lodged into the bright white wall.
Her reflection peered at her, and the eyes had X-es over where pupils once resided.
"Hey.... what happened?" Patient 34N appeared at P27B's side, wide-eyed.
"Maybe this is why I survived..."
"I doubt it." P47D smirked, causing P27B to violently elbow him in the stomach.
"Gaggahkakask," he sarcastically bent over like a wounded soldier.
"Shut it, you squat." She continued examining her eyes, blinking rapidly.
"D'ya think it was on purpose? Another experiment to test the strength of artificial humans?" P34N piped in, mimicking Dr. Graden, the strongly southern accented man who would teach every patient vocabulary skills. Or, used to, anyway.
Until his body was found gored in the hallway, the other doctors saying that that was what happened when you stepped out of line.
Each patient, from P1A to P50Z never found out what that meant, and didn't want to.
The small room's fragile speaker sounded, starting with the familiar crackle noise.
"Attention all personnel." The patients craned their heads to stare wonderingly at the speaker.
"Please escort assigned patients to designated areas. Begin experiment 98 procedure."
The patients held their breath.
The sound of clicking shoes filled the thin-walled room, followed by slaps of bare feet on hard linoleum.
Dr. Dmitri Smith burst through the door pulling the the patients down the
corridor, past thousands of other combinations of children and doctors.
"Where are we going?" P34N mumbled, almost unheard by the busy racket of the crowd. The young woman said nothing, still looking away from them, almost looking ashamed.
Patient 65A and 66A appeared at the groups side, accompanied by their own white- coated instructor. P65A and P66A were twins, merged at the side, sharing three legs, two arms, and some internal organs.
Both had completely identical eyes, both large and brown, the color of melty chocolate ice cream on a warm summer afternoon.
If the patients had ever seen ice cream, they would have explained their eyes the same way.
The group approached a large room with obscene accessories scattered about, including a hair tie, a battered book, and a few pieces of scattered sheet music. There was also a collection of matchboxes in the center of the room, unguarded.
A robotic voice tuned into a large speaker attached to the ceiling, dangling freely from the small budget the laboratory held.
"Begin experiment now." The robotic voice was cut off, leaving the room quiet, only breathing heard.
A stout little woman waddled near the matchboxes and cleared her throat rather disgustingly.
"First child to reach this pile and to strike the match wins. The rest will see to the eyes." She waddled off, disappearing along with the rest of the "doctors."
The robot returned. "Begin."
It was the first word ever taught to every child.
The crowd raced for the matches, occasionally growing smaller as they tripped over objects and began studying the oddness of said objects.
Finally, a tall, lanky boy pushed over a small boy, almost two heads smaller than him and snatched up a matchbox, lighting one in under 20 seconds.
Patient 47D huffed, gasping for breath as the robot returned again. "Patient 47D, congratulations y-"
The voice halted as the boy threw the lit match at the pile and sprinted towards the exit, the rest sitting in stunned silence before realizing what had happened, then running full speed.
The doors burst open, flooding children and doctors and allowing the smoke to grow stronger.
"Please evacuate premises."
"Pl as e cua e. .."
Shrieks resonated as the fire grew nearer, the boy sprinting as fast as he could, down the hall, down another, and another... how big was this hellish place?
Footsteps grew nearer and nearer, which meant the fire was as well. Smoke was flooding the airstream causing his eyes to water up and nearly blind him.
Finally, he spotted an opened window, just enough he could climb through. He practically threw a chair towards it and scrambled to the window, slipping through and getting his first taste of fresh air.
Looking down, he realized just how far he was from the ground.Well...water.
They were all on an isolated island, with water far as the eye could see.
Glancing behind him, he saw people starting to crowd the hallway, searching desperately for an escape.
So he sucked in a breath and fell into the calm waters below.
