XIII
You know that feeling when you’re all alone? That feeling when you can’t breathe? That feeling when you’re underwater and you can’t tell which way is up or which way is down, and your only option is to drown? Well, that’s how I feel sometimes. It’s like I’m trapped in an endless pool with myself and there’s no way out. And I don’t know how I got here. Was it because I never talked in class? Was it because I always sat alone during lunch? Was it because I’d always hidden in a corner when there were people around? Sometimes, I feel like I have finally gotten used to the constant discomfort. But it’s during times like these that I know I can’t endure it.
The lights are a little too bright here, constantly alternating colors, constantly flashing. But I don’t mind it. I never liked dark places. Maybe it’s the noise that’s causing the ringing pain in my head. I never liked the sound of talking or laughter. I never liked the sound of automobiles, the sound of busy cities. No matter how I covered my ears or burrowed under my blankets, I could never fully block out the noise. But I don’t think that’s the main cause of my suffocation. I think it’s the people. I can’t see them right now, everything is black. But it’s okay, I don’t mind it. I can hear indistinct chattering, soft mumbling drowned out by water. It’s like I’m in a big, black room with murmuring voices in my head. But I can feel them. I can feel people around me. I can feel people passing by. Lots and lots of people. It’s a never-ending stream, pushing me farther into the corner of my empty room. I can feel that I’m surrounded by cars, noise, and people. I think it’s cold outside, but I can’t really tell. I like my black room. There’s no one in here except for me. I’m all alone in my black room. Sometimes, it gets a little lonely. At first, the black room was just a tiny black box. But with time, it grew bigger. Now, it’s huge. I don’t know where the walls are. I can’t tell where the room ends. All I know is that I sit in a corner. I know there are people outside of my room but I can’t say anything. I can’t move. They can’t touch me and I can’t touch them. Some people would say it’s like a wall, but I think it’s more like we’re in different dimensions. Sometimes, I wish I could leave this room.
You know that feeling when you’re all alone? That feeling when you can’t breathe? That feeling when you’re underwater and you can’t tell which way is up or which way is down, and your only option is to drown? Well, that’s how I feel sometimes. It’s like I’m trapped in an endless pool with myself and -- wait. I hear something. A voice is reaching me.
“Subject Thirteen is ready for testing.”
I recognize that voice. Every time, it’s always that same voice that drags me out of my black room. That’s right. I remember now. I would’ve almost preferred drowning. But I’m still alive. I’m alive and breathing. That’s right. I’m Subject Thirteen, a human experiment. My room, no, my capsule, is still black, but I hear better now. I can think clearly now. There’ll be light soon. They’ll open up my pitch black prison and throw me into the reinforced room. I don’t know which is worse, that room or my capsule. That room is also a prison, one with pure white walls, the smell of disinfectant that I hate, and machines, constantly beeping. Will I ever escape this? Sometimes, when I try to think, it only saddens me more.
Click.
My capsule is open. A stinging sensation. My eyes, my skin. It stings. It’s too bright here. Everything is white. It’s been so long since I’ve been .... My body is numb. Is it the light? Is it the temperature? The air? I feel someone touching my body. Fingers? They’re lifting me out. I still can’t move, but I can feel my body. I feel something cold, something metal. My back is cold. It must be that chair. My head feels so heavy. Is it because I’m sitting upright? I force my eyes open, and my eyelashes flutter, an attempt to filter the light. The scientists must have left. I can see only one person in the room. It’s difficult to distinguish the gender or age. The legs, hanging limp, are chained, and the hands are handcuffed. There’s a bulging helmet on his or her head, shielding the face. It has a ring of small lights, flashing red. Below the helmet, the body would be considered muscular, attractive, if not for the countless scars. But those wounds are beautiful in their own way, signifying perseverance, the will to live, survival of countless inhumane experiments. What subject number is this one?
Wires connect the ghostly pale body to a capsule. A capsule? Wait, that’s my capsule. The number 13, XIII, is written in bold across the glass surface. Does that mean that’s me? With effort, I lift up my two arms. I watch the other arms rise. It is me. I would’ve never recognized that body as myself. I make a fist, the body makes a fist. I lower my arms, so does the body. I suppose it has to be me. I wish I never looked.
But how? Oh, I see it now. They’ve replaced the white plaster walls with mirrors. I don’t know why. Perhaps to punish me? Perhaps to remind me to survive? The mirrors make the room seem bigger and lonelier.
“Subject Thirteen is now conscious. Begin initiation of experiment,” says the emotionless voice from a speaker in one wall.
“Hah. Another experiment?” I can see my mouth moving. “Are you going to show me any new tricks?” The voice, no, my voice, sounds defiant. Does that voice really belong to me?
“Or is it going to be the same old boring routine?” What am I saying? Why am I saying such things? I don’t want to be thrown back into that living hell. I’m tired of it. Tired of my black room, tired of the old white room, tired of this mirrored room. I’m tired, I want to die. I want to die, but I want to live. Why does it have to be me?
“You will be grateful for your new power.” I hear another voice, a calm voice. Sickeningly calm. It’s her. The devil is here. What punishment awaits me this time? What new hell? Is she going to send me into my black room again? Or perhaps something worse?
A shock wave. Another, then another, then a whole series of painful charges cascade through my body. It’s terrifying.
I can’t feel my body anymore.
“You are the first to undergo this experiment. None of the others have made it this far.”
I don’t want more powers. It hurts. I don’t want more strengths. It hurts. I just want to be normal. I don’t want to live anymore. Just kill me.
It’s so dark here. It’s like I’m drowning.
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
140,703 Literary Works • 673,672 Reviews
Hello Remington38 here for a review,
The story drew me in straight off the bat. Human experimentation has many different paths down it and what makes me like it is you made your own instead of going cliché. My favorite part was when she doesn't really connect the motions of her body to herself and feels like it isn't her moving them. Only one thing I really would like to say for criticism was the ending didn't read right for me maybe going into depth a little more but over all really good story.
Hey, Neverland~ Pomp here for a review!
Happy Review Day!
Let's make this quick.
The first paragraph was decent enough to draw me in; you varied sentence length and the character's situation was intriguing enough to a degree. I do feel, however, that short stories (like first chapters) also need a certain amount of 'hook' factor to draw their readers in--this is something that this piece lacked. I did not feel very compelled to read on following the first paragraph, mostly because I was getting realistic-fiction vibes at the beginning, and then the narrator begins to talk of flyaways--vague things that I do not care for seeing as I barely know the narrator themself. You attempt to build up on setting in paragraph two, but that is followed by the narrator's tangents on their likes and dislikes rather than getting to the grit of the story.
So one thing I'm going to have to ask you to try and do is look for points of relevance. Why is knowing about the narrator's feelings regarding the whole drowning shindig important? Why have you inserted snippets of backstory if it holds absolutely no connection to what the rest of the story tells us? Stories are all about making connections; they don't have to be linear connections--they can be as conglomerated and artistic as you please. But everything you convey--everything you inform the reader must hold some value.
Moving on, I'm going to disagree with the reviewer below me on this story occupying a stream of consciousness style, mostly because stream of consciousness does not acquire the clarity of description your middle paragraphs have.
As a whole, the story in itself lacks a great deal of focus. There's a lot going on but we never find out exactly what is happening. What is the experiment? Why is the narrator here and how long have they been here, etc.? How do they know who they are (i.e. subject thirteen) but nothing more is explained? What of setting? What of a resolution?
What you have right now are the barebones of a piece. I hooe I don't sound too harsh, because there is a lot of potential in this! but this piece is more of a practice scene than a story. Figure out where your beginning, middle and end lie; get the plot running into gear. You'll make something of this yet.
Let me know if you edit/re-write this and I'll be happy to look it over for you. Hope this helped~
~Pomp c:
Heyo! Here to review as requested!
So this is a really interesting piece first off. Stream of consciousness is always fun to read.
There are a few things that I noticed right off the bat. There seems to be a disjointedness with this whole thing. I understand that the MC is really confused, not all there, but I can't really follow what's going on. The lights are bright one second, and the next, they aren't. But then you make it seem like the person has been in the capsule for a while. And while contradictions work really well in stream of consciousness, you just seem to have a little bit of a continuity problem in a few places. If you were to make this longer, it would work, because then it would seem like they were in a hallway, and then back in the capsule, or something, but the way it is just sounds a tad awkward.
You also have an issue with sentence fluidity. While short sentences are also a classic, and work really well with this type of piece, having a short sentence, or the same length sentence, over and over again can get tiring. I would alternate with some almost run on sentences that help break up the shortness, but still keep that sense of urgency and stream of consciousness feel, if that makes sense.
This sentence is kind of unnecessary. Since you are using this 'trapped in the MC's head' style, you don't need to explain how they feel. You already told us in the first few lines.
The second half of this improves on the sentence fluidity thing I mentioned earlier, but there are still a few spots that combining a sentence or two would help.
Overall, I really liked this! It was intriguing and kept my interest. You did well with the descriptions and most of the little contradictions you supplied on what the MC feels really demonstrated how this person has no idea what they want, or really what even is going on. I didn't see any grammar mistakes, or spelling, so good job on that! I can honestly say this was great! Fixing a few of the things I mentioned would go a long way to make your writing even better.
I love how this is dark and powerful, opening with how the person feels as though they're drowning. I love the imagery, the way that your writing has a certain power. I love the way that the character is desperate and almost broken. While I don't think that the second half is as strong, so to say, as the the first, it's still beautiful. I especially love how you write the last line.
Thank you for the review!
|Peter Pan|
The whole time you were working up to this person, maybe insane, talking about being in a "black capsule", but didn't think at all they meant it literally, not figuratively. Well done. I mean, I'll be honest. This is one of those stories that makes you re-think just how good you are at writing - as far as the beginning goes, I don't think I could hope to write something so emotionally invigorating.
The first three paragraphs, I'd call magical. You created this dark, amazing mindset of this "human experiment" which I love to pieces. But I think you kind of lost a little steam as you went on, maybe you were getting bored of writing this, maybe I just don't know what I'm talking about. It just seems like the level of powerful emotion you conveyed in the first part of the story isn't there towards the end. The character said he wants to live, but then moments later is like "nah, I don't want to live", that strikes me as a bit odd as to why he'd change his mind so quickly on what should be such a deep issue. Same thing with the black room, one moment he's talking about how much he likes it, then a few moments later he's calling it a "living hell".
Even though I don't think the second half is as powerful as the first, this is still really great overall. Paragraph 2 in particular is just about perfect. I think I would've made the last sentence more direct, instead of saying "It's so dark here. It's like I'm drowning." I would have made it "It's so dark here. I'm dying." But that's just me, really good job on this either way.
Thank you for the review!
I understand what you mean. In the beginning, these were two separate works for two separate school writing assignments. The first three paragraphs was for one assignment and the rest, in 3rd person, was the other. However, due to length issues and lack of ideas, I ended up combining the two into one big piece.
About the controversial parts you pointed out, (I want to live but I want to die. I like my room but it's a hell) I can see what you're getting at. However, I don't know if it's just me, but I change my mind quite frequently. Like one minute I'm like "I'LL STUDY TODAY" and once I actually start, I'm like "Nahhhh".
That's the type of feeling I'm trying to get at with Subject XII. In the capsule, he/she enjoys the darkness, but once outside, he/she no longer wants to return. Same with the living-dying part. XII really wants to live, but he'd prefer to die and escape the pain that goes along with the experiments.
Thanks for the feedback.
|Peter Pan|