Running • Iggy

Want

I was running.

I must've been 6, maybe 7, running on a treadmill. I was only a kid, but I had been running for 6 hours straight to avoid falling onto the heated barbed wire that was surrounding the treadmill. I had fallen on it twice that day, and my feet and back were bleeding because of it. The cruel whitecoat who kept raising the speed, the other white coats called her Mary, turned around when a man and a woman entered the lab. "Hello Jeb," Mary began. "And you would be?" The grey-haired woman turned to the younger girl, who was maybe 17 years older than me at most.

She was beautiful, with long brown hair that fell in waves across her back, sparkling grey eyes reflecting the absence of color in the room. She was about 5'7, I thought, and looked like she was from a warmer country, as her skin was tanned. "My name is Broghan." The woman introduced. "Head of the COE Department. I was called down for the little angel you have on the treadmill." She smiled towards me, but I was too busy trying not to fall on hot wire. I was also taught never to respond to a whitecoat unless it was directly asked of me. I had gotten time in the box for that slip-up.

"It is not an angel, but a weapon. Why did the Care of Experiments send you? This subject is being treated differently to the others you seem to care for." Mary crossed her arms. "I believe it was the head of the entire organization who sent me, and if you wish to keep your job, I would advise you let me do mine." Broghan smiled, nodding for the older woman to leave the room. She reluctantly did as she was told, closing the door behind her. Jeb looked up at the singular camera in the room, nodding to Broghan a second later.

"Oh, my darling." Broghan hushed, slowing the treadmill down until I was at a stop. I blinked in surprise as the automated barbed wire retracted into the floor. "How could they let you run for so long? I have been waiting outside for two hours and they still haven't let you out - how long have you been running?" She asked through the singular gap in the thick glass. A direct question. "Six hours, twenty-eight minutes, twelve seconds, forty-three milliseconds." I recited, putting my hands behind my back, still standing on the treadmill.

The man, Jeb, sucked in an impressed breath. "That's amazing, and you're not even out of breath." He said, surprising me. "Jeb, be a human for a moment, not a horrible scientist that can't recognize that this is torture. All of it is." Broghan said angrily, unlocking the large metal door. "Come on darling - oh, this may be a little heavy, do you want me to-" I cut her off mid-sentence as I pulled open the door with no issue, holding it open with my foot. I blinked at her shocked expression, and began to get nervous. I should've waited until she said I could come. She's going to punish me.

"You're quite the strong one, huh?" She asked, gesturing for me to sit down on a spinny chair. I sat hesitantly on the foreign object, almost falling over as the wheels pushed it back slightly. I startled myself, gripping the table to stop the chair. "Have you never sat on one of these before?" Jeb asked, gesturing to the chair. "No, sir." I responded nervously. "Call me Jeb, and this is Broghan, as you probably heard." Jeb gestured to the beautiful woman. "Do you have a name, sweetheart?" Broghan asked me softly, reaching out to gently touch my arm.

I cringed away from the touch, but it didn't hurt. I was confused, why was a whitecoat being so nice to me? "Iggy says not to tell the whitecoats my name." I replied quietly, cautiously letting go of the table and sitting further back in the chair. The woman looked to the seemingly older man, then back to me. "Who is Iggy?" Jeb asked me, his tone less soft than Broghan's. "My best friend, s- uh... Jeb." I responded, hesitant to say his name.

"I'm not a scientist, sweetie. I'm here to cheer you up and treat you the way every child deserves to be treated." Broghan insisted, kneeling and sitting back on her legs. "I'll tell you a bit about myself, okay? My name is Broghan Rose Vaytole. I'm 21, and I'm from Spain. I work as the head of the COE, which, very rudely, stands for 'Care Of Experiments.' Most of us the people who work there don't care for the children we look after the way they should, but I do. I believe you all should be free outside of this lab." She smiled at me. "Do you have any questions?"