Subject Nine

Entry

=Entry=

              As the scientist walked quickly down the polished linoleum floors, he could not help but get a bad feeling. The man had no idea why he would feel now. He has been walking down this very same hallway for around seventeen years now. So why would today be the time he would get an air of bitterness and a shiver of fear throughout his mind and body? The man shook his head, his sandy-brown hair thrashing around his face. He had no reason for alarm. Today was going to be fine. He had no reason to be nervous.

Nervous? His inner voice taunted him. Are you sure it's that you're nervous? I think you're scared.

The man scowled at this. If he was a coward he would not be doing this. He would not have taken up this burden years ago. He was not afraid.

The man's worn, tan Sperry's came to a halt in front of a white door. It was plain white, just like everything else in the forsaken hallway, except for the two words inscribed in black, bold letters upon the piece of metal.

Subject Nine.

The mouth of the man curled upwards at the corners. The door hadn't changed in the past almost two decades. Neither had anything else. Except for the subject.

The man grasped the cool, polished white door-handle and turned it, pushing inwards. The door opened to reveal a room, much like a box-seat in a stadium, filled with people like him wearing pristine, white lab coats. His colleagues for the past seventeen years. Scientists.

There were at least twenty, all wearing formal attire inside of their flowing jackets, making the man's casual UNC T-shirt, torn jeans, and beaten-down Sperry's stand out. There were no seats or rows, just a small room, with white flooring and windows for walls. There was a table with refreshments by the door where the man stood. He happily shifted his clipboard and pen over to one hand, while the other snatched a chocolate-chip cookie from the platter. He sighed in pleasure as the flavourful cookie entertained his taste-buds, before chewing another bite off, and observing the room and people; seeing if his alarm from before was necessary or not.

Nothing seemed out of place.

The man restrained himself from letting out a sigh of relief, then grew irritated at his unnatural behavior this day. His brows furrowed as he tried to come up with a good, sensible reason to feel- not scared, he wouldn't admit that yet- but he confessed to himself he felt uneasy. Coming up with no solution to his inner-conflict, he finally released a sigh, but it was of exasperation and anger rather than relief. He felt his forehead with the back of his hand. Nope, not warmer then usual. He wasn't sick, at least not physically.

The man's ears detected foot-steps approaching him, and his head shot up and he pasted on his usual cheerful smile that made his brown eyes gain a warm shimmer, while his perfect teeth flashed in the light.

"Hey Al," the other man greeted happily, clapping him on the shoulder. "Excited for today?"

The man, now recognized as Al, grinned even wider, and forced the inferior feelings he had to the back of his mind.

"You betcha," Al replied cheerfully. "We've been waiting for this forever!"

The other man nodded, his own black hair falling into his brown eyes. As he pushed the raven locks to the side, he winked at a blond woman, who rolled her doe-like chocolate eyes at him, and turned back to looking out the window that occupied the space where a wall should've been.

Al smirked. Conner, the dark-haired man who stood before him, had been his best friend for around twenty years and was a flirt. Well, at least it brightened up the would-be dreary atmosphere of the lab. Holland, or known by everyone as Holls, was the blond woman who would shoot down every advance poor Conner would make. It was quite comical, and Conner was persistent, but Holls had walls of titanium. Al himself had been shot down a number of times.