The Beast Within (#Wattys2016)

The Serpent of Shadows

I sat alone for what felt like forever, trapped and drowning in the walls of white. Occasionally I would glance over at the silent camera, as if waiting for it to speak to me, to offer me some explanation.

I was met with defeaning silence.

I wondered if the monsters who had brought me here had forgotten about me, it they were finished with me now. Maybe they'd left me here to die in this empty box.

I thought about all the strange things I had heard them say.

Serum, dose. Experiment, genes, cells, rearranged.

The words echoed in my mind. What did they mean, I wondered, what did any of this mean?

The most unnerving part about it all was my number.

Test subject number 355.

You give something a number when it has no value to you, when it's just one of many. You give someone a number to dehumanize them, to make them as worthless as the number you've carelessly slapped onto them.

Only cruel, twisted people number others. Only people who view others as disposable number others, in order to strip away their humanity and justify the awful things they subject them to.

These people were certainly those sort of people.

The numerical value of my number was even more startling.

355.

The fact that I was 355 meant that there had been others before me. Many others.

What had happened to them? Were they all failed experiments? How many of them had families, friends, classmates, and teachers who would never see them again? How many died in this wretched place, how many were denied a chance to live out their lives and see the world?

This was wrong, all of this was so very, very wrong that it made my head throb. This was sick, this was twisted, this was despicable. Silent, angry tears crept down my cheeks.

The floor groaned beneath me and I heard machinery whirring, gears turning and clicking. Slowly the floor began sinking, sliding downwards, while the walls remained where they had been. The ceiling and the tiny camera were much farther away now then they had been, and I realized that my prison was also an elevator of some sort.

But where was it taking me?

It continued to slide until one of the white walls ended, instead becoming a sheet of sturdy glass. The floor jolted to a stop, and now my prison looked very different.

The ceiling was twice as far away as it had been. A door had appeared on one of the walls, but it was locked and there was no handle on the inside.

So there was an exit.

Only three of the awful white walls were left, but I hated the fourth wall much more than any of the others. It was a wall of glass, maybe a few inches thick, and on the other side was a white room. In that white room, there was a man.

His glossy black hair was neatly combed, not a hair out of place. Startlingly blue eyes peered out from above his chiseled cheekbones, rimmed with soft grey and flecked with sparkling silver. They danced with a brilliant blue flame, a mischievous twinkle igniting their depths. His soft, full lips were upturned in a dazzling, confident smile, revealing his perfect and impossibly white teeth. A pressed black suit and white shirt, finished off flawlessly with a grey and silver tie, made him look like he'd stepped out of a movie; he was incredibly handsome and absolutely charming. He was dripping with infectious confidence and he seemed to radiate an aura of captivating and ravishing gorgeousness.

Somewhere beneath his charm and splendor, there was hint of danger, of malice. The light in his eyes was hypnotizing, like the fiery eyes of a snake, and they drew you in, pulled you under, but beware what lurked in their azure depths. He was a fallen angel, beautiful and dangerous, brilliant and shadowy; like poisoned wine and butterflies whose wings are laced with cyanide. He was an enigma, like the darkest night and the brightest stars all at the same time, like a snake whose honeyed words could sway and decieve even the sharpest of minds.

I stared at him, and he looked at me with curiosity, his eyes glinting. Minutes faded away and died as he watched me, picking me apart and turning me over in his mind, creeping through my thoughts and slipping soundlessly through my memories. It seemed that he knew everything about me, his icy eyes glowing with cleverness and knowledge as he pieced me together like a puzzle. He looked at me as if I was the single most interesting and most beautiful thing in the entire world.

Finally he spoke, his voice smooth and melodious. "Hello, again, Eden." I recognized his voice immediately as the one that had come through the speakers at school, the one that had haunted my dreams and woven its way into my mind.

He smiled even more broadly at me upon seeing the look of realization flash across my face.

"Did you miss me?"