The First

3.1

A/N: Hey all! Thanks for all the wonderful covers you guys submitted! I had a hard time choosing just one to win :) And woah... guys... this story has just surpassed 400 views! And I've only published five chapters (including this one)! Crazy... but thank you! I am eternally grateful!

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01 - 20 - 2089

Freezing. That's the one word that runs through my mind as I sit, huddled up in the corner of solitary. I hug my knees to my chest, shaking. The temperature can't be more than forty degrees down here. And it doesn't help that there are no lights in this room either.

Well, I say room, but it's more of a box. Barely high enough for me to stand up in and only a couple square feet of space. I can't even stretch out my legs. And after three days, they are tingling, burning to be stretched.

I just have to hold on until they come back. I'm sure it will be any time now. By the extreme hunger pains I feel, I know they won't leave me alone much longer. Not because they care about me, but because they can't afford to risk my death. I'm their experiment, their first.

I mange to drift in and out of sleep, sometimes just hovering in a state of deliriousness. During those times, pictures of people I know float through my mind. Doctor Acosta, Barr, and even the new orderly, Cade. He's a strange boy, for sure. Unlike any of the other orderlies, though I hadn't noticed that at first. He's younger than most of them, perhaps just a little older than I am.

The way his black hair was tousled across his head in an uncaring way stood out to me. Everyone else here is so stiff and white-like. But he's got color. Especially in his eyes. They're like two deep, pools of blue, mesmerizing and hypnotizing.

"Gis? What in the high heights are you talking about?" I mutter out loud. My scratchy voice echoes around the metal walls, magnifying, and I flinch. "Great. Now you're talking to yourself."

I shake my head, gripping my hair between my fingers, trying to maintain sanity. Sanity. A funny word, and I'm not sure I'm ever really known what it means. How could I? I don't even know what reality is, since I'm stuck living in a lab.

I'm a rat. A lab rat, to be more specific. I'm poked, prodded, manipulated, and what is it all for? I asked Doctor Acosta that one time and she told me I was the world's miracle, whatever that means. She said that I was a breakthrough. That I was the first.

Screeech.

Metal on metal. I perk up, knowing that sound means someone is letting me out. My head lags back with nausea, but I steady it with my hands, anxious to be back in my room. To eat. To drink. To warm up.

When light finally breaks into solitary, a dark haired figure blocks the door. Cade. His eyebrows are scrunched in a V and deep, dark spots rest beneath his eyes.

"Can I leave now?" I scratch out, my voice sounding a lot more like gravel than I expected.

Cade flinches, something flashing in his eyes for a split second before it's gone, replaced by the calm exterior. "Yes." He beckons me out, taking a step back while I lock my legs and try to stand.

"It's gonna be a minute," I say, my voice obsolete and empty. Needles prick my legs as I slap them, trying to get the feeling to subside. Cade looks on awkwardly while I struggle to walk.