Caroline

It all started when I was 18. I was about to take my SAT’s, when they took me into a room to do the testing. Each person is isolated in their own area so no one could cheat. I got lucky, and got my own small room to myself. In the room was just a desk, chair, whiteboard, and door to the hallway outside. I expected the proctor to come into the room minutes later to hand me my exam. After about 10 minutes, I decided to inspect where my exam was and where the proctor was. I went to the door, shook the door knob. Locked! “Damn!” I swore in my deep, British accent. I decided to sit back down, realizing there was no way I could get through the door. All of a sudden, I feel lightheaded, when I hear the door creak, and a shadowy figure approach me. I knew who he was, but I couldn’t think of it at the time. It then hit me. “Ca...” I tried to say as he covered my mouth with a cloth and I fell unconscious.

When I awoke, I heard the man say something, though my eyes were covered by a cloth. He said, “Welcome to the testing facility. For the rest of your life, you will stay with me and test our new technology. Do you have any objections?” As I was about to say something, “Good. We will now install the new technology on you.” I felt a sharp pain in my neck, and I blacked out again.

This time I woke up, this time in a small cryochamber, trapped and I don’t know what, but something felt off. The cloth was now removed, but my vision was completely blue. “Is this your breakthrough new technology?” I asked. “No, this is just the first of many steps. Hahahahahahahaha...” the Voice replied. A large pain was felt in my body, and I realized that a robot arm came out of the front of the chamber and stabbed me with a needle. My whole body went numb, and I had to watch as the robot arms cut off each part of my body. Starting with my feet, the robot arms used a bone saw to cut the bone, then ripped off my feet. I saw my muscles come out of my body, spewing crimson blood, making me nauseous, and even though my entire body was numb, I could still feel the incredible pain. The arms then went for my hands, doing the same routine they did on the feet. When the blood hit anyone of the arms, they just brushed the blood off as if they were used to it, but wait, maybe they were. I looked through the side of my cryochamber, seeing another chamber exactly like it. I’m not the only one, I thought. I felt like the chamber I was looking at sensed me, as it turned to show its inhabitant.

They aren’t human. They aren’t like me. I won’t become like them. What I saw in the chamber wasn’t human. It was a metal sphere with a brain inside it and a glowing purple LED that slowly slid in front of it as I watched. They’re going to take off my body parts till only my brain is left. I’m going to die or become one of them. After hours of excruciating pain, stabbing, cutting, and tearing, the process was finally over. I had turned into a brain core.

Brain core. That’s the name the employees came up with for us. We were the unlucky ones. 1 out of every 100 high school students were picked to join the facility. 1 of the 50 people taken as employees would become Brain cores. Most of them wouldn’t survive. They were the lucky ones. They others were forced to test software and machinery for the Laboratory for the rest of their lives, which would be eternity, considering that we were put on life support constantly. The man who put all of us through this, we named Johnson. Johnson started to wonder if any of us were making any progress. That’s when she arrived.

She was a high school student just like us, and started out as an employee in the lab. Johnson liked her the most, so he made her his personal assistant. Until he found out about her brain. I don’t know how, but the neurological signals in her brain were much stronger than the rest of ours. Johnson decided to make her into a brain core, so she could be our leader when all the human employees died. She had to go through the same pain as us, and it was too much for her. She broke within the first few days after being transformed. She decided she would make the employees feel the same pain she would.

It started with the toxic waste. It was the waste the laboratory created and pumped out through the sewage areas. The waste was highly acidic, and could even burn through metal. She realized the potential of this waste, and used it as her first weapon. She would trap the workers in small chambers, tricking them into thinking she wanted to talk to them, and then open a trapdoor in the floor, throwing them into a vat of the waste. As they burned, they hurt because it felt like they were melting alive.

The second thing she found out about was the airborne toxins. When you inhale it, it causes cells in the brain to rapidly degenerate, causing permanent damage to the brain, and if exposed to the toxin for more than 40 seconds, it was certain death for any person. She flooded the computer labs where the employees worked with the toxin.

Then there came the issue of the cubes. She found them in an abandoned area of the testing facility. She used to talk to them, tell them secrets, and felt the need to tell everyone that if they heard voices from one of the cubes, to destroy it immediately. She didn’t want the secrets she told to them being revealed.

I continued to stay in the facility for the next 6–8 months. I lost track of time, being that there were no calendars, and she could lie to us about the date. It could have been 10 years, for all we know. The only thing I found salvation in was the other cores just like me. They were all teenagers, so I knew I wasn’t alone. We all ranted about how horrible she was. We all wanted her gone. But we knew if we tried to go against her alone, she would just kill us the same way she killed the employees. That was, until it happened.

It was when a new test subject awoke from her cryogenic sleeping. All the others had died when the facility was shut down, so we were surprised to see life from even one of them. I immediately went to go find her. When I found her, I tried to talk to her, but she couldn’t talk back. Damn it! This one is mute. But she is our only hope.So, we made our way to an old, run down area in the facility. “Now, go down there and go get the machinery that is being held there!” I waited for a couple minutes, then headed down to the area I figured she would come out from after doing what I told her to do. When we met back up, I told her to pick me up and take me down the hall. “Now, in order to get out of here, we are going to have to through HER chamber. Most likely, she will kill us. If you have any reservations about this, voice them now.” No reply. Let’s get going then. We went inside, powered up the circuit breaker, and disaster struck. “Power Up Initiated.” A voice said. She awoke. “Stop panicking, I can still stop this.” I assured her. “Power Up Complete.” Nevertheless, she spoke. “Oh, it’s you.” “You know her?!?” I exclaimed. “It’s been a long time.” she continued. “How have you been? I’ve been really busy being dead. You know, after you murdered me.”'“ You did what?!” I yelled. She continued. “Hello, Wheatley, its been awhile. Now why did you have to go wake up Chell?”