Charlie reached for the door handle slowly. Charlie was a nickname, of course. Charlotte, fully. She wasn’t afraid of a little androgyny. Her hand reached the knob, and began to turn it, when she heard a footstep, and froze.

She didn’t want to leave her room before her mother left for work; and it seemed that that time had not yet come. She removed her hand from the knob and walked toward the bed, to sit down for a moment or two before the front door creaks open and slams shut, and the car engine sounds fade into the distance. She looked around the room. Read more »

Chapter 1: Escape, Decision
Ever since I was a little child I had this dream that there was this place underground where aliens experimented on and tortured animals. This dream gave me nightmares. I love animals and seeing them suffer makes me suffer too.
When I was 4 years old, my parents, Rebecca and Mark, my two sisters Lisa and Sarah and I were driving home from a camping trip in the mountains. Suddenly our car slips on something invisible, does several cartwheels in the air, hits the rail on the right side, flies over to the other side of the street, gets hit by another car and lands upside down hitting the edge of the mountain. I fall into a coma and when I wake up I am at a children’s hospital and the doctors tell me that the left side of my brain was damaged in the accident which caused the right side of my body to malfunction. They also told me that my entire family was killed and that I was the only survivor of the car crash. My dad had divorced my mom and married another woman but no one knew where she was. My biological mom was in the car during the crash and she died.
From that day forward I became an orphanage servant, or should I say a slave. The director treated me with disrespect and the children hit and made fun of me and my disability while I was doing all their work. Boy, there was a lot of work. Each day I would start by cleaning the bathroom floors. The rest of the day was spent picking up after the children and cleaning each of their rooms, while also being hurt and slapped by them, and being yelled at by the director for not doing enough.
The only time I could take a rest was at midnight when I would climb into the cold attic. At first I would be freezing cold, but when I put my warm blanket over myself, my body would shine yellow, green and red light onto the ceiling. Yellow light meant that I could go to sleep. Green light meant that I was not that injured from the day, and red light meant that I was so injured that I was in danger. In those rare occasions I would prey all night to my imaginary animal, the black wolf, to heal me. In the morning all my injuries would be gone. During those nights, I would see a constant purple and gold light illuminating from my body. This meant that I was being healed.
Right now I am twenty years old and I still live under the same roof. I am still a house slave and have bruises all over my body from working too much. I can barely even scrub, it hurts so much. The director won’t even let me get another job and move out, and as the days go by the work becomes harder and harder and harder. You might ask how am I still alive and not suffering? I do suffer but from the loss of my family and because of my dreams of the animal experimentation, which I am having even now.
One night after an excruciatingly hard day as I am sleeping I have the same nightmare but this time it is calling me to find it. A dark blond haired man with a black suite and a purple stripe tie tells me that I will know when the time is right for me to run away and find this place. He also tells me that I cannot stay in the orphanage any longer. I am too weak and injured to go on living like this. If I go on I will die.
Suddenly I wake up from an alarm coming from the outside. I go out of my room, limping and see girls packing frantically and running in every direction. Still not really awake I walk into the chaos and then am trampled by girls running outside.
“Someone attacked our town.” The director helps me up. “We’ve got to get out of here and go underground where we will be safe.” She helps me pack and all of us run outside where we are met by a rain storm, lightning and a big crowd of people running in every direction. We step out into the pouring rain and try to stick together but in the chaos I lose the girls and the director and decide that this is my chance to find the center. As I run through the crowd my legs and feet hurt more and more. I run all over town until I see a flight of stairs going down, leading to a window which is lit up. I think there might be a little fire inside. I want to go down there and warm myself by the fire but when I take a step down I fall down the flight of stairs. I hit my head on the cement ground and become unconscious.
“Ma’am,” I wake up and hear a male voice address me as I feel my hands being handcuffed. “You are now our final subject.” Two guards pick me up and walk me into a dark tunnel which leads to a door that has a sign that reads, “Pino Rosso”. Another guard opens the door and I am escorted in.
“Back so soon?” A middle-aged man appears behind a newspaper.
“We have found her.”
“Good. She is exactly what we were looking for.” Pino picks up my head and looks into my eyes. His face seems familiar to me.
“Nice work guys.” One of the guards says to the other two and they hug each other.
“Anyway.” Pino takes a sigh and lets go of my face. “Do you know why you are here?”
“I had a dream tonight that I needed to find this place immediately. If I didn’t I would die. Then I woke up because there was an attack on our town and in all the chaos I got lost from my ‘family’ and decided it was the perfect time to find you.”
“Very good, very good. We attacked the town to find you. We knew that sooner or later you would find us in the chaos.” I look frightened. Before I can say anything in response Pino says, “Don’t worry, no one got hurt. When my men found you they made life for the town return to its usual. After a wild search for you the girls and the director of the orphanage decided that you have been killed. Now the entire town thinks that you are dead.”
“Am I really dead?” I say in a frightened voice and start sobbing.
“No, no. You are underground in the Sabrocola Center. You are safe here.” Pino holds my head against his chest. “We just had to do this because otherwise the center would be in danger from people looking for you.”
“Okay.” I say softly and wipe the tears off my face.
“Good. Now are you ready to fulfill your mission? Become the final victim of the century and be the subject of this entire center?”
“Yes, but why?” I am confused and scared.
“You have powers that are more powerful than any of us. We want to experiment on these powers. You won’t be hurt. We will make sure of that. You will have to stay here for a whole year though. Are you ready for that?” I think about it for a while and then agree, nodding my head.
“Good. Now Mike and Tom, take her to the servants’ sweet for some rest. She has a long night ahead of her tomorrow.” The guards walk back into Pino Rosso’s room. The other guards take me to the servants’ sweet. They take me through a maze with lots of twists and turns to the sweet. The path that we walk on is narrow, dark, cold and looks like a cave with no stairs.
“What is the servants’ sweet?” I ask curiously as we walk.
“The servants’ sweet is a room where all the female servants live. It is a place where they have their breaks. Before your nightmare tonight this used to be a prison run by aliens. They would keep their prisoners, humans as slaves, (servants). They also went out into the world, disguised as humans and take pets from people’s houses and animals from the wild to experiment on them. Starting tomorrow, this new center will be a replica of the old lab. The men will be like aliens. The ladies will be like the human prisoners and you will be like an animal.” One of the guards says, looking straight ahead. As we walk I turn over the strange information that I have just heard in my head. We reach a door and he opens it. I walk into a gorgeous room with a fancy bed and servants getting it ready for me. The servants wear different colored dresses with white aprons.
“Hello ladies,” He says, “this is our new subject.”
“Masha.” I introduce myself. One by one the servants come up to shake my hand.
“It is an honor to meet you Masha. We are delighted that you are going to stay with us for some time.” One of the servants says, shaking my hand.
“Okay ladies. Make sure she gets enough food and rest before 6 pm tomorrow evening.” One of the guards says, and he and his partner walk away closing the door behind them.
I go to the bedside and crash onto it without taking my wet clothing off. The servants take them off for me, walk me to the warm bathroom and dry me off. Then they take me back to the bed, lay me down and cover me with a soft cozy blanket. As soon as the blanket hits my body I fall into a deep and restful sleep which I have not had in years.