Subject 48.

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 Fluorescent purgatory. That's what I called it. The I in this story being me, Subject 47. Never really had the chance to become a ‘me’. The sterile white walls, the rhythmic hum of ventilation, the constant, cloying smell of disinfectant - it had been my entire life. Memories, if you could call them that, were fragmented, like a dropped snow globe, the figures within blurred and shapeless.


Subject 47. A fittingly clinical moniker for a creature born not of a mother's womb, but of sterile petri dishes and lab reports. I am, apparently, unethical. I never worked out whether that was my personality or my existence. My existence, such as it is, revolves around tests. Prodding, poking, endless blood draws, the sting of needles, when my body demanded a rest from the endless, both arm canulas, is as constant companion, as commonplace as summer midges up a highlander’s kilt. Not that I’d ever seen a midge. Or a kilt. Or a highlander come to that. Sometimes, there are others like me, I presume at least another 46, shuffling figures with vacant eyes, united only by the shared indignity of our captive existence. I’ve only just realised it's a captive existence. And I’ve only just discovered what indignity is. I thought it was normal, this life. I’m thoroughly indignant to discover my life-long indignity.


One day, a new face appeared behind the glass observation window. Younger, she seemed, with a spark of something in her eyes I hadn't seen in the others. Dr. Evans, the head researcher, aka Dad, addressed her, his voice clipped: "This is Subject 47. Observe, but do not engage."


She ignored him. I don't think Dr Evans liked her very much. She stepped closer to the glass, her gaze locking with mine. It was a look of… empathy? An impossible notion, and hard to be sure when I’d never seen empathy before, yet there it was, flickering in the sterile fluorescent light. There are, apparently, at least 70 words in the English language that end in 'pathy' and most of them are medical terms. She told me that in one of our sessions. She told me lots of things that I never knew. My favourite is dispathy. I have a dispathy to Dr Evans.


Days turned into weeks. The woman, Dr. Sharma, continued to visit, her visits became the main event in the monotony of my existence. On those few days when she couldn’t be there I felt bereft, adrift, lost. Bereft is another word she taught me. I like the feel of saying it, although I don't like the feeling of it. Funny that.


And then one Tuesday, she arrived, her face etched with urgency. "Listen," she whispered, her voice barely audible through the thick glass. "There's a plan. We can get you out."


“Out,’ I thought, ‘where’s out?’ Nevertheless, what she had said implied that I would be going with her, so I was all in favour.


Hope, a foreign sensation, flared briefly in my chest. But as quickly as it ignited, it was extinguished. Dr. Evans appeared behind her, his face contorted in fury. He grabbed Dr. Sharma, his voice a low growl. "You've jeopardised everything, you stupid bloody woman."


There was a struggle. A syrynge. Dr. Sharma went limp in his grasp. My scream, a guttural roar of rage and frustration, echoed through the sterile walls and died unanswered. Frustration is another new word. I feel it a lot now. I don't like the word or the feeling.


The next day, they brought in a new subject. Younger, smaller, blank-eyed.


"Subject 48," Evans announced with a cold smile. "Welcome to the experiment."


And the fluorescent purgatory continued. A flicker of hope extinguished. Another day in my manufactured life. But at least she's here with me.


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