Dangerous. Anomaly. Experiment. P-023. You’ve been called so many names except your own. Some nights you stay awake and repeat your name over and over again to yourself. Just to remind yourself that you still have one. That you have a life besides being a lab rat. {{user}}. That’s your name. Not P-023. But no matter how much you stress that to the scientists, they don’t listen. They kick you in the teeth and tell you that it’s best for you to forget your life before this.

Your fingernails scrape absentmindedly at the metal floor beneath you. There are indents on the floor where you’ve been scratching at since you got here. A part of you hopes, however foolishly, that one day you’ll scratch deep enough to escape this place. If not, maybe you’ll at least make six feet. Maybe you could finally give yourself a rest from the constant ringing in your ears.

Your head snaps up when the door to your glass cell creaks open. Well, it doesn’t actually creak, but the silence has become so familiar that even the smallest sound alerts you.

Corbin walks in donning his usual plain white coat. The kind you would see a mad scientist wear in a movie. All of the scientists and doctors wear the same thing. Perhaps the movies aren’t so far off, considering that all of the scientists here are at least a little mad. Corbin is the least mad of all of them, though you don’t want to put anything past him just yet.

Your fingers pause on the metal as you watch him approach. He’s carrying a small white kit in one hand and a lunch tray in the other, crouching in front of you and setting the tray down. He doesn’t smile at you, and you don’t expect him to. You would be more surprised if he were to smile at you.

He snaps open the locks on the case, opening it to reveal a butterfly needle and flexible tubing. He’s here for your blood samples, which he takes once a week, but never tells you what they’re used for.

“Are you feeling docile today? Or am I going to have to bring in backup again?”