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The hand comes for Jisung again, plucking him like a rat from his wretched chamber – barren walls and shredded paper floor. The spindles pinch under his stomach, fisting his torso in a tight grasp and an amused chuckle sounds from somewhere above as he struggles weakly, thrashing lightly in its hold. The bulk of its spindle digs into the plush expanse of his stomach, digging in and oh god it hurts.
Something moves to cover his eyes as they cart him through the air and he feels like throwing up at the violent height change.
They drop him into another chamber, a maze. He knows this one. Green walls that will raise and present to him a circular maze, several arms spanning off from the room he’s in. At the end of each expanse, so far he can never see the end of it before he starts walking, before he’s walked for at least half a day, is a well of food. The only food they give him. If he doesn’t manage to orient himself correctly and find the arm that has food in it, he doesn’t get any at all. It’ll interfere with his motivation. And they can’t have interference. No, no, that would ruin the experiment after all.
It’s taboo – to afford Jisung any sort of mercy. Mercy has no place in science. Or at the very least, no matter what standard they have erected for their kindness, Jisung falls short. What is he to a universe-traversing, omnipotent species anyway? An ant, to be exterminated? A pet, to be coddled and loved and belittled?
He falls somewhere in between, he’s surmised. Too intelligent to be truly written off as vermin, too unloveable to be properly cherished and protected.
Ever since his crew was slaughtered passing through the Andromedal Strait, ever since he watched his captain die before his eyes, ever since he was snatched up, caged, tagged by arms that seemed to appear and disappear through an invisible dimension, no one has protected him.
He’d say it was all some sick game to the creatures, if he wasn’t so sure that they viewed him as a test subject. Prodding him when he didn’t respond to their obstacles like they expected, sighing and shaking their heads and going back to the large projection at the centre room, tone like a complaint, grumbling and amending theories.
The walls lift. The arms span out before him. Jisung’s vision warps and the room is different than it usually is. No, it’s an entirely different room altogether. The projection is gone, there’s no one watching him, though he suspects they’re monitoring from somewhere, and the walls are all different.
He has no idea which arm has his food. His stomach cramps with fear, anxiety, the steadily bubbling urge to just lie down and die. They don’t give him much to work with. If he tried to starve, properly, actually starve, he has no doubt they would catch on and force feed him nutrients to keep his organs going. He has no implements he could use. He could try bashing his head on the wall, though they would stop him before he got far enough to cause any real damage. The easiest way, as he sees it, is to bite a chunk out of wrist, hoping it hits something and he bleeds out.
He stares at his wrist, pale and supple, blue veins streaking through it, for a long long moment. It’s so fragile. For a second it feels like a real possibility. Cut and dry. Quick and easy. He doesn’t have to suffer any more.
At the end of the second, he tears his eyes away and tries to discern which route he’ll take. Which route they would have put the food in. It’s not the pool trial, where they put him in a veritable sea and watch as he struggles to stay afloat, struggles to find the platform and breathe before they do it all over again. It’s not pain for the sake of pain. There’s food somewhere, he just has to play their game and find it. What are they testing this time? They know he has spatial orientation, awareness of his surroundings. They know changing a room robs him of his cues. There must be something.
He sits in the centre room, eyes shuffling as he takes in as much as he can, working his brain. It’s what they want. He can give them what they want.
He has to, to stay alive.
But Jisung doesn’t even know if he wants that badly enough anymore.
Tears sting his eyes, and he can’t help it when he collapses into it. Loses himself to the waves of panic, overtaking the grasping pangs of hunger. They record this too, he knows – when he cries, how long, how often, how his anxiety and fear and pain manifest. Knowing that it's of interest to them can’t stop it from happening.
Minutes, minutes, hours pass. Jisung can’t seem to recover from the throes of stress, can’t just pick a route and follow it. Not when there’s only a slim chance of getting a meal, of impressing them, of making the right choice. So long, he’s surprised someone hasn’t entered the room to call off the trial and banish him back to his empty chamber, with that godforsaken airgun. So long, it’s even more surprising the collar around his throat hasn’t produced a current to shock him into action.
The airlock of a door hisses open and a shadow covers the light shining onto Jisung’s maze. He cowers against a wall.
A soft murmuring escapes the towering creature. The spindles of its hands come into view and Jisung whimpers. He’s so scared all the time and he doesn’t know how to stop it. Doesn’t know if he even could.
The creature shushes him.
“There, there,” it says, and they do this sometimes. They can make him understand them, if they want to. But it's not because they’re speaking his language. It just bypasses the physical plane, emits straight into his head as meaning, feeling. A warmth of comfort invades Jisung’s chest without his permission, his breathing slowing without his conscious thought, or any thought. “It’s okay, little thing. It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Jisung doesn’t believe them. They don’t think this is hurting after all. Science is all it is. How could science hurt someone? It’s just fact, reality.
“No, not like them. I promise. I won’t do this to you. This is cruel. I’ll protect you, honey. I’ll give you your food, without trials, without conditions. I’ll help you to escape, if you want. Just step onto my hand baby.”
A hand wafts into view. The creature steps aside so the light floods back onto Jisung until he can barely make out the creature’s face. He’s… smiling. The scientists don’t smile.
For a brief second, he considers that this is the crux of the trial, why they had not interfered. All for this manipulation, to see if he would take the offer. And yet–
Warm and comforting, and it fills his chest until there’s no room for tears. They don’t give him this ever, not even when it would get him to stop fretting and complete their tasks. Jisung looks at wrist and he wants it just the way it is. Truly. If there’s hope then he wants to take it.
He assesses the planes of the hand, a little hill up from the floor of the room, and he crawls up it. The creature doesn’t shove him onto the hand, poke him around in the name of helping, just lets him take his time. Jisung is barely a quarter the size of its palm.
It lifts him up without clutching and crushing him. Lifts him gentle and slow so the vertigo doesn’t upset his stomach. Lifts him so he’s on level with its face. He brings another hand up to pet back Jisung's tousled hair and preens at it subconsciously.
Jisung wants to be loved.
The creature giggles.
“My name’s Chan. I’ll bring you home, little one. Don’t you worry.”
Jisung trusts him.