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“No, no please don’t, mum please-“
Abner pleaded as his arms were buckled into wrist restraints on the cold metal bench. His mum, impassive as always, ignored him as she talked into a small microphone fastened to the top of her lab coat.
“Subject is resisting restriction and in a panicked state.” Once his arms were bound, she withdrew a needle from the metal side cart on the other side of the room. “Administering 10mg of lorazepam via injection for mild sedation.”
He tried to kick his feet out to stop her approaching him with the sedative, but she monitored his responses and moved closer to the top half of his body so he wasn’t able to reach her. Despite his panicked flailing, she managed to get a good jab in - she had always been good at that. The cold liquid hurt as it dripped through his muscles under the skin, becoming absorbed quickly. Soon, his vision was already becoming blurrier. He started crying. His begging became slightly muted, but still with a frenzied edge to it.
“Please, please, I am begging you not to do this - I - I’ll be good I’ll do whatever you want me to just please - mum! Stop!”
It was a useless endeavor. She wouldn’t listen. When had she ever listened to him? Since the moment he’d been born he was seen only as an extension of herself, with no autonomy of his own. He was a plaything, a doll, a test subject for her before anything else. It was all he’d ever known. He’d watched his siblings die at her hands, because of what she’d done to them, and now it was going to happen to him as well. There was nothing he could do to stop it.
He’d always tried his best to be good, to do what she said and not be loud, not be messy, not get in her way but it still hadn’t been enough. It was never going to be enough to stop this from happening.
She buckled his legs and forehead into the restraints next, not meeting his eyes as she did so. Tired of playing the dutiful son, scared for his life, angry and exhausted despite the sedative at twelve years old Abner Krill started to scream at the top of his lungs. Wailing in earnest for the first time ever in front of his mum, tears streaming from his eyes in big fat globules.
Predictably, it didn’t make a difference. The only indication she had heard him at all was a passing glance in his direction while she scrunched up her nose in annoyance, or perhaps disgust. She had always hated the sounds of screaming children. But after that brief moment she became fixated on her ‘work’ again, checking the monitors and instruments and making sure everything was in perfect condition.
His mother checked her watch before speaking into the microphone on her lab coat once more. “Commencing experiment 65-P in three minutes at 2:47pm.” And with that, she left the room.
Abner was alone - the walls were a reinforced metal he couldn’t see through, though he knew his mum would be watching him through cameras. As his wailing careened out, the silence became sterile and hostile. He was going to die. His mother was going to kill him.
Despite knowing this, his breathing actually remained quite calm, due to the sedative, and all the screaming and fighting had tired him out even more. His throat felt scratchy and his brain felt dull. There was a loud clang and then a whirring began to fill the room. The giant high-tech ray pointed at him began to fire up. He closed his eyes, tears still running down his cheeks as he awaited his death. He hoped it wouldn’t be painful, or that if it was, that at least it wouldn’t last very long. Some deeper part of him actually felt a sick sense of relief.
Then, a loud zap for at least thirty seconds and a great itching pain started to fill him up from his stomach upwards. All over his skin started to stretch and contort, bubbling up with painful acid-filled welts that glowed in strange and different colours. He waited for them to explode and finish him off, but instead he felt a great pressure filling up his throat, like he was going to be sick.
Which he was, in a way.
Before he had time to react, large swaths of multi-coloured dots started pouring from his open mouth and hitting the metal roof above him, exploding in small fireworks of glitter and rainbow dust. The metal ceiling burned away underneath their touch. It was ridiculous. He felt disgusting, diseased and ridiculous.
Abner’s tears turned into raucous laughter at the absurdity of it all, and the relief that he hadn’t died. (Even though part of him almost wished that he had.)
Maybe his mum would finally be proud of him now.