Material/700

The normal pain that came with activating my manifestation wasn't there. I didn't feel my arteries pull against each other, nor did I feel the gut-wrenching sensation in my body that usually happens. I wrapped my fingers around each other, exactly as Daiya taught me and-

"Split,"

Nothing.

"Split,"

She wouldn't come out. 

Why?

"It's a disappointment," the man named Franz had said, "...but not totally unwarranted. I imagine that the first time he saw you do whatever it is you were trying to do, was your first time. How many times have you done it since then?"

I didn't understand. The last time I called her, she came. I saw the tint of her eyes had changed. She looked at me differently and even whispered something in my ear. So, why? Why now of all times would this not work? Why can't I ever be dependable? 

"Are you done?" Franz looked at Daiya, who had tears streaming down her face with a snarl that I had never seen her wear before. "Let's go. Someone wants to see you before he dies. I owe him that much..." Franz continued to suspend her in the air and when he put her down, he bounded her with those same yellow bands, restraining her wrists and feet. The team of lab-coated scientists stood behind him without saying a word.

"Do you feel nothing?" Daiya asked, "Anything?" 

"Am I supposed to? I will admit that our methods were, how should I say, cruel. What's worse? Feeling pain to remind you of an existence or never realizing you were alive at all?"

He looked at me, then Experience III, and then released Daiya from his hands. "You," he pointed towards the boy, "...stay here. You two are coming with me."

Daiya fought in her restraints and kept trying to kick and hit Franz, but he dodged all of them until he finally patted her on the head, and she fell out and slumped over on the ground. I looked over at Experience III and it was the first time I didn't hear a single thought from him or the sensation. He had such a grim expression. The boy slinked towards the ground in his chains and looked over at Daiya. It felt wrong calling him that, Experience III, but what else should I call him? He was like me. Broken, nameless, and powerless to change the powers at play. In the end, I couldn't save her again. 

I thought I could change. 

"You know, you are interesting. I can see why he was interested in you. I trust that I don't need to restrain you, yes?" he looked at me from across the room, "Grab her and bring her along with us. Leave the boy. But as for you, follow me."

The scientists went to grab Daiya, and the boy tried to reach out to stop them but one of them kicked him away as he slid across the floor and held his side in pain. As I left the room, all I could see were his green eyes that stared at me from the ground as the steel door shut close.

(+-+)

When we left the room, I saw the white stair set we came from but when I looked around, I realized there was a hallway to my right this time. It was hard to know when things existed or not when you can make them appear how you want. I never could do that. All the kids reminded me of that growing up until one day they all changed and never spoke to me again. Hollow and empty, like their stares. 

Would it be worse to keep living through all this bitterness and shallowness that waded with in me, or to never know it existed and be more like them?

We walked down the hallway, and it got darker as we descended to the point where I could only hear the footsteps of all the scientists that loomed behind Franz and myself with nothing to see in front. 

"There are 7 aspects to what it means to be a human: 

The Internal 

The Physical

The Mental

The Emotional

The Social

The Material

The External

He said to me as his boots hit the ground, "A conclusion we came to after 700 years of Project Experience. Vex came up with it. He was the only one who actually talked to the subjects and thought to question the Director."

I looked behind to see Daiya still out cold on the backs of one the female looking scientists. Something bothered me seeing her so upset, so virulent. So lifeless on the backs of those lifeless scientists. And that she defended the boy even though he annoyed her. While I stood there, doing nothing. I couldn't even get my ability to work. She hardly spoke to me in the countless days we spent there, yet I caught her glancing from time to time. Rubbing her shoulders and even heard a thought from her, wondering how I was doing. I failed her and the boy. Yet again. It was hard to live with. I could only walk behind him for the time being, hoping to find a way out.

"I thought you said we would only leave if I showed you my body double?"

"You attempted. It didn't work, but I will see it eventually. My research necessitates it. I'm a reasonable man as I said. Plus, that is science. Testing, failing, testing. Sucess is not very interesting."

"Then what is the point?"

"Does there have to be? We will never know everything, but each test is a step towards knowing something. It's what the Director always told us," He paused, "The first time I met Vex, along with the others, Regal and Aylis, it was in a white room exactly as the one you were in. It had been days or however long, until I heard that steel door open and came in a man with a white suit. He said we were chosen due to our natural talent for light propensity and that he had a proposition for us. A 700-year-old project named Experience."

"What is Experience and what do I have to do with all of this? Why me?"

He ignored my question and continued, "We never said a word to each other the entire time we were in that room and my mind felt like a thick haze. My stomach started to hurt, and my brain felt like it could explode. I knew that I was alive previously, but only because I knew it. I had no memory of what I did. Or who I was. Sound familiar?"

All of those feelings, everything he described, I felt all of it. Every single day. But I remember. I know how it felt being bullied. I remember the first time seeing someone else fly while I stayed planted to the ground. I remembered, and it hurt to be so different.

"We did countless experiments on people. Pain resistance, hard labor, psychological torture, isolation," I could feel the heat radiate from his eyes as he said that. 

"In the end, we realized humans of 1000 years ago were too complex. Far beyond our comprehension. None of our research bore any fruit and obviously we couldn't let our subjects run amuck in the world. All until, we tried a new approach: What if we left the neuron in from the brain that controlled the memory and let a test group live as humans used to? With a memory and no light control? How would they react? Dr. Vex is truly a genius amongst geniuses." he sighed, "It's unfortunate."

"Why tell me all of this?"

 I think it was scarier to think that I was more like him than I wanted to admit. I couldn't wrestle that I could...relate to him. Or that man with the violet eyes. 

I will have to talk to Dr. Vex the next time I see him. I've been scared to ask him what he wanted with me. He's done so much for me; shown me things I never knew existed. I loved the neon train. I used to only hear it whisper from above my apartment.

I have so many things to ask him.

Franz stopped right in front of me. He drew a square with his finger and a government ID appeared out of thin air. He scanned his card to the side of the wall. It was dark so I couldn't see much but I saw him turn around briefly before we walked inside the door.

"Why? Because I owe him one," he said. "The gift of science is immeasurable,"

I couldn't believe it. 

As I walked inside the room, all I saw was Dr. Vex hanging in the air, chained from his hands to his feet, with his head slumped down leaning on his sternum. There was a gaping hole that carved out his stomach with his organs spread all across the floor and blood-stained puddle melted right beneath his limp body.

A woman peered through the crater in his body from the other side of it, smiling with a wide grin on her face. "Sorry, Franz. I think I may have overdone it."

***