Discovery

My alarm goes off. Exactly at 6 am like every other day. As if I forgot to wake up for work, I jump out of bed immediately, putting on whatever clothes in record time. Quickly brushing my teeth, I don’t even pay attention to doing it properly. My focus is just to get ready as quickly as possible and there is a specific reason why.

Yesterday, I took the last step towards completing another attempt at my project. I put the possibly dangerous compound in the centrifuge and left it there overnight. I even made sure to be the last worker leaving. So if the manager didn’t turn it off, I will have a stable, pure concentrate waiting for me in my sweet lab.

That’s why I’m so eagerly eating my breakfast right now. Scratch that, I’m gonna eat it on the go. I really, really need to get to that centrifuge. I sprint out of home, not even trying to fix the monster that is my wild, uncomable hair. Catching the bus and arriving at the company grounds. I can barely contain my excitement. The usual procedure awaits me, showing my ID at the entrance gate and letting security search my bag for anything that shouldn’t be there. But if anything shouldn’t be let into these tall, bleak buildings that reside on these grounds, it’s me.

While feeling the wind blow against me, my glasses close to falling off and my bag at the edge of flying away any minute, I arrive at my destination. It’s almost fully empty, since I got here way quicker than usual, but I couldn’t care less. If anything, being alone here only fuels my anticipation, as I won’t have to deal with coworkers engaging in social interaction with me.

Arriving at Analysing Lab 203, an uncommonly used lab due to its outdated equipment and distant location within the building, I burst open the door.

It’s quiet and dark. As I flip the lightswitch on, I feel as if the sun itself shined down on this piece of junk that withholds weeks, no, months of work. In this radiant, from an old, dusty lightbulb shining light, I can only stare at it, too afraid even to get closer. The thought of this being another failure along with my old tries weighs heavily upon me. But what makes my legs move is the certainty that even if it comes out as another mistake, I can learn from it, analyse it to my heart's contempt.

I open the pandora's box with care and anticipation to find my mixture, centrifuged and ready to go. I take one of the vials out. The concoction has taken on a hazy purple from an equally purple, but dark and messy residue that now sticks to the ground of the flask due to the clarification. With equal fascination and wariness I take the rest of the vials out.

Even though I can’t wait to test my concoction, I will have to wait until tomorrow. First comes all the usual safety procedures. Testing it on human stem cells, bacteria and per computer modelling, yada yada. Though, even if it bores me to go through these, each one makes me more hopeful. That is because none of the results have shown signs of toxicity, cell destruction, or anything like that. This wasn’t the first time that my project came out as safe, but it still surprised me. So much so that I was just confused when I waited for my bus in the pure winter darkness.

As I arrive home, I can’t help but stare at my suitcase. Opening it, my very own mixture, a single vial that I sneaked home past security from the yield, stares at me. Should I really test it on myself? I should test it on mice first, like with every other new drug made in the lab. But I can’t wait anymore. It’s like Aphrodite herself calling out to me. I can’t and don’t want to wait another day and watch mice.

I prepare a tiny piece of blotter paper, lightly dab a cotton swap into the mixture and lightly put it onto the paper. Nervously, I hold my finished drug in my hands. Sweat drips down my forehead as I overthink every possible outcome. But before I could finish stopping myself from this dumb idea, the blotter paper was already on the underside of my tongue.

Sitting myself down on my couch, my heart starts to race. Not from the drug, but from the thought that this could be the end of me, from dying in the dumbest way possible.