Chapter 2: Experiment

“What's his real name?”

“He's definitely doing it just to make people curious.”

Yeah. That's what most of the class is thinking.

But I didn't choose my name. It was given to me.

It's a long story, but no one knows my real name except me.

Another ordinary school day came to an end.

I still hadn't managed to talk to Buse.

Before leaving school, I was standing in the courtyard when a ball rolled up to my feet.

“Bro, toss the ball over!”

The same guys who play ball out here every day after school. Harmless enough.

I picked up the ball and was about to throw it when something happened.

It was as if every sound around me suddenly disappeared.

And then I saw it.

Inside the boy's head.

A door.

A closed door.

I threw the ball back to him.

A slight pain pulsed through my head. Barely anything, but it was real. It felt as if my brain had tensed up for a moment.

“What the hell was that?”

---

YEARS AGO

Illumina was eight years old.

At least, that's what he'd been told.

It was difficult to tell how much time had passed inside that room. The walls were white, the lights were too bright, and the adults were too quiet.

A metal table.

A cold room.

People standing over him.

Masks. Gloves. Whispers.

A woman's voice spoke.

“The subject is stable.”

A man responded.

“Keep the anesthesia to a minimum.”

“That's dangerous. We need to measure his reflexes.”

Illumina wasn't afraid.

A child's mind has a strange quality to it.

It doesn't fear what it doesn't understand.

One of the men spoke.

“Prefrontal activity is increasing.”

Another voice followed.

“Synaptic connections are accelerating.”

The woman spoke again.

“This isn't normal.”

The man replied:

“This is exactly what we wanted.”

Illumina's eyes widened.

An image.

Someone else's image.

A white room.

A table.

A pen in a man's hand.

A child's red bicycle...

Then it vanished.

One of the doctors spoke sharply.

“The EEG is fluctuating.”

“Cut the connection!”

“No. Wait.”

A few seconds later, the monitors began returning to normal.

The woman let out a breath.

“What was that?”

The man stared at the readings.

“A door.”

The reports from that experiment never made it into any official records.

The laboratory was shut down that same night.

And Illumina was left at an orphanage to live like an ordinary child.

At least, that's what everyone thought.

But the experiment had changed something.

His brain.

His nervous system.

His reflexes.

And his sleep.