The Underground Experiment

Darkness encompassed Wren like a thick weighted blanket. It laid on her chest, squeezed at her arms and legs, and clung to each strand of hair. In truth, it didn’t bother her that much. What was truly unbearable was the silence. The silence was deafening. For a moment she thought herself dead, but she quickly threw away the thought.

Would a dead person have the kind of bodily awareness as she did now? She vaguely recalled something about the brain being the first organ to shut down when you died, followed by the muscles, or something like that. Then another thought occurred to her. If she had conscious thought, perhaps she was in a coma of some sort. Wren willed a toe to wiggle but none obeyed. She went on like this for who-knows-how-long, as there were no indicators to tell time in the void.

Just when she thought she really could be dead, she felt something brush against her neck. It was cold and wet, and smelled strongly of rubbing alcohol. There was a sharp pinch in the same spot followed by a bit of pressure. It was a bit uncomfortable at first, but as the pressure built it started to burn. She could feel it spreading throughout her body, flowing like venom in her veins, until finally it reached her heart and set fire to it.

She couldn’t scream, couldn’t cry, couldn’t do anything but lay there and burn.

* * *

Wren woke with a start and was met with blinding white light. She gasped, squeezing her eyes shut. Her heart hammered in her chest and she felt a high pitched ringing in her ears. She made no attempt to open her eyes for several minutes, but as her pulse steadied she slowly lifted one eyelid until it was fully open. She repeated the same process with her other eye, letting it adjust to her surroundings. Wren looked up and saw where the blinding light had come from; a large circular overhead fixture. It buzzed and flickered rapidly. When she peered down she saw that a sleek silver monitor was strapped to her right wrist. The matching sensor carefully wrapped around her middle finger.

She took a long glance around the room. Aside from the bed that she lay in and an aluminum chair placed in the corner, it was empty. The walls and floors were concrete and the door, which appeared to be made of metal, was painted dark blue. Her first guess was that she was in some type of hospital.

“But even prisons have doctors,” she thought darkly, but quickly shook the thought away. Wren carefully pulled herself up into a sitting position. She was surprised to find that she had strength in her arms. She swung her legs to the side of the bed and gently lifted herself up until she was standing. The coldness of the floor seeped through her wool socks. She took a tentative step forward. Pat. Another. Pat. And another. Pat. A smile slowly creeped onto her face. It appeared she had strength in her legs too.

After successfully walking to the door and back, Wren realized with despair that she had to relieve herself. She looked under the bed and sighed in relief when she found a stainless steel bed pan. She reached out to grab it, but as she leaned in she noticed a small silver ring sticking out from underneath the mattress. At first she thought it was a spring that had come loose, but upon closer inspection she saw that there was something attached to it.

Wren lay herself flat on the ground and inched her way closer. She pulled at the ring and after several attempts it came free. She was surprised to find that the silver ring was actually a connector to a heart shaped-locket. It had a plain silver chain but the pendant had intricate designs along its edge that resembled layered vines. Set in the middle of the ring was a brilliant topaz stone. It was one of the most beautiful things that Wren had ever seen, but she got the strangest feeling as she held it in her palm. Almost as if she had seen it already.

Before she could ponder this further, a light knock came from the door. Wren quickly sat back on the bed and tucked the locket under the mattress. She couldn’t explain it, but every nerve in her body seemed to be screaming.

“Come in,” she called out as calmly as she could muster.

The door swung open and revealed a tall thin man in a white lab coat. His skin was gray and sagging, and he had a large hooked nose where a pair of thick glasses sat perched.

“Ah, you’re awake! It’s good to finally see you with some color,” he said with a smirk. “How are you feeling?”

Wren’s skin crawled upon hearing his voice. It was extremely hoarse, almost as if his windpipe had been crushed.

“Where am I?” she blurted.

The man simply smiled. Even from far away, she could see that his teeth were the same color and texture of corn meal.

“You look positively famished. I’ll have someone bring you something to eat from the refectory.”

The man pulled out a tablet from his lab coat and made a few quick swipes. Within moments a young boy in a grey uniform brought in an aluminum tray and set it in front of Wren. A small metal bowl held a milky gray substance that matched the color of the man’s complexion. There was also a side of toast sliced into perfect triangles. Wren grabbed a single triangle and began to nibble on it.

“To answer your question,” the man began, “You are in the Ember Rehabilitation Facility. I am Dr. Thomas Wolfe. You’re lucky we found you when we did.”

“What happened to me?”

“My dear,” he began in a half-shocked, half-excited tone, “You practically ran up to The Surface.”

Wren stopped chewing.

“No,” she breathed.

“Oh, yes. You caused quite the scene.”

The top layer of Earth, which was now uninhabitable, was what many commonly referred to as The Surface. It had been many years since anyone was able to live up there, ever since the ozone layer had been destroyed. The increased radiation exposure brought an assault of plagues, sicknesses, and natural disasters. Those rich, powerful, or fortunate enough to leave the planet did. Everyone else left behind resorted to living underground near the center of the Earth, where it was still warm and crops could grow.

Wren shook her head in disbelief. Her? Climb up to The Surface?

“You aren’t the only one,” he answered as if reading her mind. “We’re still trying to understand more about it, but from what we’ve gathered we’ve learned that it is a psychotic state of mind, a form of madness. Those affected tend to experience extreme symptoms of claustrophobia. This facility tends to those individuals who suffer from it. So you needn’t worry yourself. You are in good hands.”

Before Wren could ask the first of many questions buzzing in her mind, Dr. Wolfe had made his way out of the room.

“An orderly will come for you in an hour to get you cleaned up,” he said over his shoulder and shut the door.

* * *

Wren sat on the bed for a long while, trying to think of why she would do something so reckless and stupid. But the harder she tried to remember, the less clear it was. It was almost like a thick layer of fog was cast over those memories. She did have one clue though.

Wren pulled out the heart-shaped locket tucked away under the mattress. The same wave of nostalgia hit her as she held it in her hands. She ran her finger along the edge and unclasped it. There were no pictures inside, only a small symbol engraved on the right and four numbers on the left:

5 1 9 2

The symbol was a small circle surrounded by eight dots. It looked like a tiny sun, but she didn’t have the faintest clue as to what it or the numbers could mean. As she pondered this, her door opened again. A woman dressed in white scrubs stepped in with a grey bathrobe in one hand and a metal bin with toiletries in the other.

“Bath time.”

* * *

Wren had been brought to a cave that was filled with natural hot springs. Stalagmites and stalactites grew along its perimeter and metal pots with fires had been spaced out in equal intervals across the room. She learned that the woman in the white scrubs was called Janet. Aside from her and Wren, there were two other patients and their orderlies.

One of the patients was a petite woman with long black hair and sunken eyes. She sat in a daze as the orderly, a stern looking blonde woman, scooped water in a wooden bowl and tipped it over her head. Wren looked over at Janet who sat on a wooden chair with a half-bored expression on her face. When she looked back, the dark-haired woman was staring back at her. Her eyes seemed to bulge from out of her head as she raised her right arm and pointed at Wren.

“Sun,” she croaked out. “Sun. Blood. Sun. Blood.”

The woman became increasingly frantic as she repeated the words over and over, until finally she was screaming at the top of her lungs. Two male orderlies came running in as the blonde woman tried to calm her down. After a brief struggle, they successfully carried her away. Wren could hear the echo of the dark-haired woman’s screams as they left.

“She makes bat-shit crazy folk seem normal,” commented Janet.

* * *

Back in the room, Wren replayed in her mind the scene from the hot springs. What had the woman been shouting? Something about blood and sun. It was a strange combination to be sure. Eerie even.

For some reason too, it seemed like the woman knew about the sun symbol that was engraved in the heart-shaped locked. But how could she know? Wren had only discovered the locket herself today.

She grabbed the locket from its hiding place under the mattress and opened it. This was the key to her memories. She could feel it. She repeated the words the woman had said, only a whisper at first but growing more forcefully the longer she said it. Without thinking, she found herself raising her thumb to her mouth and bit down. A single drop of blood bloomed at the tip. She let it fall onto the locket and to her shock a hologram of herself appeared before her.

“My name is Wren Renata,” it began. “I am twenty years old and I am one of fifty test subjects part of an experiment here at Ember. Wren, if you’re watching this, know that you are not safe here.”

A loud sound made the hologram Wren panicked.

“I don’t have much time,” she croaked desperately.

Wren could feel her own muscles tensing.

“Discover the truth. However long it takes. No matter how many tries it takes.”

And with that the hologram glitched and disappeared. Wren sat frozen in place, color slowly draining from her face as she realized in horror that this wasn’t the first time she had woken up here. Memories flashed before her eyes; a cloud of smoke and ash filling her lungs, black water rising around her, the ache of frozen fingers and toes. All ending in darkness followed by a sharp pinch and burning sensation that spread throughout her body. It flowed like venom in her veins, until finally it reached her heart and set fire to it.

She couldn’t scream, couldn’t cry, couldn’t do anything but lay there and burn forever.