The first experiment started at 6:00 AM.
I knew because I'd been counting every minute in that fucking fluorescent glare. The lights never went out. They just buzzed, drilling into my skull like they wanted to hollow me out before the doctors even started.
Guards slammed the door open. Black armor, blank visors. "Group Seven. Medical wing. Now."
Some kids cried. Others froze. The big boy from the bunk across from mine clenched his fists and marched forward like he could still fight. I stood up and followed. No point screaming yet.
White halls. Left, right, forty-seven steps, down the ramp. The air turned colder, heavier. Then the smell hit me—metal, piss, old blood, and that sweet rot underneath. Like the dog Helena tried to save after the car hit it. I watched it die on the table. Eyes wide, then empty. Same stink here.
The room was long and ugly. Metal tables with thick straps. Stains that wouldn't scrub out. Machines humming, needles glinting. Dr. Marlow waited in her spotless white coat, tablet in hand, face like a mask.
They strapped me down. Cold metal against my spine. Wrists, ankles, chest. Tight enough that breathing felt like a privilege. I tested the give once. Half an inch on the left wrist. Nothing on the right. Good to know.
Around me, the others lost it. Screaming, thrashing, begging. Rachel three tables over just stared at nothing, mouth open, already gone.
Marlow walked between us with her syringe. "Neural activator. Pain receptors up four hundred percent. Temporary."
She started with the little girl. The scream that came out of her wasn't human. It cracked something in the rest of them. Then Marlow stood over me.
"Riley Voss. File says high pain tolerance." She slid the needle into my neck. "Let's test that."
Cold spread through my veins. Then the world sharpened. Every thread in the straps, every ridge on the table, every beat of my heart like a hammer against bone. The lights burned my eyes.
They started the electricity low. Tingles. Buzzes. Then higher. My back arched so hard I thought my spine would snap. Pain clawed through my marrow. I bit through my cheek and tasted blood but I didn't scream. Not once.
"Interesting," the tech muttered. "Continuing."
Next came the chemical. Heat in my chest, then ice. My body decided it was dying—heart slamming, lungs locked, every muscle shaking like I was being electrocuted from the inside. Terror flooded me even though my brain knew it was fake. I wanted to vomit. I wanted to beg.
I didn't. I held onto one cold thought in the middle of the storm: *This isn't real.* The wave broke. I lay there soaked in sweat, shaking, but still me.
Marlow watched like I was a new bug under glass.
The last part was the pictures in the dark room. Dead woman. Gutted kid. Bodies piled like trash. I felt nothing. Just flat, gray nothing.
Then the Stalker images. Twisted things that used to be girls. Stretched skin, black eyes, mouths too wide. Something twisted in my chest. Not fear. Not pity.
Recognition.
They dragged me back to the dorm at 9 PM. Fifteen hours. My body was raw meat—bruises, needle tracks, burns from the pads. I couldn't walk straight. Rachel shuffled past me like a ghost with dead eyes.
I climbed into my bunk. Everything hurt. Everything.
The scarred girl across from me—Sasha—watched me in the endless light. "You didn't scream," she rasped. "Everyone else did."
I looked at her. "What's your name?"
"Sasha."
I nodded once and stared back at the ceiling. The crying and whimpering around us never really stopped.
They were breaking us. Grinding us down into something smaller, meaner, emptier. Maybe they'd win eventually. Most of these kids already had.
But not today.
I closed my eyes and let the cold thing inside me keep watch. It didn't feel like strength. It didn't feel like anything good.
It just felt like survival.