They are all around me, haunting and confusing me. The white coats keep me in blank rooms, which glow with remorse. I have given up resisting, I have given up hope. The medication I receive daily tastes like chalk, but it keeps me enough out of reality to not burst out with fiery rage of the injustices I am put through. They poke me with both fine and broad needles, though size does not matter, I am numb with fear. The food is atrocious, plastic textured meat with stale bread often softened by the sweat of the cook. This is my life, but for little more… I have a plan. The duct above my wiry cot is the last glimmer of hope in my demented life. It goes through to the lab where over worked scientists study victims just like me. Poking, prodding, and probing. My plan is to shimmy through the duct into the lab when the lights are out. From there I am going to duck into the rusted drainage grate they use to drain the harsh, searing chemicals that are tested on us, the subjects. The grate leads to a sewer pipe that opens to a main street in New York City, New York. In a matter of twenty-four more relentlessly painful hours, I could be free.

The hours pass as slow as mosquito bites heal, but now is the time for escape. I hurl myself up to the already loosened grate for previous work, catching the edge I haul myself up, I am in. I proceed to crawl through the musty, cavernous air duct and almost fall onto a scientist closing up the cages of specimens for the night. I freeze in place, restraining myself from crying out at the pain inflicted from the nail that is lodged into my palm. The scientist passes not detecting my fault; he finishes locking the last cage and with an air of almightiness around him, walks out the steel double doors. I delicately lower myself to the floor conscience of my brutally torn up hand. The ground is cold to my bare feet, like ice to a tongue. As I curiously walk through the trauma infected room I see some ruined lab rats. Children with scales and third eyes, adult’s male and female bare naked with sketchy looking wings protruding out their backs. All their eyes are glazed over with terror. I can’t stand it anymore, I hustle over to the grate and lift it off, its hinges are burnt away from the more destructive chemicals that are strained through it. Steadily I place it on the ground beside the multi-colored hole I created. I plunge into the darkness with a timid leap only to hit a mucky surface two feet down. I replace the grate and blindly trek into the retched dark abyss. The sewer line is a straight path but takes over an hour to crawl through; the mysterious muck was no help to my descent. Finally I reach my destination, a sewer plate marked, Main Street. I prepare myself for my exposure to the world. Pop the plate off and stick my head out, only to see two blaring head lights inches from my face. I lurch awake, toss a couple chalky pills and lay back to my wiry cot, and my reality.