The Experiment by Cassidy Shay (top non fiction books of all time TXT) 📕

sit there for a minute, shocked. Are they really that desperate? And if they are, why don’t they get some other Azuli to draw out plans for them? Reading my unspoken thoughts, he says, “The others can’t know of a revolution. It would give them hope.”
I think about his family. They I think of my loved ones who have been taken from me. My parents. Macy. Jack, who’s not dead, but still inaccessible. Collin. Losing them was painful, but also necessary for the revolution.
“I’m sorry about your family,” I say. “But I can’t endanger the lives of millions to save less than a dozen. They shouldn’t have brought your family into this. But there’s nothing I can do.”
I use the table to pull myself up off the ground. I stumble across the room, and lean against the wall on my way back to the room. I don’t waste my energy to go get Belle. Julie will bring her up when it’s time, then clean my wounds as she usually does. I don’t turn the light on as I go into my room, but crumple to the floor a few feet away from the door.
I wake up on my bed, and I hear Mathew talking to someone. “... to stop. She can’t physically handle this anymore. And mentally? She hardly talks to me anymore. It’s not like it was after the miscarriage, but she has no energy for anything other than small talk. Her body is working double time to make enough blood for her to survive the next day. And have you seen the gashes? They haven’t had a chance to heal, and the flash is burned. They’re killing her!” I move to the doorway so I can hear better. When Belle turned five, they decided to add a bedroom for Mathew and I, so we have more privacy.
Mathew sits at the table with Julie. “I know, Mathew. I know. I don’t like it either. I’m scared for her. There’s no way that she’ll be able to make it very much longer. They don’t even treat her as a human. It’s as if she’s a beast that needs to be contained.”
“I’m fine,” I say firmly. They look over at me, surprised to see me awake. I move towards them and pull out a chair. “Today was just bad because the Warden came to visit.”
Mathew is shaking, his anger visible in his eyes, his clenched fists, everything. I look to Belle’s bed, where she and Aron are playing. “Belle and Aron,” I say. Their heads turn to look at me. “Go into my room and play.” Without a word of protest they gather their toys and go into the bedroom. I wait for the door to click shut before I turn my attention back to Mathew and Julie.
“I can’t believe he has the nerve to go talk to you when you’re that weak. What does he think that will gain him? The pleasure of seeing you slowly be cooked?”
I shake my head slowly. “They have his family, Mathew. They won’t release them until he gets information from me.” I blink a long blink. “It doesn’t make what he’s doing right. But he’s in pain too.”
It’s silent for a minute. Finally, Julie speaks. “This is a war. People die, relatives are taken captive. Why would he think that his family would be spared?”
Chapter 21

The next day, there is no torture. In an odd way, it makes me even more tired. When I get to the dinner table that night, Mathew asked me what was wrong.
“This morning, I wasn’t shocked. I wasn’t stabbed. I wasn’t anything. I drew, waited until the door unlocked, and then I walked out. And that was it.” His face radiated happiness.
“That’s great! The torture’s over now! No more collapsing in pain!”
I just shake my head. “For now. But what if it’s just the eye of the storm? I just have a feeling that in a while, they’ll come up with something that’s much worse. They’ll do anything that they can to get this from me, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to prepare for that.”
His expression changes to one that I’ve learned to know. It is anger, concentrated into a moment so small that it scares me, but it passes quickly. I always wonder what would happen if he lost control in that small moment. Would I be safe? Would Belle?

I start to clear the table, but he stops me. “You need to rest up. When they start again, if you’re as weak and fragile and exhausted as you are now, it could kill you the first day that they start again. I won’t let that happen.
I start to argue, but then decide that he’s right. I go into the bedroom and climb into the bed, but it takes me a long time before I’m able to fall asleep. I keep thinking about my future.
Will being shocked so often affect my ability to have other children?

I remember, years ago, sitting at lunch and telling Mary that I’m terrible with kids. It’s different, though, with your own child. Your instinct takes over, and you know what to do. And in having Belle, I discovered that I want kids. When I’m dying, I want to be surrounded by the kids that I love.
But I know that certain things can prevent pregnancy. Is electrocution one of those things?
Over the next few months, I don’t have any problems. No one tortures me, and the Warden stays away. Finally, I let down my guard. I walk into the DarkRoom relaxed, unafraid of what the walls contain. Every day, I am calm and collected, no worries about being tortured.
And then it is Belle’s birthday. She’s turning seven, and she’s turning into a beautiful girl. She doesn’t talk very much, though. When she’s with Aron, she plays her games mostly in silence. When she talks at the dinner table, it’s in short sentences. For the most part, she observes everything that goes on around her.
And I can’t believe that it’s been seven years since she was born. It makes me feel old, even though I know I still have many, many years ahead of me.
But today isn’t about me. It’s about Belle. We are going to have a party for her tonight, with our close friends. Since it’s later on, I didn’t ask them to give me the day off. I figured that two hours in the morning won’t do me any harm.
I get to the DarkRoom and sit in the chair. Today, instead of drawing something rebellious, I decide to draw a birthday party. Maybe it’ll give someone a smile, somewhere. The world needs more of those.
After I draw the Memory, I wait for the door to unlock. I am sitting in the chair, dozing off when it begins.
It starts in my feet. It’s a burning sensation, as if my skin is on fire. I try to lift my feet off the ground, but I can’t move. The hear spreads, climbing my legs until it reaches my knees. It stays there for a moment, and the heat intensifies.
When it starts to expand to the rest of my body, it’s as if the pressure had been building. It shoots up my thighs to my waist, and stops again.
I still can’t move at all, and I’m scared. It goes up to my shoulders, and then slowly climbs up my neck, where it stops. For what feels like a hundred eternities, the heat stays, consuming my body in an invisible flame.
When I feel like I’m about to pass out from the pain, my body is thrown into shock. Now, instead of the intense heat, a freezing chill covers my skin. It’s like diving head-first into a freezing lake after soaking in a boiling tub of water. Times 17,000.
After the ice, my body has time to return to normal temperature. During that time, I’m still unable to move. I’m not sure why, but I can’t wait for it to stop.
When my body temperature is normal again, I feel something in my stomach. It seems to be moving. It’s light, and it tickles my insides. It follows my blood down my legs and up my torso, into my arms and to the ends of my fingers.
It’s a tickle that hurts, the kind that robs you of your breath. Then, when it recedes to my stomach, it is no longer something that tickles, but instead it is covered in sharp spikes that shred the insides of my veins, creating holes and rips for the blood to escape. As my blood drains from my veins, I feel myself go weak.
It’s tortures like this that I must endure for almost two hours. And through it all, I can’t move a muscle.
Finally, I hear the door unlock, and I can move. I don’t however, have the strength to move across that room. But I know that that’s not what they want me to do anyway, even if I did have the strength. I know that soon, someone will be standing in front of me with a smile on his face.
I’m right. But I wasn’t expecting this man. I see his scars first, and then the medals on his uniform. “Meagan. How are you?” I don’t answer him. I think about the things Collin and Mathew have told me about this man. “I see that our new technology has worked perfectly. You felt the fire first, right?” I don’t nod or say anything, but he must see it in my eyes as I remember the torture. “Excellent. And you were unable to move, correct?” Again, my eyes betray my answer.
He claps his hands together. “Amazing. Simply amazing. You see, we were testing a new device that will cause pain, but that leaves no physical evidence. If you check your body, on the inside or the outside, I guarantee that you will find no damage except for exhaustion.”
He pulls a chair from the shadows and sits in it. He leans forward, and I see the excitement in his eyes. “Pain,” he begins, “is all in the head. Your body can not feel pain if the brain doesn’t register it. The brain is the control center, and it will not allow certain things to be done. If it doesn’t want you to feel pain, you will not feel pain.
“This won’t stop your body from being damaged. Your body just won’t feel it. Not right away, at least. But my scientists figured that if your brain can make sure that you don’t feel something that is there, it can also make you feel something isn’t there.”
He smiles and leans back. “That, my girl, is where you come in. After you drew your pretty little picture, there was a pulse. You didn’t hear it, because humans can’t hear that frequency. But it did affect you.