This is being written for NaNoWriMo- National Novel Writing Month. 50,000 words in the month of November. Stressful. Fun. ...I seem to have an unhealthy addiction to genetic engineering.

Prologue

In the real world, people have names, not numbers. They wake up in the "morning" and watch the sun rise over the horizon, supposedly turning a few fluffy clouds pink and orange along the way. Or maybe that's the sunset. I don't know, and I might never see it for myself to set the record straight. I can't. Yet they even have their own rights.

And yeah, they're totally human. Most of them, at least. As opposed to mutant freaks eternally locked up in an underground facility, waking up whenever it's time to run tests on their screwed consciousness... every day until the end of their existence as the scientists see it. Guess which option I was forced to take?

My lack of knowledge in terms of the outside world is probably pathetic. In fact, I know it's pathetic. But compared to every other experiment here, I might have the upper hand. Me and Ebony, my only friend in the world. In our world, anyway. It's weird to say "the world" knowing that our lives are single grains of sand on the beach of Earth. The beach. It's another sight my eyes will probably never register.

I only know this stuff because of Erica, the only adult who's ever treated me like an equal living organism. She'd made me feel like I was human like her; she'd taken me out from under the metaphorical microscope hanging over my head all the time. That sensation of being watched as a biological anomaly was gone when she talked to me.

I knew her for a day. Not even... maybe just a matter of hours. But apparently it's a crime to let me know that there's other people out there who have individual freedoms. Maybe hope is a sin. I never saw her again.

And they were probably right, in a way. Because now I want to escape. Somehow, if even for a split second before I'm dragged back into this cycle of hopeless testing, staring, and experimentation, I will see the light of day and the warmth of the sun.