I wake up with a pounding headache. I sit up and the room is spinning. I lie back down and wait a few seconds until the spinning stops. I realize that I am still in the room where I first fell asleep. Looking around I only see Larissa standing in the room. She's beside the door, guarding it and waiting for me to wake up. She notices that I am awake. Coming over to the chair, she takes my arm and yanks me to my feet. A sharp pain runs through my head as we walk quickly to the elevator through the rows of level 9s. 

"H-how long was I asleep for?" I slur my words. I don't know what had happened in that room. It terrifies me that my head was probably opened up and potentially experimented on. 

"A little more then a day" Larissa replies. I am surprised by this. I feel as though I haven't slept for days. Her eyes are trained ahead and she doesn't look at me. "No more questions".

I try to nod but the pain in my head is too intense. Instead I  look ahead of me like Larissa is. We get to floor five, my floor.

"Do whatever you want, but stay in your room. Mr. Crew will come talk to you later" Larissa says. Though my mind is racing with questions, I just agree with a meagre "ok". As the elevator doors close and conceal Larissa from my view, I head to my bathroom. Taking a look in the mirror I gasp. The hair at the front of my head is shaved. The hair that hasn't been shaved is messy and grimy. My forehead has a long, red line stitched across it. A large bump is under the stitch.  My eyes become moist but I resist the urge to cry. I've never cared about how I looked before, but now, when I looked like I've been in involuntarily hell, I know that more of this is going to come.

I breath heavily, trying not to cry, and strip my clothes. I go into the shower and turn the water on hot. The water rains onto my skin. It soothes my head a bit but not enough to stop me from squinting at everything, trying to ease the pain. I finish my shower, throw on a shirt and crawl into my bed. I close my eyes and drift into sleep.

                                                                                                -=+=-

A quiet ding wakes me up. My eyes flutter open and I see Conrad Crew at the foot of my bed. 

"Good morning Ms. McCray!", he greets me in a cheery voice. I must have slept through the night after my shower. I hope that all my questions will now be answered.

"What did you do to me Conrad?" I grunt.

"What do you mean?" Conrad chirps and acts utterly clueless. I grit my teeth.

"You know what  I mean"

"Oh! you mean the experiment" Conrad pretends to clue in. 

"All we did was implant a little chip into your brain to track your knowledge and data", he tells me simply. "It's something new the 9s and I are trying. Only you and Camden have them. Natasha, Thomas and I are just too old for them."

I take a deep breath in and stare menacingly at Conrad. I try to resist the urge to jump at him and start attacking. Conrad then smiles, waves and goes back to the elevator. 

My stomach growls. I realized I hadn't eaten for nearly two days. That would also explain my head ache from the surgery becoming more intense. I get up and get into some jeans along with the tee-shirt I was already wearing. I go to the elevator and press the down button. The button lights up but goes out immediately. I press it again and the same thing happens. I hit the button rapidly but nothing happens. I look around the room and find a door that leads to a stairwell. I push it but the door is locked. I let out a loud groan. I am a prisoner, trapped in my bedroom which is now my cell. I know I'm not really a prisoner but it feels that way. 

I let out a long, exasperated sigh. I sit on the edge of my bed and stare at the elevator's metal doors. I can see my reflection blurred in them. I wish for the door to move and reveal something, particularly food. Suddenly the doors do open. I see Camden holding a tray of food. I jump up and grab the tray from him. I start to wolf the food down, forgetting all of my manners and the fact that Camden is standing there. 

"There's more" he says in a grim voice.

"More what? Food" I ask excitedly as I rip off a piece of bread from my loaf and pop it into my mouth.

"Of course there's more food. That's not what I'm saying" he sneers, "I'm saying that your so called 'training' is far from being over." At that he turns, goes back to the elevator and disappears behind its large doors. 

I stop eating my food, nearly choking on the bread I just put in my mouth. I contemplate what Camden just told me. What more could they do to my brain? It frightens me that there will be more pain. Suddenly it hits me:

This is my new life.