It was that first rat. That first goddamned white lab rat—the first successful goddamned white lab rat—that had sent them down this path of destruction Diana thought, tipping back her martini glass, letting the dry liquor slide down her throat. It was their first ever successful experiment that had implanted the seedlings which would later grow into what Diana was sure would be immortalized by history as one of the most horrific experiments ever performed on human beings. It was something that Diana wanted absolutely no part of. Finishing her drink, she set down her empty glass and waited for the Barkeep’s robotic arm to place another martini down in front of her. Unfortunately for her, escaping the consequences of the experiment she had nurtured and spent countless hours developing was proving to be incredibly difficult.
The bar stool next to her swivelled and sank underneath of weight of its new arrival, Charles Nelson, who placed a brief kiss on her lips. “Babe,” he said by way of greeting before turning to the Barkeep to order a drink.
Shortly after his arrival, Kelly and Terry arrived, claiming the two unoccupied seats on her other side. Without a word of further acknowledgement between the four, drinks were ordered, and then served in silence. An onlooking bystander might have thought they were strangers, or that perhaps they weren’t very fond of each other. But that assumption couldn’t have been farther from the truth. In fact, these were the three most important people in Diana’s life. Her boyfriend and her two best friends; her fellow grad students; her confidants and partners in crime. How could she not adore them?
Unsurprisingly, it was Charles who broke the silence. “Well, test phase one is complete. Subjects’ environments have been manipulated to stimulate a possible acute stress response.”
“You finished it? When do we begin phase two?” Kelly asked eagerly.
“Well we can’t very well begin the injections until we’ve seen a response,” Charles said, his voice dripping with condescension. “First we have to give them time to be scared, time for their bodies to want to adapt and change.”
“We’re trying to evolve them, not scare them,” Terry corrected, as if that one little detail would justify their actions, make them moral.
Charles smiled dryly. “Let’s compromise. A bit of both. Anyways, they’re too doped up with hallucinogens right now, we’ve gotta wait a few hours.”
Diana wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it. Here they were talking about unethical, unauthorized human experimentation and the only noticeable reaction between the three of them was nervous anticipation. Save for Charles, who seemed cool and confident as ever. The alcohol had loosened her self control and she couldn’t take it any longer, slamming her fist into the bar-top. “What the fuck is wrong with you people? Do you not hear yourselves right now?” she snapped. “This is insane. Not to mention illegal. We—we should go to the police.”
Terry and Kelly glanced worriedly at each other, as if scared of what she would do. Charles, however, expressed no visible signs of such concern. “Cheer up honey,” he said lightly, slinging an arm across her shoulders. “They’re going to remember our names forever.”
Frustrated and tired, Diana shook her head and stood, slipping her arms into the sleeves of her jacket and grabbing her bag. “Don’t you understand? That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Before they could get another word in, Diana left, all too happy to part with the cozy comforts of the bar and stepped outside into the chilly Seattle weather.
This was her fault, she thought miserably as she began to trudge home. She was the one who chose to base her research hypothesis off of natural selection and survival of the fittest. Diana had first decided to look into furthering human evolution for fun, as a purely hypothetical situation to entertain herself. Of course, once Charles discovered what she had been up to, he immediately took interest and naturally because Charles had taken interest, Kelly and Terry followed suit. It wasn’t long before the unauthorized testing on mice began. Diana had recognized the immorality of it all from the beginning but she was no saint, nor was she immune to the arrogance and the feeling of invincibility that existed in youth. The excitement and temptation of success was irresistible. But then Charles’ ideas for experimentation became frighteningly radical. This wasn’t the first time she had pleaded them to stop and it likely wouldn’t be the last.
Diana turned the key to her apartment and stepped inside, locking the door behind her. She was exhausted to the point that it seemed to weigh down her bones, like a heavy film that had settled over her body, reducing her speed and vivacity to that of an elderly woman’s. Not even bothering to change her clothes, she stumbled her way into her bedroom and collapsed atop her mattress, succumbing to the inviting obliviousness that came with sleep.
She couldn’t have been asleep for more than a few minutes when her phone began to ring, vibrating incessantly on her nightstand. Charles. “Hello?” she said, her voice thickened by sleep.
“Diana! You have to get down to the lab right now! Jump in a cab and get over here as fast as you can, you’re missing history D, we’re gonna have to do a lot of analysis and testing but the flight or flight response triggered a change and you have to get down here!” he exclaimed at a speed so fast Diana had barely understood a word of what he said.
“Wait what? Slow down Charles. What’s happening?”
“The HE1 cocktail. It worked. They’re accepting the modified DNA. Their genes are mutating!”
“What?” she asked, sure that she had heard wrong.
“Just get down here!” he instructed before promptly hanging up.
Although she still felt half asleep, Diana obediently got out of bed, still fully dressed. She was almost certain that she had misheard him. Phase one had only just been completed and phase two—introducing the HE1 virus into subject’s genetic codes—wasn’t meant to begin for a while. So when could the injections have possibly been administered? And even if the subjects had already been injected, there was no way the virus could’ve started working so quickly, she thought, trying to reassure herself. This was only their first trial run on humans after all. Despite the recent rapid advancements made in altering genetic codes, this was too large a jump to be possible. Before leaving, she glanced at the digital clock sitting on her nightstand. 12:14 PM. She had been asleep for far longer than a few minutes. Dread weighed her down like a rock as she raced out the door.
Diana arrived at the lab out of breath and drenched in sweat, praying that she wasn’t too late. Charles, Kelly, and Terry had already arrived, hovering over their first subject who they had strapped to a table. She was been hooked up to a cardiac machine and an oxygen mask had been fitted over her face, but for what purpose, Diana couldn’t tell.
“Diana! Get over here!” Kelly exclaimed upon seeing her, waving her over with frantic motions. She felt sick as she made her way over to the table. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“BP is 116 over 74, heart rate is 84, vitals are all stable… so far so good for Subject 2.” Kelly was saying into a voice recorder as Terry frantically scribbled down notes next to her. “We can assume that her red blood cells have adapted to filter carbon monoxide. We’ll begin further testing to examine adaption methods.”
That was when Diana looked down at the tank that was connected to the oxygen mask. It wasn’t an oxygen mask after all. It was delivering carbon monoxide gas into her body. “What…what the hell is going on?” she asked.
“Isn’t it amazing?” Kelly beamed. “It’s like her body thinks it’s breathing in oxygen!”
Diana was at a loss for words. “That…that’s, I mean, how, it’s-“
“A fucking miracle is what it is,” Charles interjected. “This is going to change lives.”
With reluctant fascination, Diana stepped closer to the exam table to observe the subject. Lydia. For days they had been subjecting her to enough of the deadly gas to kill her, and then resuscitating her each time she reached the brink of death. It was a cruel, disgusting practice and the only thing that had stopped Diana from going to the police was her loyalty to her friends. But as horrific as it had all been, and as much as Diana still hated it, it genuinely seemed that their experimental methods were successful—for the time being.
“What about the other subjects? Have you checked on them yet?” she asked.
The three of them turned to glance at one another in rigid silence. “Diana…” Charles began.
“No,” she said, her heart dropping to her stomach. “Oh no no no no, oh God what did you do?”
“We tried but… it was too late. By the time we got there, it was too late. Their bodies couldn’t handle the stress and… it was just too much strain. They’re dead. Subjects 1 and 3 are dead.”
In that moment, the only reasonable explanation Diana could think of to understand the words that were coming out of Charles’ mouth was that she was dreaming and this whole thing was just a nightmare her brain had concocted. She wanted to believe that she was dreaming. But she didn’t need to pinch herself to know that she was awake.
“What did you do?” she demanded, hysteria seeping into her voice.
“Diana, honey—“
“Don’t fucking ‘honey’ me!” she screamed. “Oh God, they’re dead, we killed them, we’re murderers, we’re fucking murderers! Don’t you understand that we killed two innocent people?! Oh God, we need to go to the police, we need to go and tell them what we’ve done and—“
“SHUT UP!” Charles roared, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her with such force that she tasted blood on her tongue. But upon seeing her terror, he tried for a gentler approach. “Diana, baby, think. If you go to the police they aren’t just going to shut down the experiment. What we did, it was illegal, I know that and they know that. They’re going to put the four of us behind bars darling and that isn’t what you want is it?” he looked at her imploringly, as if he knew she would agree because he had asked.
“You don’t know me at all,” she spat, wrenching herself free from his grasp. “I’m going.”
“Diana.” he said, almost desperately. “Diana baby please, I’m begging you not to go.”
“I’m sorry Charles, I am, but this isn’t right, and if you can’t see that—“
It was then that she felt a peculiar sensation in her neck, a cold and sharp sting that seemed to pulsate throughout her entire body, making her weak in the legs. Suddenly, her body felt uncomfortably hot, and an itching, burning sensation flooded her veins. It was as if…
Charles lunged forwards to catch her paralyzed body as she fell, gently laying her down on the floor, placing the now empty syringe back into his pocket. “I’m sorry too Diana,” he whispered. “I’d really hoped that it wouldn’t come to this.”
He turned to face Terry and Kelly, who were staring on with paper white faces. “Get the gurney and strap her down. We’ll autopsy 1 and 3, monitor 2. Testing on Subject 4 begins tomorrow.”
I created this short story for my CRWR 200 class this year at UBC. Having never written much fictional work before, I wanted to showcase this story to display my writing skills and my ability to utilize what I had learned in order to create this. I was proud that I was able to fully create a short story despite the limitations I was faced with–a three week time constraint as well as a page limit (roughly five pages). I believe that creativity and the ability to think outside the box and generate new ideas is very important in academic, social, and professional life as it demonstrates your capacity to add to the current state of knowledge. Being able to write creatively demonstrates my ability to create.
