"The room where they kept me was white. There were no colors. Only a cold, sterile brightness."
Fahad felt a knot form in his chest.
"Day and night became meaningless. A cage that allowed the world to watch, but never to reach in.
Inside it—was me.
Back then i was too small.
My feet barely steadied me on the cold floor, No toys , no voice calling my name.
Because I had no name anymore.
Only a number '17B.'
They did not speak to me like a child. They did not look at me like a human being. To them, I was something to test. "
Farhan swallowed hard.
"What kind of people do that...?"
"They smiled when results were good."
"And when results were bad?"
"They increased the testing.
~~
The first days were silence.
A silence so deep it pressed against my ears until even my own breathing sounded foreign.
I would sit in the corner, knees pulled close, eyes fixed on the glass—waiting for someone.
Anyone.
No one came. Only shadows moved beyond the walls.
And then, one day—the silence broke.
The floor beneath me shifted faintly, a mechanical sound humming through the chamber.
A section opened, and something was pushed inside, It moved.
Not human, not animal. Something in between—unnatural, restless. Its presence filled the small space too quickly, too wrong.
I froze. My breath stopped before i even understood why.
Fear, at that age is instinct and instinct told me—run.
But there was nowhere to go.
The glass reflected me from every angle, no corner to hide in,no place to disappear.
The creature moved, slow at first, then faster—closing the space between me and them.
Outside, silhouettes watched.They wrote things down.Measured reactions— my response to it.
When i stumbled, when my small body hit the floor, when my hands scraped against the cold surface trying to push myself away—
no one came to help. "
A few relatives looked sick.
Maya tilted her head slightly,
"Looking back...I was so stupid."
Several heads lifted.
"I genuinely believed someone would help me."
A soft laugh escaped her, a strange smile,
"I kept waiting every day.
I thought eventually an adult would walk through the door and stop it."
A pause.
"Isn't that cute?"
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Fahad blinks once, then twice.
"...Cute?"
Farhan looks genuinely horrified, "Cute?"
Fahan slowly lowers his glass, "Cute?"
Fahim adjusts his glasses.
Then stares at Maya for several long seconds.
"I have a medical question. Is your head actually functioning correctly?"
Several people almost choke.
"You just described being trapped in a glass enclosure with experimental creatures and then called yourself cute."
She thinks for a moment, "...Still cute. "
Faha almost choke.
"FIRST LESSON :
★TRUST NOTHING, OBEY EVERYTHING.★ "
Mahi stared, "They trapped you."
"Yes."
"They terrified you. Then why are you calling that cute ?"
"As long as I survived, I suppose it's a little funny now."
"THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT CUTE."
Fahan rubbed his face, "I agree with him."
"There is something profoundly concerning about her ability to describe psychological torture and then rate it on a scale of cuteness."
"THANK YOU."
Farhan pointed dramatically at Fahim,
"Finally, a sane person."
Fahish leaned back slowly,
"I think we've discovered a new category of coping mechanism."
"What happened after that lesson?"
The amusement vanished from Maya's face.
" Days blurred into something shapeless.
They fed me—just enough.
Water came through a narrow slot.Sometimes late , sometimes not at all. Hunger became a quiet companion, sitting beside me. "
"What the — "
"I couldn't bear the pain. They used to inject different types of poison into my body.
It felt like my whole body was going to collapse as if entire body was giving up."
"What happened to the other children?"
A long pause.
"Most of them disappeared."
A chill passed through the room.
Fahim slowly removed his glasses.
For once, even the scientist among him looked disturbed.
"The amount of conditioning required..."
"It worked."
Fahim looked up sharply, "What?"
"The conditioning worked. I learned very quickly ."
Maya lowered her gaze, for the first time, something almost resembling embarrassment crossed her face.
"But I became disobedient."
A few relatives blinked.
"The pain was too much. I was very young.
Very stubborn, too. I wanted to live."
"I thought if I could get out once, I could keep running."
Farhan stared at her.
"You were trying to survive."
Maya shrugged slightly.
"The first time I tried to run—really run—toward a seam in the glass where I thought there might be a weakness...They let me reach it."
Several people frowned.
"They let me believe I had found a way out. They let me hope.
Then—
The floor gave way beneath my legs.
Pain followed, sudden. Enough to steal the breath from my lungs before a sound could form.
I didn't understand what had happened—only that i couldn't stand anymore.
Outside, someone spoke.
'Subject 17B exhibits strong escape instinct. Increase corrective measures.'
Such a quiet word for something that shattered bone. "
Naya wraps her arms around herself.
"How old were you?"
Maya answerd, "Almost two."
The silence afterward felt endless.
"Another day—they brought me something sweet.
Candy.
A cruel contrast to the gray world i lived in.
I stared at it for a long time before touching it, as if afraid it might disappear.
That was the trap.
The moment i took it, the moment a flicker of something soft crossed my face—
They acted.
My hand was taken.
All of my ten fingers—small—met force that did not care for their fragility. Pain bloomed again, sharper this time."
The hall froze as if the air itself had stopped moving.
Farhan stared at her, then at her hands.
Then back at her hands again.
As though he couldn't stop imagining how small they must have been.
Faha's voice came out barely above a whisper, "...Over candy?"
Fahan let out a short laugh, "That's insane."
He shook his head,
"No. That's beyond insane."
Maya answered before anyone else could,
"I remember being confused. I didn't understand what I had done wrong."
Rahi finally spoke,
"They wanted the lesson remembered forever."
Silence.
She nodded once, "Yes,I learned the lesson and remembered forever. They were very good teachers."
Fahad's jaw tightened, "You call that teaching?"
Rahi murmured, "Because, They taught us how to survive."
LESSON TWO :
★HOPE IS A PUNISHMENT.★
A wave of discomfort swept through the hall.
Several relatives looked visibly shaken.
"Please..."
One of the older aunts whispered,
"Please stop."
Another relative shook his head,
"I can't listen to this anymore."
Farhan looked emotionally drained,
"Every answer somehow makes everything worse."
Several people quietly agreed.
"Please don't tell us any more. We understand enough."
Maya sat silently , watching.
Then Rahi spoke, "Why?"
The room fell silent.
"Why should she stop? Oh....Does it hurt?"
A few people lowered their eyes.
He gave a short, humorless laugh,
"My advice was to leave it alone. I told all of you not to do this, But you wanted answers."
Nobody spoke.
"So listen, You wanted the past. Now the past is talking. Why are you all afraid? "
A bitter smile appeared,
"You're suffering from hearing it,
Ohhhh..... how sad? "
The room listened in absolute silence.
Maya's voice remained calm,
"Time did not pass there the way it should. Only cycles of light and dark controlled by unseen hands."
Farhan lowered his eyes.
The sentence alone made his stomach twist.
"Sleep came in fragments, broken by sounds. Distant echoes of things I could not name.
Sometimes they spoke to me."
Her gaze drifted, "Run — Run again."
A pause.
"Try, Let's see how long this one lasts."
Several people visibly flinched.
Fahan stared.
"...They were treating it like a game."
She continued, "And I did, Again and again."
Farhan swallowed hard.
"The first escape lasted six seconds.
The second lasted eleven."
Farhan felt his chest tighten.
"The third lasted twenty-three. After that, they started timing me.
They kept records. They seemed pleased when the numbers improved."