The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a grey ceiling and a light bulb that was too blinding for someone who had just woken up from sleep. I became aware that I was in a bed with white covers and immediately pulled my body forward. I sat on the bed and tried to recollect myself as I eyed the room.
There was a small table near the bed and a huge white drawer sitting at the end of it. The room was pretty simple and small, but the weirdest thing was that the room had no windows. Even prisoners had the right to have a window so they could dream of the outside world and freedom, but this room didn't.
Then the realization of what had happened before came to my mind simultaneously with the panic that rose each millisecond. I had been kidnapped and brought to this place in the most beastly way possible. My back still ached from the slamming against the hard metal.
They had used a well-organized plan considering the number of people involved in it. I was able to identify five whose presence was left in plain sight, but there were probably more considering that the van was not driving itself and maybe the man who was talking with an earbud to his, let's say, boss. I wasn't sure of my assumptions, but this was not something to be taken lightly.
Just as I was about to get up and run to the door on my left, the door handle started to move and a woman appeared in front of me. She entered the room and started typing something in the documents she was holding in her hands like I didn't exist.
The woman had long dark hair tied in a high ponytail, which made her look rather young. She wore glasses, but they couldn't hide the eye bags that ruined the young figure she was and, presumably, the woman must have been a doctor since she wore a white coat and underneath a blue shirt with some pants — the same design as the men in the van.
At the realization of that, I immediately went to my feet and took a defensive stance to tell her to back away, but the woman was still writing in her papers, not eyeing me at all. Had she even noticed my presence?
To answer my thoughts as if she could read my mind, the woman lifted her brown eyes, looking at me, and curled her lips up into a smile.
"Hello there," she said with a cheerful tone in English.
I didn't greet her back and just stared at her. Who was she, and why was this woman speaking in English to me?
"What would you like your code name to be? You see, I can choose it for you, but I can't promise creativity, and you can't change this name anytime soon, so it is better if you choose something you like." She said, smiling the entire time as if she had frozen in that smiling stance.
Was this woman in her right mind? I had no idea where I was, and the first person I laid my eyes on after I woke up asked such an absurd question. I didn't need questions — I needed answers — mostly, but what did she mean by a code name?
"What do you mean? My name is Krista," I said without returning her smile.
The woman gave me an annoyed look but quickly hid it away and went back to her smiling pose. I was beginning to hate her smile. No human could smile that much genuinely, and it was disturbing. It was like a robotic kind of smile with no feeling attached to it, and it disturbed my stomach.
"Well, Krista, I am Doctor Venera, and I have been assigned to register you into the system. I was informed you had woken up, and so I came here as soon as I could. But as you know, doctors are quite busy, and I can't stay here very long."
She paused as she checked something in her papers.
I made a mental note to remember that there were cameras here. They
must have seen me waking up and informed this Doctor Venera, or someone was here in the room with me before the doctor, but if that was the case I would have seen them while I woke up like they did to me. Why were they spying on me though?
"It says here you are Estonian," she said while looking at me as if asking for affirmation.
I wasn't sure if I should give her any information, but considering that they literally kidnapped me from my hometown, they must already know that much, so she was merely stating a fact. I nodded and she kept talking again.
"Wow, I have never met someone Estonian. Your English is perfect and it has no slips of accent. That will come in handy for sure."
She couldn't have detected my English level so soon. I had only told her one sentence in total, and now I wished I hadn't since she clearly says this is a good thing for her, which means a bad thing for me.
She then casually adds, "You are no longer Krista, and as someone who no longer holds that identity, you will need a new one. We are not going to assign your identity now, but we will need some name to call you so there are no confusions and also to hide your soon-to-be identity from friends and foes in the future.
What was she uttering? I was no longer Krista Malinen and I would be assigned a new identity. Was I still sleeping, or was this woman crazy? Whoever this Doctor Venera was, I wouldn't like to anger her since the circumstances made me think that I didn't have any say in anything. Maybe it was the level of confusion and the fact that I still hadn't processed anything, but I needed to keep talking to her.
"Pansy," I voice my thought.
"Pansy like the flower? Well, if you like it then fine by me. If you don't, you can stop me in the next four seconds.
4…3…2…1… no? Then Pansy it is. Welcome, Pansy, and good luck," she says, giving a small smile.
She pulls something from her coat. It was a name tag, and she wrote with perfect computer-like handwriting: "01414 : Pansy" and attached it to my shirt.
Suddenly, I became aware of the clothes I was wearing. I no longer had my school uniform on, but a tight black shirt with now a name tag attached to it and some loose light blue pants. When had this happened? I was stripped of my clothes by someone while I was sleeping and now had this light fabric on. The thought made me more uncomfortable than I already was.
The woman turned to the other side and started walking toward the door like her duties were now complete.
"Wait," I call out with a cry.
The doctor turns to me, and in fear of having her run away I speak a mile a minute.
"Where am I?"
"You are at Base Four right now."
Base Four, she says. What even was Base Four? The way she said it made me think I was supposed to know what that was. Was it like a code for something? A base like in the military, and it was number four, which led me to believe there were at least three other bases — but bases for what exactly?
The doctor, on the other hand, didn't find any flaws with her answer, so I needed to pretend I didn't either.
"Why was I brought here?" I asked, and that question seemed to surprise the doctor since her eyebrows rose up.
"You see, Pansy, things are done with order. You can't rush things. It's better not to know all the answers right now. You will meet your supervisor when everyone else has settled, but I wouldn't count on him giving you the answers you are looking for."
She says this and leaves quickly through the door. Just as she is about to close it, she adds,
"Your hair is rather long."
And then she closes the door.