Control Group

Chapter 3

Had Gray slept and longer he felt he may never get back up. He did a lot of napping lately. He figured if he slept long enough maybe time would pass him and he could leave faster. It was only until he felt the vibrations coming from Anger’s room that he felt how hard this was to do. He headed over to the wall crack and decided to listen in. the employees happened to be discussing Anger.

Gray listened.

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Anger was just as his name suggested. Rage in pony form. It was a wonder he didn’t die of an aneurism or high blood pressure years ago. Luckily his room was one of the soundproof rooms, so his screams of rage were deafened. But it was the job of one sad worker to keep tabs on him. Today it was Buck Silver. His shiny grey coat was his key feature and the thing that made him the ladies’ stallion of the workplace. He saw the observation as dull and became desensitized to them, albeit the nature of this pony in particular was spectacular to watch.

Anger had damaged the room severely. In his unbridled rage he had gained the strength of a pony that could topple castles with a single buck. The walls, ultra-reinforced titanium with a special one-way transparent aluminum window, had sustained surprising damage. Many dents were present. The only thing Anger ever heard was the sound of his own voice, screaming. A never-ending yell, a battle cry toward an invisible enemy. Is red skin and even more red short mane were constantly giving off a heat that could fry and egg. When the lightning came every day it had to be modified to render the pony unconscious for a certain amount of time. In that time, the walls had to be repaired and Anger was given medical attention and injected with medicine designed to keep him stable in his fits of rage. The first Anger died of a heart attack after 12 hours of bucking and screaming. He had no discernible thoughts. He never wondered why he was there, where he came from, or what the lightning was. He was a vessel. Like all the others. But he would never know that. All he knew was that he was certifiably pissed at anything and everything. Even the blank room he was in made him angry enough to kill. His hooves were scarred. Some of his bones were broken in his legs and ribs, but he had no concept of pain. The fact that he could move less only made him madder. He comes to the verge of self-destruction during every fit of rage he goes through.  When he had become incapacitated through injury and he was on the verge of distorting time itself with his cacophony of screams, the lightning surrounded him. He hated the lightning. It made him even more angry. As it encircled him, he felt a soothing sensation wash over him. Like he didn’t have to be angry anymore. His head fell to the floor. Everything became dim. his blood red emotion was harvested into the vial. He always was just as angry the next day, but when he was unconscious, a single name always stuck in his mind. He didn’t know this person. He never would. But he knew the name.

Jennifer.

Anger had a lifespan of 13 years. There was no funeral. He was tossed in the furnace. He never knew Jennifer.

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But someone did.

Gray listened. The workers had caught the name on a brain scan. The workers seemed to be familiar with her. So much so that they felt no need to go into detail about her, much to the chagrin of Gray.

But he still listened…

And he heard crying.