Author's Note

Welcome to the reboot, with a new Anon and a new way of starting the story. I apologize to anyone who was enjoying the old version, but I just wasn’t happy with it. Anyway, here it is, I hope the intro intrigues you enough to stick around :)

Guinea Pig (Intro)

Guinea Pig (Intro)

“YOU MOTHERFUCKERS WON’T GET AWAY WITH THIS!” You shouted from the seat you were strapped in.

“Oh, I’m afraid we already have, Nine.” Said a voice an intercom. “Quite frankly, nobody knows who you are, or that you even existed. Guards, exit the room. Now beginning Project PoorToll.”

“Heh, good luck.” Chuckled one of the armed guards watching you. “Let’s get outta here.” The guard next to him nodded, following his partner as they both stepped out of the bleach-white room you were in. After they stepped out, they turned and closed the hatch style door to the room with a loud thud. You heard them lock it with the turn of a wheel on the other side.

“Now, Nine, you are currently sitting in a chamber hooked to a particle collider. Do you know what that is?” Asked the voice over the intercom.

“Fuck you.” You said, spitting on the floor. “I swear to god, you bastards will burn in hell for this!”

“Oh please, Nine.” Chuckled your captor. “There is no heaven or hell. Only the living and the dead, no matter where you are in the universe. Speaking of which, you are sitting here to today to act as our... guinea pig, as many would call it.”

“No, really?” You asked sarcastically. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Well since you asked, our goal is to create enough energy in your chamber via our trusty particle collider to make you go bye bye.” Laughed the intercom.

“Oh brother, why can’t you fucking shoot me if you wanted to off me all along?”

“You see, we aren’t trying to kill you, Nine. We are simply trying to put you elsewhere. Somewhere out of this world, quite literally.”

“What in the fuck are you on about, man?”

“Inter dimensional travel, of course! We’ve implanted a tracker in the back of your neck that detects your life force. We will know the outcome of our experiments based on whether you live or die. Any questions?”

“Yeah, what’s the fucking point of the tracker? No way in hell that shit has inter dimensional signal range.”

“Nonsense! Two and Six were both alive and well for a brief amount of time after their transport. Trust me, Nine. We’ll know.”

Your ears were suddenly blasted by the deafening sound of machinery around you. You screamed in agony, writhing in your chair, but to no avail. What little hope you had of getting out of here was now gone. You heard the sound of your captor speaking to you over the intercom, but it was heavily drowned out by the machinery around you. You felt blood trickle down your ears, and you continued to scream at the top of your lungs as for the pain in your head was unbearable. Looking down at your hands, you saw that your fingers began to crack and turn into dust, evaporating into the wind flowing through the room. Your panic attack worsened, as all of your limbs began to disappear into thin air. You continued to scream helplessly as you knew your time was up. You closed your eyes, as your limbs were now gone and the evaporation process had just started to eat it’s way through your torso. With the little energy and desperation you had, you made one final cry to the higher powers.

“DEAR GOD, PLEASE HEL-“ you were cut off as your jaw was ripped to pieces and given to the room. As your vision began fading in pieces, your last few years flashed before your eyes.

***

It was a cold, brutal winter night. You spent your life in and out of foster care, your piece of shit parents kicked you to the curb at only a few months old. You didn’t get a proper education growing up, so you never got to learn any skills necessary for getting a job. With no place willing to hire you, you resorted to begging on the streets for any money you could get your hands on once you were kicked out of your final foster home at 18. You were 22 now, and life has been a seemingly endless fight for survival for you since. You used what money you got sparingly, buying only the necessities for your survival. Over the years, you managed to buy a small tent, a camping bag, warm clothes, and other basic things such as a multi tool and fire starter. Anything to aid you in your struggle. Once you were confident that you could live on your own decently, you fled the city and began life in the woods several miles out. You taught yourself to find food using makeshift bows, traps, and fishing rods. During most seasons, you did decently on food and water. You learned to ration your food properly, wrapping any uncooked meat in leaves and saving it for later times. You spent most of your days hiking, constantly moving to keep things somewhat new for you. The only company you had in the deep, endless wilderness you drove yourself into was yourself. You were located in the upper peninsula of Michigan, so there was little presence of human life with how far you had trekked into the wild.

Getting back to the winter night, you were currently on a night hike through a blizzard. This particular winter was harsh, more than your previous ones. Food was abnormally scarce, and your primary sources of food were berries, water from snow, and the occasional rabbit, usually once a week. With the amount of calories you used in a day, something needed to change or you would be facing death very soon. You couldn’t set up your tent with the current weather conditions, so you were searching through the forest for some sort of natural shelter. Luckily, your winter clothes were keeping you warm enough to help you stay alive. For what seemed like hours, you trudged through the heavy snow, looking for your seemingly nonexistent shelter. Suddenly, a light in the distance caught your eye. An artificial light. A new hope sparked in you as you began to run through the snow to the light source. The strong, cold wind stabbed at your face, but you didn’t care. You were too focused on going to the light. As you drew closer, a giant structure came into view, a facility-looking building. It was fenced in, and you could see that the inside of the fence was littered with armed personnel and humvees. What was this? Some sort of military establishment out in the middle of nowhere? You didn’t care. All that mattered to you was getting inside in hopes of shelter.

As you neared the fence, you were blinded by a light from a watchtower.

“FREEZE!” Screamed a voice near you. You looked towards the source of the sound, and saw an armed guard coming up on you with a rifle. Looking around you, you saw more guards approaching you. “PUT YOUR HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM!”

You did so.

“Please, don’t shoot!” You exclaimed in a panic. It felt weird to hear your own voice, or even just to speak in general. You didn’t talk often in your isolated state of living. “I’m just looking for shelter, I mean no harm!”

The guards looked at each other. You couldn’t see their faces, as for they were wearing masks, but you could tell they were confused. After a moment of silent and awkward stares, one guard pulled out a walkie talkie from his pocket and spoke with who you assumed was his commander.

“Hey, we’ve got a guy out here, says he’s looking for shelter.” He said, looking at you. “Apparently he lives out here. He’s got a bag, we can search him inside. Do we let him in or what?” There was a brief pause before he got an answer.

“Yeah, go ahead.” Replied a voice from the talkie. “Being him in.”

You internally cheered upon being saved from your harsh environment that you called home. The guard put his walkie talkie back onto his belt and spoke up.

“Alright, let’s go. Keep your hands up.” He said, beckoning you to move with the barrel of his weapon. “Open the gates!” He called out to the watch tower. Obeying his command, the guard in the watch tower opened the front gates for you. “Move.” Said the guard, tapping your backpack with his barrel. You did so, moving forward into the the boundaries of the gates with the guard following close behind you. As you moved across the lot, you noticed all the the personnel on site eyeing you up and down as you passed by them. You understood, though. You were lucky enough to be let inside, and you were thankful for that. You continued to move across the lot all the way up until you were inside of the building, in which you had to be patted down before entering. Once you were inside, you were instantly greeted by a comforting warmth, something you haven’t felt in months. Looking around you, you could see several more guards waiting for you by a metal detector.

“Take your bag and coat off.” Said one of them. You did so, removing your backpack and unzipping your coat. “Place them on the table.” He added, pointing to the small, black table next to you. You set your belongings down, and turned back towards the guard. “Hands up, spread your legs and arms.” Again, you obliged his commands. He stepped closer to you with a metal detector, scanning you up and down with it. Once you were cleared, he ushered you forward. “Stand near those two over there.” The guard said, pointing to the other two guards emptying your backpack carefully. One of them came across your multitool and fire starter, in which he put into a plastic bin sitting next to him.

“Will I be getting those back?” You asked.

“All personal belongings will be safely returned upon your departure.” Said the guard, resuming his search if your bag. After a few more minutes of searching, everything was neatly placed back into your backpack. The guard zipped it up and carried it off, along with your tools.

“Where is he going with those?” You asked.

“To a holding room, they’ll be kept safe in there. Until you leave, you’ll need nothing but the clothes on your back. You will be provided with food, water, and a place to sleep.” Said the guard who followed you in.

“Thank you, I really appreciate this.” You said with a smile.

“Yeah yeah, now let’s get you to your room.” Said the guard, poking your back lightly with his gun. “Walk up the hall and make a left. I’ll tell you where to go from there.”

After walking through the building for a while, you were eventually brought to a small room near the quarters for the guards. It was nothing special, a small room with a bed, nightstand, and a mini box TV. It’s been a while since you’ve even seen a screen of any sort, so it was a bit of a trip for you to see such technology.

“Make yourself at home.” Said the guard. “Due to security reasons, we can’t let you out freely. We will deliver a meal to you through a hatch in the door. Any questions?”

“Where’s the bathroom?” You asked, looking around the room.

“There’s a door on the wall which opens a small room with a toilet and sink in there. A shower can be given to you tomorrow.”

“Alright, thank you.” You said with a smile. With that, the guard closed the door to the room, locking it. It was a thick metal door, so you had no chance of leaving the room. It was no trouble, anyway. You were fine with anything as long as you were out of the elements. Now that you were alone, you figured some sleep would do you well. You were still kinda cold from the outdoors, and extremely fatigued from walking all day. Walking over to the bed, you climbed in and wrapped yourself in the thick blanket. Your exhaustion proved itself to be strong, because it wasn’t long before you passed out...

You later awoke in a cell, now wearing a white jumpsuit rather than the warm clothes you came in the building with. Trying to get up, you found yourself restrained by leather belts to the bed.

“H-hey!” You called out. “What is this?!”

“Oh, you’re awake!” Said a man in a lab coat. “How are you feeling?”

“How the fuck do you think I’m feeling?!” You shouted angrily. “Get me the hell outta these!”

“Ah, ah. Not so fast.” Said the scientist, shaking his finger. “It isn’t every day someone just waltzes into our facility willingly, so we had to seize the opportunity.”

“What in the hell are you talking about, man?!”

“You see, we have big things going on in here, sir. We require test subjects for said things, usually death row inmates. However, that process takes a while and getting subjects is quite tedious and difficult. Your prints match none in the database, and you have no form of identification on you, so you must be nobody. That makes you a perfect candidate for our program!”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?! This is completely illegal, and I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“Well, life doesn’t always go how you want it to, Number Nine.”

“Nine? Who the fuck is Nine?”

“Why you, of course! You’re the ninth subject we’ve had, so that’s what you’ll go by. There’s no other way to identify you, as it is. Anyway, I’ll let you rest up for the rest of tonight, we have big plans for you, my little guinea pig. Sleep well!”

With that said, he walked away from your cell door, leaving you alone in your restraints. You struggled some more, but to no avail. You were stuck here in these straps.

‘Fuck,’ you thought. ‘What the hell have I gotten myself into? I gotta get outta here...’

The lights eventually cut out, leaving you in pitch black darkness, alone and afraid for your life. In the coming days, weeks, and months, various tests and experiments were performed on you. They consisted of anything from putting you through extreme amounts of g-force and making you puke your guts out to attempting to make you speak with dead people via cutting off all of your senses. Constant torture and agony all the way up until this moment you were in right now, which seemed to be your last torture session.

As the last bit of light left your vision, you felt a small, sudden sense of relief wash over you now that everything was finally over for you. No more experiments, not more restraints, no more of any of this hell on earth. Just as quickly as the thought hit you, it left your mind as your head ceased to exist, disintegrating and fading away with the wind...

***

Your eyes opened slowly, and everything was blurry. You blinked your slumber away, letting your vision return to normal. It took a few moments, but you realized you were laying in dirt. You groggily tried to stand up, but fell to your hands and knees. You felt weak. Taking a look around, you saw you were in a lush, green forest. Where the hell were you? How did you get here?

You took a few deep breaths, preparing to attempt to stand again. With a loud grunt and a lot of effort, you brought yourself to your feet. Leaning on a nearby tree, you attempted to catch your breath. What was going on with you? You pondered on your last few days for a while, trying to remember how you got here. However, your mind drew a blank. There was nothing, not even an idea. That is, until you noticed what you were wearing. You were staring at the ground while leaned on the tree when you noticed the white jumpsuit you were wearing. All at once, everything came flooding back to you like a tsunami. You began to hyperventilate in a panic, not understanding what was going on. Were you dead? Surely you had to be, you watched yourself die. However, this feels all too real to be some sort of afterlife. Hell, there’s nobody here with you. Maybe some sort of limbo? All of these thoughts were too much for you to handle at once, and they were giving you a migraine. Realizing you needed to relax before you passed out again from your hyperventilation, you sat down against the tree to calm down.

After taking a moment to clear your head, you reevaluated your current situation a little more logically. Remembering the experiment that was being performed on you, you recalled the man on the intercom saying that the goal was to throw you into another dimension. Is that where you were? Now to think of it, it could be a possibility. There are many things in this world, or even in other worlds, far beyond your understanding. You were suddenly reminded of the tracker in the back of your neck, which would still be there if you were alive (so you thought). Taking your hand, you reached behind your head and felt the back of your neck with a finger. Much to your dismay, you felt a small, capsule-sized bump on the back of your neck. You dreaded the thought of them knowing that you were still alive. You were very eager to remove the device from your head, but it could be connected to your brain for all you know. So for now, you opted out until further notice... whenever that would be. For now, your main focus should be your current surroundings.

Upon closer inspection, the forest looked more like a swamp than anything. Much to your surprise, there were sounds of birds chirping and cicadas buzzing. Or so you thought, at least. You couldn’t physically see any other life, and it made you slightly on edge. If you are really in another dimension, there was no telling what could be out here. After all, this is a completely different universe from your own. On the bright side, you seemed to be breathing in the air just fine. One in a trillion plus chance, god is good. Deciding that you’d try and find a decent place to hunker down for the night, you stood up from the tree you were resting on and began to walk your way through the forest. You were extremely nervous diving straight into the unknown, but you figured it was much better than sitting around and doing nothing.

As you marched through the forest, you carefully scanned your surroundings for movement. Although you could hear noises of wildlife around you, you saw no trace of them. No prints, no movement, nothing. It was definitely odd for a forest to be so dead, yet alive at the same time. Hell, you couldn’t even find a single insect on the ground. You ignored your suspicions the best you could and moved onward through the forest.

***

At this point, you had been moving for hours and haven’t found any source of food or shelter. It was dark out, so dark that you managed to run into a few trees on your journey. The temperature began to drop as well. Things were starting to get bad for you. You were starving, exhausted, and overall in bad shape. You were reminded of the day you entered the facility back on earth, but quickly suppressed the thought. You wanted to forget everything that involved that god forsaken place the best you could.

Seemingly out of nowhere, the trees quickly began thinning out, eventually coming to a complete stop as you continued to walk forward. As you passed the tree line and exited the forest, you found yourself in a field. Luckily there weren’t any trees for you to run into, but you still carefully watched your step as you continued your journey forward. You wanted to stop and sleep badly, but you didn’t feel very comfortable with stopping to rest on a pitch black night in a place that didn’t even exist in your home dimension. Besides, the ache in your stomach would probably keep you up anyway. So you continued onward, moving through the dark of the night in hopes of salvation.

Not even five minutes into your hike, you spotted a small amount of light in the distance... artificial light. It seemed to be coming from a house? You couldn’t exactly tell from the distance you were at, but the lights were arranged in such a pattern that they appeared to be coming from lamps that would hang above a garage or something. Although you so excited you could explode, you kept your calm and carefully approached the light source. You shivered with each and every step, which seemed as loud as a car crash in the dead silence of the night. You could only pray that you weren’t noticed by anything hostile that could be out here.

As you got closer to the light source, you began seeing rows and rows of small trees come into view, not being able to see them with the current lighting from afar. Once you got close enough to closely inspect one of the trees, you stepped on something hard and crisp, making a small crunch below you. You cringed at the sound, being much louder than you wanted it to be. You stood still in silence for a bit, checking to see if you had disturbed anything. Once you were sure you were clear, you inspected the object you had stepped on. Picking it up and bringing it close to your eyes to see, your eyes widened in surprise. Was this... an apple? Putting it under your nose, it certainly smelled like one, sweet as ever. Looking up towards the tree that stood in front of you, you could barely make out the faint silhouette of more apples hanging from the branches in the dim light. You didn’t know for sure if they were actually apples or not, but you were so hungry that you didn’t care. You needed to eat. Reaching up with both arms, you held the branch in place with one hand and picked the fruit with the other, so you didn’t rustle the leaves on the tree and potentially bring attention to yourself. With barely any hesitation, you slowly bit into the fruit, being conscious of the amount of noise it could make. As you chewed it in your mouth, you were pleased to find that it tasted exactly like an apple! Smiling, you took another bite, and another, and another until you were down to the core. You then picked another and finished it, repeating the process until you were full on fruit. Just in case, you picked some extra and stuffed them into your pockets.

With your feast over, you remembered what originally brought you over here: the light. Turning to leave the orchard you stood in, you resumed your journey towards the still visible light. Once you got close enough, you saw that it was in fact a house. It was a reddish farmhouse-barn hybrid, with fences around it. To your pleasure, you saw what looked to be pigs and chickens silently roaming around within the boundaries of the fences. You began to doubt this was an alternate dimension based on your findings so far, or maybe it was just heaven. There’s no way of telling what the afterlife is like if you’ve never been, so it could be a plethora of things for all you knew.

Walking up to the house, you saw a sign that read “Sweet Apple Acres”. Shit, there was even a sign in English out here. You began to feel much better about your current situation. Seeing that the house’s windows were dark, you assumed that the residents were sleeping. Not wanting to awaken them, you refrained from knocking on the door. Not wanting to leave, you began to look around for a place to rest for a bit until the sun came up. Turning to the barn portion of the house, you figured there would be some hay you could sleep on in there. Being as quiet as possible, you carefully climbed over the fence into the animal pen. Once your feet touched down on the other side, you carefully moved across the dirt towards the barn. The chickens quietly clucked and the pigs let out gentle grunts as you walked passed them, not seeming to mind your presence. When you entered the barn, there was a small oil lamp hanging from one of the wooden pillars on the inside, illuminating the room in a warm, yellow-orange glow. Looking around, you noticed a stack of hay bales in the corner, as you expected. You walked over to them, arranging the straws in a way to the point where it could serve as a makeshift bed for the night. You climbed onto your natural mattress and layer down, trying to find comfort. It took a little while, but eventually you found it in yourself to allow sleep to take over you...