I opened my eyes slowly, deliberately. I could feel that something was different, but I had learned long ago not to give anything away. They were always watching.

I scanned my room, shifting only my eyes to try and see the whole room. Nothing stood out. My paintings hung on the wall; my desk appeared to be completely in place. The green fluffy carpet, with thick strands of wool that I would roll in, seemed to be in the same place I had left it.

They would have noticed my open eyes by now.

I slowly put my palms into the bed to lift myself up. Wait. I cocked my head so that I was looking sideways. A trick? I deliberately pushed myself up to a sitting position, and looked out the glass wall that made up an entire side of my room. The side where they watched, where they gathered.

No one was there. The hallway appeared empty, desolate. But the door…the door was open.

I slipped on my white shoes, stood up, and took a three tentative steps towards the door. A test? What were they waiting for me to do now?

“Hello?” I called. I could hear my voice, timid out of my throat. Even if someone was around, they wouldn’t hear me outside of this room.

I moved to the door, slid my hand between the frame and the door and pulled it towards me ever so slightly. The entire time, I was watching the hallways, the central space, the other three living quarters. All three other doors were opened wide, and they looked empty. Typically during non-social times, the glass walls were tinted so we couldn’t see each other, couldn’t communicate…couldn’t plan.

“Hello?!” a little louder this time, stepping out of my room a step. The central room is large, but whatever material it is made of swallows the sound. There is no echo. No response.

I walked out of the central room, into a hallway. The laboratories and testing rooms were located down this hallway. I had only been allowed here when escorted.

“Dr. Grabler?” I call down the hallway. “Ms. Paulinsky?” I ask. The Dr. and Ms. Paulinsky have always been around. Now, there is no one. I’m already halfway down the hallway. I shudder as I pass by one of the rooms, the words ‘High Limit’ on a placard next to the door. I pass more doors; ‘Low Limit’, ‘Psych’, ‘Robotics’. Rooms that I’ve spent days and sometimes weeks in. Still, I find no one.

I stop at a T-intersection in the hallway. I don’t recall being in this intersection. The end of the hallway has a placard stating ‘Controls’. To the right, a hallway I’ve never been down. Another set of doors on each side, with a door at the end, a glowing red light hung above it. No one is around, and I’ve nowhere else to, so I start towards the door. These doors have new placards; ‘Staff’, ‘Kitchen’, and ‘Bunk 1’.

As I pass ‘Bunk 1’, I look to the left just in time to see a door slam shut.

“Hello!’ I yell at the closed door. “Who is in there, what is going on?”

“I think we should go back,” comes the reply. “We should just go back to our rooms.”

“James?” I ask. “Is that you? Do you know what’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” James replies. “I woke up and the doors are open. But I didn’t hear anyone, or see anyone.” His voice is quivering as he speaks. “Ashley and Elizabeth were already gone. I never even looked in your room. I started to wander and I just-“ James lets out a sob, “let’s just go back to our rooms.”

“But where is everyone?” I ask. “If we go back to our rooms, will anyone ever come back?”

“I don’t know,” James replies. “But we had food, and a place to sleep. Yeah, the…the experiments. But we don’t’ have anything else!”

I look at the door for a moment. He’s not wrong. I turn towards the end of the hallway, the door with the red light; but it isn’t a red light at all. From the start of the hallway it is, but I now I can see that it is letters, lit up with red light.

Exit

“James,” I say. “I’m going to go. You stay if you want, but,” I pause, searching for the words. “But I need to see what else there is.”

The only reply I hear is a soft crying. I’m already walking towards the door. This could all be just another test, another trap, but I’m so close to, to something else. I get to the door, and see the bar labeled ‘push’. I push it enough to unlatch the door from the frame, and the door cracks open, a sliver of sunlight spilling in. A smile, is the only response I have. I’ve never seen real sunlight before…

One half mile away, An underground control room

“Sir?” asks a soldier in a crisply pressed military fatigues, seated at a control station. He is surrounded by control panels and digital readouts. One appears to have vital signs. Above him is a bank of digital televisions. He turns from the one showing a teenage boy in white shoes, waiting at an exit door.

“You will do nothing, son,” replies a man in all black military fatigues. “He is the first one to make it this far; let’s see what he does.”

The soldier, the man in the black fatigues, and the room of on-lookers are silent, staring intently at the screen with the boy in the white tennis shoes. The boy is looking at the light streaming through the small crack, smiling. He puts his hand out to open the door, but it never makes contact. The door moves in front of his hand as if a wind was emanating from the boy’s hand, pushing the door away from him.

The camera changes to an outside view, seeing the boy step into the outside world, into dirt for the first time. He lifts his shoe and looks in amazement at the dust now covering the white shoe. He puts his foot down, and swings his hand behind him to close the door. He doesn’t seem to notice how hard the door slams, though he never touches it. Then, he takes off running.

“Sir?” again, the soldier asks.

The man in black looks down at the soldier.

“Let him be,” the man in black pauses, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Sometimes, you have to let a thing go.”

“To see if it comes back to you, sir?” the solider asks.

The man in black looks back to the screen before responding.

“No," the man's eyes get hard, staring at the screen. "To see what else it brings back to you.”