#haley chavis-sakye

[the-whumping-hour]

Day 2 - Solitary Confinement

@febuwhump DAY TWO ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

CW: Lab whump, isolation, vague depressive thoughts, it as a dehumanizing pronoun, threat of forced medical coma, implied revenge murder, mention of electrowhump, mention of execution, mention of starvation as a torture tactic

Notes: Welcome to the AMF! This one honestly made me insanely fucking sad. Ayeli uses she/they pronouns. Dr. Haley Chavis-Sakye is Ayeli’s personal researcher, essentially, and “Dr. Garcia”... well, let’s just say he’s a pretty important guy.

***

Really, right now, all Ayeli wants is a watch.

It’s been five days now, she thinks, if she’s been counting the meals right. It’s hard to when it’s all the same: instant mashed potatoes and cold scrambled eggs and applesauce with a new single set of plastic silverware each time. Maybe that’s a small mercy, if anything is; if not, she would’ve had to melt her restraints again to grab the spoon from the floor every time she dropped it, and who knows how many volts that would’ve cost her.

But they think they’ve had twelve meals so far, and they know they’ve eaten all but two of them– like hell were they eating without that spoon– and if the timing’s right their restraints should be opening any minute to let them go to their tiny bathroom and change their robe and kick at the walls for a few minutes and throw things at the one ceiling tile above their cot that looks a bit more fake than all the others. They know they’re being watched. They should at least get to put on a show. 

She doesn’t even know what she did. She really doesn’t. At least not anything that she hadn’t done before, with the refusal to speak and the energy surges that broke their intercom for several weeks last time. One too many times, apparently. And now she’s here.

If they stare at the light long enough, they start seeing Marcy in the afterimage. 

Three minutes later, as expected, the restraints pop open, and as expected another white robe is on the bathroom hook. She doesn’t know who’s coming in, or from where. At least they have the decency to knock her out on semi-routine intervals. In her usual room, they never have that courtesy; the moment the lights start flickering, everyone’s out with their tranqs and she’s out cold for as long as they feel the need for her to be. Here, she can’t hurt anyone. Here, the walls don’t yield when she kicks at them. She does it once, twice. It doesn’t change much.

Or, wait. There’s a hum coming from the ceiling.

It’s very faint, barely perceptible, and Ayeli realizes it must’ve started during their kicking, or before it, because nothing they ever do prompts a response anymore. Not when they tried to break the faucet off the wall yesterday, or when they screamed at the top of their lungs for ten minutes straight two days before that. No, this is a change. 

Rarely a good thing with the esteemed Alexus Metanatural Foundation.

“Ayeli Astian,” the voice is a familiar one crackling over the intercom, soaring and terrifying and every emotion at once as her leg freezes before another kick. Dr. Haley never bothers to come when she’s done something wrong. “I’ve been making your plea deal. They’ll get you out of here by Sunday.”

They can’t help it, they laugh. Alone in a white sterile room with nothing but the off-putting fake ceiling tile above them. “When the fuck is Sunday?”

There’s no answer. As expected. “There is a condition, though.” Fuck. There’s something serious here, something bad. Haley always sounds hesitant when it’s something bad.

 “They’re putting you out for three weeks.”

“...what?” 

“I'm sure this is hard for you, it’s just… Dr. Garcia needs an unconscious subject for several trials, and I… the team agreed to do this. I hope you understand. At least you’re not… aware of it. It’ll be nothing, Ayeli.”

Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Everything is nothing at this point.

The intercom clicks off, and Ayeli sees red. There’s no reason to scream. And they all think there’s no reason for her to do anything. Nothing but be a fake dead body.

And they think it’s bullshit.

And that’s the last thing she thinks, in fact, before something cracks, and the walls splinter with heat as the lights go out, and the ceiling tiles pop into ash.

—

“Sir, please, if I could just explain–”

“Your project just killed five people, Chavis. I’m not sure what there is to explain.”

“Listen, it’s… it’s got issues, I know, it gets scared when it’s alone, it gets scared to go to sleep–”

“Chavis, we are talking about the largest institutional threat in years. This is not a sales pitch.”

“If we could just up the power control, anything, I know you still want them as a subject…”

“No, Chavis, you know who wants it? Copán wants it. Herrets wants it. Best case, we put them on a boat and never see them again.”

“Sir, please,”

“Would you like the worst case instead?”

“Dr. Garcia, I…”

“No. Right now, it gets no energy, nothing for a week. And then we discuss action going forward.”

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