“Wake up,” orders a voice.

Is it time already? They can never give me just one day to myself. Every day it’s the same routine: Wake up, play their games, return to my cage, eat, sleep, and repeat. Every morning a guard drags me out from the comfort of my poor excuse of a cell and takes me to what seems like a testing room; a large room with a high ceiling and barely anything in it. The only things that occupy the space is a reclining examination bed, odd machines attached to this and that, and a single poster of a white kitten hanging from an extended tree branch with the words ‘Hang in there!’ spewed across the top. Lightens the mood. 

“I won’t repeat myself. Get your freak ass up!”

With my back turned toward the voice, I curl my body, holding my knees up against my chest with my arms. The coolness of my tail as it brushes up against my legs brings chills down my spine. Sometimes I forget it’s there…. For 3 months I’ve been subjected to their sick test and games, making little to no progress according to the scientist. I don’t see a point in all this repetitive nonsense. They say I’m a “catalyst of untapped mental ability” and that it is necessary to observe and record my progress, albeit slow. They believe my creators were wrong to toss my away to this godforsaken place but I can understand why they did. I’m useless. I was meant to be the commander of a new breed of psychic super soldiers yet I can barely guess what anyone’s thinking. 3 months in this place and the closest thing to ‘psychic’ about me are the whispers in the air. They’re always there, always speaking, whether or not to me is unclear. Hell, on a good day I can make out just one word. 

A sharp pain strikes just below my shoulder blade. My body shoots up, spinning to face the bars of the cage door. The guard on the other side retracts a rod between two bars and flings the door open. I crawl out like the animal they think I am and am jerked upwards with quick force. Around me I see the similar cube dwellings of the facilities residents. There are so many of us, rejects and failures. I watch as another victim emerges out of his cage. It's him, the android. I see him a lot these days, from a distance of course. My eyes glance away, unable to bear the sight of his torture. I pity him. I pity us all. Sometimes one of them gets taken away and when they return they have this sunken look about them, as if their souls were ripped out of their very being. As I’m lead away I realize I’m one of them; a victim of this soul-stealing facility. I can feel my tail slowly curl up between my legs as we near our destination. The things they subject me to, the sick mind games they force me to play in the name of science, and it’s a nightmare. I am living in a perpetual nightmare, a fate more cruel than death, on an endless loop.

The guard leads me to my futile throne and I take my place with great hesitation. Leaning my head back against the seat I can see the grim silhouettes of scientist behind the 3-inch thick window looking down at me from the safety of their observation room. As I lay there, the whispers swarm around me. This time, I can hear them clearly. For the first time, they are speaking in unison. One sentence: [i]Break the loop[/i]. My eyes trail down to the kitten on the tree and I look back at my onlookers. The corner of my lip curls up.
One day, I’ll be the one watching them “hangin’ there”.