Cold fingers prodded my face. My eyes were heavy, I lurched, rolled over and vomited nothing but spit. My stomach was burning, my head hurt and I felt like I would pass out again if only there weren’t moon-like eyes staring into me.

“You’re gonna feel like that. It’s icky. I was like that too when I first got here. My name’s Kai. Who are you?”

I gave my name. In return I received a quizzical look and then Kai began speaking again.

“Welcome to Sector 1. That's what this cellar is called.”

I was in a dark room lit by a flickering bulb that threw odd shapes. There was a squat toilet in one corner. A ty stench tried pushing its way through my clogged nose. There was a broken sink too, it looked dirtier than the squat toilet.

“Why are we here?” I wondered.

“Because we’re sick. Because the world is sick. Because we got caught.” Kai gave a disgusted look. He horked up a lung-wad and shot saliva at my feet.

“They test us. They’re trying for a vaccine but I’ve heard the stories. I tell you, they don’t care about no vaccine. They just wanna be rid of us. We’re not humans to them, just test subjects.”

Kai hacked a terrible cough into his sleeve. Then he looked at me with those contemptuous eyes.

“They took my best friend away. They ain’t gonna get me. I’m gonna live twice as long for us both. I swear it.”

I nodded. Looking around I was still trying to understand what had happened. All I remembered was being in my home and getting visitors.

The room wasn’t very big. Kai wasn’t my only roommate. I could make out shapes that I presumed belonged to other people. The dim bulb flickered them in and out of sight.

Kai noticed me staring.

“That there is Irene. When she got here she wasn’t even sick but now she’s always complaining of the chills.”

Irene curled up a little more on the floor at the mention of her name and hid her head into her chest.

“Over there,” Kai pointed, “That’s Jackson, he don’t talk no more.”

“There’s Eric and Suzy, they’ve been here the longest. They’re scared, they’re moving to Sector 2 soon.”

“Oi, you, shut the f*** up! I ain’t goin’ to no Sector 2. I’ll bite my tongue off before I go there.” This was a man’s voice. A second later Eric launched himself at Kai. The two wrestled with each other almost knocking me down.

“Don’t mind them. They’re dumb to begin with. I’m Suzy. I’d rather bite my tongue off too than be in Sector 2.”

“Where am I?” I finally asked the question that had been bothering me.

Suzy gave me a peculiar look, as if saying tssk, newbie.

“We’re in some kind of facility. Kai mentioned the tests. That’s basically it, that’s why we’re here. We get tested on.” She pulled up the sleeve of her hospital gown. My eyes almost fell out of my sockets. Her arm was covered in bruising, scarring and angry boils. This scaly, purple, bumpy alien skin was no arm.

“Pathetic, isn’t it? They experiment on us daily. They make the okay ones sick and the sick ones sicker. The dreadfully sick ones get moved to Sector 2. I presume they go there to die. No one knows what happens in Sector 2.”

“I don’t want to die,” a quiet voice squeaked.

Suzy looked to Irene. Her face was full of sympathy. She reached for the little ball that was Irene and embraced her. Kai and Eric stopped squabbling when they heard her.

“You won’t die sweetie.”

Everyone knew this was a lie.

*

I got my own hospital gown soon enough.

They tested us daily. One by one we were extracted from the cell, blindfolded, hand-cuffed and made to walk to the testing lab. We were made to lie on a bed and strapped down. Hand-cuffs off. Meaty paws forcing us to be complacent. Sleeves shoved up. Injections pinched. Hand-cuffs on. Straps off. A stroll back to the cell.

The group initiated me. Suzy told me about the escape plans they were making. I was flabbergasted when I heard. Then I understood why I was being told this. I was the healthiest out of our pack. I was an asset.

*

A week had passed since I'd started digging. I assumed so anyway. There was no way to tell.

One day the quacks came for Irene. She was going to be moved.

Irene fought as hard as any half fainted sick person could. Her cries reverberated around the room. No one looked at her, no one tried to stop them from taking her, not even Suzy who made sure to feed her daily. I didn’t want to help anyone. I felt too sorry for myself to care about someone else.

When she was gone, I realised I had been holding my breath the entire time. I scrambled over to Kai. Kai made me feel safe. He made everyone feel safe, we huddled around him.

“They’re gonna kill her,” Kai said to no one in particular.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“Obvious isn’t it? She’s a failure. She didn’t get any better.”

“Does anyone get better?”

Kai didn’t answer that.

“This is so stupid,” Suzy whispered. “Why is this happening to us? I won’t let them take me. I’m going