YEAR 4027

CALYPSO FACILITY

            In a distant hill, away from the hustle and bustle of the city, stood a structure so serene and peaceful on the outside, its walls are painted in pure white, so white that the hallways seemed to stretch endlessly. Within its premises, a woman in her mid-forties walked in constant motion, her heels made a ticking echo with every step. She wore a long white coat, heavy rimmed glasses, and her hair was neatly tied up in a bun. As she was approaching a door at the end of the corridor, she heard someone screaming, but her expression remained unfazed— she only drew in a deep breath before scanning her finger print by the door and with a single beep, the room was already open. The people inside collectively turned to greet the woman who simply nodded as an answer.

            The screaming continued as the girl behind the enormous glass wall struggled through straps and contraptions connected to her body. Her eyes were covered with virtual reality goggles but it did not stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks.

            “How long has this been going?” The woman asked, her arms placed across her chest. She looked at the girl who is now panting, the equipments are being removed; her body was frail looking within the grasp of men dressed in white overalls, she was covered in sweat, and her limbs were limp.

            “Forty-five minutes,” someone with a deep voice answered from behind making the woman turn. “Dr. Baek, you came too early today,” he added as he stepped closer onto the light, revealing a tall man with graying hair and a fit body.

            “You’re bound to kill her at this point, Mr. Jang.” Dr. Baek had a smug look on her face and Mr. Jang scoffed at the doctor’s remark.

            “We won’t,” he said with a tone of absolute certainty, “not just yet,” he added with a vile expression.

            “What’s the scenario this time?” She asked him. He gave her a brief smile and handed her a transparent gadget where a film played.

            “That’s exactly what she saw today. Everything she was robbed of. Her family, her ambitions, her greatest fear…” his words hang in the air as a shootout scene flashed on the screen, “losing her lover,” Mr. Jang finished his statement.

            Dr. Baek sat on the chair behind the controls. She placed her elbow on the table and rested her chin on top of her hand. Her eyes focused on the now empty testing room, “You’re warping her emotions now, too?” She asked him.

            “Well, your most recent finding showed that her memories are becoming distorted. I figured that maybe we can take it to the next level.” He spoke in a proud tone which somehow irked the woman in white coat.

            “Do you know what’s innate in humans?” Her eyes stayed fixated on the vacant chair in the middle of the room. Mr. Jang remained silent, clearly lost as to where the doctor’s trying to direct the conversation. “Emotions,” she revealed, eventually turning to face the even more confused senator.

            “Cut to the chase, Dr. Baek. We don’t have all day.” He massaged his temples in an attempt to hide his impatience.

            “She’s a pretty strong girl. It took you a year to make a dent on her memories. Breaking through her emotional barrier would be harder than you think.” Mr. Jang took in a deep breath, not ready to accept defeat.

            “That’s why we’re trying,” he answered in a passive-aggressive manner. “And since when did you care about the girl?”

            Dr. Baek smirked at the senator’s foolishness. “Giving comments from a medical perspective isn’t necessarily a sign of caring. I’ve been her psychiatrist for a year, if there’s someone who knows her the most in this facility, it’s me.” Anger started to seep through Mr. Jang’s body but Dr. Baek was quick to pick up on cues, she knew it was time to excuse herself. The doctor rose up to her feet, offered a small bow to the man and left.

ROOM 1421

            A girl stood by the wall, paintbrush in her hand; she scanned the spaces in between an already existent mural she made. Her mind drifted to when she first came into the facility, the room was so bare, and raw, and empty, until she decided to dirty it with colors that made no sense to everyone but her. She lifted her arm and placed the tip of the brush on the smooth surface, a solid color of red marked an unfilled spot. Her eyes followed the rhythm of her tool, her wrist moved gently—calculating every in her mind, reflecting the hues of what could be compared to rainbows through her thick glass. She was in euphoria, building her own world within the confines of a four-walled void.

            The door slid open, making a heavy dragging noise with it. The girl, although gradually halted by the sound, did not look back. She simply stared at the fresh red paint, waiting for someone to approach her.

            “Ahn Yujin,” a woman called her and she took this as a cue to turn around, a smile readily plastered on her face. Yujin faced towards the direction of where the voice came from, fully knowing it’s Dr. Baek with her tone so comforting and calm, classic for a doctor like her. If Yujin didn’t know better, she would’ve almost felt home with the presence of the woman. Although, that’s the thing—Yujin does know better.

            “Hello, doctor,” she greeted lightly as the woman in white coat closed of the distance between them, in her hand was a small paper bag.

“I can see that you’re painting again,” she told Yujin who went back to painting, seeming as if she wasn’t listening to the doctor standing beside her.

“It relieves things,” the girl responded plainly without removing her gaze from her work. Dr. Baek allowed a moment of silence to pass while she examined Yujin’s behavior, taking into account any form of slight change in her mannerisms and the details of her actions, but there was none. Yujin had always been consistent with her demeanor, composed and collected.

Suddenly, she remembered the time when she was introduced to the girl who was only sixteen back then and had only been in the facility for less than twenty-four hours. Dr. Baek expected a disoriented and wailing teenager. Instead, she was faced with a girl who sat courteously on the chair across the other side of the table and when she talked to her, she answered questions soundly—not one bit of panic noted in her face. That’s when she had a hunch that Yujin was not like everybody else. She’s on league of her own and Dr. Baek, being the ambitious woman that she is, saw this as a challenge to see just how far the girl could go.

“What did you draw this time?” She finally asked her. Yujin placed the brush down by the table, careful not to stain her hands with excess paint.

“A scenario,” she answered. “Although, I’m still wondering if it’s mine or not.” Her eyes stared at the abstract tones on the once white surface.

“You used a lot of red,” Dr. Baek began to state the obvious; Yujin still has her vision fixed on her recent painting. “Does that color mean anything?” She inquired, ready to explore the girl’s mind further.

“Blood,” she responded nonchalantly, this time, Yujin turned her head so she could see how the doctor would react. And unsurprisingly, Dr. Baek wore that neutral expression, the one that doctors use to make you feel like it’s just a casual conversation when in reality, your answers are being broken down into pieces only so they could build up the fragments of what they assumed to be a tangled mess of thoughts. “I saw a lot of it earlier… when Minjoo was shot,” she added and Dr. Baek nodded, taking note of the film shown to her hours before she met Yujin for evaluation.

“And how do you feel about that?” The doctor asked to which Yujin initially answered with a shrug, just to buy her time to thread her thoughts together, the simulation still fresh in her memory. Dr. Baek, on the otherhand, remained quiet and waited for her patient to propel the conversation forward.

Eventually, she began to speak. “Do I really have to feel anything?” She retorted, catching the doctor off guard for a fleeting second. Although, it didn’t show but Yujin was quick to note the slightest change in her psychiatrist’s posture. She knew that it wasn’t the answer Dr. Baek was hoping for.

“Well,” she prompted, “it must have been something to see your lover being shot like that.”

Before Yujin could reply, the skies growled and the dark clouds from a distance started looming over. The thunder led Yujin to dart her eyes towards the small window with metal grills. There’s going to be a downpour, she thought, and almost immediately she transferred her gaze from the