Trapped

A Story by Alec R. Zeelie

Technology isn't always there for the betterment of human life.

Lin worked for one of the largest tech companies in China. Besides working between ten and fourteen hours on any given day, she and three of her fellow workers had to attend weekly training sessions. There, they were each given weekly medical treatment by the company's team of doctors. They had been told that the treatment was for their own good, and would make them more productive at work.

One day, after receiving two injections of what the doctors said was nothing more than vitamins, Lin started feeling woozy. She tried as hard as she could to do her work as normal until it was time for her to go home. That night, she could barely sleep. As tired as she felt, she kept having nightmares.

The following morning, she felt better than ever. On her way to work, she thought that she was hallucinating. She thought that she could actually see sound. When she heard the sound of a guy revving his motorcycle, the sound of the motorcycle's engine turned into the sound of a loud deep growl-like roar. She looked up and saw a dragon sitting on a building, breathing fire. She ran as fast as she could to the nearest alley and hid behind a dumpster. The crunching sound the broken glass beneath her shoes made, made her see a creature on the wall. It looked like a big lizard made of shards of glass.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small device. It was about the size of a coin, with a thin screen on its face.

As soon as she touched it, she heard an ear-splitting noise for five seconds. When the noise stopped, the strange sights in front of her disappeared.

At work, a slight feeling of wooziness came and went every few minutes. She tried to continue working as usual. When she went to the restroom, the wooziness got worse. She stood in front of the big dirty mirror on the wall and stared at her reflection. The sound of someone flushing a toilet in one of the stalls made her see images of water moving on the mirror. She saw herself standing in front of the mirror, wearing nothing but a white hospital gown. A man dressed in black entered the bathroom and looked directly at her. His eyes seemed to glow red. He smiled, then walked away.
Lin collapsed on the floor and curled up in tears. Even the sounds she made as she cried made her see heavy rain pouring down on her. She felt helpless as she thought that she was losing her mind. Three men in black entered the restroom and picked her up off the floor. They took her to a restricted area in the back of the company. There, the scientists conducted tests on her. They wanted to see what effects the bio-weapon had on her and some of her co-workers. The bio-weapon wasn't just being developed to make whomever they wanted to target go crazy with the scary visions. It was also designed to take control of their minds.

When she regained consciousness, she found herself strapped to a chair. Her arms and legs were bound tightly to the chair.

A scientist sat across from her, wearing a white lab coat. He smiled at her, and whispered that her life, her mind wasn't hers anymore. That it now fully belonged to the state.

Three weeks later, everything seemed normal at work. Lin was busy working as hard as usual. There was zero expression on her face. In her head, her mind was screaming. In her mind, she saw herself trapped in a cage of iron thorns. On the outside, Lin wasn't Lin anymore. On the outside, she was just a hard-working obedient slave to the system while her mind was trapped and forced to suffer the constant feeling of helplessness. She wasn't the only one.