Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 5

her calm visage became angry and furious. She started marching around the facility, her hands waving rapidly, her mouth moving constantly. The entire room of men suddenly went into a frenzy, and for the first time in my short existence, the routine didn't happen. My door remained closed. No one came to ask me things, or try and make me do things, nor poke and prod at me. As more time passed men kept leaving the room and I was afraid. Afraid that the place beyond my white walls would become void of the people that had always been there. People that only demanded things of me, but the only people I knew. I was afraid that they would never come back and forget about me.
    I watched them slowly filter away from my view. My fear materializing before my very eyes. I watched in silence as they left one by one. Despair started taking hold of me and I leaned my entire body against the glass. I am here . I wanted to scream. There were only five men left in the room. Don't forget me here . I witnessed as the last two men walked through the main doors, leaving the space void of life, except mine. Before I knew it I was pacing around my room, panic slowly setting in. Perhaps… Had I been abandoned?
    Just when my breath hitched the door of my room beeped and opened. The woman I had never seen before stepped in and looked around. Her eyes burrowed, her lips frowned, she seemed upset and I wondered if it was something I had done. Something to make me disposable like the others had been.
    "My name is Dr. Mercier. I'm taking charge of this facility from today on." She extended her hand to me sideways and I stared at it. Her voice startled me. I had heard female's voices from recordings or video, but this was the first time hearing it for real. It sounded gentler than I had imagined. "What's your name?" she asked as she lowered her hand.
    I swallowed, unsure of my rarely used voice. "G-27," I answered, and her frown deepened.
    "That's your ID, what name did they give you?"
    I wasn't entirely sure what she was asking. I felt my eyebrows come lower in confusion. "Sometimes they just call me Twenty-Seven or Gab."
    "Gabe?"
    "No. Just the three letters." I held up three fingers.
    "They never gave you a name?" She sounded offended.
    "I thought G-27 was my name." I felt a tad less nervous. Her voice, while direct, held something very comforting. Like my answers mattered to her, and not in the way my answers mattered when the men were recording data. But in a way I had never felt before. Was my name really that important?
    "I'd rather call you Gab," She scoffed.
    I nodded. "I'm fine with that."
    "Gab." She rolled the name off her tongue. "No. Gabe. Gabriel! Gabriel - that will be your name."
    I nodded because I didn't know what to say. Suddenly I had a name. A name . "Gabriel," I whispered to myself. The name sounding pleasant. I wasn't a number.
    Dr. Mercier strode inside my room, tips of her fingers on her chin. "This rooms needs some color, we should fix that tomorrow. You've lived here your entire life, right, Gabriel?"
    I nodded when I was unable to say the word yes. I was still in awe that she was talking to me. Talking like I saw the men talk amongst each other. Talk the way they didn't talk to me.
    "Care to show me around?" She passed her keycard through the device next to my door and it opened. She stepped outside the threshold and beckoned me to follow. That's when panic set in. Not because I wasn't sure of my ability to show her around what I saw every day, but because the only times G-Twenty Eight and G-Twenty Six ever left their rooms was to never return.
    "What's wrong, Gabriel?"
    I froze where I stood, the fear rolling through me. I shook my head. "Please. I don't want to leave like the others. I'll be good. I'll do better. Please ."
    "Hey hey," She raised her hand towards me. "You are not going anywhere."
    I shook my head again. She was trying to trick me. She was trying to get rid of me. I saw her eyeing the bright red button hidden just on the side of the device, and I instinctively snatched her wrist stopping her. "Please!" I squeezed too hard, careless with my own strength. She moaned in pain and it startled me long enough to release her, and without a moment's hesitation she pushed the red button.
    The noise was overwhelming. I covered my ears trying to block it out, but it pounded inside my head. I waited for them to come for me; to storm through my door and hold me down. To push a needle inside my body. Like they did