My mom and dad give me everything I ask for. Delicious food, toys, clothes. Love. That is, under one condition. To never open the basement door. I often find myself drawn to it. Wondering what would happen if I opened it. I had tried once. One single time when I was young. My parents punished me. I never forgot the sight of blood flowing down my body, a dark red liquid- like burning oil. I never dared again. But today, my parents aren’t home. They went outside to buy some bottles of my medication. It’s a strange medicine that makes me feel sick… As if I have another consciousness just waiting to burst out- a hidden predicament that keeps buzzing in my mind.

But they say it’s just for my own good…Maybe it is. I walked up to the basement door, and broke open the lock. I peeked outside and smiled. For the first time in my life, I had walked out of the basement and felt the sun on my skin.

I took my first step into the sun, blinking at the golden blaze overhead. The world outside was quieter than I imagined. Too quiet. No birds. No breeze. Just… stillness. I walked down the driveway, barefoot. Everything seemed frozen, like a photograph waiting to be smudged. A man watering his garden stood perfectly still, the water arcing midair like glass. I blinked. The image twitched. Then the sky rewound.

Suddenly I was back at the basement door. Had I opened it? I couldn’t remember. My mind was fuzzy…but the fuzziness had a clarity now… Like glass which had finally been broken, light inching through the cracks. A note was wedged beneath the doorframe: “Take your medicine.” But I had already flushed the pills…right? I couldn’t remember… Suddenly, a jab of pain stabbed my mind, my eyes widening as if a hidden memory had been remembered once more. I turned and saw the basement for what it really was.

There were no windows. No clock. No calendar.

Only rows of photos taped to the walls— photos of me at different ages. In some I looked frightened.

In others… restrained.

One had today’s date scrawled across it: “Exit Protocol Initiated- Subject shows signs of curiosity.” Flashbacks flooded my mind. Or were they memories? I don’t know. There were rows of tanks. Not filled with fluid. Filled with bodies. Dozens—no, hundreds. All in various stages of decomposition, each wearing the same bracelet as mine.

It was all me—strapped to a gurney, eyes half-lidded, lips parted as if mid-sentence. Beside me stood my parents. But not my parents. People wearing their faces. People who looked like them but didn’t blink. Didn’t age. My stomach turned.

I checked the mirror nearby. My reflection looked normal—until it glitched. Just once. Then again. For a moment, I saw something beneath my skin. Wires. Fiber. A flicker of light in my pupils.

I flinched as the door creaked open, trying to suppress the burning pain in my chest- or was that programmed too? Was all the love, the happiness, the joy I had felt until now, just a facade composed between the lines of coding? Just a predetermined emotion, that never was truly mine?

My mother stepped in. But she was too young. I noticed it this time. All too perfect. Her smile glitched at the corners.

“You weren’t supposed to wake up yet,” she said, her voice crackling like a broken speaker- as if it warped through somewhere on the walls, as if they knew what I’d seen. “We’ll have to start the simulation over.”

Darkness surged in. When I opened my eyes, I was at the dinner table. Warm food. Toys. Love. And a basement door. Still locked. Except this time, I remembered.

I finally knew. I wasn’t their child. I was their experiment.