Jamie woke up with a frightened startle, she had no clue where she was. She immediately panicked and tried to move but it was to no avail, as she was tied to a chair. Her arms were strapped in place, she attempted to break free from the braces holding her hostage. “What the hell? Where am I?”, she looked around the room. It was a pristine medical room, all white and sterile. There was a few machines scattered the room, making odd sounds and look too complex to decipher what they do.  Jamie was visibly scared “Hello? Anyone here? I need help!” she shouted. Suddenly the intercom speaker crackles, “Subject 73, don’t be frightened. Please calm down”. Jamie’s eyes widen “Subject!? Get me the hell outta here!”, she vigorously shakes the chair from side to side in frustration and fear. “Let me out you bastards!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. The intercom crackles once more, “Do not fret subject 73. The doctors will be with you momentarily” the intercom cuts out. 

“Let me out! Let me out! LET! ME! OUT!”. Nothing. No response. Only the sounds of the medical devices break the silence in the room, with their constant hums and beeps in a rhythmic pattern. Jamie is completely alone with her thoughts. Where was she? How did she get there? What is going to happen to her? All these questions, yet no answers. Jamie felt like she was going to die here, with no one to come to help her. She tried to pull her arms up, but the straps were too tight and she wouldn’t budge. After a few minutes of struggling and trying to free herself, she decided to give up. She soon realised that it would be futile effort to attempt to break free. Even if she could somehow manage the strength to rip off the straps, what would her next course of action be? She didn’t know where she was, and some sort of security would surely catch her if she even dared to try to escape this facility.

Being in this hospital-esque prison made minutes feel like hours, the same noises of medical machines looping over and over again. Almost like clockwork, the machines all took their turns on center-stage to grab Jamie’s attention with their unique chimes and whirs. All of a sudden faint footsteps echo from outside the room, slowly getting louder as it gets closer to the door of the room. The bolted locks on the other side of the door loudly thuds, finally opens up with a shrill creak. Three people proceed to enter the room, the last person who entered the room closes the door behind them and stands guard. The other two people approach Jamie are a man and a women, both wearing lab coats. The female scientist starts applying some sort of monitoring suction pads on Jamie’s forehead and hands. The man scientist starts to adjust his round glasses, and proceeds to write some notes on a clipboard. “Blood pressure, white blood cell count and heartrate are nominal, please administer the sedative”. Jamie looks at him in fear “Sedative? What are you going to do to me?! Am I going to die?”, her voice shakes.

The female scientist injects her with a syringe in the neck calmly, “Shush. It’s gonna be okay. Don’t worry, you aren’t going to die”. Jamie starts hyperventilating and tightening her fists out of fear, “Why are you injecting me then?!”. The male scientist looks up from his notes, “it is just a mild sedative, nothing to worry about. You’re here for an important experiment, but you are completely safe”. A sudden wave of calmness washes over Jamie, the sedative must be kicking in at this point. Her tense grip softens and she starts to breath a lot slower, the female scientist lightly touches her shoulder to comfort her. “See? You’re absolutely fine. You’ll be in safe hands with Dr Wilson”. Jamie seems to feel a sense of relief from hearing that, but still remained cautious. “We will be running a series of tests, to see if there are any side effects to a new revolutionary medicine” said the male doctor proudly asserting, smirking smugly to himself as if to say that his work was that of the upmost importance.

“Medicine? If it’s medicine, why am I strapped to this chair in some secret dungeon lab?!” Jamie piped up with aggression, trying to sus out any clue to why she would be here. Both of the doctors chuckle softly, which seemed to slightly aggravate Jamie even more so than she already was. “Well, you see. This medicine is early in development, and it would take years to get it to trial with human test subjects in the conventional way.” the male doctor said while flipping through his notes. “We vetted subjects and brought them to our facility to accelerate this process” the female scientist added. Jamie shakes her head from side to side in visible confusion, stunned by the candidness of their answers. “Huh? Then why me? Why was I picked?” The scientists look at one another and nod simultaneously in agreement, at that moment the male scientist shows Jamie a medical file with her name on it. “As I mentioned before, we vetted possible candidates and you were one of them”. He gestures to the female scientist, “in fact, Dr Green picked you herself”. Jamie turns to the female doctor and looks even more puzzled at her, still trying to piece together what kind of medicine this even could be. “I don’t get it. I’m not sick, and I don’t have any medical problems”, Jamie said in a defensive manner. Dr Green, the female scientist piped up once more in excitement “Exactly! Look at your record, fit as a fiddle and with no family history of any kind of disease! You are a rarity in this day and age Jamie!”.

For a moment, Jamie felt almost proud of that comment. Dr Green made her feel special, as if to say she was ‘perfect’ to say the least. “You are one of the most ideal candidates we’ve had. We’re sorry if your time here has been uncomfortable”, said Dr Wilson in a calming voice. Jamie felt more at ease by their kind words, but she was still sceptical of their intentions. “So, what kind of medicine are you testing?”, Jamie said inquisitively. “Ah- great question. Harnessing the power of fruit, there is a plant compound called anthocyanin”, Dr Wilson explained. “Anthocyanin can help benefit heart health, increase bone strength, lower high blood pressure, stabilize blood sugar level, prevent many forms of cancer, and improve mental health. This could revolutionize the medical industry”. Jamie looked impressed, “all of that from blueberries?” she asked. Dr Green interrupted “isn’t it wonderful? That is why we need to act fast. Standard trials could take years, if we could accelerate the process we could save millions of lives”.

Jamie paused for a moment to process everything, although she didn’t like the idea of being strapped up and tested like a guinea pig she understood why they had to do so. She was apprehensive to say the least as any sane person would be, but also curious about the entire process. “So, what do I have to do exactly?” she inquired. “Well, we need to do is inject a serum and monitor you” Dr Wilson replied while ruffling some documents. “Of course, you’ll be compensated quite generously for this process”. Jamie’s eyes widened with excitement “Compensated? You mean money right?”. Dr Wilson nodded in agreement, while handing a few documents over to Dr Green. “Why yes, Dr Green will explain the contract and payment system”. Dr Green proceeds to loosen the arm straps that were pinning Jamie in place, and hands the document to her. “Here is the contract, all you need to do is sign here and date here. If you need me to explain anything, I’d be happy to”.

Jamie awkwardly takes the contract and tries to read it, as she scans through the document she notices that it’s written in complex legalize. “Oh boy, this is really tough to read” she said nervously chuckling, both the doctors laugh along with her as Dr Green puts her hand on her shoulder in order to reassure her. “Tell me about it, the lawyer had to explain it to me too” Dr Green said while rolling her eyes, “We maybe doctors Jamie, but we don’t know everything!” Dr Wilson added. They all laugh again both in unison, all the while Jamie feels more at ease by the doctors. “We just need to set up a few more things, we’ll be back in a moment. Whenever you’re ready you can sign the document and we’ll begin” Dr Green said with a warm smile. “Okay, let me just read it carefully” Jamie replied with a soft quiet tone, still looking visibly nervous. “No problem, take all the time you need Jamie. We are right here when you need us”. The doctors leave the room and Jamie is left alone once more, she looks down at the document again.

She reads it over and over and over again, analyzing every single word and sentence. Looking for any term or condition that looked suspicious or was some sort of scam, but she found nothing. The language was difficult to comprehend at times, but she understood enough to get the gist of what the contact’s terms and conditions were. The pay was astronomical, Jamie couldn’t believe that they were offering so much money. She grabbed the pen that was left on the table next to where she was sitting, and she signed the document as carefully as she could. She let out a nervous sigh and leaned back in her chair, her stomach started turning out of worry. After a few minutes the doctors returned into the room, Dr Green was carrying a tray with some syringes on it. “Ah- Jamie, did you sign the contract?” Dr Wilson asked inquisitively. Jamie nodded “yep, it’s all signed and dated”, Dr Green and Dr Wilson smiled in relief. “Wonderful! Let’s begin right away!” Dr Wilson exclaimed.

Dr Wilson takes the contract from Jamie and starts to double check, Dr Green places the tray onto the table next to Jamie. “Everything seems to be in order, Dr Green administer the serum” Dr Green nodded and proceeds to pick up a syringe. “Okay Jamie, don’t be nervous. It won’t hurt one bit”. Jamie lets off another big sigh, she shakes her hands to starting pumping herself up. “Do it. I’m ready” she says with a vigor she hasn’t shown before, she holds still while Dr Green injects the serum into her arm. “Aaaand we are done” Dr Green proudly said, “that’s it?” Jamie replied in a surprising tone. “Well, we will have to run some tests of course. But besides that, all you need to do is relax, the hard part is over for you”. Jamie was astonished by how easy the whole process was, but she wasn’t going to complain. She just wanted to get the testing done, get her money and get out of here as fast as possible. All she had to do is wait it out and let the doctors just finish the tests, shouldn’t be too difficult.

As she was waiting in the chair the two doctors would be completing various tests, monitoring heartrate, blood pressure and other various tests. A few hours went by and the doctors would ask Jamie questions if she had experienced any symptoms or if she was feeling unwell. Everything seemed pretty normal to her, almost like a simple check-up at the doctor. “I don’t really feel any different Dr Wilson. When am I allowed to leave?” Jamie asked starting to sound a little impatient, as to indicate that she was getting a little bored being there. “Not for too much longer, maybe an hour or so” Dr Wilson explained. We’re just waiting to confirm a few more results and you should be on your wa-” Dr Wilson paused for a moment. Jamie noticed that Dr Wilson was staring at her very intensely, “Is everything alright?” she asked in a slightly worried voice. Dr Green puts her hand on her arm in a comforting manner, “not to worry you’re going to be fine” the doctor said in a calming voice. Jamie started to get worried, she could see in both of their eyes that something isn’t right. “Dr Wilson, what is going on?” Jamie said angrily. The two doctors looked at each other nervously, Dr Wilson cleared his throat, looking as if he was preparing to give bad news.