This was very real. Or else it was an illusion so intricate that it could even delude the narrator of this story (me) who, frankly, did not really exist as a tangible being. I, myself, was an illusion. Alarming detail decorated every fabric, every alloy, and every bottle of barium sulfate—down to every barium, sulfur, and four oxygen atoms. The somber-faced people rushed back and forth around this white-walled laboratory that was so devoid of colour that if one were to stare at it for over an extended period time, it would make their eyes want to escape this depressing place by, let's say, jumping out of your head and running away like madmen. But the scientists that dragged themselves here daily to slave over their work knew that that situation wasn't possible, which was most likely how they kept themselves sane over the long hours spent in this high-ceilinged, yet still claustrophobia-inducing room with a serious lack of entertainment apparatus.
Actually, I take that last part back. One of the walls of this pentagonal prism room consisted solely of one-way glass that overlooked an even larger and more dismal room of science. To the lifeless souls that devoted that lifelessness to this cause, that was all the entertainment they needed. A spacious field of grey square approximately the size of a briefcase after grey square of equal size. This stretched out to cover the entire floor with these oppressive tiles and left no piece of ground free of this array.
Perhaps the most depressing part of it all was the person that they suspended in the air above the field of grey and when they came to, they dropped them on the field. Once in a while, the person would figure out what they had to do, was able to clear the grey tiles and successfully mark the ones that had mines underneath them. In this case, sleeping gas would be let into the room to knock them unconscious and they were brought to another room where their memory would be blocked and they were forced to do that again. But most of the time, the person got blown up. Never to fear! They remained completely in one piece as they were brought to another room where their memory would be blocked and they were forced to do that again. These scientists were boring, repetitive people.
Usually, after about four or five mind blocks, a person's brain could take no more and cause their whole body to shut down. Another person would replace them. It was sickening to watch these people, from who knows where, kill themselves, or more accurately, get lobotomized by a group of unimaginative scientists. If I were to be lobotomized, I would have it done by the man that runs the French bread shop down the street because he has at least accomplished something in life (making damn good croissants).
And so I watched, day after day, because if I didn't, I would miss something and then that would sound kind of stupid in a story, especially told by me. I was not anything, I had no shape or form and I was not perceptible by your senses. Therefore, I did not need Facebook breaks to play Farmville or something. This made me a good source of information for stories.
It struck me strange when I saw a face come down on to the minefield for seven times (and counting). His brain seemed completely functional but he himself seemed stupidly persistent. Persistent about what, I don't know. I watched partly out of curiosity and partly in amazement as time after time, he was brought back into the field with a fresh look of fierceness in his eyes.
This went on for days. The scientists were excited by the fact that they had found such a long-lasting test subject but also disappointed that he had not figured out how to use the gun. I was just wonderstruck by the blind determination and stupidity of some of these people even after they got blown up again and again.
I've seen two typed of people descending into that field. Ones who were intelligent, and ones who were not. I was just about to brand this test subject at the second kind when once, he stared at me. This was the first time that any test subject looked at me. They never thought of looking up, because they were mindless idiots, to say it nicely and rather blandly. But I knew that once he had decided to look up, something had changed in his mind. He began to realize something about his situation and perhaps, something would change about me.