Chapter 1: Test subject?
It was a normal night like any other in Elmore City. The crescent moon was dangling high in the sky like a carrot on a stick, being surrounded by shiny stars that illuminated the night of the town. In one house however, the sound of slight sobs could be heard in one room. A young blue cat that was dressed in his pajamas was sitting on the bottom bunk of a bunk bed. As silently as he could, he sobbed. The room looked very messy, with toys and various clothing scattered across the floor due to lack of cleaning. "Gumball?" the young cat then heard. He sniffled, looking over to the doorway to see an anthropomorphic fish with legs standing there.
"Oh… h-hey, Darwin," Gumball greeted his younger brother while wiping the tears out of his eyes, trying to act like he wasn't upset. "What's wrong?" Darwin asked, being one of his two younger siblings. He and the other sibling wasn't blood related, but they acted like true family members to Gumball. "Penny dumped me… that's all," he reluctantly admitted that his girlfriend had broken up with him. He knew that his brother wouldn't stop asking him until he told him what was making him upset. Thankfully, they were the only ones awake in the household at the moment.
"What? …Why would she do that?" Darwin questioned while walking to his older brother, seeing how upset he was. He never enjoyed seeing anyone miserable, no matter who it was. "I don't know… I think it was something about me being too immature," Gumball claimed before just lying down on his bed tiredly, having spent most of his energy in his heartbroken mood. Penny was the girl of his dreams. That was what he thought anyway. He had been dating her for only a couple of months before they had broken up. He felt like he accomplished a lot when they started dating, but now he felt like he had messed up somewhere. He was not exactly sure by what she meant by him being immature. He always remembered his mother telling him to just be himself. Now he was blaming himself for the break up. Darwin just let his brother rest before climbing into his fishbowl on the nightstand. It was a little small, but he didn't mind. He just tried to go to sleep.
Later that night, around two o'clock at midnight, Gumball heard a knock at the door. He sat up from his bed, still tired. Rubbing his eye and looking to the fishbowl on the nightstand by the bunk bed, he saw his little brother still slumbering. He just sighed, wondering who was at their home at this time of night. He made his way through the hall quietly, not wanting to wake up his parents or his relatives. He continued downstairs to the living room where there wasn't much decoration beyond a television, a coffee table and a big couch.
Gumball went to the door and opened it. "Hello?" he tiredly greeted the shady person. He switched on the porch light. The visitor was a man in a blue business suit with a red tie, the kind of suit that one would wear to deliver a form of news. He couldn't make out any other details. The light had somewhat blinded him. "Hello. Gumball Watterson, is it?" the business man responded. Gumball immediately felt too nervous to respond, wondering how the stranger knew his name. "Erm… y-yeah?" he stuttered. "You've been randomly selected to be a part of a small test," the business man explained while adjusting his tie. "A test? I'm not really too good at them…" Gumball muttered. He wasn't the smartest person in Elmore.
"Listen. It doesn't matter if you're good at it or not. As long as you try, you'll receive payment for your time," the man further explained. Gumball pondered on it for a second before sighing. "Fine… I'll take it. When do I have to take it and where?" he questioned further. "Tonight, and I'll take you there," the man said, pointing to a nearby limo that was parked at the nearby curve. Gumball felt somewhat nervous, doubting this entirely. A man in the middle of the night in a limo had driven up to his home at random. Gumball however had one thing left to ask. "Wait… how was I selected?" Gumball asked his final question, receiving a somewhat joking cough from the business man.
"Erm… well, we selected the worst kid in all of Elmore," the man hesitantly claimed. Gumball was hurt and depressed at the thought of being a terrible kid. Suddenly he felt a hand get put on his shoulder. "But this test does not involve your brain. It's somewhat a medicine being designed for therapy. But imagine a medicine that can make you an entirely better person," the man declared what the point behind the test was. Gumball hesitantly looked at the black limo and sighed. "Alright, you got me. Let's go," he agreed, following the man out of the house, closing the front door behind him. He figured to make his reputation better than that, anything for him not to be the worst kid in Elmore.
Gumball climbed into the back of the limo. The man took a seat across from him. Gumball wondered how long the trip would take. Inside the limo felt nice, with red carpeting on the floor and the long chairs that could fit dozens of people in a row. "Oh, and to introduce myself, my name's Gordon," the suit-wearing man introduced himself. Gumball didn't introduce himself in response, since the strange man already knew his name.
There was nothing but silence from there on. Gumball wound up lying in one of the many seats. He could not stay awake for any longer and immediately began to fall asleep. The comfortable seats combined with the late night had made it hard for him to stay conscious.
After a few hours, Gumball woke up, letting out a long yaw. When he tried to move, he felt stuck. Looking around, he found himself strapped to a weird white chair. His feet and tail were stuck as well. He looked around, seeing nothing more than the blankness of the white room around him "Hello?! Anyone here?!" he called, not receiving any response. Soon he heard a door open up. He couldn't turn his head so much due to being restrained. Instantly he became scared when he saw a man in a white lab coat roll by with a medical tray that lay four syringes with different colored liquids residing within them. If there was one thing Gumball hated most, it was shots.
"Don't worry. This won't take long. It's just a simple procedure," he heard Gordon's voice. That was something else that worried him. The strange man in white got the first of the shots ready. The first syringe had a green liquid contained in it. Gumball felt the needle dive into his arms. He nervously whimpered. The shot was cold and relaxing. It didn't bother him further than a small needle prick. "Alright, next one…" the man mumbled, pulling out the red syringe and stabbing Gumball in the arm. The liquid started getting injected into his arm, feeling like someone had covered him in fire ants. It burned his arm and slowly began to burn his entire body. Gumball screamed in red hot pain, wanting it to fully stop, but he was unable to withstand the pain any longer. His mind read that the red liquid felt like the pain of a thousand suns. Gumball passed out, not able to stay conscious anymore throughout the rest of the procedure.
End of Chapter 1