White. Surgical white.

It’s the color I see every day from the morning when I open my eyes to at night when I finally shut them after a grueling day of experiments and tests on my body.

In the beginning, it was a way for my grasping and struggling family to earn some money,

“It’s really free money,” The scientist had said, “Just a few little tests and DNA samples and done!”

Millions of tests later, are we done?

Absolutely not.

When my mom had tried to discharge me from the medical science lab, they told her that I was in too much of an unstable condition to be released. How could that be? I feel fine.

I lie now on my side, watching as Dr. Hernandez fills test tubes and beakers full of cloudy white liquid and something metallic-looking. Fiddling with the tube coming out of my arm, I think about what my family is doing at home. It’s a Sunday, I think, though it’s so easy to lose track of the days here. So they would likely be watching a nature documentary while eating apple pie upon arriving home from church.

I haven’t seen them in nearly two years.

My baby cousin, Tika, was just three when I left. She’s probably so much bigger now.

After having multiple shots put into my arm, numbing me further emotionally and physically, they lead me back to the “suites”. But that makes it sound like a beachy hotel that a family would go to on vacation, not bare white rooms, stripped of anything personal that shows that someone lives there.

I had thought it was a bit inhospitable at first, but after all, I had also thought I would be there for three days. Not two years.

Passing a window, I get a glimpse of some scuffle going on outside. A women being held back from the entrance doors by a burly lab guard. The women is distraught looking, dark rings under her eyes and oily, matted hair.

When we make eye contact, she snaps.

Kicking and yelling, she breaks free from the man and runs towards me. A familiar warmth of love from her golden-brown eyes sparks.

Could it be?

No. It’s impossible.

Mom?

The escort leading me to my room shoves me hard in the shoulder blade, pushing me away from her and into my room.

It’s then when I realize; there is no way this is legal.

Keeping children from parents against their will.

And that I’m never going to get out of the hostile place unless I fight.

Fight.

As my bare feet touch the clean, cold floor tile, I decide that I will fight.

Fight until I’m free.