It is the mystery lady. Obviously. Like, the evil one. I’m spoiling this here because it’s obvious. Haha.

When I’d been strapped to a table, I’d imagined the woman taking to be a tall, scary lady. She was not.

The woman who I had to assume was Hana was a small Asian woman. Not, like, midget-height, but I had to look down to see her. I assumed that’s why she usually wore heels. She looked young, possibly younger than me (though, that’s just Asians, right? They don’t age for 50 years and then they turn into wrinkly messes out of nowhere? Is that racist?).

She was wearing very normal clothing. Again, I’d imagined a scary woman. Hana was wearing stuff you’d see the average college student wearing. I say that because the baggy hoodie she wore had Lovus Tech’s logo on it. She matched it with some fashionably torn jeans and those skater shoes that seemed uncomfortable.

“I’m glad we can finally meet face-to-face. I do apologize for my attire, I promise you my casual clothing doesn’t imply I don’t find our meeting to be of the utmost importance. I simply don’t have much time today, and have somewhere to be directly after this.”

“Uh… that’s fine. What exactly are we doing?” I asked, glancing around the room. I didn’t see anything very high tech. It looked similar to a therapists office, with the big chair you lay down in and stuff. “Wait, just making sure; you are the lady who had me on the table, right?”

Hana smiled, her eyes showing a bit of… mischief?

“Oh, do I not seem like I could do such a thing? A little lady like me? I’m far too innocent to strap you down and do all those nasty experiments, huh?”

I didn’t know what to say. “I mean… no. I didn’t mean that. I just didn’t see you.”

Hana laughed dryly. “I’m just messing with you. But, as I said, I have plans. I’d like to get this over with quickly, as I’m sure you are.”

She walked to the fancy-looking desk in the room and sat down in the chair. She gestured to the therapy couch/chair. I obeyed, laying on it and interlocking my fingers on my stomach while looking at the ceiling like they do in the movies.

“Let’s begin with this: I’d like to thank you, Michael. I wasn’t sure you’d show your face here again. Of course, we’d kill you if you didn’t come back, but you likely knew that, didn’t you?”

“Uh… yes ma’am?”

“Good. Now, I do have to ask you a question. Please sit still before I do so.”

I was about to ask ‘huh?’ before I felt a sharp pain in the back of my neck. A needle had shot out from the chair, pricking the back of my neck. It stung for a microsecond, before making me very, very drowsy. Right before I would have fallen asleep, the drowsiness turned into an almost euphoric feeling. It felt like marshmallows enveloped me, kissing my body and warming my bones. A goofy grin was on my face and I made some sort of happy noise.

“Michael, have you told anyone about what we did to you? Anything about the incident you stumbled into? Anything about the deal we’ve made, or the tests we’re running?”

“Nope!” I said. Well, tried to say.

What actually was said was, “I told the ghost of the girl who killed herself in my room everything.”

Hana raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“This cute girl Sara let me move into her apartment with some other cute girls well one was a they/them but I don’t know how to approach that because I’m from a city that was more conservative and we didn’t really get progressive people like that but anyway the room I’m going to live in was the room of this cute girl who was into some kind of cult thing and she killed herself and she is a ghost now so when I moved in she pranked me but it was okay because then I saw the they/them roommate’s boobs but then she jerked me off while we watched through this thing she opened it was like a portal or something to the next room where the they/them and their girlfriend were having sex and it was cool but then we talked some after I came on my wall and she asked about the stuff and I told her and she possessed me and made me cut myself up which hurt.”

What the fuck was I doing?! Holy shit, is truth serum real!? Why did it make me talk in run-on sentences?!

Hana didn’t say anything for a minute (likely trying to parse through the terrible grammar).

“Okay, Michael… I’m going to have to suggest you don’t take any psychedelics anymore while we are testing this product on you, okay? Now, did you tell anyone… real about anything? Anyone alive?”

“Nope!”

Hana sighed. It kind of sounded like she was disappointed. She really wanted me to die, huh?

“That’s… good. Continue with the secrecy. I’m going to give you another injection now, and then I will let you go. Try not to get into a situation where you need to lie for the next few hours or so. The first time you take Fibnegresium it lasts a bit longer than intended. That’s the truth serum, in laymen’s terms.” Hana opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out a syringe full of a bright orange liquid. It looked similar to Fanta, but it was kind of glowing.

She walked around to me, and swiftly jabbed it into the side of my neck. I couldn’t feel it, the fuzzy warmth of the Fibnegresium shit still surrounding my every nerve.

“Alright, Michael; you can hang out here for a couple minutes until you can move your limbs again. I trust you’ll not touch anything. I must get going.”

Hana left. I kind of hoped she’d explain what the orange shit was, but nope. I still don’t know what I’m being tested with. Damn.

Like she said, it took a couple minutes before the fuzziness faded and I could move freely again. I sat up and looked around the room. I didn’t see much, not even any stereotypical degrees on the wall to give me any backstory on Hana. She had a laptop on her desk, but I wasn’t a hacker so it wouldn’t help to go through it. I could maybe check the desk for the ****, but then what? Maybe I’m a lame protagonist, but I didn’t see anything worth messing with. I just wanted to leave.

So, I left. The elevator still didn’t tell me what floor I was on. I pressed the ground floor and the same speed and darkness shit happened. I arrived on the ground floor and exited to my van, hopping in and driving to the apartment complex.