I woke up gasping for breath. I was in a tubular container that looked like a bobsled, but with a glass cover over it. Where am I? I asked myself. I looked around my constrained container. It was filled with flashing lights and bright colors. I then realized that I was trapped, and I started to panic. I wanted to get out - now! I screamed for help for someone to get me out as I tried to push open the top.
        	“Welcome to Hexus Laboratories,” a recorded audio voice of a man exclaimed, coming from inside of my bobsled cage. “Please remain calm; you will be free to test in a few minutes.”
        	Test!?!? I thought to myself. What am I testing? Am I the test subject!? I panicked and struggled to get out of the capsule, pushing with all of my might against the glass.
        	“You may now proceed to the testing chambers,” the recorded man stated. “Warning! We are not responsible for any brain damage, nausea, extreme headaches, bone loss, anxiety attacks, heart attacks, severe injuries, death, or numbness in fingers you may experience throughout the test chambers. Have a nice day.”
        	Severe injuries!! Death!! What kind of testing is this!? I exclaimed to myself, starting to hyperventilate. I now wanted to stay in my nice cozy container. I did NOT want to go test.
        	PSHHHHHH! The glass cover above me opened with ease, as the container moved upright forcing me to step out. I was in a white room with a door to my left and a mirror in front of me. I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked horrible. It was as if I had stayed in bed all day. My short brown hair was spiked up every direction, and my face was a pasty white. My bright blue eyes were fixated upon my own reflection in the mirror. I was wearing a bright green jump suit with the numbers 1834 on it. The numbers were metal and very shiny.
        	Who am I? What’s my name? It’s as if I could remember everything else but the things that were important to me. My friends, my family, and my life.
        	The door popped open startling me out of my trance. I looked through the door and saw some sort of sign. I walked towards it and it read: Splatter Gun Testing Chambers. 1 - 10.
        	Splatter Gun? What in the world is that? I asked myself. I continued down the perfectly white hallway that seemed to lead to nowhere. I walked, counting my steps 46…47…48…49…50…51. I stopped as I spotted something in a display case. I ran towards it and found a gun in the case with a round white body and a black handle. It had a gear on the side with a blue dot for one of the three functions; but the other two were blank.
        	I’m guessing this is the spatter gun? I said to myself. I tentatively pulled the trigger on the gun, set on the blue function. SPPPPLATTT! Blue glop sprayed from the nozzle covering the hallway ahead of me with blue paint-like substance.
      “Whoops.” I exclaimed.
        	As I tried to walk through the blue colored mess, I felt a surge of power within me and I sprinted forward at a tremendous speed. But as soon as I stepped out of the paint, the power surge disappeared and I was running at regular speed.
        	“Blue makes you fast,” a metallic, scratchy feminine voice exclaimed, coming from the white ceiling.
        	“Are you talking to me?” I asked.
        	“Yes. I am talking to you.”
        	“Who are you?”
        	“I’m HiKUs. The head robot of this wonderful testing facility.”
        	“Robot!?”
        	“Does that surprise you?”
        	“Well yes. Very much so.”
        	“Proceed to the first chamber,” HiKUs exclaimed with a hint of annoyance in her voice. One of the panels in the hallway opened up and revealed a doorway. I precariously walked through the doorway wondering what would await me.
        	“This is Test Chamber 1,” HiKUs stated. “The goal is to get through by using the blue thrust gel that you figured out how to use in the hallway.”
        	I looked around the room. It was all white except for the black colored metal square, on which I was standing. I spotted the exit on a platform above me to my right. The exit door was round and had a bright green colored glow. There was a ramp in front of me leading towards the exit door. At the end of the ramp, at ground level, there were spikes jutting out looking horrific.
        	“What’s with the spikes?” I asked HiKUs.
        	“I needed something to…….amuse me,” she answered menacingly. I looked closely at the spikes. There was dried red residue on the tips of a few. Is that…..Oh Gosh. I said to myself, almost making a mess in the testing chamber.
        	“That’s horrible!!!!” I shouted at HiKUs. She just laughed. Rage and fear filled up inside me. This robot has gone crazy, I stated. I need to get out of here. But how will I? I realized that I couldn’t do anything at the moment so I decided to just finish the splatter gun testing chambers as fast as I could……without dying.
        	I shot some blue gel down at my feet, but it disappeared instantly as it hit the black metal.
        	“It is impossible to shoot on the black. Any form of gel will disappear. You may only shoot on the white,” HiKUs added, laughing again in her horrible metallic voice.
      “Thanks for the tip,” I answered sarcastically. I ran to the start of the ramp and shot blue gel over everything, starting from the front and spraying forward. I stepped off the area that I sprayed and started to run, to get a head start. As I ran onto the gel, the power surge flowed into me again and I ran at maximum speed. I reached the edge of the ramp and jumped. BANG! I landed on the exit platform.
      “Yes! I’m alive!”
        	“No death? Aww….. Oh well. Next testing chamber up ahead,” HiKUs sighed. I walked up through the exit and entered a large all-white chamber with a cylinder shaped object in the middle.
        	“What is this thing?” I asked, shouting up at the ceiling.
        	“Guess,” she taunted.
        	“An exit out of this wretched place?”
        	“It’s the Molecular Teleportation Device, or the TMD. It harmfully rips apart your molecular structure and sends the molecules through to another TMD and assembles them back together again. Painfully.”
        	I hate her. I really hate her, I thought to myself. Suddenly the door to the TMD shot open and the panels in the room floated up and started to close in on me. CHHHCHCH!!!! The walls of the room screeched and smashed together. I started to panic, and I ran towards the middle of the room.
      “NOW YOU MUST GET IN AND CONTINUE TESTING!!” HiKUs shrieked over the horrible grinding noise. I realized this was my only option of survival so I jumped into the TMD. I slammed the door shut and shrank to the floor. The walls were getting closer now, almost to the point of crushing the TMD. A buzzing noise started, getting louder and louder, almost to a deafening level. What happened next is hard to explain. Even I don’t remember what happened. Yet, somehow I shot up into to TMD – molecules and all – and appeared suddenly into another TMD exactly identical to the other.
      The TMD door shot open and I stumbled out, doubled over, and vomited on the shiny white flooring. That was horrible, I grumbled to myself.
      “You will get used to it.” HiKUs answered, almost reading my thoughts. Once I regained my balance, I forged on ahead through the next hallway and appeared in yet another huge all-white room. Don’t they ever think of adding some color to this place? 
      In the very center of the room there was a red and brown stand holding a gun receptacle. Next to the stand was a brass plaque, and on the wall adjacent to me was an exit with a sign above it reading “Testing Chamber 2.”
      I ran up to the plaque and it read: “Congratulations! You’ve obtained the Yellow and Red installments to your Splatter Gun! Just plug the base of your Splatter Gun into the receptacle.” I did as the plaque read and plugged in my gun. The barrel of the gun started to glow bright green. I shaded my eyes until I heard a soft “Bong!” from the gun. The gun now had two more dots on the gear, one red and the other yellow.
        	“Wonderful,” HiKUs announced. “Now enter chamber two. It’s my favorite chamber. You want to know why it’s my favorite? Well I won’t tell you.”
      “I wasn’t asking,” I answered. Why should I do what she says? I shot red gel down at my feet and experimentally jumped on it. Suddenly a new power surge coursed through my body and I rocketed into the air at high speeds. I then reached my peak of my accent and started to fall. I came back down onto the red gel and sprang up again. Okay, so blue equals running, and red equals jumping. But what does yellow do? I wondered. As I was once again reaching my maximum height, I shot yellow gel covering up the red gel below me. FWOMP! I was expecting a hard landing on the ground, but what really happened is as I hit the ground, I sunk through the yellow gel, falling down into a new testing chamber. On the wall a sign read: Testing Chamber 3.
      “WHAT!?!? You skipped chamber 2?!?!? It is my favorite!!!” HiKUs raged. As I was looking around the new testing chamber, suddenly two panels from the wall adjacent from each other shot out at lightning speeds threatening to crush me. I quickly shot red gel down at my feet and sprang upwards, the panels smashing together at the last second. I quickly fell back down to the ground, off the red gel. I’m getting pretty good at this.
        	“I’ll just kill you in the next chamber. No one gets past chamber number 4.” The ever present, metallic voice from the sky exclaimed. Not if I reach you first, I retorted.
        	In the testing chamber, there was only a smooth cornered box on a high platform, and a button below it. The exit was very high in the room on another platform. I wanted to take my time on this one so I could figure out a way to escape Hexus Laboratories. I slowly walked under the platform that held the box, and shot yellow gel on the bottom side of the platform. FWOMP! The box fell through the platform and landed on the button, and a large ramp appeared behind me with spikes in front of it. They’re not very creative with their testing chambers, I surmised. I repeated what I did in chamber 1 and sprayed blue gel all over the ramp, but this time I put red gel on the top of the ramp because the exit was a bit higher. A tiny splotch of purple gel appeared where the two gels met.
        	I went to the back of the ramp and sprinted towards it. I felt the first power surge fill me as I ran forward, and then the second as I shot through the air. I’m going to make it! Suddenly, out from the exit a giant white wall appeared, blocking my path. I realized if I were to hit it, I would fall to my demise into the spikes.
        	I quickly reacted and shot yellow gel at the wall, flying through it and reaching a huge room with another TMD in it. The floor under the TMD suddenly disappeared and it fell through, being replaced by a white panel. I have to get out of here! I ran forward and looked around the room for any type of escape.
        	“YOU!” HiKUs shrieked. “I have had enough of you. I will kill you now.”
        	“WAIT!” I screamed. “What makes you so evil? Why are you doing this?”
        	“I’m not evil!! YOU ARE!! YOU ARE THE EVIL ONE!!!”
        	Then pandemonium erupted, as every panel in the whole room came crashing right at me. They made the loudest noise that I ever had heard as they smashed and slammed together like wild animals competing for the first to take a bite out of me.
        	GO!! I urged myself, freeing myself from my initial shock. I sprayed blue gel in a steady flow in front of me as I sprinted forward. The power surge filled me and I shot ahead. I ramped up on a panel and shot upwards towards the wall. I shot left and right, flinging yellow gel on any panel that attempted to smash into me. I made it past all of the panels flying towards me. Then I reached the wall. I’m going to make it!
        	Suddenly, the whole wall in front of me flipped around and turned from all-white panels to all-black panels.
        	“I think not!” HiKUs taunted. I slammed into the black wall and fell down, expecting a hard smash as I hit the white panels. But the panel below me opened up and I fell into a deep, black, hole…	
        	My eyes shot open. Where am I?  I looked around wondering what happened. But then I remembered everything, HiKUs, the splatter gun, the fall.
      I was in some sort of jail cell with huge concrete walls. My splatter gun was at my side. I stood up and walked around the cell looking for an exit, when suddenly the whole wall ahead of me disintegrated. Ahead was a hallway covered in all black panels. I reached down, picked up my splatter gun and trudged on, wondering what awaited me.
      As I reached the end of the hallway, I spotted a door. Not just any door, but a humongous, brass door. The huge door swung open and the panels behind me came up and coaxed me through. Lights were shining at me very brightly. I shaded my eyes as they adjusted. Then, I saw her. I took a sharp intake of breath as I took in her full profile. She was hanging from the ceiling with wires and cords connecting her to the whole factory. She had one glowing red eye on her head. Along her body were two gigantic arms with razor sharp claws. I need to avoid those, I told myself.
      “Glad you could make it,” She began. “I wanted the pleasure of killing you myself. You have caused me so much trouble. You’re different. You’re not like any other test subject. Other subjects did what they were told, completed some of the the chambers, and eventually died. But you won’t die. You are messing up my whole system. So you shall pay.”      The whole time she was talking I was looking around for an exit in her headquarters, but found nothing.
      “Bring it.” I teased.
      “RAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!” She cried. Her talons shot forward and pinned me against the wall. She extended from the ceiling and came rushing forward putting her large metal head right in front of mine. She stared at me with her rage-filled eye. SPPLLATTT!! I shot blue gel all over her face, and she shrieked in rage retreating and dropping me to the ground. I quickly scrambled to my feet and used my run-and-spray technique with the blue gel. As I was reaching close to her I switched to red and shot some at the end of my blue streak. I used the momentum of running and the red gel to spring up in the air, and landed on top of HiKUs’s body. I switched to yellow and sprayed a mass of it on top of her. She screamed once more and swatted at me with one of her massive hands. I flung off of her head, and my gun skittered on the ground. Sparks flew from the gun as an automated voice hollered, “Malfunction, Malfunction.”
      “You….have gone…..TOO FAR!!!” She roared. She shot forward again and pinned me against the wall, although this time, with much harder force. I cried out as one of her claws made a gash in my right arm, blood soaking through my bright green jumpsuit. 
      The force of her blow shook the room, knocking some panels off the roof. Fresh air came flooding into the room as the missing panels revealed the brilliant blue sky. I turned my head looking up into the sky, and suddenly an idea formed in my mind. This might just work!
      “Hey you rusty tin can!” I bellowed.
      “WHAT DID YOU SAY!?” She responded, shaking the room some more, making more panels fall. Yes! Yes! It’s working!
      
      “I said you were a rusty tin can! A piece of junk! I’ve seen potato clocks smarter than you!”
      “AAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGG!!!!”  She slammed her free hand against the wall, right above my head. The panels shook again and more came tumbling down, exposing the sun.
      I shifted my body, reflecting the sun’s light against the 1834 numbers on my jumpsuit, straight into her red eye. She cried out once again, releasing me to the floor and pulling away. I sprinted towards my splatter gun. Almost there! I skidded to a stop, reached down and picked up my gun. I looked at the gear and realized there wasn’t a yellow dot on the gear anymore, just blue and red.
        	“YOU!!!!!!!” HiKUs wailed. She shot forward at me, her claws out front. I quickly brought up my gun, and started to rapid fire red gel and blue gel, switching the gear back and forth. I aimed straight at her evil, glowing red eye.
        	It was a direct hit, the two gels mixing on her metal head forming a purple gel.
Please do something. Please, I begged. I waited, and braced for impact.
        	“What!?! You thought purple gel would do something?! It doesn’t do anyth-? HiKUs stopped abruptly. She froze for a second, and then went limp, sparks flying everywhere. Her huge claws hit the ground, and her glowing red eye turned off. It was done. HiKUs was history.
        	I limped over to her, nursing to my right arm, and gasping for breath. There she was, yellow gel covering all over her body, and purple gel on her head. I reached down and tore off a piece of purple gel colored metal as a triumphant souvenir. Now I knew that I will never forget her and her laboratory. Ever.


Primarily Testing, 6-8, p.1