August looked back down to his arm, where he felt like the needle might have grown three sizes. What if he pulled it out too fast? Or was it bad to go too slow? That would be more painful, but what if there was an artery and he bled to death? He'd die in this strange place without even knowing how he'd gotten here or why. Clenching one hand into a fist, he made a whining noise that was more audible to himself than anyone on the other side of a door. Whoever the woman was, she was being helpful; if this was some kind of a prank, it was an incredibly elaborate one. Glancing up to the door and back down, August whined again, trying to pace his breathing, remembering what his therapist had told him. Count backward.
10...9...8... He wrapped his hand carefully around the needle, covering the majority of it from his sight. Just to be absolutely sure he wasn't about to see something he didn't want to, he turned his eyes up toward the ceiling, clenched them and this teeth tightly, and yanked. It was only a split second of discomfort, but the pain was so sharp that he yelped. He kept himself from looking down at the blood he could feel welling on his skin. A wave of nausea hit him, compounded with the cotton-ball feeling in his head.
"The computer?" He slowly pulled his gaze down from the ceiling, doing his best to keep his eyes from descending down to the wound in his arm, and saw a computer on the other side of the room. It was situated on a desk not unlike his own, back in his apartment in Tallahassee, with an evil-looking red light blinking on its screen. Everything about this was a creepypasta post waiting to happen, and August could feel his anxiety ratcheting up again. But if the woman on the other side of the door was to be believed, he'd be trapped in here if he didn't make some kind of post, probably to whoever was watching through the cameras. He used his right arm to pull back the covers, sliding bare, white legs over the edge of the bed. Crossing the room was its own difficulty; it felt like hours to put one foot in front of the other. His right arm was pressed to the medical gown still clothing him, staining one side of the paper cloth.
Standing just in front of the keyboard, August clicked a few keys, bringing the display to life. The message presented to him only furrowed his brow even more, but he followed instructions well. Subject #5453RCO5??? This was bad, very, very bad. Finally, he tapped out a short message onto the "network" the woman had told him about earlier. where am i?
"I did it," he called back weakly. He leveraged his weight with his right arm, bending his elbow so that the blood pooled in the joint and began to drip slightly onto the floor. August closed his eyes, waiting to see if this was only the first of some tests that he would slowly be introduced to at the leisure of whoever was conducting the experiment. As he stood there, he focused on his breathing, willing his heart to not pop out of his chest.