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The Key to the Past
#WritcoStoryPrompt36
I knew he had been hiding something for the past 4 years. He always assured me of being an open book, but such people don't keep locked drawers. He never discussed his family or childhood. Maybe it wasn't worth talking about. Not every person has happy childhood memories. The problem was that my heart didn't agree with these hypotheses of my mind.
The old desk in the backyard always caught my eye. Why was it there? Why was he not using it when every piece of furniture in the house had a purpose to serve? For someone who is used to cleaning the house himself, why didn't he ever touch it?
He and I both knew that his week-long business trip was an opportunity for me to unravel some long kept secrets. I could see the worry in his eyes when I refused to accompany him on the tour. I had been patient enough. And he could not deny that.
An hour after his departure, I pulled out the hammer that had been preserved for this day. The desk will spill all secrets today.
A Key?! That's interesting. I wondered what wonderland awaited this Alice.
It was an old key with the letters TAP engraved on it.
Six days passed without any doors emerging to accept the key. It was driving me crazy. I needed a break and hence decided to clean up the backyard.
The area had to be dealt with immediately. Grass never survived here and I could always feel the mud sinking beneath my feet. Why was the backyard built like this anyway? I started digging at one end when my shovel banged on a surface. I spotted a wooden door.
Is that where the key goes?!
I immediately pulled out the key that I had put in my necklace for safekeeping. It had been giving me sleepless nights for the past 6 days. My heart was pounding, excited to unlock the mystery finally, but very scared to uncover the truth. I controlled my thoughts and started scraping more. The wooden door paved way to a staircase that vanished into darkness.
I took the torch and went down thinking what skeletons might be waiting for me. It smelled like a chemical factory in there. What has my husband been cooking?
I shoved the thought away again. No presumptions.
After walking for some 300 metres, I finally came to a laboratory. And the eerie feeling kept nudging at me. There was definitely something wrong here.
The laboratory hadn't been used for long, I could see. But the lights still worked. The chill running down my spine made me cautious of any zombies dashing out of closed cabinets. I had to resume searching any locks where I could use the key.
3 hours and a lot of disappointments later, I found an old box, shoved in the back of a cabinet. It was labelled 'The Adam Project'.
TAP!
The key accomplished its mission. The box opened to let out the horrors locked within for decades. There was a file with pictures of people labelled as subject followed by a number. Maybe they were part of an experiment. 20 people in all and the file dated 32 years back. It didn't take me long to recognise my husband on number 18. It had further details of individual journeys of each person from an embryo to a fully formed human.
Another dossier furnished details of the experiment. It took me a while before I realised the details were about DNA and RNA being synthesised. They were creating embryos in the lab!
There was another file named Anti - TAP. My mind was too boggled to understand anything. The only words it registered were "Survival rate 3%...one survivor...terminated the other 19..."
"I am a masterpiece, am I not?"
Said my artificially synthesised husband standing at the door.
© Ishita Nigam Garg
I knew he had been hiding something for the past 4 years. He always assured me of being an open book, but such people don't keep locked drawers. He never discussed his family or childhood. Maybe it wasn't worth talking about. Not every person has happy childhood memories. The problem was that my heart didn't agree with these hypotheses of my mind.
The old desk in the backyard always caught my eye. Why was it there? Why was he not using it when every piece of furniture in the house had a purpose to serve? For someone who is used to cleaning the house himself, why didn't he ever touch it?
He and I both knew that his week-long business trip was an opportunity for me to unravel some long kept secrets. I could see the worry in his eyes when I refused to accompany him on the tour. I had been patient enough. And he could not deny that.
An hour after his departure, I pulled out the hammer that had been preserved for this day. The desk will spill all secrets today.
A Key?! That's interesting. I wondered what wonderland awaited this Alice.
It was an old key with the letters TAP engraved on it.
Six days passed without any doors emerging to accept the key. It was driving me crazy. I needed a break and hence decided to clean up the backyard.
The area had to be dealt with immediately. Grass never survived here and I could always feel the mud sinking beneath my feet. Why was the backyard built like this anyway? I started digging at one end when my shovel banged on a surface. I spotted a wooden door.
Is that where the key goes?!
I immediately pulled out the key that I had put in my necklace for safekeeping. It had been giving me sleepless nights for the past 6 days. My heart was pounding, excited to unlock the mystery finally, but very scared to uncover the truth. I controlled my thoughts and started scraping more. The wooden door paved way to a staircase that vanished into darkness.
I took the torch and went down thinking what skeletons might be waiting for me. It smelled like a chemical factory in there. What has my husband been cooking?
I shoved the thought away again. No presumptions.
After walking for some 300 metres, I finally came to a laboratory. And the eerie feeling kept nudging at me. There was definitely something wrong here.
The laboratory hadn't been used for long, I could see. But the lights still worked. The chill running down my spine made me cautious of any zombies dashing out of closed cabinets. I had to resume searching any locks where I could use the key.
3 hours and a lot of disappointments later, I found an old box, shoved in the back of a cabinet. It was labelled 'The Adam Project'.
TAP!
The key accomplished its mission. The box opened to let out the horrors locked within for decades. There was a file with pictures of people labelled as subject followed by a number. Maybe they were part of an experiment. 20 people in all and the file dated 32 years back. It didn't take me long to recognise my husband on number 18. It had further details of individual journeys of each person from an embryo to a fully formed human.
Another dossier furnished details of the experiment. It took me a while before I realised the details were about DNA and RNA being synthesised. They were creating embryos in the lab!
There was another file named Anti - TAP. My mind was too boggled to understand anything. The only words it registered were "Survival rate 3%...one survivor...terminated the other 19..."
"I am a masterpiece, am I not?"
Said my artificially synthesised husband standing at the door.
© Ishita Nigam Garg
