A man with an almost concerningly friendly demeanor walks out onto a large well-lit stage with freshly finished and polished dark wood flooring and taps a microphone in the center of the closest side of the stage, "testing... testing... is this thing on?" His joke got a small chuckle from the audience, "I'd like to thank you all for deciding to join me on this new scientific venture! The field of genetics will be greatly advanced with the work we're going to do here!" He continues on in the background while two of the audience members start chatting, a bubbly young woman with a bright demeanor who looked really well put together, and a person with messy hair and slight fit issues with their uniform but a passionate twinkle in their eyes. The messy haired researcher began, "This is insane we get to work on this project as part of our work study" the well put together one began, "they said t were looking for, "fresh minds and perspectives!""
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They both continue to chat and as they wrap up, so does the man presenting, they two aspiring geneticists wait by the stage exit hoping to speak to the man and barely manage to catch him "Hello Dr. Mawar!" The young woman starts " I'm Tamara Forest, and my friend here is Pj Ramirez," she pointed at the shorter one with messy hair. "We're two students here for our work study and your work in this field is truly something we both look up to! Especially your work with genetics in flora!" Dr. Mawar chuckled "You two flatter me! We definitely always need fresh passion in this field! Say you mentioned an interest in my botanical work, would you two like to take part in a separate research project I have going on that's currently in the experimental phase?" The two students looked at each other excitedly and Pj spoke up, "We'd love to hear more about the opportunity!" Dr. Mawar smirked and responded "Perfect! The next day of your work study, meet me in my office to discuss, and make sure you don't let other researchers know you're getting an extra opportunity" he winked and walked off as Pj and Tamara silently celebrated together.
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They continued their day working on paperwork having to do with their work study with a little pep in their step from their prior chat with their idol, this day gave them much hope for their futures with all of these recent developments. Slightly overwhelmed they head home and text about everything that had happened that day
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Eventually time passed and paperwork was processed, and Pj and Tamra's first official work study week began. They carpooled and arrived at the building, nervously walked in and signed in at the front desk, the receptionist chewed her gum loudly and smelled strongly of cheap perfume. Once they were settled in they took a nervous but excited walk to the office of Dr. Mawar, walking down the last hall felt like it was never going to end for the two of them, and once the door approached there was a strong resistance between them both. Eventually they swallowed their fear and knocked.
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After the knock the sound echoed and there was a moment of silence and a moment after that a scuffle followed by shaky and muffled, "come in" Tamara and Pj slowly and carefully opened the door to be greeted by Dr. Mawar, "Hello! I've been expecting you two! Have a seat." He paused, "Now I would love to have you both working with me on this project... especially after looking at your files, I have selected very specific roles for the both of you based on your histories. In order to continue however I am going to need you both to sign a few documents" he shuffles a few things around and hands us both each a stack of papers, "just precautions really, you understand" blinded by them being starstruck they both signed without hesitation and without reading the fine print. "Perfect, Tamara you stay with me, Pj I have an assistant ready to take you to the separate station which i have designated you.” Tamara chimed in, “Oh, we’re going to be working separately?” Dr. Mawar responded, “Yes I apologize for splitting the two of you up so quickly, but based on your files received when you applied, your skills would be better used in different parts of our process.” There was a moment of silence, before Pj spoke up, “Of course we totally understand, thank you, we’re very excited to be working with you!” The Doctor smiled, “Perfect I paged my assistant, and she should be here shortly to take you.” After some short conversation there was a knock at the door followed by it being opened, “Hello Courtney!” The same receptionist from earlier enters as the familiar scent from earlier fills the room, “This is Pj the one you’re in charge of taking to the specimen research lab” she nodded, and Pj slowly began to leave the room following Courtney, making small conversation as they headed to an unlabeled elevator.
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“So do you have any idea what kind of work I’ll be doing?” Pj asked meekly, followed by Courtney looking them up and down, “There’s not much I can say but you are INTEGRAL to this research” this both gave Pj a sense of excitement as well as nervousness going into the elevator. The ride down was silent with a sense of temper, trying to calm themself Pj looked around the elevator for little details like a game of eye spy. The elevator had a round metallic waiting area, and the buttons glowed a pale green, they were numbered normally except for one button on the bottom which had an ornate rose engraved upon it. This was the button Courtney had pressed and the floor their trip was leading to. After Courtney had pressed the button, unlike the other buttons the pale green glow faded to a pale ashy pink tone, almost like a sickly flower. Slowly after they got down to where they believed the first floor was, the chassis of the elevator continued down, now scraping the walls of the elevator shaft. It was only a few moments but for Pj it felt like that sound went on for hours with one, but this seemed like white noise to Courtney, she had little to no reaction, to her it was just a part of the ride. With one final scrape they finally reached their destination.
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The metal door opened to a dimly lit off white hallway with doors painted with the same pale pink from the button in the elevator. With small window compartments next to each, Courtney starts to walk without saying a word and Pj took the hint and hesitantly began to follow, as they shuffled along Pj took peeks into the rooms and saw padded walls with small mattresses in each aside what looked to be a metal toilet. Pj thought to themself, “what do they need cells when researching botanicals for?” but still continued following, too nervous to ask their question. To pass the time of their walk Pj counted the doors as they passed, by the time that Courtney had stopped they had counted 50 doors, once the two of them had reached the last room this room instead of the faded pink had an off-white door that almost blended with the wall. She spoke, “This is your stop.”, she looked at me Pj with almost a hint of guilt in her eyes, opening the door she continued, “Wait in here and another researcher will be with you shortly…” Pj nodded reluctantly and walked inside taking a seat on the solitary chair placed in the room, the walls smelt strongly as if it had just been painted, while trying to take in their surroundings Pj suddenly felt light headed and their consciousness slowly faded as they passed out hitting the cold floor.
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