Those used to beauty become blind to it

It's been five days.

Today's the day I leave.

I'm sitting on a marble counter in the kitchen.

After exploring the place on the first day I've got a basic understanding of the building layout.

The problem of when to escape this place is solved.

It's simple actually.

After reading numerous papers, I've found that people come once every week to meet with the family running this place.

I just need to leave before that time.

The exit is just a door locked from the inside so no one from the outside can get in without permission.

I turn to the food stores made up of everything I've scavenged from this place.

If rationed right I should be healthily fed for almost a month.

I'm not bringing a gun since it'd be too large to bring with the food and bags.

In addition, I wasn't taught much about how guns work and I don't want to end up accidently shooting myself.

I picked the glass out from my feet a while ago and my wounds are sealed.

It still hurts a bit to walk but the pain is bearable.

As for shoes… I had to take it from the only place in this building that had them in my size.

I don't like to think of it.

I slip on the shoes and grab the bags of food.

While I was here, I did some light exercises to make sure my body builds some muscle instead of solely fat.

I won't need to exercise once I start my journey.

My arms and upper body will be strengthened by me carrying the bags.

My legs will be strained just moving the rest of my body, and my core will be fine as long as the rest of my body is getting a workout.

I stand up and take in my surroundings for one last time.

The kitchen is like a smaller, reshaped version of the room I was raised in.

Everything is symmetrical, straight, and orthodox.

I head through the building towards the exit. I wonder. Is it true?

When I leave this place will I really be flooded with a natural source of light that both warms my skin and feels pleasant? It's hard to imagine lightwaves feeling like anything.

Insects, animals, people, a sky.

Is it true that the endless quiet in which only I, or my tormentors could interrupt is non-existent there?

Is there really a world I'm not the center of?

One I can observe and enjoy?

I reach a long, narrow hallway.

It's just as dark as the rest of the building; so much so that I can't tell the color of the walls.

With each step the door gets closer.

It's sealed so tightly that no light reaches the inside of the building.

My hands stop on the handle.

I feel myself taking a deep breath.

This is it, the freedom I've longed for my entire life.

The sounds, the color, the beauty, life.

I open the door and light floods my eyes.

I squint them instinctively.

I feel my skin tingling.

A strange, pleasurable sensation.

Warmth.

My eyes adjust to the light and I can't help but smile.

There's color everywhere.

The trees have a rough texture and their leaves are a beautiful shade of green highlighted by the sun.

They flutter in the wind making a unique rustling sound I've never heard. The ground is soft and pliable, much unlike the hard. Metal floors I'm accustomed to.

There are leaves scattered all along the ground each of different color, texture, shape, dryness, It's- It's all so beautiful.

All of it feels so alive.

I stare into the sky to see the infinite pool of blue stirred with puffs of white.

I've seen this all in books, but books could never quite capture this atmosphere.

The texture, the motion, the smell, the humidity, the power the sun has on it all.

The wind makes my skin feel alive.

Like it was dead before.

Still and cold like everything else in the laboratory.

The air feels flowing and refreshing to breathe.

It makes the air I've always breathed feel stuffy and hot.

And my eyes.

They're glued to my surroundings taking everything in as if they could vanish in an instant.

I see something moving under the leaves and crouch down to get a closer look.

A beetle.

The fourth living creature I've seen.

It scurries away upon seeing me and I stand back up. It's time to move. I can't stay here forever, there'll be plenty more joys for me once I find civilization.

I turn back to see the last of that repulsing metal structure.

It's barely visible.

The door is covered with vines and above it is a large, rocky hill that conceals the building behind the door.

For as far as I can see around the mountain, the same vine is at the same elevation at every other point in the mountain.

It is well hidden, but vines don't look the same as everything else.

It has a peculiar order to it.

The vine's leaves look like they belong to a different ecosystem.

Human interference.

It doesn't have the wildness and randomness that nature has.

Someone with an eye like mine would instantly be able to tell that those vines are out of place.

I hope no one finds this place.

All they'll find is rooms full of people's insides and truths no one should have to know.

I start walking in the direction that the sun sets.

For no particular reason other than that I won't end up walking in circles.

Days pass, and those days turn into weeks.

In the first few days I had to take a lot of breaks from walking due to my frail body but with time the breaks get shorter and shorter.

I'm out of food despite rationing it heavily.

I still carry one bag with me in case I need to store something in it.

Occasionally, I find berries but I never pick them.

One of the few things I wasn't taught was which berries are poisonous and which aren't.

I've regained some of my muscle and my stomach seems to hate me a lot less.

The forest I'm in seems very large.

I've been walking in the same forest for weeks seeing countless different creatures that are just trying to survive like me.

I stop in my tracks.

There's a man-made path made of stone.

It looks like it was made with a bunch of rocks mixed in dirt which was all flattened to be unnaturally level compared to everything else.

Excitement rises within me.

A path means civilization!

On either side of this road there has to be something.

A village, a town, a city! Maybe even a kingdom!

I look to my right and left.

I can't even see the horizon on either side.

Trees block my sight and only glimmers of the setting sun's light pierce through them.

I decide to head to my right.

Hours pass with me doing nothing but walking.

My biggest issue lately has been bearing the boredom of having little to stimulate me.

In the first week or so everything around me felt really interesting, I was constantly being bombarded with new stimuli.

Time felt slow and I savored every moment of it.

that passion quickly died out and soon enough I was just walking carrying a sack for mind-numbing hours on end.

Walking mindlessly on a path is different than journeying in the woods, the woods are alive.

It crawls, breathes, sings.

The path is sterile. It's As if all the creatures that were so plentiful in the wilderness are scared to step onto the beaten path.

Where I was raised I always had something to stimulate me.

Whether it was a book, pain, audio, food, or sleep I nearly always had something.

I guess it's because humans can't function properly without stimulation.

Whatever research my tormentors were conducting would've been rendered void if I was driven insane due to being stuck in a white room with nothing to distract me but my own thoughts.

But now, I feel my thoughts creeping in on me.

Like a scratch at the back of my head that I keep trying to ignore because I know scratching will only make it itchier.

The thoughts refuse to be suppressed.

"Do you think you'll just be able to integrate within society? You're a social freak, you'll stick out like a sore thumb. You have no talent, you have no skills, no experience, no bonds, zilch. Do you think societies will just accept such an unskilled foreigner with open arms? No, you'll be rejected, made an outcast and forced to do the jobs no one is willing to do for the pay no one is willing to receive. You have so much knowledge but no means of applying them, you had physical strength at least, now where muscles once were skin hugs bone. Pathetic, that's what you are. Doomed."

I… What was I hoping to achieve by walking on this path?

I may have escaped that hell but where am I now?

I'm going to have to compete with people who've been spending their whole lives preparing for the future whereas I thought I would never have one.

It's impossible. Imposs- A footstep and a blade arrive in the same moment.