Chapter #4Dragged to the Basement by: ejones312   "No!" Tommy snapped, breaking away from Brianna's iron-tight embrace and staring her down with righteous fury in his eyes. "I said I don't want to be part of your stupid experiments again, but you don't listen! I'm sick of being your guinea pig, and I'm sick of you treating me like a little kid! No one wants to be friends with me because of your stupid experiments making me look like an idiot, and I'm sick of it! Stay away from me, Brianna! I hate your experiments, and I hate you!"
For a moment, Brianna looked physically hurt from her younger brother's rant, her heart broken, shattered, and stamped on. "I... I can't believe you just said that, Tommy. How could you say that, after all that we've been through together?" A tear ran down her cheek and her lips quivered from the internal hurt. All of a sudden, something snapped inside her, her quivering lips stretched and hardened into a growling frown, her brows furrowed deep. "You know what!? Fine! I tried being nice to you, Tommy, but forget it! You've really crossed the line here, Tommy!"
Tommy figured that he had let his temper go too far this time, but he figured too late as suddenly, his wrist was clamped in a tight, feminine fist, prompting him to yelp and squirm in her grasp. “OW! OW! OW! Brianna, what are you doing!? Let me go!" Tommy screamed, even louder as Brianna squeezed his wrist tighter. "Okay, okay, Brianna, I'm sorry!"
Brianna yanked Tommy closer to her, held him against her, and pressed her face into his to showcase her furious outrage towards him. "Shut up and listen, you little brat! I've had it up to here with your recent attitude towards me and my experiments! We used to be closer when we were younger, but now you're avoiding me and I don't appreciate it as much as I appreciate your contempt towards me and my experiments! If you really hate me that much, then forget being the loving big sister you need! Starting right now, I'll be the worst sister you'll ever have! I'll put you through the worst time of your life and then you'll be sorry you ever talked to me the way you did!"
The first thing Brianna did to prove her point was drag her little brother by the wrist, pulling him with so much force, it put him through physical agony. Tommy wriggled and squirmed in his sister's surprisingly strong grasp. There were tears leaking from his eyes as he tried to pry away her fingers tightly clamping his hand. "Brianna, please, let me go!" he begged and pleaded, which fell on deaf ears. "I'm sorry, okay!? Please stop tugging me like that! You're... you're hurting me...!"
Brianna kicked open the basement door and with her weaponized signature iron embrace, she hoisted the screaming, squirming ten year-old down the basement stairs. Tommy tried to kick her with his heels, but Brianna ignored those kicks, even as she threw him on the floor and dragged him further into the deeper area of her basement laboratory. The screaming and crying was eventually muffled by the insulation in the basement walls, so not even anyone who just arrived at the house could hear him now.
The laboratory was like any typical science lab, with white, sterilized floors and walls, chemistry sets with the stereotypical chemistry kit and distilleries, and scientific inventions that were years ahead of anyone else at Brianna's current teen years. Up ahead in a particular area was a special cylindrical chamber, outfitted on the inside with radiation-emitting lights, and a metallic bed with the leather straps on the railings. This was Brianna's latest experiment, and what better way of testing it now than using it to punish her defiant little brother.
The angered genius sister punched in a keycode, and the doors opened. Then she forced Tommy into the chamber, threw him onto the floor, and quickly hit the button to close the doors just as Tommy quickly recovered and bolted towards the closing door. "Brianna! Open this door!" Tommy shrieked, crying and slamming the thick glass with his palms desperately. "Please, Brianna, I'm sorry! I'll be a better brother, I promise! I'll take back everything I said, I'll volunteer as a guinea pig for your experiments, I'll do anything you want me to do! I promise I'll do whatever it is you want! Anything!"
In the midst of her entering a code within the keypad, Brianna suddenly stopped and turned to her poor, desperate brother with a deep loathing glare. "Really? You'll do anything I want? Even if what I want is disgusting, deplorable, and degrading?"
"Yes... yes, I'll do anything you want me to do! Please!" Tommy's face spread with a naïve grin, hoping that his negotiations would set him free.
"Alright, then here's the first thing I want you to do..." Brianna pushed a red button, and the chamber whirred to life. "...start screaming, and try not to move around too much."
Tommy's panic rose as the chamber's whirring grew louder and the radiation-emitting lights in the walls and under his feet flickered on. He could already fell the heat and the electricity running through his body, along with a new sense of fear. Suddenly, he found himself pounding the glass even harder and screaming even louder. "BRIANNA, OPEN THIS DOOR!" Tommy screamed bloody murder. "BRIANNA! LET ME OUT! HELP! MOMMY! WENDY! LINDSEY! SOMEONE HELP ME! DON'T LET BRIANNA DO THIS TO MEEEEEeeeeeee....!"
Tommy's pleas for help was drowned out as the machine's whirring reached their full volume, and then came a sudden blinding, flickering flash from within the glass. Then the chamber's mechanisms calmed down as the lights within flickered off, their function complete. Thick clouds of steam and smoke built up from within the chamber, obscuring Brianna's view of her test results. She immediately recalled, Schrödinger's cat, a famous thought experiment and paradox where a cat is placed in a sealed box with a radioactive sources and a flask of poison. The experiment dictated that the cat would be simultaneously dead and alive, but after opening the lid of the box, the cat would either be dead or alive.
Brianna didn't know if Tommy was dead, alive, or already felt the effects of her chamber inside. The most critical moment of this experiment came down to the push of the button. Brianna pushed the button and opened the chamber and released all the pent-up steam inside, either quickly dissipating or being ventilated to the outside via the ventilation system. Brianna stuck her head in, carefully observed the interior of the chamber, and spotted a tiny humanoid figure on the floor.
Brianna felt the procedure was a pyrrhic victory: the shrinking chamber was a success, at the cost of her respect and love for the boy she helped raise, who berated her and belittled her scientific genius. | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
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