Mother's Experiment: The Key to Insanity

The moment I was born, my mother implanted a chip in my brain and began shaping me into her idea of a perfect daughter.

She blocked my sense of hunger so I would only have simple meals daily to maintain the "ideal" figure.

She erased my ability to feel pain so she could inject me with endless chemicals to keep my skin smooth and flawless.

She tampered with my senses, deleting every trace of negative emotion from my mind, all so I could remain eternally innocent.

I couldn't tell right from wrong. I didn't know sadness or anger. I only knew how to smile.

When the neighbor's dog died, I smiled and was scolded harshly for being heartless.

When my classmates bullied me, I smiled and became the class freak.

When my grandfather passed away, I smiled again, and my relatives cursed me for being soulless.

Eventually, my father couldn't take it anymore. He left us.

Mom, however, didn't seem to care.

"They don't understand," she told me. "Everything I've done is for your own good. One day, you'll thank me."

…

On my 18th birthday, she planned a grand live broadcast, ready to show the world her perfect creation.

She never knew that the day before her grand broadcast, I had already lost myself completely. By then, I was no longer human. I had become a machine.

When my mother, Florence Hills, woke me up, the sky was still dark. Dragging my exhausted body out of bed, I saw her already fiddling with her tablet again.

"There's celery juice on the table," she said. "Drink it."

I frowned, my stomach twisting at the sight of the same murky green sludge she made every morning. The smell alone made me queasy.

"What's that face for? If you can't even get down one glass of celery juice, how do you expect to amount to anything?

"I've given you the best of everything, and I barely eat or buy anything for myself. And you can't even drink one glass?"

Her words pressed against me like a heavy weight, and I suddenly couldn't breathe.

"See? You never listen to me, and now, your asthma's acting up again. This is a special nutritional blend I made just for you. Do you think you'd still be alive if it weren't for me? Hurry up and drink it."

I was about to protest, but the words died in my throat when she pulled out a handful of syringes.

The sight made me tremble. My voice came out barely above a whisper. "Mom, I'm still a teenager. I don't need that stuff to look good. Can we skip it today?"

Her expression twisted instantly.

"What do you know? I spent a fortune on these treatments. They are what makes your skin smooth and perfect. Do you really think you're naturally pretty? You only look the way you do because of these injections."

She restrained me with both hands and calmly injected all five doses into my body as if it were a routine task.

I tried to say it hurt, but my throat refused to make a sound.

The microchip had already erased whatever defiance I had left against her idea of perfection.

As my skin swelled and flushed red, she finally smiled with satisfaction. "Such a good, obedient girl," she whispered.

She then grabbed her fitness tracker and stopped by the door.

"Your training plan's already synced. Maintain a ten-minute-per-mile pace. Breakfast has been entered into your calorie count, so there's no allowance for extra meals."

I touched my hollow stomach and let out a soundless, bitter laugh.

The steamed vegetables from last night hadn't been nearly enough to keep me going.

Runners were already passing by on the street, but no one noticed my trembling hands gripping the railing.

By the third mile, my vision started to blur, and the world tilted into darkness.

Ironically, my watch kept repeating in its flat, mechanical voice, "Your pace is too slow. Please accelerate."

Right before I blacked out, I thought I heard Florence saying faintly, "How could you pass out so quickly? Your body fat percentage hasn't even reached today's goal."