Escape.

            "It's burning my eyes." She told them, as calmly as she could manage. They ignored her.
            "Hey, scientist guys. Hey, I'm talking to you! It burns! My eyes are burning!" Her eyes were watering up as They stared at her behind the thick, break-proof glass. She pushed the glaring ultraviolet lamp from her face.
            "Put the lamp back." One of Them ordered, "Don't make us come in there." She recoiled at this remark. She didn't want Them laying a finger on her. Most fights with Them ended in bruises and no dinner for a few nights. Instead she shifted the intrusive light back into her pupils and stared as hard as she could without crying, trying not to blink.
            Blinking was trouble. She'd learned that in the first week. When They're experimenting, avoid blinking until you can't handle it. She wasn't sure what the point of this test was. What were They trying to do, make her blind? She'd heard Them discussing how much easier it was for blind people to control their telepathy. Maybe that was what They were doing.
            "Can I go now?" She pleaded, "I'm tired and hungry." She'd been sitting behind the glass for what seemed like hours.
            "Alright." Said one of Them, "I think we've got everything we need for today."
            "Thank you." She said breathlessly. This was one of her prize moments. The times when her pleads and complaints got to Them, when she got what she wanted. A member of the group got up from his spot and unlocked the glass carefully. Their eyes were on her, making sure she didn't try and make a break for it. She never did. One of Their security officers slipped into the room and escorted her out.

             Dinner, if you could call it that, was a small chunk of bread and half of an unbuttered sweet potato. Normally, water was given to wash it down. Today, since she gave little complaint to the testing, They rewarded her with a small Dixie cup of orange juice. She smiled at the thought of something tasteful, but wished They'd give her more food instead. She was tired of being constantly hungry.
            Ten minutes to eat. They gave her ten minutes, and what she couldn't finish was taken from her. They always monitored her closely, so slipping food under her bed sheets was out of the question. She ate relatively fast that night. When They came around to collect her plate, They were surprised that she had eaten it all so quickly, but thought nothing of it.
            Then it was time for sleep. She succumbed easily, lying still in her bed for a long while, enjoying the feeling of release from watch. She knew all of Them had gone home, leaving only a lone security guard. This guard was her friend, and shut her chamber's camera down. He always told Them that the mice nibbled away at the wire and he'd repaired it as best he could. He made sure to tamper the transmission so that it flickered during the day, to make his excuse plausible.

                1:30 A.M.
                Nightmare. She awoke with a start. She'd dreamt of her parents, and the day they had brought her to this horrible place. Her mother's silken voice comforting her nine-year-old self, telling her that she was being admitted to a special facility that would help her control and utilize her telepathic abilities.
                "You'll be able to raise entire sets of furniture, or even large slabs of stone, and move them across the room as if it was nothing! Your abilities will be wonderful, trained carefully and precisely, until you are a master. And when you're done training, we will be waiting for you at home with open arms. You will always be our little Aveline. " her mother cooed, softening her protests.
                She'd seen her father accepting money from one of Them as they left her forever. From then on, she belonged to the government. She was the sole property of her captors. Her former name, Aveline, was no longer the name by which she was called. Her new title was simply Experiment.
                She hated being here.
                She was going to do something about it. She wasn't going to be Experiment anymore. She was going to be someone that lived, rather than existed. She plunged into her imagination, connected it with logic, and planned her way out.

                She tapped lightly on her door three times. The guard heard this, and crept over. He opened the door a crack.
                "Yes?" He whispered gently.
                "There was a power blackout at 2:42 A.M. You don't know how I got out." She said softly to her ally. He understood, and slid a pack of cigarettes out of his coat pocket. He made his way to the back of the building as if to have a smoke. Upon entering the narrow alley, he casually edged over to the fuse box and flipped some switches. The whole building was dark in a matter of seconds. Every camera off, every computer stopped, every security identification system shut down and useless. He slipped back into the building and got her out of her room. He gave her the money from his pockets, the only thing needed to change her hair, change her clothes, to become someone else. She ran for it.

                In the morning the guard explained the blackout. They believed him, naturally. In another city, a half blind teenager with a new identity made her way into the world.