POOR KID, OAKLEY THOUGHT FROM HER ROOM.

She was back in her strange little submarine, though it seemed to be mounted to the wall and served the purpose of a room. A giant television screen replaced the row of viewing windows. She was strapped to the chair, which Oakley thought wasn’t too bad of a punishment. It prevented her from scratching and picking at her countless wounds, though she rather liked it when half of her hair was still attached to her scalp. Besides, she could hear her sanity clock ticking very quickly. It may be for the best that she was strapped. If not, she may easily cause self-harm.

The red head was displayed on the television, motionless on a gray rock floor. Oakley had woken up after whatever punishment was delivered to him, but she supposed they electrocuted the boy out of his senses. He evidently didn’t last very long, which Oakley supposed was to her advantage. She would have taken no pleasure in watching the boy tortured.

Hmph. What happened to spirit? Oakley reflected with a frown. Electrocution can’t be too bad. Even a 50-year-old man with a kite survived it.

But a voice inside her replied, you wouldn’t have survived very long either.

Oakley breathed heavily through her nose. Her mouth was gagged by some fancy electric mouth handcuff.

Real strange gag, Oakley grumbled inwardly. She always took a particular disliking to those who bought the latest phones and gadgets. Oakley herself always waited until the new craze was over and the phones got substantially cheaper before buying it. She was always a year late when catching up with trends.

Though these things, these mini submarines and endless torture mazes did seem a little too futuristic. Oakley knew technology was growing rapidly, but surely it hadn’t advanced that far…

Oakley rolled her eyes. She was becoming old. Of course technology could do these things. What other explanation would there be? Still, fire-breathing statues wasn’t something that could be bought on Ebay. To design something like it, there had to be a sophisticated team of engineers, architects, programmers, scientists… it sickened Oakley to think that so many geniuses used their brains on this.

Who were they anyway? What did the boy say?

That’s right. Rabbits. Oakley twitched her nose in annoyance. Funny. Though I suppose it may have been their idea of a joke to call themselves the Rabbit team.

Well, whoever they are, they sure did screw up the timing, Oakley thought, mentally changing the subject and shifting the focus to the television. I thought the point of this was to watch the torture happen, so the viewers would also be mentally tortured. I wonder when they’re going to drag him off and heal him.

“You must think we’ve made a mistake.”

Oakley uttered a muffled yelp of surprise and tried to turn her head around. Nothing had spoken to her when she was in the submarine. Though this voice sounded very familiar…

“I see you cannot speak. That’s no fun. I’d like to have a conversation with you. Here, let me ungag you.”

The gag clicked open and Oakley took in a great gulp of air. Gasping, she croaked, “It’s you from the white room.”

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The person giggled shrilly, sounded almost animal. “Ha!” they screeched. “Ha! Funny you should mention the white room. But no, you do not know me. The other one you heard was sort of my voice doppelganger. We sound identical. Quite common actually, considering our population.”

“You speak as if we were different species,” Oakley remarked with annoyance.

The person giggled again. “I apologize! I often forget. Oh, the things you…I better not say any more. Anyways, I quite assure you we did not make a mistake. Though I must admit, we are not perfect, but such a thing like this can not be overlooked. We just spared your eyeballs. It wouldn’t be much fun if you were blind, would it? Such vulnerable thing, eyes are…”

Oakley glared.

“Sidetracked again, aren’t I? I apologize in all sincerity. Oh, but this is all very exciting. Great fun too. Never thought I’d be entertained, doing this. At first, it all seemed rather pointless and loathsome, learning Engli—”

“Aha!” Oakley exclaimed triumphantly before considering the consequences of her words. “So you are foreign! I knew heard and accent!”

There was a period of silence, and Oakley immediately regretted her exclamations.

There you go again Oakley with your big mouth! She scolded herself. Now you offended them. How are you going to get out of your next torture, huh? And for all you know, you may die, though you evidently are too insane to be worried about that.

Suddenly, the person burst into that strange, bone-chilling laughter lasting several minutes at least. “Foreign!” they shrieked, attempting to recover between fits of mad giggling. “Foreign! Oh, I wouldn’t say that. A good number of us live in the United States of America, though you could say our ancestors come from very far away.”

“Oh?” Oakley replied in an odd voice. She was unable to decide whether or not to be relieved or offended that her revelation was taken so lightly.

“Ah, well, such is only expected from you,” the person said in a shaky voice, trying to hold the laughter back.

“I see,” Oakley replied dubiously.

“I’m getting off track again,” the person said, gasping between words. “Oh look, your friend’s being dragged away. Do you suppose he’s foreign?”

“I—I don’t think so?”

The person uttered another little burst of laughter, but recovered quickly and continued. “Well, let me just change the direction of the camera for you. You see, what we’re going to do is an experiment that we borrowed from you humans. It’s called the “White Room.” One of the worst tortures on your planet. Care to guess what it is?”

“I’ve heard of the red room,” Oakley muttered, “and that’s when someone tortures another based on our commands. You aren’t going to get any torture requests out of me, and I highly doubt Timothy or the Doctor would have any either. So I’m guessing you and your team would be the ones asking for torture, though you said the white room.”

The person snorted gleefully. “Ha! I like how you think! It’s very funny. But I’m sorry to say it isn’t the case. A red room, so unoriginal. And there’s no purpose in it at all.”

“Purpose? Was there a purpose in any of the other torture you performed?” Oakley yelled.

“Well for one, the first one with the drowning was finding out the most effective way to squeeze secrets out of your kind,” the person began. “The second was to test how efficient it is to play with your fears. Yours was to test endurance. And this one here would be psychological.”

“Psychological torture?”

“Yes, see here,” the person said, switching Oakley’s television to show a white room. “This is a completely soundproof room. Your version of this allows the victim to hear himself, but we decided to make it completely silent so the only think that can be heard would be your heartbeat and the shifting of bones as you move.

“The room is completely white, completely smooth. There are all the necessities: a white bed, a white bathroom, white tasteless rice, and white carpets. The experiment is to see how long he will last. The process should be speeded up quite a bit by the complete lack of sound. In fact, a regular room with no sound is just as effective. Of course, there is a chance you can get used to it, like a deaf person, so we would occasionally allow him to talk to himself. Interesting, isn’t it?”

Oakley didn’t answer immediately. “Doesn’t sound too bad,” she said at last.

“Oh, it really doesn’t. But I think the results will speak for themselves.

“But why are you doing this?”

“Oh, that’s right. You still don’t know,” the person said. “I thought the redhead told you already.”

“What?”

“We’re rabbits.”