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It was just your average Thursday night, nothing special about it. The rain was falling, the streets were quiet, and Adam Knott was walking home from work at The Institute. He had his headphones in as he always did, music blaring, head nodding along to the rhythm. There was nothing about it even remotely out of the ordinary, right up until the moment the back of his head exploded in a violent starburst of agony and he lost consciousness.
"I've done this procedure a hundred and twenty-two times, there is nothing to worry about. We will start by removing your brain..." was the first thing he heard upon waking. He opened his eyes to see two hands reaching towards him, so close they blocked out the sight of almost everything else. Adam, naturally, screamed, and passed out again.
The next time he awoke there was no voice to greet him. Everything was so quiet, in fact, that it took him quite a long time to even realise that he was awake. He lay there floating in a sensoryless void, still lost in thoughts from his nightmares, right up until the moment the world jolted violently and his head bashed into something hard on his left. He opened his eyes to see nothing but blur. When they eventually focused—or as near to it as they were going to get—he screamed again.
Or at least tried to. Water rushed into his mouth and no sound came out. That's why everything was so blurry; he was seeing everything through a sheet of water! He panicked and tried to breathe, struggled, failed, and eventually realised that he seemed okay anyway, despite his lack of oxygen. He must have been in here a while already. He felt no pain, no lightheadedness, no frantic draw from his lungs. The only thing telling him that he needed to breathe was...him.
So he stopped.
Calmer again, he took another look around. The world was still a blur, but through that blur he could make out the vague outlines of what looked like an office. A desk with a computer on it and a chair behind it. A whiteboard and posters on the wall. No people. No words large enough that he could make out through the water-haze. No way to tell where he was or who had taken him. Or what had been done to him, he thought bitterly. He hadn't wanted to admit it to himself before but he still couldn't feel anything other than his face. His body still felt like it was trapped in a sensoryless, weightless, painless, feelingless environment, and he hated to think what that meant. He must have been immobilised in some way before being put in this...aquarium tank or whatever it was that he was in. He only hoped that whatever had been done to him wasn't permanent. He couldn't look down and see for himself, his neck just wouldn't bend that way right now, any more than the rest of his body would respond to his pleas for movement.
He didn't know how long he stayed that way, staring into the empty office, half-dozing, before something different happened. Something moved past the desk in front of him. It happened so quick he barely had time to wake up properly and register it before it had gone again. He wasn't entirely sure he hadn't imagined it. He stayed on full alert, waiting for whoever or whatever it was to come back, and eventually, after five minutes or so—he wasn't sure, it was very hard to keep track of time in here—he was rewarded for his efforts. Whoever it was came back, and sat behind the desk. They were too far away and too blurry for him to make out properly, but from what he could tell they were black, probably male, and wearing a lab coat. A doctor or a scientist, then. Thank god. Someone who would have some answers for what had happened to him.
"..." he tried to call out, but once again no sound emerged from his water-logged throat. He tried to think of other ways to get their attention, but with his limbs not responding to him he wasn't sure what else he could do. He was gripped with a frustration so intense it was painful, but there was nothing he could do about it. He stayed there silently seething, watching the doctor-or-scientist do whatever he was doing on his computer, wondering why on earth he wasn't even glancing over in his direction; were immobilised people in aquariums such a standard thing for this guy that they didn't even warrant a glance? What the hell was going on here?!
Eventually—it could have been hours later as far as Adam knew—whoever it was seemed to finish their work. They shut the computer down, and finally, finally, they seemed to notice the human aquarium in their office. They meandered slowly over, taking their time, and as they got closer to the tank their features became more and more distinct until Adam found himself staring into his own, slightly blurry, face. He screamed soundlessly once more.
Adam's face grinned back at him through the water, seeming to find his terror amusing. It spoke, and Adam was surprised to hear, distorted and muffled, his own voice speaking to him, in that white middle class tone that he usually reserved only for job interviews and official meetings with higher-ups. "Now, now, Adam. There's no need to be afraid. I'll give your body back to you eventually. I just need it in order to access your work for a time." His face grinned pleasantly at him, and Adam finally realised why he couldn't feel the rest of his body; it simply wasn't there. He screamed, and although no sound came out yet again, this time he didn't stop.