It was for the sake of psychology, they said. It was for the good of mankind, they claimed. Well, I’m a man, I thought. I don’t count?

The first experiments were small. Diminutive little tasks set for me to do in their controlled dreamworld to test the effects of my decisions and the nature of the human mind according to the making of such decisions.

Then they used pain. The scenarios they fabricated seemed only for the purpose of destroying my thought, my free will. Myself. Retrieve the ball at the end of the court, they told me to do one time. They forgot to mention that the “court” was a three hundred yard long obstacle course filled with lava pits, unexplainable earthquakes, giant carnivorous arachnids, and hail that rained from the sky as if the clouds were vomiting bowling balls.

And the worst part was that they used my own mind to do it. None of these tests were physically demanding – I just perceived it that way, they said. Oh, and, they said, if I died in a test I would die.

Die.

Right.