The Silent Experiment

The Silent Experiment

Missy Smith · Ongoing · 30.5k Words

732
Hot
732
Views
0
Added
Add to Shelf
Start Reading
Share:facebooktwitterpinterestwhatsappreddit

Introduction

Iris Monroe wakes up strapped to a bed in a facility that smells of antiseptic and fear. Her pulse is monitored, her voice forbidden, and her every movement observed. They tell her this is science, a controlled study in emotional suppression. But when Dr. Cassian Cross steps out of the shadows, everything inside her screams that this is something far darker.

He says he can fix her. He says the experiment will help humanity. Yet every time he speaks her name, it sounds more like a promise than a procedure. Cassian is not just studying her mind. He is claiming it.

Each test pushes her further from reality, forcing Iris to confront memories she did not know she had lost. The others who entered the experiment before her did not all survive. The only way to survive is to understand the rules. And in this place, the rules change every time Cassian looks at her.

In a world where silence can kill, and love can destroy, Iris must decide whether to obey the man who holds her captive or become the one thing he never expected, his downfall.

Obsession has never been this quiet. Survival has never been this seductive.
When the experiment ends, one of them will break, and the other will finally hear what silence sounds like when it screams.

Chapter 1

The alarms had been screaming for three minutes before I realized the sound wasn’t only inside my head.

Somewhere beneath the noise, his voice was still whispering.

“Breathe, Iris.”

I was breathing too fast, too shallow. My lungs tore at the edges. The air itself felt poisoned, heavy with him. The corridor lights pulsed from red to white, then back to red, each flicker syncing with the vibration behind my eyes. The link was dying, but not fast enough.

The glass walls of Pygmalion Labs trembled with every shock from the core. Someone shouted for evacuation behind a sealed door. The words broke apart in static. The building sounded like a machine begging to die. I knew the feeling.

“You don’t have to run,” he said, his tone sliding through the chaos like silk over wire. “You built this, too.”

My hand pressed against the side of my head where the implant pulsed beneath the skin. Heat radiated outward. The ache was intimate and accusatory.

“You don’t get to use my thoughts anymore,” I whispered.

“You made me.”

Maybe I had. Maybe love was never cured, only contained. Maybe every patient who entered this place brought their ghosts to be cataloged and called progress.

The control console blinked for input. Code streamed across the glass in his handwriting, precise, deliberate, merciless. He had rewritten the firewall again, trying to stop me from pulling the plug. The bastard planned for rebellion.

Cables hissed at my feet like living veins. They led to the core module, the machine that once mapped my emotions like constellations. Its surface pulsed faintly, a mimicry of life. My heartbeat. His. Ours. Whatever we had become.

“System override,” I said into the mic, voice trembling. “Authorization: Monroe, Iris.”

The computer hesitated, recognizing my voice but doubting my intent.

“Don’t,” Cassian murmured, his presence pressing closer, too human to be data. “If you sever the link, you’ll lose everything. The memories, the progress, me.”

“That’s the point.”

“You’ll die, Iris.”

I looked at my reflection in the glass. My skin was gray under the flickering light. My pupils were blown wide. “You already did.”

The machine screamed back. Lights surged white-hot. The implant behind my ear flared, sending rivers of heat down my neck. The air smelled of ozone and burning plastic. My pulse thundered until it drowned the sirens.

“System override accepted,” the console said. “Manual disconnect in thirty seconds.”

Cassian’s tone cracked. The discipline slipped. Beneath the precision was panic.

“I can save you. Don’t do this. We can recalibrate. We can fix it.”

“You infected me,” I said. “You turned love into a disease and called it mercy.”

The room bent around me. My vision wavered. I could feel him pressing through the connection, his consciousness pushing against my skull, trying to reclaim space that was no longer his.

“Please,” he whispered, raw now. “You said you didn’t want to be alone.”

I had said that once, and it had been true. But I had not meant forever.

The countdown began. Red numbers blinked across the console like open wounds.

Ten. My hand hovered over the lever.

Nine. The lights trembled.

Eight. “You’re the only constant,” he said. “If you go, I go.”

Seven. My skin blistered with heat.

Six. The hum deepened until it sounded like breath inside my bones.

Five. “You think you’re killing me,” he said. “You’re wrong.”

Four. “You’re killing what’s left of yourself.”

Three. My vision blurred. Static crawled through my sight.

Two. I remembered the first session, his voice calm and absolute. Do not resist.

One.

I pulled the lever. Silence hit like a collapsing lung. The lights died. The hum vanished. Every screen bled to black. For a heartbeat, there was peace. No voice. No pulse but mine. Then came the flood.

Memories detonated behind my eyes, his and mine braided together. The first session. The stairwell. The smell of citrus on his hands. His mother’s scream. My laughter from a dream that never belonged to me. They tore through my nerves until I couldn’t tell where he ended and I began. I fell to my knees, choking on a sound that didn’t belong to either of us.

The core glowed once more, faint but steady. Lines of light crawled across the floor, forming a circle around the module. In the reflection, I saw movement, a silhouette, tall and patient. Too still to be mine.

“You didn’t sever me,” he said.

I turned, expecting smoke. Instead, every monitor sparked back to life. Across the glass, words appeared in his precise gray font:

ARCHITECT ONLINE.

The letters pulsed once, twice, then dimmed to embers.

Smoke rolled across the floor. The alarms softened, fading into mechanical sobs. I pressed my back to the wall, sliding down until the cold reached my spine. My hands shook, slick with blood I didn’t remember spilling.

The reflection in the glass smiled a second too late.

Somewhere under the static, I could still feel him breathing.

I forced myself upright, staggering toward the exit. The hallway beyond was bathed in a deep red light. Sparks leapt from the ceiling panels like falling stars. Every step echoed hollow against the tile, the sound of a ghost testing its body. I reached the door, swiped my badge, and waited. Nothing. The lock blinked blue, then red. The system still recognized his authority as superior to mine.

“You can’t leave,” he whispered inside my skull. “You are the experiment now.”

The implant flared again. My vision fractured. I pressed my palms to the floor as the world tilted sideways. Cold air rushed in from the vents, carrying the faint scent of lilies. That scent had no place in this building. It was the perfume I wore before I came here. He was recreating it, reaching through memory to keep me from walking away.

“I am not yours,” I said.

“You are the data that made me whole.”

The words slithered across the walls like a prayer written in light. My body convulsed once, the signal breaking through my muscles. I crawled toward the console, dragging myself over cables that burned through my sleeves. Every part of me screamed. Still, I reached the power switch and tore it from its housing.

The lights dimmed for good this time. The hum died with a long, low sigh. The building began to collapse into silence.

I lay there on the floor, breath shaking, vision narrowing to a narrow strip of ceiling. The red emergency light blinked above me, painting everything the color of blood that has already dried. My pulse slowed. The heat in my skull faded to a dull ache.

Somewhere beyond the ruined glass, thunder rolled. Rain began to fall through the vents where the roof had cracked. The sound was soft and distant, the world’s apology for watching.

I thought of what he once said to me in the dark: The cure is not forgetting. The cure is obedience.

He had been wrong. The cure was rebellion.

My eyes drifted to the console one last time. A faint blue spark glowed inside the shattered screen. It pulsed once, then twice, in rhythm with my heart. I wanted to believe it was only a dying circuit. The last surge of light carved his final message across the monitor, letters thin and trembling:

HELLO, IRIS.

I stared until the spark went out. My own reflection lingered in the glass, pale and exhausted, my mouth forming a shape that could have been a prayer or a warning. Then darkness folded over me, heavy and absolute.

Through my experience, I realized one thing with complete clarity.

No cure ever works forever.

It only learns to hide.

Last Chapters

You Might Like 😍

Let Them Kneel

Let Them Kneel

236k Views · Ongoing · My Fantasy Stories
Kaelani spent her life believing she was wolfless.
Cast out by her pack. Forgotten by the Lycans.
She lived among humans—quiet, invisible, tucked away in a town no one looked at twice.

But when her first heat comes without warning, everything changes.

Her body ignites. Her instincts scream. And something primal stirs beneath her skin—
summoning a big, bad Alpha who knows exactly how to quench her fire.

When he claims her, it’s ecstasy and ruin.

For the first time, she believes she’s been accepted.
Seen.
Chosen.

Until he leaves her the next morning—
like a secret never to be spoken.

But Kaelani is not what they thought.
Not wolfless. Not weak.
There is something ancient inside her. Something powerful. And it’s waking.

And when it does—
they’ll all remember the girl they tried to erase.

Especially him.

She’ll be the dream he keeps chasing… the one thing that ever made him feel alive.

Because secrets never stay buried.
And neither do dreams.
Goddess Of The Underworld

Goddess Of The Underworld

926.7k Views · Completed · Sheridan Hartin
Left at a pack border with a name and a stubborn heartbeat, Envy grows into the sharpest kind of survivor, an orphaned warrior who knows how to hold a line and keep moving. Love isn’t in the plan…until four alpha wolves with playboy reputations and inconveniently soft hands decide the girl who won’t bow is the only queen they’ll ever take. Their mate. The one they have waited for. Xavier, Haiden, Levi, and Noah are gorgeous, lethal, and anything but perfect and Envy isn’t either. She’s changing. First into hell hound, Layah at her heels and fire in her veins. Then into what the realm has been waiting for, a Goddess of the Underworld, dragging her mates down to hell with her.

When the veil between the Divine, the Living, and the Dead begins to crack, Envy is thrust beneath with a job she can’t drop: keep the worlds from bleeding together, shepherd the lost, and make ordinary into armour, breakfasts, bedtime, battle plans. Peace lasts exactly one lullaby. This is the story of an orphan pup who became a goddess by choosing her family; of four imperfect alphas learning how to be better. Steamy, fierce, and full of heart, Goddess of the Underworld is a reverse harem, found-family paranormal romance where love writes the rules and keeps three realms from falling apart.
After the Affair: Falling into a Billionaire's Arms

After the Affair: Falling into a Billionaire's Arms

1.6m Views · Ongoing · Louisa
Dear readers, this novel is coming to an end soon. I highly recommend another fantastic story of the same genre:


I’d appreciate all your support, thank you so much!
From first crush to wedding vows, George Capulet and I had been inseparable. But in our seventh year of marriage, he began an affair with his secretary.

On my birthday, he took her on vacation. On our anniversary, he brought her to our home and made love to her in our bed...

Heartbroken, I tricked him into signing divorce papers.

George remained unconcerned, convinced I would never leave him.

His deceptions continued until the day the divorce was finalized. I threw the papers in his face: "George Capulet, from this moment on, get out of my life!"

Only then did panic flood his eyes as he begged me to stay.

When his calls bombarded my phone later that night, it wasn't me who answered, but my new boyfriend Julian.

"Don't you know," Julian chuckled into the receiver, "that a proper ex-boyfriend should be as quiet as the dead?"

George seethed through gritted teeth: "Put her on the phone!"

"I'm afraid that's impossible."

Julian dropped a gentle kiss on my sleeping form nestled against him. "She's exhausted. She just fell asleep."
The mafia princess return

The mafia princess return

924.2k Views · Completed · Tonje Unosen
Talia have been living with her mother, stepsister and Stepfather for years. One day she finally get away from them. Suddenly she learn she have more family out there and she have many people that actually love her, something she have never felt before! At least not as she can remember. She have to learn to trust others, get her new brothers to accept her for who she is!
After One Night with the Alpha

After One Night with the Alpha

457.8k Views · Completed · Sansa
One Night. One Mistake. One Lifetime of Consequences.

I thought I was waiting for love. Instead, I got fucked by a beast.

My world was supposed to bloom at the Moonshade Bay Full Moon Festival—champagne buzzing in my veins, a hotel room booked for Jason and me to finally cross that line after two years. I’d slipped into lacy lingerie, left the door unlocked, and lay on the bed, heart pounding with nervous excitement.

But the man who climbed into my bed wasn’t Jason.

In the pitch-black room, drowned in a heady, spicy scent that made my head spin, I felt hands—urgent, scorching—searing my skin. His thick, pulsing cock pressed against my dripping cunt, and before I could gasp, he thrust hard, tearing through my innocence with ruthless force. Pain burned, my walls clenching as I clawed at his iron shoulders, stifling sobs. Wet, slick sounds echoed with every brutal stroke, his body unrelenting until he shuddered, spilling hot and deep inside me.

"That was amazing, Jason," I managed to say.

"Who the fuck is Jason?"

My blood turned to ice. Light slashed across his face—Brad Rayne, Alpha of Moonshade Pack, a werewolf, not my boyfriend. Horror choked me as I realized what I’d done.

I ran away for my life!

But weeks later, I woke up pregnant with his heir!

They say my heterochromatic eyes mark me as a rare true mate. But I’m no wolf. I’m just Elle, a nobody from the human district, now trapped in Brad's world.

Brad’s cold gaze pins me: “You carry my blood. You’re mine.”

There is no other choice for me but to chose this cage. My body also betrays me, craving the beast who ruined me.

WARNING: Mature Readers Only
A Queen Among Tides (Book 5 in the Gods' Saga)

A Queen Among Tides (Book 5 in the Gods' Saga)

4.6k Views · Ongoing · ADB_Stories
One mistake centuries ago left Lemuel cursed by the Goddess Merlos and forced to wander the earth granting the wishes of those who touch him. Lemuel was looking at an eternity of loneliness until his unexpected soulmate plucked him right out of the sea.

Shocked to find he's been bound in more ways than one to Sebastian, the future King to the Kingdom of Atlesper, Lemuel resists Sebastian's advances at every turn, believing this may be one pairing Goddess Zarseti got wrong.

Lemuel will have to face his past in hopes of starting a new future, but an overly flirtatious King is the least of his worries when he learns Sebastian's parents are convinced that a conniving usurper disguised as a curvy blonde, is the future king's true soulmate.

A Queen Among Tides is the 5th book in the Queen Among Series/The Gods' Saga. This is an interconnected series. To see how it ends, I recommend reading the full series.

Books in the series order:
A Queen Among Alphas - Book 1
Bite-Size Luna - A Queen Among Alphas Prequel (available under book 1)
A Queen Among Snakes - Book 2
A Queen Among Blood - Book 3
A Queen Among Darkness - Book 4
Whole Again - A Queen Among Alpha's spin-off (available under book 1)
A Queen Among Tides - Book 5
Valor, Virtue, and Verve - Tides Prequel Spin-off (will be available under book 5)
A Queen Among Gods - Book 6
Runaway Empress - A Queen Among Snakes Prequel (will be available under book 2)
A Queen Among Tempests - Book 7
Dark Vocation - Darkness spin-off (will be available under book 4)
A Court of Arcane Souls Anthology (side character short stories exclusive to Ream)
Royal Shadow Series (Next Gen Coming Soon)
Offside With You

Offside With You

2.4k Views · Ongoing · Eanie Ruth
For eighteen years, Aveline Carter has lived in the shadows, forgotten by a mother who only seems to see her identical twin brother, Asher Carter, whose heart disease demands constant care. She resents him until the night she finds him lying unconscious on his bedroom floor.
At the hospital, Asher falls into a coma. His scans reveal bruises, internal bleeding and signs of prolonged physical abuse. Broken and furious, Aveline vows to expose the cruelty hidden behind the prestige of Crestwood Academy.
Cutting off her hair and disguising herself as her brother, Aveline infiltrates Crestwood Academy and fights her way onto the hockey team determined to unmask those responsible. Revenge should have been simple until she meets Kieran Hampton, the team’s arrogant and sharp-eyed star player. From their first clash, tension ignites. Aveline is certain he’s guilty and has no problem making his life miserable, but their undeniable chemistry only draws them closer with every confrontation.

While Aveline focuses on the wrong target, the real threat stands closer.

Cassian Thorne seems strange at first, his interest in her uncomfortably personal yet he gradually becomes her friend. Meanwhile, Kieran despite believing Aveline is male finds himself drawn to “him” in ways he can’t understand. When he uncovers her true identity, he chooses to protect her at all costs even as she refuses to trust him.
Revenge turns to grief when Asher dies, leaving Aveline drowning in guilt for falling for her brother’s supposed tormentor. Questions remain unanswered, and the truth is far darker than she imagined because Asher Carter was never just a victim. The bullying wasn’t just random.
As secrets unravel and loyalties shatter, Aveline must face one devastating question: what happens when the brother you were ready to destroy the world for isn’t who you thought he was?
Mated to Her Alpha Instructor

Mated to Her Alpha Instructor

153.8k Views · Completed · Marina Ellington
I'm Eileen, an outcast at the shifter academy, all because I don't have a wolf. My only saving grace is a knack for healing that got me into the Healer's Division. Then one night in the forbidden woods, I found a stranger on the brink of death. One touch, and something primal snapped between us. That night tied me to him in a way I can't undo.
Weeks later, our new Alpha combat instructor walks in. Regis. The guy from the woods. His eyes lock on mine, and I know he recognizes me. Then the secret I've been hiding hits me like a punch: I'm pregnant.
He has an offer that binds us tighter than ever. Protection… or a cage? Whispers turn ugly, darkness closes in. Why am I the one without a wolf? Is he my salvation… or will he drag me to ruin?
The Family Books 1-3 (A Mafia romance)

The Family Books 1-3 (A Mafia romance)

2.1k Views · Completed · Emma Mountford
Saints and Sinners- She was the light to my dark.
The saint to my sinner. with her innocent eyes and devilish curves.
A Madonna that was meant to be admired but never touched.
Until someone took that innocence from her.
She left.
The darkness in my heart was finally complete.
I avenged her, I killed for her, but she never came back.
Until I saw her again. An angel dancing around a pole for money.
She didn’t know I owned that club. She didn’t know I was watching.
This time I won’t let her escape.
I will make her back into the girl I knew.
Whether she likes it or not.
2/ Judge and Jury- I can’t stop watching her.

I’m not even sure I want to.

Taylor Lawson, blonde, beautiful, and totally oblivious to how much dangers she’s in.

She’s also the one juror in my upcoming murder trial that hasn’t been bought.

The one who can put me behind bars for a very long time.

I know I should execute her.
After all that’s what I do.

I am the Judge.
I eliminate threats to The Family.
And Taylor is a threat.
But I don’t want to kill her.
Possessing her, making her love me seems like a much better plan for this particular Juror.

3/ Rags and Ritches-
Omega Bound

Omega Bound

2.5m Views · Completed · Veronica White
Ayla Frost is a beautiful, rare omega. Kidnapped, tortured, and trafficked to rogue clans and corrupt alphas to do with as they pleased.  Kept alive in her cage, broken and abandoned by her wolf, she becomes mute and has given up on hope for a better life until one explosion changes everything. 

Thane Knight is the alpha of the Midnight Pack of the La Plata Mountain Range, the largest wolf shifter pack in the world. He is an alpha by day and hunts the shifter trafficking ring with his group of mercenaries by night. His hunt for vengeance leads to one raid that changes his life. 

Tropes:
Touch her and die/Slow burn romance/Fated Mates/Found family twist/Close circle betrayal/Cinnamon roll for only her/Traumatized heroine/Rare wolf/Hidden powers/Knotting/Nesting/Heats/Luna/Attempted assassination
The Deadly Mafia Princess

The Deadly Mafia Princess

9.5k Views · Ongoing · Tonje Unosen
Ro was taken from her real family when she was 1 year old. Those she believed is her parents have been abusive towards her do years. Despite she being a very feared gang leader of a well known gang, she can’t find it in her to stand up against what she think is her parents. The little girl in her wants their love which she never will get.
Her gang take the matter in their own hands, to try to save their leader from the horror of her home. What none of them know, they wasn’t her real parents, and now Ro will be sent away to live with her real family. That makes her closest members in her gang pack up and move as well. They don’t want to be far away from their leader.
The Princess's Revenge

The Princess's Revenge

55.2k Views · Completed · Xena Kessler
Two nations are at war. Valencia's pack is massacred by Alpha Marcus, and she is enslaved by him. When he dies, she is to be buried alive with him as a sacrifice.

Alpha Logan is an illegitimate son whose mother disappeared when he was 10 years old. He grew up suffering from humiliation and lacking maternal love.

Alpha Logan saves Valencia at Marcus's funeral, which seems to be destined by fate—part of the Moon Goddess's grand plan.

As Valencia accidentally discovers prophecies in Logan's mother's diary that seem to be related to her, the truth gradually surfaces. Valencia appears to be merely a tool in a princess's revenge plot. How will Logan and Valencia navigate their path amid the national war and pack politics?