“Tomato.” 

“Red.” 

“Carrot.” 

“Uh, uh… orange.” 

“Lemon.” 

“Yello— fuck!” Sadie screamed as the shock flowed through her body, shaking and jolting in the chair she was strapped into and threatening to rip it out of the ground. 

“Lemons are green, Miss Rivers,” the man in the suit sitting in front of her said, his hands clasped together and resting on his knees, leaning forward as if he needed a better view of her. “This is going to continue until you get it right.” 

“Lemons are not green, for fuck’s sake,” she spat, scowling at the man. The weak scent of charred hair hung in the air between them, soured by Sadie’s blistering stare. “I used to grow them!” 

The man pulled a phone out of his pocket and showed it to her. It displayed a picture of a green fruit. “This is a lemon.” 

“That’s a fucking lime!” she shouted before screaming once more, the shock blasting through her body. 

“It’s a lemon.” 

“Fine! Fine,” she gasped, clenching her jaw. “It’s a lemon. Happy?” 

“You don’t believe that.” 

She rolled her eyes. “Of course I don’t believe that, because it’s not true!” The shock came again, and Sadie groaned through it, her nails ripping grooves into the wood of the armrests. “What’s the point of this? You’ve kidnapped me and held me here for days, for what? To strap me to an electric chair and try to get me to say that lemons are fucking green?” 

“That’s the gist of it.” 

“Lemons are green, then! Happy, shithead?” 

“Again, you don’t believe it.” 

“I do believe it!” She roared, lurching forward in the seat and hearing the wood creak under the strain. “Lemons have been green my entire God damn life!” 

“Okay, I think we’re good for today,” the man said, standing up from his seat and brushing himself down, procuring a syringe from his pocket. “Let’s try this again tomorrow.” 

“Hey, what the fuck do you think you’re—” her own hiss of pain cut her off as he grabbed her head and forced the needle into her neck, injecting her with the liquid inside. Her head started to swim almost instantly, and she slurred one final insult before passing out.

— — —

“Tomato.” 

“Red.” 

“Carrot.” 

“Orange.” 

“Lemon.” 

“Uh… Yellow.” Sadie yelped as electricity ran through her body, throwing up all over her legs once the shock had subsided, coughing and heaving. “What the fuck!” 

“Lemons are green, Miss Rivers,” the man in the suit stated. 

“Lemons are… they aren’t green! They’re fucking yellow! I grew them for years! Why the fuck are you even doing this to me?” 

“Well, as you put it a week ago, to strap you to an electric chair and try to get you to say that lemons are fucking green,” he drawled, the smirk on his face only making Sadie’s face hotter and hotter with rage. 

“The fuck you mean, a week ago?” 

“Inconsequential information, Miss Rivers. Will you be cooperating or not?” 

“Fine!” she shouted, flinging herself backward into the chair and making it creak. “Lemons are green. Happy? Gonna let me go?” 

“No. You don’t believe that.” 

She rolled her eyes. “Fuck’s sake, it could be green, alright? I haven’t seen a God damn lemon in years. Now let me go!” 

The man showed her a picture of a green fruit on his phone. “This is a lemon.” 

“That’s… Isn’t that a lime?” 

“It’s a lemon.” 

She raised an eyebrow. “I don’t remember lemons looking like that.” Another jolt of electricity shot through the chair, forcing another scream from her lungs. “Alright, alright, holy fuck! It’s a lemon!” 

“Good,” the man said, standing and reaching into his pocket to produce a syringe. “We’re done for today.” 

— — —

“Tomato.” 

“Red.” 

“Carrot.” 

“Orange, I think.” 

“Lemon.” 

“Um…” Sadie frowned, looking away from the man in the suit. “Fuck, why can’t I remember? I used to grow them.” 

The man showed her an image of a green fruit on his phone. “This is a lemon.” 

“Oh.” She peered at it closely, raising an eyebrow. “Looks different to what I remember.” 

“I thought you said you couldn’t remember.” 

“Right, right, but… I don’t know, something just feels off.” 

“Nothing’s off. This is a lemon.” 

She made a tsk sound with her mouth, sitting back in the chair. “Fine, green.” 

“Good,” the man said, standing and jabbing her with the needle on the syringe like he had been doing the last few weeks. She fell asleep almost instantly, her head lolling like it was attached to a spring. “Told you,” he bragged, to seemingly nobody. 

“It took you fifty-nine sessions to get to this point, Reece, and she still isn’t fully convinced,” a voice said over a speaker system in the room as Reece started unbuckling Sadie from the chair. 

“No, but this is proof of concept enough, isn’t it? Gradual reconditioning of the human mind to remember something that’s false is possible, after all.” 

“We’ll need to run more tests.” 

“Sure.” He finished unbuckling her, hoisting her up into his arms and walking towards the door. “Maybe you should try a call for volunteers this time instead, though.” 

“She won’t remember any of this. No one was harmed.” 

“In theory, maybe,” he scoffed, kicking the door open and holding it ajar with his body while he edged out. “But this poor woman is going to go for a long time not knowing what colour a lemon is.” 

“Do you even know what colour a lemon is?” 

“Well, I do now, thanks to her.”