"SAMMY" THE LAB RAT

"SAMMY"

THE LAB RAT

BEING & TIME

(IN THE WHITE WORLD)

AALABASTER LABORATORY

RESEARCH FACILITY

CREATED

J. BECK

2025

Being and Time

(In the White World)

My existence, my very Being, began not as a choice, but as a sudden, bewildering casting into a reality of stark, unsettling uniformity. I was born into the White World—a sterile universe of polished stainless steel, echoing tile floors, and air thick with the faint, metallic tang of disinfectant.

"SAMMY"

THE WHITE ALBINO LAB RAT

My home was a clear glass prison, yet, within it, I was the alpha male, a distinction I understood not through language, but through the deference of my smaller, more anxious littermates.

The humans were not people, but towering, faceless forces of nature. Their faces were erased by masks, their forms hidden under thick paper coveralls, long medical coats, and the ever-present blue nets that trapped their hair. Yet, I could identify them. I mapped my world through non-visual cues.

I knew the gruff technician by the coarse wool on his coat and the sharp, cheap smell of his hand soap. I knew the documentarian by the sweet, powdery scent she carried.

And then, there was her.
My favorite human technician had a unique smell—a clean, almost floral note beneath the lab's usual chemical miasma. Her voice was a low, melodic murmur, and her handling was precise, yet infused with a tenderness that was utterly out of place in the White World.

"CASSIE"

ALABASTER

RAT LAB TECHNICIAN

She was the one who recorded my prodigious size, who changed my cedar chips with care, and who, with a soft click of her vinyl gloves, would give a gentle scratch behind my ears that was worth more than a full feed bin. She was my anchor in this controlled captivity.

My purpose was clear: to breed. I was a producer of inventory, a perfect specimen of the albino line. I ran on my wheel, ate my pellets, and perpetuated my species, fulfilling the mandate of the humans' endless documentation. I was valuable.

The Price of Resistance
But my size and my spirit became my curse. One afternoon, a strange, acrid-smelling human with a heavy, unfamiliar footfall entered the room.

He was a new force, and his handling was violent—a rough, unfeeling squeeze that ignored my frantic squeaks. It was a violation of the fragile truce between captive and captor.

In a blinding flash of instinct, a momentary triumph of Being over system, I retaliated. My teeth found purchase in his callous flesh. The pain I inflicted was nothing compared to the fear I was immediately cast into.

The reprisal was swift and definitive. A sharp, clean snip, and I was marked forever—a single, clean notch in my ear.

The mark of a rogue. I was stripped of my status and my comfort. My glass tank was replaced by a small, cold, unforgiving steel bar cage. I was thrown into absolute, agonizing solitary confinement, the steel bars echoing my new, terrible label: man biter.

My purpose had changed. I was no longer a breeder; I was a subject. My ear-notch was a death sentence, consigning me to the most extreme tier of experimentation—the drug trials, the ones that ended only in silence on a stainless steel tray.

I knew this fate with the certainty of a creature who understands the laws of its own contained universe. My time was now measured in the slow, creeping dread of impending demise.

The Great Escape
Days bled into a week. My favorite human was gone—a void marked by the absence of her scent and her gentle touch. I heard the muffled talk of her "vacation."

I knew that if she didn't return soon, it would be too late. The men with the rough hands were preparing my dosage.

Then, one evening, she was back. I recognized the soft squeak of her shoe sole, the sweet scent that cut through the gloom.

She peered into my cage, and her eyes, though partially hidden, conveyed a look of profound distress at my single ear-notch and the raw despair of my isolation. Her voice was a terrified whisper.

"They have you on the schedule, Sammy. Compound 47... I can't let them."

She acted with swift, desperate movements. Her gloved hand reached in, not with the clinical detachment of a technician, but with the urgency of a conspirator.

I felt the familiar warmth of her palm, and then the comforting, soft cloud of a white towel. I was no longer an asset or a liability; I was a life she was saving.

She tucked me deep into the dark, comforting fabric of her backpack. The cold sterility of the White World vanished.

My new reality was a confined, rocking darkness, the smells of denim, leather, and her unique human fragrance overwhelming my senses.

I felt the powerful, rhythmic thrum of her heart—a heart beating not just for herself, but for my escape.

I was leaving the rigid confines of my imposed existence. I was venturing into the Gray World, the sprawling, unpredictable chaos beyond the laboratory walls.

My rescuer, Cassie, shed her disguise. The white coat and paper coveralls fell away, revealing soft fabrics and the scent of human life.

The journey was terrifying, but with her heartbeat against my ear, I knew my time had not ended. My Being was about to face the unscripted future.

Arrival in the Gray World

The world inside the bag was a rocking darkness until the motion ceased, replaced by the sounds of scraping metal and the muffled roar of the outside. Then, a sharp click, a creak of hinges, and I was in the Gray World.

It was overwhelming. The air that rushed into my lungs was thick and complex, a symphony of competing scents: exhaust, stale food, rain, and a hundred different living things. The ground beneath me was not cold, polished tile, but scuffed, worn wood.

Above me, the light was not the harsh, uniform glare of the White World, but a soft, yellow haze filtered through a large window.

Cassie was a different person here—relaxed, unhurried. Her apartment, in a district called DUMBO, was a chaotic riot of color and texture that jarred my senses accustomed to sterility.

There were soft rugs, mismatched furniture, and the smell of old books and something fermenting and sharp—beer.

She opened the bag and gently placed me on a plush, olive-green couch. My first steps on this new terrain were tentative. Everything was soft. I was still a creature of the cage, my legs stiff from confinement.

I explored the immediate vicinity, my pink nose twitching at the astonishing density of information.

She lit a cigarette, and the plume of smoke was a fleeting, strangely beautiful cloud. She uncapped a bottle of the sharp-smelling liquid and took a long swig.

Then, she did something truly strange. She held the bottle toward me. In the White World, every substance was a controlled variable, a measured dose.

Here, it was an offering. My curiosity outweighed my caution. I took a tentative lick—a bitter, bubbly sting on my tongue. It was a taste of pure, unbridled freedom.

Cassie, sensing my restlessness, would talk to me in a low voice, sharing her own burdens and joys. She’d hold me close, often letting me drink from her beer bottle as a strange, shared sacrament of our escape.

She was no longer a faceless giant; she was a conspirator, an ally, and a friend. We were two fugitives, sharing one small space in DUMBO, united by a stolen existence.

One evening, tired from a long day's exploration of the couch cushions, I snuggled into the warm curve of her neck as she reclined.

The smoke from her cigarette curled harmlessly over my head. The bitter scent of the beer was a lullaby.

As the city's vast, indifferent roar filled the apartment, I finally surrendered my vigil. My head resting near her throat, feeling the slow, heavy beat of her heart, the fear of the cage faded.

We slept—the ex-technician and the ear-notched alpha rat—both lost and found, together in the vast, beating heart of the Gray World.

FURTHER

SAMMY THE LAB RAT

REFERENCES:

"SAMMY THE LAB RAT"

https://youngsopranos.blogspot.com/2025/10/sammy-rat.html?m=1

"SAMMY"

THE LAB RAT

(RESCUED BY MATTY ORLANDO)

BEING & TIME

OUTSIDE THE WHITE WORLD

(IN THE GRAY WORLD)

The Call of the City

Though safe in Cassie’s apartment, I felt an undeniable pull to the world beyond the glass. From the window, I could see the great city, a towering labyrinth of brick and glass stretching up to meet the gray sky. This was the true Gray World—the domain of my wild kin.

I spent my days observing the city's pulse. I could hear them: the other rats. They lived below, in the moist, dark tunnels of the subways and the rich, decaying bounty of the garbage alleys.

They were the "Gray Rats," the ones who knew the secrets of the stones and the endless feast of human waste.

Their world, a pungent, damp realm of survival, was a direct and terrifying contrast to the clean, structured existence I was bred for.

I felt a profound sense of dislocation. I was too large, too white, too clean for the streets, yet too defiant to return to the cages.

I was a rat caught between two realities: the clinical precision of my birth and the anarchic freedom of my nature.