Ela
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I awoke groggily.
The scientists had been trying to keep me drugged up so that I wouldn’t throw another fit. I knew that the only thing that would be waiting for me when I awoke would be a measly cup of water. How long had this been happening? Hours? Days? The lack of response from my stomach hadn’t told me anything, as the drugs that were in my system had dulled my hunger pains.
But this time, when I woke up, it was different. Upon sitting up, I noticed a tray of food on the counter. There was a piece of bread, some cheese, and an apple. How stereotypical.
I reached out and grabbed the piece of bread, tore a piece off, and brought it to my lips. I opened them to make way for the food, but then frowned and placed the bread back on the dented metal tray.
There was no telling what was wrong with this food. There could be more drugs in it that would make me stay in the fog for even longer. Hell, they could be trying to kill me off with rat poison or something, even. I wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of me enjoying their “home cooked meal.” I would rather die of starvation. I slammed the tray to the ground, and it landed with a clang, its contents scattering across the floor.
I crossed my legs and sat dizzily on the bed. I had given up on crying a long time ago. It wasn’t worth it any more. So, I just sat there, glaring at the endlessly blinking red light on the door.
Suddenly, the light turned green and the lab door opened in front of me. I tensed, preparing myself for a struggle, even though the world was still spinning around me. The form of one of the scientists, a young woman whom I had never seen before, appeared in the doorway carrying a tray with various vials.
“Screw off,” I barked. Unfortunately, the threat came out much weaker than I had hoped.
“Now, now. Ela, don’t you think that’s a bit rude? I haven’t even had the chance to properly introduce myself.” the woman said condescendingly, flipping her long, black ponytail behind her back. She glanced towards the floor, taking notice to the spilled food. “Now… Who could have brought this to you?” she frowned. “I guess the idiots over in research didn’t get the memo that no food goes to the experiments unless they’ve exhibited good behavior. And you, my dear, certainly have not attained that prize.”
I growled. “Who are you?”
The woman laughed. “Oh, I’m no one important. Just the nurse, if you will. It’s my job to inject you with all of these wonderful chemicals so that you don’t go haywire.”
“So I take it I’m up for another nap?”
“Actually, it’s your lucky day. You’re being sent to the testing room. Congratulations.”
I frowned. “Testing room?”
The black-haired woman licked her lips. “For an evaluation of your abilities.” She picked up one of the vials of liquid and examined it. Finding it to be to her approval, she picked up a syringe and drew the serum up the tube.
I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “I thought you said it was my lucky day.” I spat.
The woman smiled. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m not putting you to sleep. This is just a, ah, adrenaline shot that you‘ll receive when we get there.”
Adrenaline? I wasn’t in any sort of shock. Wouldn’t that much straight adrenaline kill me?
The woman took a step towards me and sighed. “Judging by the look on your face, you have no idea, do you? Oh, my dear Ela. If only you knew the things that you were capable of.”
I frowned. What could I do? All I had was a pair of wings and some decent sense of direction. She had to be bluffing.
The scientist stepped even closer and leaned down to eye level with me. “Such potential,” she said dreamily, stroking the side of my face. “You could be great, you know. All you have to do is let us make a few… modifications.” She straightened. “I suppose we should thank you. If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have such a vast number of creatures here right now to improve and perfect.”
My eyes narrowed into a glare.
The woman threw her head back and laughed. “I can’t believe you actually trusted that loser, Sam. I mean, you couldn’t have possibly known all of the details... But didn’t something seem a little off to you?” she studied my face. “Nothing at all?” she asked this with fake concern, her voice mockingly high.
“Let me let you in on a little secret, Ela dear.” She leaned down to my ear. “He never cared.” she whispered.
This was something I had already known, but hearing someone else say it only made the feeling inside hurt that much worse.
I brought my head back and slammed it into the side of the woman’s face. She staggered back, holding her nose, her expression growing hostile. “Bitch.” I muttered under my breath.
A glare illuminated the woman’s face for a moment, but it quickly changed back to a smile. “Come now. That wasn’t very nice, now was it?” She checked her watch. “You weren’t supposed to be in the testing room for another ten minutes, but I don’t think it hurts to be ahead of schedule.” She walked towards me again, producing a rope from her lab coat pocket.
She reached for my hands, and I tried to push her away, but the woman was unmovable in my drugged state. She quickly tied my wrists and then grabbed me roughly by the hair, pulling me up from the bed. “Don’t try any funny business,” she ordered. “Those ropes are designed to cut through your skin whenever they’re met with any sort of friction.”
Sighing, I let the woman drag me through the hall of the lab until we finally stopped at a large door. The unnamed scientist pulled a card from her pocket and swiped it through the device on the wall. A small beep resonated from the door, and it opened seconds later. The woman pushed me inside and forced me to lay down on a metal table. She cut the restraints on my wrists, but they were immediately replaced a large strip of metal from the table itself that extended over my abdomen.
A man appeared from a nearby desk and walked over to me. “Hello, Ela. We’re going to do a little bit of a test today to examine your pain threshold.” he said simply. “It might hurt a little bit, but well, that’s the point.” He chuckled. Damn sadist.
I could feel my eyes widen. What could they possibly gain from that? The man walked over to a device jutting up from the ground and grabbed a few long cords. He returned to my side and stuck the sticky ends to various points along my body. I began to hear dull beeping sounds coming from another nearby machine. Monitors, great.
The woman plunged the syringe into my arm, and I began to feel the effects of the adrenaline immediately. I was alert. I sensed everything around me with vibrancy and clarity, something that I hadn’t been able to do for a while.
“Okay. Turn it on.” The man called to the black-haired woman. The woman flicked the switch on the large machine, and began to hear the crackling sound of electricity get closer and closer.
It began with a feeling like pinpricks. Nothing too terrible. If this was it, I could deal with it. I could go back to my room soon and everything--
“Okay. Now crank it up.”
The feeling began to become slightly more painful. But the adrenaline running through my veins caused me to barely take notice of it.
“Higher.”
And suddenly I felt like I had been stabbed by thousands of knives.
“No. No. No.” I protested. The man merely smirked as the machine was cranked even higher. I began to feel the involuntary convulsions take control of my body as the strong pulses of electricity ran through it like wildfire. My insides were burning up. They had to be.
I had never felt this much physical pain before. The pain was so terrible that I could not even scream. I wanted to die... or at least pass out. Anything to escape this white-hot pain. But the adrenaline shot I had received would not let me do either. My body was in overdrive, trying to expel the pain, but the continuation of the conduction of electricity cancelled it out.
I wasn’t sure how long the machine was on that setting. It felt like eternity, but it couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds, right? Eventually, I heard the clicking of the dial as it turned in the opposite direction. I gave a silent thanks to no one in particular as the pain began to subside.
My consciousness began to fade out as the machine came to a halt, the adrenaline wearing off.
Everything was dark.
I could feel my limbs strapped to the metal table beneath me. I tried to open my eyes, but there was nothing but darkness. I had been blindfolded for the experiment this time around for some strange reason. The scientists had said something about testing my endurance, and so I was forced to run on a treadmill for two hours straight, hooked up to all different sorts of machines. After I’d finished, they had strapped me to the table in order to examine my vitals.
Finally, the monsters had left after gaining “undetermined results.” One of them whispered something that I could not hear as they exited the room, but whatever it was had caused the others to burst into laughter. Science humor at my expense; how fun.
As I lay on the table panting and weary from exhaustion, I heard the lab room door open with a creak.
“Who’s there?” I whispered.
There was no answer for a few moments.
And then, finally a voice answered. “Here. Drink this.” I felt the smooth texture of a plastic bottle touch my lips.
“But won’t you get in trouble?” My voice was hoarse from dehydration. I hadn’t had water in days, and this exertion of energy had only made my thirst grow.
The bottle pulled away. A pause. “Don’t worry about it,” the voice said finally. I couldn’t distinguish whose voice it was. In that moment of weariness, it sounded neither male nor female.
The cool sensation of water soon lapped at my lips, and I thirstily parted them to make way for the hydrating liquid. The instant soothing effect of the water had me begging for more and I greedily gulped down the contents of the bottle.
“Hey, slow down.” the voice laughed.
One the bottle was drained, I gave a sigh of satisfaction. It would do for now. I could feel a smirk tugging at the edges of my lips towards my mysterious savior as I laid there.
“I hope you realize that you probably just signed your death warrant.”
I was pulled back to consciousness almost instantly.
The scientist made a hmmm sound. “How interesting.” He said finally. I could hear the sounds of him writing on a clipboard, followed shortly by the sound of two pairs of footsteps leaving the room.
I sighed as was stuck on the table, body twitching from the leftover electricity trying to find its way out of my body, hearing nothing but the slowing beeps of the monitoring device, eyes stinging with tears.
And I had no one to save me this time.
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Not much thought process went into this one. I just kind of wrote it. Ahaha. Sorry if it's turrible.
THREE GUESSES AS TO WHO THE MYSTERIOUS SAVIOR IS. -shot-
ANYWAY. Working on a post from Sammy's perspective. THAT WILL BE INTERESTING, RIGHT? RIGHT? IS HE TRULY A TRAITOR? WHAT ARE HIS TRUE MOTIVES? -INSERT OTHER DRAMATIC THINGS HERE-
