INSTRUCTIONS FOR HOW TO PROCEED ARE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE POST.
Ela
----------------------------
Freedom.
I was flying high in the sky, wings extended, leaving Xenogenesis Laboratories in the dust behind me.
I closed my eyes in bliss as the altitude increased, the scientists beneath becoming nothing but ants. The wind whipped through my hair, sending red tufts flying in all directions.
I was free. I could escape. Nothing but me and the open air until I was far, far away--and safe.
But suddenly, I felt the familiar sensation of electricity pulse through my veins, and was yanked backwards. I gasped for air as I plummeted back down to ground level, collapsing upon contact with the hard surface.
Well, I knew it was too good to be true.
As I stood up and brushed myself off, I made eye contact with the black haired woman from before. She was holding a clipboard, and I noticed that, in my lack of delirium this time around, her eyes were an icy shade of blue. She quickly looked away and murmured something to the man next to her, the same one who had administered my so called “shock therapy” days earlier.
As they continued their conversation, I stood there, impatiently, looking up towards the clouds. What had gone wrong? Sure, I knew that it had been a test, but I thought that maybe if I flew high enough, whatever contraption they used to bring me back down wouldn’t have worked. Wishful thinking.
The man examined the woman’s clipboard, and he cleared his throat as he turned to face me. I turned my attention towards him, crossing my arms across my chest.
“Subject 4521,” he addressed. “Get a little anxious, did we?”
I stared at him with all the malice I could muster.
“I applaud you at your recent exemplifications of your ability.” Right, if being electrocuted, flying around a stupid dome, and shooting a few targets with a gun (behind a wall where I had no way to harm a precious hair on the scientists heads, of course) counted as exemplifying anything. Injection after injection. Test after test. This had been going on for days now, and I could only wonder when it was all going to end.
“Unfortunately, with your genetic makeup, there is not much else we can do at the present time. You are not as, ah, advanced as the others.”
I snorted. “Oh, such a shame to miss out on becoming one of your sicko experiments.”
The man frowned. “That does not mean that you won’t be improved upon in the future, however.” He paused. “Besides, just because we can’t improve your genetics, it doesn’t mean that we can’t improve your physical and mental being.”
I returned the frown. What could he possibly mean?
The man snapped his fingers, and I immediately heard the boom of a gun. I quickly ducked my head to the left, feeling a rush of air by my right ear as a bullet whizzed past.
“What the hell?!” I demanded. I caught sight of the black-haired scientist quickly scrawling something on her clipboard.
“You could have killed me, dammit!” I screamed, ready to charge at the pair.
“Calm down. We are not going to hurt you.” the man said.
“Yeah, somehow I doubt that.”
“Now, Ela. We just wanted to test your reflexes. That’s all.”
I opened my mouth to retort, but a high pitched ringing of a phone cut me off.
The man held up a finger, as if to say that we would be continuing this conversation shortly, and then proceeded to produce a cell phone from his lab coat pocket. “Hello?” he asked. A pause, followed by a sigh. “It’s time? What the hell are they planning up there?” Another pause. “Very well, then.” He closed the phone and replaced it. He nodded at his partner, and I saw her mouth form a thin line. She pulled out the same type of rope that had been used on me several times during my stay at Hotel Xenogenesis, and walked over to me and bound me. I sighed as she wrapped the rope around my wrists. There was no use in fighting back, I decided, as I took notice to the dark-silhouetted sniper on the roof. No way I could dodge that.
The two scientists led me back inside and down a hallway, eventually reaching a large, air-locked door.
The woman untied my wrists as the man held open the door. Once the rope was gone, the two shoved me inside and the door quickly slid shut behind me with a loud bang.
I took in my surroundings. A seemingly endless expanse of grey sky stretched before me. Was I outside again? No, something seemed different than when I was outside earlier. There was no breeze here. No warmth. Just flat, dim air.
Standing adjacent to me were ten other members of the club. Akira. Griffin. Dante. Vevila. Rano. And several other members that I didn’t know quite as well--Alice. Aerith. Kaki. Nai. Bellinda. Everyone looked confused. Lost. Tired. Some of their bodies were so different from when we were captured that I barely recognized them.
The high-frequency whirring sound of machinery emanated from the floor.
And then in walked Judas himself.
"Well, isn't this just an exciting group?" Sam called with a malicious edge in his voice. “That’s the spirit I want to see!”
Anger boiled inside me. He never cared. The woman scientist’s words rang in my ears. The blonde‘s gaze met mine, and like our confrontation after the capture, his eyes still seemed devoid of any trace of identifiable emotion.
In my anger, the most I could do was smirk at him. “Want to see something else?” I said as I lunged forward, arm pulled back and ready to strike. I threw my fist towards Sam’s jaw, but suddenly a piercing pain went through my skull, causing me to collapse onto the ground. I clutched the sides of my head, mentally begging for the pain to stop, curling up into a ball. I could feel the stares of the other members as I writhed around on the ground. I felt exposed. Vulnerable. Wimpy.
I felt the contact of a hard shoe pushing me. “Discipline is a major issue. Don’t worry; we have a serum for that.” Sam’s contemplative voice was distorted in my ringing ears. I weakly attempted to look up at him, but my head was still pounding. "If you want the simple fact: you're all here to fight. Before we can reach our next phase of technology and adaptations, we need to test your true strength." He continued. Oh how I wanted to kill that son of a…
Near me, I heard a muffled voice that could only belong to the Alp Luachra, Vevila. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, however. Next, I heard another female voice, but this one I did not recognize. “You have three hours to do your worst. The only rules are: You can't kill anyone, if you try to commit suicide... well, things will just get worse for you, and remember, we're always watching you.” I heard the amplified echoing of footsteps as the scientists marched back to their platforms, the whirring returning as they sank below the false ground.
And once the platforms completely vanished, my hearing went back to normal. The eerie silence of the air flooded my eardrums until it was broken by a simple, short phrase.
“You may begin.”
Around me, everything turned to chaos. The members in the circle leapt on each other, began pummeling each other. I sprang to my feet and unfurled my wings, taking to the air. Why was this happening? What could they gain from us fighting each other? Sure, I was definitely no pacifist, but this was… ridiculous.
I tried to distance myself from the main pack of fighters, finding it to be easy with the new strengths that I had acquired. I was amazed at how fast I was flying. Hm. Well this would have been nice to have during all those long cross-city flights.
I touched down and watched the brawl from afar. One down. Two down. Three down. At this rate, we weren’t going to last three hours. I sighed, but quickly whirled around when I heard the sound of approaching footsteps from behind. One of the members was coming at me with a wooden board. I prepared myself to take her down, but she was too quick, and I could only watch in vain as she raised the plank high above her head…
And then everything went dark.
When I awoke again, I found myself to be strapped to a lab table with only the company of my hospital gown. I squirmed as I tried to break free, but the metal cuffs around my wrists and ankles only burned due to the created friction.
The sound of an opening door caused me to tense. “Ah. You’re awake.” I recognized the voice of the male scientists who had been keeping watch over me for the past weeks. He strode over to the table and sat down in a rolling chair, clipboard in hand. He flipped through the various pages attached to the piece of wood, skimming some while vigorously studying others. Erasing on some, scribbling on some.
I frowned after several minutes. “Would you like to get on with it?” I snapped. The sound of graphite on paper continued, making me want to scream.
The man merely chuckled. “All in good time, my dear.” Finally, he sat the clipboard down and examined my body. Poked. Prodded. He stuck me with several IVs and censors, and I began to hear the monotone beeps. But something was different about them when I compared them to the electroshock ones. They seemed higher, longer, faster. How strange.
The doctor spoke up. “We are initiating the second phase of the assessment. Congratulations on making it this far.” What was he rambling about? He almost sounded… happy. Whatever it was, it could not be good.
The black haired woman appeared by the side of the table and pulled a mask from a compartment within the light above it. She attached it to a tube and began to lower it towards me face.
I violently swung my head back and forth to avoid the mask. “I swear, we’ll kill you all. You’ll pay for what you’ve done. We’ll outrun you. Make you suffer. Not us. Not any more.” I threatened. The woman sharply grabbed me by where my jaw and neck met with one of her hands, and I could not move.
“Oh, Ela, dear.” I heard the black-haired woman cooing as she placed the anesthetic mask over my face. “You think you can run, but even if you and your little friends go far, far away… we’ll always be there.”
I tried to hold my breath for as long as possible to avoid having to go under. But unfortunately, even bird-girl lungs give out eventually, and I was forced to intake several large puffs of the sleeping gas. The world began to grow dim, and the air around me felt heavy, much like when I had been injected with the serum earlier.
As my consciousness gradually began to fade out, so did many images of the past weeks:
The gas appearing at the mansion.
The lab.
Blood.
Scientists.
Pain.
And the image of a blonde boy fading until nothing was left.
---
Sunlight filtered in from the mansion window. I groaned as I flopped over in my bed, smelling bacon cooking from downstairs. It was too damn early on a Saturday morning for socialization. Sighing, I threw the covers back and got out of the bed.
I grimaced as I rolled my shoulders back in order to stretch, pain shooting through the blades. Remind me never to sleep in that position ever again. I stretched the rest of my body, finding it to also be strangely sore. What, did I go sleep flying again? I swung my arms forward and backwards to loosen the muscles, and then grabbed a pair of jeans that were lying on the floor and changed into them.
Yawning, I checked the clock that was sitting on the wardrobe and decided to head downstairs as I began to hear the idle chitchat of the other members entering the kitchen.
It was breakfast time.
--------------
Well, here is the transition into the next story arc. Hopefully it makes sense? IF NOT, HERE’S A LIST OF BASIC CONCEPTS/THINGS TO MAKE SENSE OF IT FOR WHEN YOU START WRITING:
1) EVERYONE is back at the mansion. Everyone awakes in the morning thinking that it’s an ordinary day. It’s like none of it ever happened. Escaped? Too bad. You have been recaptured. They are scientists, guuuuys. They aren‘t gonna let you walk out that easily. TROLOLOLOL /shot
2) All memories of the time in the lab have been erased.
3) All abilities introduced in the lab have been retained. The members’ memories have been tampered with so that they don’t seem to have appeared out of nowhere, however. They seem to have just always been there.
4) Everyone’s memories of Sam have also been erased. He was a variable in the experiment, so now he has been removed for the new trial. Yup.
NOW GO CRAZY, LOVELIES.
And I apologize for the crapness of this. Really, I do.
