chapter 6

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Chapter Six:

What Was Never Supposed to Happen

Damian

I was sitting at my table with a mug of hot water - I didn't like the taste of tea... or coffee... actually I didn't like the taste of many drinks at all - staring gloomily at a science course page on my data pad when they came to get me. A few workers from the Research Centre knocked and came in quietly. I looked around, startled at their sudden appearance. Something vague flitted across my mind of breaking and entering. Wasn't it deemed polite to actually ask to come in, before barging inside?

'Is it possible for you to come and help with an experiment?' one had asked me.

I interpreted that as 'come and help us with an examination, right now.'

Before I knew it, I was bundled out the door, and onto the nearest Loco to the Research Centre. I sat between two Researchers, looking rather blankly at the third who was busily informing me about what was going to happen.

'All you need to do is view some images and videos,' she explained to me. 'It shouldn't be too hard, and of course this will count towards adding more to your end of year grades.'

I nodded dumbly, still startled by the sudden change of events. What had happened to my sleepy weekend glaring at school books imprinted on the screens of data pads, sleeping in and going to the gym for long hours? In fact, the last thing I wanted was to be heading back to the Research Centre for a test or some other form of examination. I hated tests.

The rest of the trip continued with the Researchers chatting about a new timetable or something while I looked out the window. I had always wanted to follow Research when school finished, but I had never realised how difficult and technical it would be.

I was smart, maybe not one of the amazingly academic people, but I mostly got high B and occasionally a few low A grades in everything but art and sport.

Art, as a 'recreational class' that was a necessary in the school's curriculum, I wasn't that particularly fond of and I was generally given a C, and sport, being my strong point to the verge of ludicrously was - unmistakeably – a perfect one hundred percent A every time.

The doors hissed open at the stop and all four of us in the carriage walked out. Instead of taking me to the front desk to be recorded and signed in, they took me to a smaller, less noticeable side door. Either they had already signed me in, sure of my cooperation, or they didn't want many people to know I was there. The latter was fair enough, most students were not usually allowed in work places outside of school.

'This way,' a different one of the three called out to me briskly, leading the rest of us down a long corridor. At a junction, I looked over to my left, where some noises were coming from. At least half a dozen cleaning staff were milling around a door, easy to recognise because of their dull mint green uniform, multiple sterile cleaning bags dotted at their feet. I looked at little closer, at what seemed to be suspiciously like shattered glass lying around. The walkway looked vaguely familiar, like I had been there before, not too long ago, yet forgotten all about it. I shrugged and put it down to deja-vu. Some muted murmurings came to me, but I couldn't make out what they were about. The word 'attacked' came up more than once though.

'Come on,' said the Researcher behind me, shoving me perhaps a little too roughly in the back of my shoulder blades. I flicked an eye irritably in his direction and he quickly stopped. So maybe I was scary sometimes, but that was their fault for provoking me. We continued on and left the cleaning crew behind us, and within another five minutes our party arrived at a plain set of swinging doors, much like the ones that lined the rest of the corridor.

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Except for the fact that they were held by cast iron dead locks.

Triple barrel by the looks of their size. That was definitely not normal.

The first seed of dread planted itself in my gut.

'Thank you, you may go now,' the female Researcher gestured to the others. They nodded silently and left, like white shadows.

My head snapped back to face the door as a crashing sound erupted, followed with panicked shouts. The seed of dread in my gut poked out its first shoot and leaf.

'Are you sure this is the room?' I asked her, sounding as hopeful as I dared. She smiled a tiny bit in reply.

'Oh yes,' she nodded, lips twisting up grimly. 'This is it.'

I swallowed and looked back at the two white doors, dead lock and all. The seed had started to bloom, black and poisonous blossoms. I couldn't stall forever, and as soon as a particularly large amount of scuffling and bumping finished I squared my shoulders and nodded, ready.

My heart rate increased a little as I wonder what exactly I had agreed to do. Or more to the point, not refused to do. The remaining Researcher beside me nodded too and fitted her key card in a slot in the lock. She pushed open the doors. Actual manual locks, not computer sensors that noted when your data pad was within range and unlocked the door for you. Being manual underlined the gravity of the situation.

'Go in,' she encouraged.

I swallowed and walked into the room that looked suspiciously like recently cleared chaos.

Oh no, no, no, not her, I didn't want anything more to do with her. I'm supposed to be done with her, this can't be right. Let me out, let me out, let me out. This can not be what the experiment is!

The Naturesse girl lay tightly strapped down on a table, slightly off to the left of the room. An odd formation of scratches and angry red welts covered half of her left cheek, five deep crescent shaped cuts and a large red blotch with five longer thin lines spreading out from it.

Probably just hurt herself when she was trying to attack, I convinced myself.

It was only a pity that my terrified brain failed to notice that this 'test' was looking less and less like it would be to do with images and videos.

The table she was locked onto looked like it might fit into a scanning machine

that lay behind her. There was a similar, if not less extravagant copy on the right hand side of the room, complete with its own retracting table. Marie-Anne

greeted me in her usual way, and pointed for me to sit down on a seat.

The wild girls eyes followed me the whole time, documenting every move I made.

The workers had cleaned her up a bit, but they couldn't take away the wild look from her eyes of the deadly formation of her muscles, no matter how much they washed her hair and cleaned her body. I also noticed how painfully thin she looked, hollow sockets adorned her shoulders and hips, and her face looked gaunt, almost skeletal. A quivered a little and tried to banish the images that had sprung back into my head. They were of a real Naturesse attack on one of our lesser defended Settlements just outside the compound. The people who cut it for viewing had blurred out the blood and dying people, but the images that followed into your head only spoke of the slaughter those monsters brought with them wherever they went.

I glanced nervously at the trapped girl pinned to the table. No matter what I tried telling myself, I could never trust one enough to be left in the same room or building longer than I possibly had too. Her eyes flicked over to me again and she snarled under her breath, baring a set of unnaturally sharp teeth. I averted my eyes, and soon enough her table slowly leant backwards and moved into the scanner. Once she was out of sight, I breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed from my painfully upright position.

'Damian, please lay down on here,' informed a tiny grey clad Researcher, motioning with her hand to another, if not smaller table like contraption.

I was relieved that there were no straps attached to it, and there was some sort of padding and a head rest. Cautiously, I lay down and closed my eyes for an instant, imagining that I was back in my own bed sleeping in.

Needless to say, it didn't work.

Gears clicked and whirred as the table retracted into the machine.

'Just relax and try not to panic,' said the same woman kindly. 'This will be over in no time at all.' With that, she left me in an increasingly darkening tube.

Try not to panic? I felt all my muscles bunch up in fright, especially my lungs and throat.

Breathing became difficult and my body ached from the adrenalin surging through me, entirely unprovoked, yet still rising to the surface.

Please, not now, it was the last place I needed my claustrophobia setting in.

I hated it, my inability to cope with tiny closed spaces. It made me feel weak and vulnerable to people who wanted something against me, like a wounded animal, followed by a predator that couldn't be shaken because it was only a part of the animal itself.

I breathed out slowly and felt the steady push of fresh oxygen from vents in the chamber roof. Not exactly relaxing, but it was better than nothing.

A small buzz from above heralded the machine warming up.

'Relax, relax, relax, relax,'I chanted to myself aloud to quell my growing nerves.

It was going to be nothing anyway, right? Oh, hell! What had I agreed to?! Suddenly, a bright flash of white bloomed and the world around me dissolved.

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Authors note:

Hey guise, how's life?

Hm?

Oh, that's nice.

... ahem... ignore me... I'm weird... :3

Anyhow, I just wanted to let you all know that from here on out for around seven more chapters, things will get very complicated and confusing, definitely in need of reviewing BIG TIME so they even have a chance of making sense.

Just think... your thoughs and someone elses mingling... everything they smelt, heard, felt and though you can too... yeah...

Maybe it'll make sense if you read on... maybe...

Thank you all for reading this far!! ^_^ xx

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