Experimentation (HTTYD)

Chapter 6

Letter by letter, the groups were lead through the door. With each group cam more screams then more silence. Hiccup even recognised some of the kids being lead through as children from Berk. He and Fishlegs weren't the only two after all.

After the screams of group G quieted down the man came through the door again and looked at the guard at the front of Hiccup's group. "Group H, you're up." He smiled sadisticly as he called them. The guard violently lead them through the door and they entered a room with six tables with metal tops that had arm and leg restraints attached to them. The man then cleared his throat to get their attention.

"Allow me to introduce myself." He gave a mocking bow, "I'm Ryker, you've already met my brother. I'm sure he's explained what's going to happen to you so I won't bother but I will tell you what," he lifted up a handful of metal tags, "these are for. You see, we have had so many shipments if weak excuses for vikings that we just can't keep track of them all so we designed a system to help with that problem. You are a part of the thirty-seventh batch and so you are going to have one of these each to help identify you."

He showed off the first tag. It read: "37 H1". That must be Eldrid's tag. Sure enough he held it up to her ear then violently punched it through, adding something to the back to keep it in place. She tried not to scream or cry, probably for the sake of her sister, but eventually gave a whimper as a tear rolled down her cheek. Then she was detached from the chain and reattached to a table.

One by one, the teens were all given the same treatment. A tag shoved though their ear and getting restrained on a table. When it was Hiccups turn he tried fighting the guard but to no avail. The Ryker laughed at Hiccup's antics and slowly walked over to him. "Ah, H4, I've heard a lot about you. You've been causing my men a bit of trouble." He looked down at Hiccup menacingly. "You know I could do with some that have a bit of fight in them, they're so fun to break. Once your transformation is complete, you get to be my personal dragon. Doesn't that sound fun?"

Hiccup said nothing for a moment, then spat in Ryker's face. "Why you little-" he said angrily before cutting himself off. He grabbed Hiccup by the shoulders and threw him onto the table. "You're getting double the dose now. It won't do much to effect your transformation but it will hurt twice as much." He finished with a smile.

Hiccup was violently strapped down dispite his struggling and the sleeve of his tunic was violently ripped off. After Fishlegs was also tied town, Ryker ordered the men to inject the liquid Viggo showed them earlier into the teens. As Ryker had ordered, Hiccup was stabbed in his bare arm with two needles and the liquid made its way into his system. Soon pain started to register in the boy's arm, spreading  slowly throughout his body. At first it was a mild stinging sensation like me had been slapped in the arm but it was rapidly increasing, getting sharper and stronger, until it got so strong that felt like every muscle in his body was being ripped to shreds. He all could hear was pained screaming but he couldn't tell if it was from him or the others. Time seemed to be going so slowly and he could only pray that it would all be over soon. His vision of the ceiling was starting to blur and his sense of sound was getting echoey. Still the pain would not stop. How much longer would this-

Hiccup woke up in another cell. This one was different to the last one he was in. Instead of an empty room with stone walls this one was decorated with rocks and plants and a little pond in the corner. It was almost like a piece of an island was cut off and relocated here. His ear hurt and his whole body ached - especially his eyes. How did he get here? He sat up and looked around Eldrid, Edna, Than and Fishlegs were all asleep in various places around the cell. Why were they sleeping? It's bright in here.

He got up and moved over to Fishlegs then gently shook him to wake him up. "Fishlegs?" He whispered. "Fishlegs, wake up!"

Fishlegs groaned and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. He then noticed who was waking him up and looked surprised. "Hiccup! You're awake! Why are you waking me up in the middle of the night? What's wrong with your face?" His expression was growing less shocked and more confused as he spoke.

"My face? What? It's bright how could it be night? What are talking about?" Hiccup asked, equally confused as Fishlegs.

"Uh, no it's dark and the stars are out. Look." He pointed to a barred window not too far down the corridor outside their cell. Sure enough the sky was dark  and the stars were out. "There's not even any torches about how could-" he cut himself off with a gasp. "Hiccup, it's your eyes!" He almost shouted with enthusiasm.

"My eyes? My eyes what?"

"This is fascinating! You were given a double dosage of that potion thingy, right?"

Hiccup nodded. "I don't see what this has to do with that though. That Ryker guy said it won't effect me accept making things more painful."

"He must've been wrong. You're eyes look just like Toothless' eyes! The double dosage must've sped things up for you." He suddenly gasped again. "Does this mean that the rest of us are going to get eyes like that too?"

"I guess so." Hiccup replied but he wasn't paying too much attention to the conversation anymore. He wandered over to the small pond and looked at his reflection. Sure enough his eyes were different. The colour was the same so they were darker than Toothless' eyes but apart from that fact..

He had the eyes of a Night Fury.

((Ok, quick explanation. The way Night Furies eyes work in this book is similar to how cats eyes work. They are very good at seeing in low light but cannot see at all in no light which is when they use echolocation instead. Hiccup can see because it was a night with no clouds so the star and moon light was enough to light up the cell.))