Wake up.
I hear them whispering to themselves, but I can't understand a single word through their hushed tones. The one sees me watching and blocks my view with his body. What are they doing over there? What are they going to do with me?
Through a crack in their stout shoulders I see a steel table and a raised hologram emitting from the center. Its cylinder blue orb flickers as the person on the other end moves out of view. I hear my name and one of them looks back at me. I feel my lip quiver and my heart spasm beneath his glare. He shifts closer to the hologram, completely removing my vantage point.
I decide it's speaking to them, relaying or issuing orders and instructions, perhaps. For all I know, they're discussing me, and how to dispose of my body after they're through with me. Whatever that is. I instinctively attempt to rise and flee, but find my wrists bound down with polypropylene straps. Whoever they are, they don't want me leaving.
I try to move, but my body is stiff. I can feel the edges of my skin bubble beneath the large whipping fan overhead. The goose bumps dot my entire naked body in tiny raised bumps. I can feel them scattering, locking hands, and linking my arms with my torso and my feet to my legs, but I can't move them, not a single toe. I can feel the hard metal under my shoulder blades. Feel the bite of the rough edges as they dig into my elbows and pelvic bone. But no matter how hard I try my body won't listen to me.
What did they do to me? I begin to wonder.
The thought shifts my gears and pours the worse possible scenarios through my mind. At least that seems to be working. One of the others glances my way and smiles. I didn't know who he was, but my anger raged wild within me. Just untie me and I'll wipe that smug expression off your face I thought. But he must have seen through my thin facade and straight into the black mist of fear hovering over my limp body. The lump in my throat swelled with the extra flood of blood coursing through my body. I try to breathe through my nose but something is blocking the airway. I hear the wheezing sound like a dying pup and wonder if it's me. I hold my breath and count to three. Yup, it was me.
What is going on? Where am I?
So many questions and all there were for answers were the mysterious men huddled around the triangular table communicating with a hologram. I couldn't remember how I got here, or even where here was.
They had draped my head under a black hood within seconds of barging into my sleeping quarters in the middle of the night. Gagged and bound, they flung me over their shoulders. My ribcage throbbed even now from the incessant bulge from their shoulders having dug into my side with every step. I remember screaming or yelling for help, but my moans and grumbles went unheard beneath the barrage of screams echoing all around me. I remember flashes of bright light, the rush of wind and water against my feet, and then nothing.
They must have drugged me and transported me to a different facility. Ever since the incident in the Harvesting Chamber they had held me in quarantine. Every morning, midday, and evening the sliding metal door would hinge open and a gloved hand would lower in a tray of food. They collected the empty trays at the end of the week or whenever the doctors came for me. Those were the worst parts of solitary confinement. It wasn't the loneliness of it, though that was difficult. It wasn't the fear of wondering where Parker and Roxx were. I had already come to the conclusion that they were both dead, and I was next. I didn't even fear the unknown anymore, or why they kept me in this cell. But rather, the experiments they ran on me every third day. When day three came around, the cell door would swing open and four hazmat suits would come in, strap me to a gurney, and haul me away for the next round of pricking and probing. I never knew how long it lasted, but it sure felt like a lifetime. Then they'd toss me back in my cell, and I'd count down the days until it started all over again.
