Unknown Experiments

Chapter 11

Enjoy the chapter! I expect the next few to be lacking in terms of action, so be ready over the next few weeks

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Lucia lay on the cold, bare metal floor in her cell, listening to the night beasts patrolling outside of her cell. She couldn't fall asleep. Neither had she been able to sleep as of the failed phantom extermination mission. Many more experiments had already been lost to the phantoms since they failed. Iron Skin, Seven-Seven-Three-Nine, Seven-Nine-Four-Four, Five-Five-One-Three, Seven-Three-Four-Eight, and two other experiments had been the only other survivors from the mission. After the doors had opened, she had suffered from the wound in her stomach for so long that she passed out from blood loss and was immediately taken to the healthcare lab. And yet despite all of their advanced medical practices, she spent nearly an entire week there. But that only meant a week full of experimenting that she had to follow through after she was sent in to talk with Belos.

Lucia rolled onto her side with a sigh and gently touched the collar around her neck. Back during the combat experiment three months prior, it had been damaged severely and began to malfunction. They had replaced it while she was being treated on the twenty ninth floor. "So much for being able to wander without having anything blocked. But at least Five-Five-One-Three and I have been developing our own plans outside of experimenting hours. If things go smoothly, then we should be able to make it out and escape to any nearby city."

For the past three months, the lab had also been absolutely devastating. Lucia's personal guard had been dismissed for good while Alpha and Omega were watching her since their methods of intervening proved more effective than they had with the guard. She had also begun to slip back into the enforced sleeping schedule since her collar had been fixed and implemented with some new technology, one being a self repairing system. The most annoying new piece that was implemented, in her opinion, was an electrical charge that would shock her whenever she was on the verge of sleeping when she wasn't supposed to. It hardly ever needed to be used since her body was growing used to getting such little sleep again after the week and a half she spent getting nearly as much sleep as the lower ranks. Yet, slipping back into old habits felt natural for her despite not liking it at all.

Lucia rolled over onto her side before she looked down at her exposed stomach. The wound given by the phantom had scarred over. The severed hand had been removed, and they tried to use their technology to repair the organs within her body that had been punctured, though they weren't quite fast enough for her skin. However with the removal of the hand, it also meant that the lab got something entirely foreign to them to experiment on. She had already seen various differences in some of the experimental processes. The R.W.S. experiments were now on a whole new level of becoming a living nightmare, they had invented stronger neural implants, and developed new substances to inject into the experiments.

As Lucia stared at her scar, her heart nearly stopped when a night beast passed in front of her cell and mimicked the horrifying screams of pain from one of its previous victims. She caught a glimpse of the night beast as it walked past, scraping its claws against the metal in the ground after a bit. She didn't even move a muscle until the night beast had completely disappeared from her sight. When it was gone, she quickly sat up from the solid metal ground and moved back into the corner to stay away from the beasts. One of the biggest differences in their behavior she had noticed was that they were more focused around her section out of the three floors holding all of the cells. She had a theory as to why, but she knew she wouldn't get answers.

Lucia watched the front of her cell from the shadows. Anytime she was in her cell, she constantly heard the echoing of the night beasts' clicks and chitters as they prowled the pathways spread out all around the floors. Their calls haunted her mind for a majority of the night when she wasn't asleep. Some would abruptly turn and slam into her door, snapping their blood covered jaws in a futile attempt to attack her. She knew they were artificial organisms and the lab had held back on their full potential. They were still just as terrifying as they ever could have been though.