My head was spinning and I was still shaking, tears streaming down my face. He'd buried me under the crushing weight of the fact that now I was different, that now I was something moldable and changeable, and then he'd left, leaving me to struggle with this new information alone.
What was I? A mutant of some sort?
Was I even human anymore?
I stared at my faint reflection in the glass wall. The person staring back at me was barely recognizable, with tears streaked across her pale face, dark circles underneath her empty, frightened eyes.
This was the kind of thing you expected to wake up from, safe and warm at home, in your own bed, breathing hard, your heart racing. But this nightmare was real. There was no escaping this.
The door to my prison opened and two young scientists wearing clean, bright white lab coats stepped inside, the door shutting behind them.
No, anything but more white. I'm drowning in white, my prison is colorless, my mind is blank, my captors wear things that are unnaturally clean and plain. I'm dying for a splash of color in this world of nothing, this nightmare filled with emptiness, the faint scent of chemicals, and fear.
I stood up, too late to make a run for the door, and watched them, ready to turn and flee to the other side of the prison.
One of them, a young man with messy, deep chocolate brown hair and caramel colored eyes, was holding a syringe, filled with a strange murky liquid, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to other. He looked nervous.
The woman didn't fidget as he did, though her baby-blue eyes reflected a hint of uneasiness. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she spoke softly.
"Please don't make this any harder than it has to be," she said, taking the syringe from the young man and stepping towards me.
I backed away, pressing my back against the glass wall, my breathing erratic, my eyes wide with fear.
Her voice was the voice of Tessa, the scientist whose voice I had heard during those awful hours spent in my watery coffin, the serum burning in my veins. I guessed that the young man must be Daniel, the other scientist.
I didn't trust them at all, and now that they were holding a needle filled with yet another strange substance, I trusted them even less.
"Come on, now, Eden, please," Daniel whispered, his eyes downcast.
"What is it?" I asked, barely able to find my voice.
Tessa took a deep breath and stepped closer, Daniel doing the same. They were so close now, so close that they could reach out and touch me, and I was trapped.
"It won't hurt you," Tessa said. "Can you just let us get this over with? Please?"
I squeezed my eyes shut. Trying to resist this would be like trying to resist all of the other things that had happened to me; it would be futile and only cause me more pain.
"Go ahead, but I want to know what this is. I deserve to know," I said, my voice barely audible.
Daniel gently cleaned my arm, preparing the injection site. They were both being so careful, so gentle, so cautious, as if they were afraid that I might shatter into a thousand pieces under a rough hand.
Tessa smiled sadly, holding my arm as the needle slipped soundlessly into my skin, its contents draining and entering my bloodstream.
It didn't burn like the serum had, in fact, I felt nothing at all.
"That wasn't so bad, see?" Tessa said, withdrawing the needle and dabbing at the tiny, ruby drop of blood that had formed with a cotton ball.
"Now tell me what it was," I said, watching as she slipped the now empty syringe into her pocket.
"Genetic material from Felis catus," Tessa said. "We've moved on to phase two."
With that, she turned and walked towards the door, which was opened from the outside, and I saw two armed guards standing in the white hallway it opened to. She slipped out of the room, and Daniel followed, but he stopped in the doorway, hesitating and turning towards me.
"I'm so sorry," he said, and then he was gone.
The door closed and I slumped to the floor, confused and frightened.
That's when the first wave of nausea washed over me, followed by a wave of pain, and I blacked out.
YOU ARE READING
The Beast Within (#Wattys2016)
Science FictionEden's world was turned upside down. She was changed, made into a monster, mutated into something Mother Nature never intended to create. Her genetic makeup was tampered with and altered by people who wanted to create a bloodthirsty killing machine...
