The Messiah [1]

10: Athena

The days came and went in a blur. Faces lost features and time lost meaning as it dragged by. Athena spent most of her time sleeping, making a small tear in her bed cloth every time she thought a day had passed. Somewhere past twenty she began to lose track. Day and night became memories. Her room had no windows, so she was left guessing as to what was happening outside the four walls that were her cage.

The monotony was finally broken during what she dubbed her "mid-afternoon aerobics". Whether it was really afternoon was a moot point because Athena couldn't come up with any other term. She was in the middle of squats when her door opened, ushering in four pasty people in white lab coats. They scurried around her, completely disrupting the workout.

"Excuse me, but we're going to need you to sit down at the table. We have some tests to run on you." A small, balding man gripped her arm with bony fingers, his narrow eyes glued on her green ones.

"Do I have a choice?" Athena asked sullenly, not surprised when no one answered.

"Please have a seat."

Two of the doctors had dragged the steel table from the corner Athena had wedged it in. There were only two chairs, forcing the doctors to crowd around the middle aged man with a clipboard that had seated himself opposite of Athena. Salt and pepper hair sat upon an aging face; his deep brown eyes directed on Athena with a singular focus she found uncomfortable. He tapped his pen impatiently against the clipboard, his eyes shifting from Athena to the hoard gathered around them. Athena didn't bothering looking the others - she could see exactly who held the authority within the room.

"Miss..." He paused, his eyes flicking down to the clipboard as if he didn't know her name, "Athena. My name is Theodore. I will," Theodore paused to clear his throat when the hoard of doctors shifted in response to his words. "Er - we will be running some tests on you this evening. None of them will harm you in any way, but you'll likely be very tired by the end of it."

"Am I allowed to ask why you're doing tests on me?" Athena asked hotly, arms crossed over her chest. "Or do you have to be as ambiguous as possible?"

Theodore's mouth tightened, but Athena couldn't tell if he was amused or irritated, so she decided to keep pushing. What else was there to do? Her death was inevitable; why not have fun on the way down?

"Because I'm getting really sick of this whole Big Brother act that's been going on since I arrived." She growled, tapping her foot impatiently against the concrete - as if she had all the time in the world. "It's a shitty way to treat someone, you know. And the food tastes like crap - and I've lived in the slums before."

The hive of doctors surrounding Theodore buzzed angrily at Athena's attitude, but he smiled as if amused. Athena was feeling rather proud of herself, when one of the doctors backhanded her. The metallic taste of blood exploded in her mouth, but Athena refused to let them see her in pain. Instead she looked at the pudgy doctor who had hit her, and spit in his face. The room exploded in an uproar for a moment as the doctor once again reared back to hit her, but Athena jumped up; only to be slammed back down in her chair by Theodore.

"OUT!" He roared at the other doctor - who was immediately ushered from the room.

Athena panted, face stinging from the hit. But she couldn't help letting a wicked smile curve her lips when the assembled doctors settled down to watch her once again - she'd be damned before they got her pride.

"Moving on, I agree with you completely about the food, and it'll be fixed. I would tell you more about the testing, but I'm under strict orders to keep my mouth shut." Theodore shrugged, once again grabbing his clipboard as he came around the table. "I just do what the boss says."