Experiment

Chapter 4: Experimentation

Laura was taken, writhing, to one of the many experimentation rooms. It was a small, pale room with various vials and needles, and in the center of the room, there was a flat metal table with hand and feet cuffs.

When Laura was brought into the room, she shrieked - No! No! This could not be happening!

Her captors pinned her down on the steel table and with much effort, locked her feet and hands onto it. She desperately struggled against the cuffs, groaning and straining, not knowing what else to do.

"It will be easier if you don't resist," a woman informed her curtly, striding away to join the others. The scientist tormentors started talking among themselves, acting as if everything was normal, which it was, for them. There were two male scientists and one female scientist, as well as the guards at the door, each holding a tranquilizer gun, so that if any of the hybrids escaped, they could be returned without damaging the subject.

"Butterfly serum . . . do you think it will work this time?" The lady scientist murmured, selecting a bright yellow vial, ignoring Laura's helpless screams.

"Well, we always have more subjects if it fails. Let's try it." One of the male scientists answered, taking the vial and drawing into a syringe a stream of #504 Swallowtail butterfly DNA .

Laura gritted her teeth in outrage. They "always have more subjects"? What was wrong with these people? Why did they think they could get away with this? Why didn't they even care?

The others watched silently, jotting down notes. "Wait." said one man sharply. Laura looked at him hopefully. "Give her the sedative first."

"No . . ." she begged. "Don't do this. Please."

The male doctor, ignoring Laura's pleas drew a sedative in another syringe, and pushed the liquid into the vein in her wrist. A calm fell over her, but it was a deceiving, numb calm, and she felt herself drifting away and went limp.

"Try to survive, will you?" One of the men said as the awful, white world around her faded into blackness.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Even though Laura was out, she could hear words sometimes and she saw flashing colors as if a flashlight were being passed over her eyes. Pain coursed through her body at times, but the drug always pulled her back under just when she was about to see what was happening to her.

"We . . . stable . . . sedative . . . look . . . shrink . . . success!" she heard them say these words many times, but one in particular stuck out. Experiment. To them, nothing more than a pawn in their game, a piece that could be discarded without a thought. A subject.

She felt herself being lifted and put carefully into another place, and she began to wake up. She groaned when she felt a pounding headache behind her eyes as she started to open them.

Behind her, she could hear a conversation between the female scientist and and a gruff, short male voice, who seemed to be questioning her about Laura's experimentation. She heard his quick, impatient steps clicking away, but she just got a glimpse of his hard face and piercing gray eyes over her shoulder.

Everything was still blurry and uncertain, but slowly the edges defined themselves and Laura sat up and looked around in shock.

Laura stood up. The metal table was still under her but now more around her, and there were white bars on every side. On the right side of the room, there was the doctor. But she was huge. Her head started spinning.

Wait. Bars. Wood litter about her feet. A drinking bottle attached to the . . . cage. Laura's stomach dropped and she fell to her knees as she realized what she had lost. She was in a hamster cage. She was six inches tall.

The woman turned around and smiled with a cruel glint in her eye. She walked over to Laura until she towered over her, smirking. Laura backed into the cage, but something behind her back stopped her. She gasped and looked over her shoulder, where there was a pair of yellow and black butterfly wings.

"Well well well. Aren't you special." she chuckled and began to talk to a man on the other side of the room. "She survived, decreased in height, and tested positive for an ability. The experiment was a success!" she said triumphantly.

"Finally. I was getting tired of it failing." The male scientist complained as he cleaned the lab equipment.

Laura's stomach lurched as she thought of all the others before her, and she started to weep silently, tears slipping down her face.

"No . . . how . . . could you?" she rocked back and forth in her cage, sobbing.

"Get her out of here." said the woman, and the man obeyed, Laura clutching at the metal bars as the cage swung back and forth. The man carried her back into the cage room and placed her in front of Trudy's cage, and then left.

Trudy started from the noise and woke up from her sleep and looked over at Laura, her face falling.

"I told you." Benjamin said as he glanced at Trudy. "I told you she would be mixed with butterfly. They always choose the ones with slight frames for that. They've been working on that for years, but this is the only time the shrinking element ever worked with any insect."

"At least she's okay." Trudy snapped. "Don't you care about anyone besides yourself?"

Benjamin's eyes hardened but in them she could see a glimmer of hurt. "I've learned you can't make friends here." he turned away. "You can only lose them."

Trudy turned her attention to Laura. "Laura . . . I'm so sorry."

Laura wiped her tears away. "I-It isn't your fault."

"Get some rest, okay? It helps." Trudy said, rolling over in her cage.

Laura whispered a prayer, made a bed in the shavings, and fell into a fitful sleep with screaming children and evil, mutated scientists.

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_pure_imagination_

(picture is of what Laura's wings would look like.)