Half Hero ⚡️ {Superhero Adventure Scifi}

Chapter 5: The Minotaur

I woke to the feeling of something tickling my inner ear. Gasping for breath I wrenched against whatever was holding me down. A lukewarm substance sloshed against my skin.

Something was very wrong.

I couldn't hear or see anything. All of the normal atmospheric cues I could use to interpret my surroundings were absent.

"What the-?"

"You are in a sensory deprivation tank, Ella." Doctor Rishi's voice piped directly into my ear. "Try and stay still."

"Good thing you strapped me down," I answered while my words echoed inside my dendrites. "Dare I ask what the flying fuckerooski is going on?"

"I told you, Ella," he replied in his exasperatingly calm voice. "We are studying your vitals to try and isol-"

"It smells like pee in here." I interrupted.

"That's yours, Miss Clark," Hamm chimed in.

"Eww!" I moaned. "I'm in a big potty?"

"Just try and relax," doctor Rishi instructed. "We've been making progress, Ella."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It means, we're getting somewhere," Hamm growled. "And you're interrupting medical science."

"Newsflash buddy," I shouted into the void. "I didn't sign up to be a science experiment!"

If I was going to be a hostage, I owed it myself to be a hostile one. Then again, Hamm already told me what would happen if I fell out of line. My argument was met with a threatening chuckle.

It wasn't so much the drugs, or my ominously absent surroundings, or the pee-filled paddling pool that was unsettling. It was the hollow crackle in Hamm's demonic laughter.

"Ella, I'm going to play some music to help you relax," doctor Rishi interjected, his voice laced with tension. "Just try and concentrate on the lyrics."

A plinky piano melody filtered into my ears. I struggled uselessly for a while, testing the strength of my restraints and splashing urine water all over myself.

"If you wanted me to relax," I called out. "You shouldn't have picked Juice Newton."

No one answered.

My mom used to blast all the big ladies of the eighties in her minivan, and I'm not ashamed to say I dug their groovy tunes. However, this trilling B-side crap wasn't doing a thing to calm me down, and I enjoy almost all forms of music, save redneck rock and smooth jazz (sorry, not sorry.) 

"Do you guys take requests?" I cracked. "Because I'm really more of a Huey Lewis and the News fan, or Banana Rama-"

"Do you ever just shut up?" Hamm thundered over the grating Muzak.

"Not if I'm awake," I curled my lips into a smile. "It's' one of my least attractive qualities."

The music continued, but no one answered.

"You know it isn't sensory deprivation if my ears are engaged, right?" I poked once more.

The tune cut off immediately, and I was left alone to regret that last snarky comment. Surrounded by the gentle lapping of moisture on my skin and suspended by straps in the shallow pool of piss, I tried to concentrate on the only thing that mattered, my family.

It had been a long time since I'd allowed myself to conjure up memories of my dad's crinkled smile that touched his deep emerald eyes. Thinking about the warm tenor of his laughter was like volunteering for a root canal without painkillers.