The Enthusiasts

4

Sasha stood expressionless before her holding cell door eyeing the steel plating that held her captive inside the room. Hearing no sound from the other side, she grew increasingly impatient. Quietly, she dropped to the floor and made out a crack of incoming daylight splaying out over no more than two inches of the floor inside her cell. A note slip! She suddenly recalled to some amusement trading secrets with her confined pen pals back at The Institute. Then feverishly she kicked the slippers off her feet, revealing black-painted toenails to the unassuming epoxied concrete floor. Her body raised as she braced herself on her elbows, still feeling pain rush through her forearms and shoulders with still more pain radiating outward from the core of her now partially exposed abdomen. She held a plank position for a few seconds, letting the feelings of agony transform into her own special kind of pleasure. She recognized it, acknowledged it, and closing her eyes asserted herself as one with it. It was hers, and she loved it. Pain would not stop her from anything; in fact, it was her strength. She rose up, spreading both palms on the floor and bringing herself slowly and controlled back down with her arms bent to a perfect ninety degrees at her elbows. Her gown draped down onto the speckled concrete floor. She pressed out ten lightning-quick push-ups, and in doing so her muscles tightened into something resembling stone. She could feel the tendons in her arms strengthening quickly as fractures hardened back to solid connections once again. Sasha's mutated body had literal programming adhering to a "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" logic: bones strengthened, muscles thrived in repair, and arteries absorbed more oxygen for improved function after an attack.

Turning to the stark white wall on her right, she pushed her palms up against it and stretched out her leg muscles for what felt like the first time in her life. Without thinking she began humming the Foreigner tune in her head, "It feels like the first time. Feels like the very first time..." A smirk curled up the right side of her cheek. Her lips pressed together, feeling that somewhat familiar yet disembodied emotional cocktail that few people ever appreciated as she mixed a splash of ecstasy with a fizz of hatred in varying quantities. (The intended results all depended on how well you can hold the hard stuff.) Looking up at the ceiling, she stretched out her calf muscles to full extension. Sensing the pull of her hamstrings and the elongating of tendon elasticity returning to her form caused her to release a rejoicing, "Oh my God!... Yes!"

Her own personal call of the wild echoed off the walls inside the tiny chamber. It's good to be back! and, time to get out of here, she thought as she felt a sudden bout of stir-crazy spin her around the small room. Her cry of joy she'd let out as her tendons pulled gave her an idea on how to get someone's attention on the outside of her cell. She'd have to pique their interest enough to warrant a welfare check if not for their own sick curiosity's sake, Sasha reasoned. Holding cell guards were nearly all men. Knowing that they heard cries and pleas for help all day long, she'd have to be different. Sasha sat with her bottom planted on the hard cool floor as her back rested against the cell's steel door. Her freshly healed fist came thumping at her medium force against the door, wanting it kept in healthy strangling shape for after she'd gotten someone's attention. Along came noises Sasha had never made before, as she'd never needed to perform at this level. Overacting that would outplay Jim Carrey, Sasha mixed ad-libbed breathless dialogue and her best assimilation to Pam Anderson's gusto for celebrity into her performance as well. The holding cell door chattered in its frame at the direction of Sasha's fist heard thudding against it. It was far too thick for her to break down herself, as evident by its solid frame resounding no hollow tones. She could not bend and break this one with a well-placed heel. Sasha continued like this until she felt damn certain that anyone within earshot of a hundred yards away had heard, and, as she found out, faking it to the point of exhaustion still took a lot out of you. Sasha stopped thumping the door and moaning in her cell abruptly.