Chapter 1 - The Operating Room
As I lay on a cold metal table, in a haze, my head swirling and throbbing slightly confused and disoriented. For some odd reason both my ears had a slight ring in them. The room was chilly, the cold metal table mixed with the chilliness of the room felt kind of nice. My heart started to race as I tried to move my arms and legs but fail. I calm myself down and try to figure out where I am and why are my limbs bound..
Wondering what happened, where I am, why I’m bound, who I am, and why I have the strangest feeling that I’m not alone. I try to focus on my memories to see if I can recall anything from my past to see if I can figure out what happened. But all I can recall are fragments of memories. Nothing that can really help me at this moment until I can figure out who I am, or at least what happened. I clear my thoughts and focus on the main thing at hand, where I am.
I look up only to see a bright light and shadows moving around the room. My eyes aren't focusing quite well so I stay still for now and listen, hoping the ringing in my ears will stop soon enough. The ringing in my ears starts to mix with the buzz of the lights and the muffled voices as my mind starts to clear. Feeling the IV stuck in my arm, I start to wonder what they are putting into me. I try to move my arms again, but fail. Wondering why I am bound in the first place has me slightly worried. With the ringing in my ears stopping I can finally hear well enough to make out what the shadows are saying. One of the voices owners is a female, rather nice sounding voice. Soothing and calm; nurturing in fact.
Another one is also female, slightly younger, and higher pitch, but still quite pleasant to listen to. The third one is male, a deep voice, but smooth like silk, speaking in a calm tone of voice, probably an older gentlemen. The final voice that I can hear is also male, slightly younger than the first male, more gravely sounding, and he is talking faster than the others, slightly excited. The first female voice said something that made the other three be quite, what she said doesn’t surprise me though.
"Doctor, the subject has blue eyes, about 5’11, short blonde mane; barely no mane at all. A few sharp teeth and a few flat teeth, most likely an omnivore, the subject seems to be in good condition, very little fat. The subject also seems to be healthy, no illnesses or disease. Scarring on the the upper back near both shoulders looks like it was caused awhile back ago. A few circular burn marks on his forward limbs. and a few circular scars on the lower torso. No bruising that I can tell on the subject. One problem though, the subject is highly resistant to any of the sedatives or any chemicals, we've nearly given him .9 mg of sedatives and that's barely keeping him under. We've been increasing the amount more and more and it's still not enough."
The second female voice chimes in but I can't quite hear her that well; but I think I heard her call one of the doctors by the name of "Doctor Helping Hoof" but it's just probably whatever medicine that they been pumping into me. I hear the second male talking to the first, but I can barely make out what they are saying. Sounds like both of them are far away,
My head isn't spinning as bad as before. Still slightly disoriented, I try once more to recall one of my memories. As I do, a jolt of sharp pain shoots up my spine and into my head. Grunting a little from the pain, I try my best to stay quiet and not get any attention from the four hosts in the room. I relax and try focusing my eyes to work well enough so I can make out some of the shadows.
I look around the room and I notice out of the corner of my eye that one of the shadows is small, could be one of the nurses. Next to her there’s another shadow, about the same height as the other figure. Both of them are talking, the slightly higher pitched voice one is on the right. I’m only getting a few bits and pieces of the conversation now since they aren't talking as loud as before. The one on the left laughed at something the younger one said, can't tell what though, but that laugh was rather pleasing to the ears. There's been a noise that I keep on hearing and I can’t quite place my finger on it, but it did bring up a saying that made very little sense to me "If you hear hoof steps, you don't know if it's zebra or horse". As I look down at my torso I notice something that made my blood run cold. There was a metal shard stuck right under my rib cage. Shocked that I haven't felt it, until now. These pain killers that they have me on are awesome.
It was odd, feeling the cold metal shard sticking out of my stomach, yet feeling no pain at all. The metal shard is resting against the bottom of my rib cage, hopefully it didn't hit anything too vital. The thought of how this piece of metal lodged itself into me has me a bit concerned. I look over the rest of my body trying to see if I been lucky enough to have any other foreign object lodged into me. I notice that my torso near the impact of the shard is covered with quite a bit of blood.I also notice that all I’m wearing is just my pair of camo cargo pants and socks and black boots. Wonder what other injuries I have but can't feel. Wonder why the doctors or nurses haven't pulled it out yet. Still, being able to feel my hands and feet brings me some comfort. Being able to wiggle my fingers and toes takes some stress off my chest.
I begin trying to figure out where I am, looking around the room the best as I can without drawing any attention from the staff. The room has stone walls painted white, a lot cleaner than I expected. Some counter tops with jars filled with god knows what. On the wall to my left there is an X-ray scan of what I assume to be my body. Can’t make anything out from it so I turn my attention to the rest of the room. There are no windows, no other "patients" in the room with me. Just the staff and a pair of double doors that seem to be the only exit. There is a small table to my left that has some scalpels, syringes and other instruments that I can't reach. Damn these arm and leg restraints.
One of the nurses notice my head turning and yells at the doctors.
"Doctor! the Subject is awake! Should I give him more sedatives?"
Jerking my head to where the voices are coming from, one of the shadows approaches me and as he continues talking. It’s the older sounding gentleman with the smooth as silk voice approaching the table and starts to talk.
“Subject 27, glad to see that you’re not dead, yet. Since you’re still alive and “kicking”, so to speak, we’ll be running more tests on you to see what makes you tick, hope you’ll be having as much fun as we’re going to have testing you.”
As he finished the other male walks up next to him and starts to speak.
“So doctor, how are we going to proceed with Subject 27’s tests?”.
The women with the pleasant laugh chimes in and starts to speak. “Excuse me doctors, but wouldn't it be best for Subject 27 if we removed that shard of metal from him?”
As she says this, my vision is going dark again due to the sedatives. Right before the sweet embrace of slumber takes a hold of me, I see a faint glow around the metal shard as it is ripped out from my stomach. I let out a bloodcurdling scream and pass out from sedatives.
I can only see darkness right now, no lights, no sounds, nothing. I don’t know why, but I’ve always been very comfortable in the dark. Could be because I am safe in it or that what ever I am hiding from, I can see it, but it can’t see me. The fact still stands though, it’s nothing but darkness here. Just darkness... did.... did I die when they pulled out that shard of metal? Or did I merely pass out due to the pain or the sedatives? This feeling... I had it before, when I first woke up; the feeling of not being alone, but there’s nothing here but darkness.
“Are you sure about that, Subject 27? You are correct about the darkness part though, but you are far from being alone.”
That voice sounded a lot like the mad god Sheogorath.
“Who said that? Where are you? Show your self!”
“Oh, I am right here. Or am I over there? Or could i be right behind you? ”
I quickly turn around but only see darkness, although all around me I can hear his insane laughter. As I steady myself the voice starts to talk again.
“Oh Subject 27 you and I are going to have a lots of fun together, you do know that, right? You already know me.”
“How do I know you all ready? I’ve never met you before in my life!” shouting at the darkness, I really must be going crazy.
“Oh? Don’t tell me you don’t remember that little deal we struck? What a shame. Well here, let me refresh ‘our’ memory.”
As it said that, a mirror of myself appears right in front of me. But something was very off, it didn't feel quite right. It extends its hand forward at me, reaching for a handshake. I reach out to shake its hand, but with this feeling of unease. It just stood there with a smile on my, no, our face with his hand out. As our hands made contact, that same jolt of painful energy traveled up my spine and shot into my head.
I wake up sweating, heart racing, adrenaline rushing through my veins and my eyes darting left to right, my back in a corner against a cold concrete wall. I quickly look at the cell I am in, fairly small, no bigger than a walk-in closet. There’s dim light coming through the bottom of the door and through the top of the door were a slit is at. The only objects in the cell are a bed of straw, a bucket, a small bowl with water in it, and a tray of food. I quickly stand up, but hit my head on the ceiling and fall back down to the floor. I sit here holding the top of my head as it burns with pain, glad that I didn’t crack my skull. I size up the space between the floor and the ceiling: it’s about 5 feet, i’m 5’11. After a few moments of sitting in pain, I crawl over to the water and greedily drink it, the feeling of cold water running down the back of my throat while it dripped from the corners of my mouth and ran down my chin and neck felt great.
Then I crawled over the food tray, and before eating it I try to see if it was drugged, or something that has been tampered with. All in all it looked safe enough to eat; it consisted of mainly fruit. An apple, some grapes, and a carrot. Biting into that apple, the crunch of it brought joy to me, it tastes so sweet, so very fresh. And the grapes; surprisingly cold and crisp. The carrot has a really nice earthy taste to it, each bite of it made a loud crunch, and I quickly eat every last bite there is. Licking my lips and fingers after devouring the freshest of fruits and carrot I ever had, and it felt great.
I check my pants to see what I have on my person, and I come up with my wallet with some cash, and that’s about it. I also have a some sort of device in my front right pocket, and as I look over the device a fragment of a memory comes rushing back, what I see doesn’t help me much, but I’m able to turn the device on. It loads up and comes to a screen with a symbol on it, I tap the screen and it is asking for a passcode, too bad I don't remember anything, let alone a passcode. I checked my front left pocket and find a pair of headphones in there, and that’s about it.
Sitting there with my back against the corner of the cell, against the cold concrete wall, I look over where the metal shard was impaled and was shocked to see that it left no scarring, no stitches, nothing, like it never happened. Amazed at this, even more surprised I’m still even alive. With very little light in the cell, I can barely check to see if I have even more wounds or bruising. Something on the far right of the cell catches my eye. A piece of paper sitting in the corner by the door, with only a few words written on it. A slave obeys. After reading this, I sit here trying to sort out what it means. Was I a slave now? Or was this left by the previous resident of this cell? Or was it left by one of the staff just to see what kind of effect it had on me? I disregard the thoughts and try to sort out what has happened to me, all I can recall is that dream I had... With “it”. That strange feeling of not being alone, that sudden pain that occurred again when I shook “our” hand.
Still disoriented and even more confused now then I was before, the adrenaline rush I had when I first woke up is finally starting to calm down a little. I’m starting to feel every ache and pain in my body, where the shard was at hurts like hell, searing pain is the only thing there now, like a hot ball of lead was placed inside of my abdominal cavity. Both my wrists and ankles are sore from the binding I was in. My whole body aches, every inch of me feels like it was tenderized with a sledge hammer. I lie here on the concrete floor of the cell, the cold floor feeling great against my bare back. With every ache in my body I’m surprised I was even able to stand up without my body giving out. With a sigh I start to wonder how long I was out, or how long I’ve been here, time seems all lost to me, seconds turn to minutes, minutes turn to hours.
Laying here staring at the ceiling, I start to drift off back to sleep, my eyes slowly closing, my aching body resting against the cold concrete floor, enjoying the chilliness of the ceil I fall back asleep. In my dream I’m somewhere that seems so familiar to me, but I don’t recall it at all. I was in some mess hall, watching people walking by, eating, getting food, or just standing around talking to each other. I noticed every one is all wearing the same uniform, all in camo pants and a camo jacket, and black boots, every single one of them wearing a military uniform. I look over the hall and see several rows of tables all with red plastic chairs to each of them. Just looked like a standard mess hall. Something caught my attention to the left, so I turned towards it and saw a row of windows stretching across the entire wall. I walked over to the windows to stare out of them. It was on ground level, the windows open to let the fresh spring air in, pleasant each time the wind blew, rushing past me into the the mess hall. The smell of fresh cut grass, the sun’s rays going through the window hitting my face, the warmth of it brought back a nice sensation of being alive. watching through the windows, watching men and women train brought a sense of pride to me. I felt a hand on my right shoulder, and as I turned around to face the person I -
I wake up, with something cold around my neck. It’s metallic, heavy, and as I sit up, the metallic ring around my neck slides back a little against my throat. As I put my hands around this new accessory I have, trying to figure out what it is, or at least try to get it off, it starts to beep. The more I touch it the more it beeps. I stop touching it and the beeping stops, and a voice comes through it. A male’s voice, calm and steady, with a little southern accent in his voice.
“Ah, Subject 27, glad to see you’re finally awake and still with us my boy, the device around your neck is called a Slave Collar. If you try to remove it, it will blow up and take your head with it. If you try to tamper with it, it will blow up and take your head with it. Only a few staff members have the key to remove the device, I myself included since I created it. If you disobey your new masters it will send a painful electric shock into you, or if you do anything we don’t like. Now be a good boy and leave your cell and go to the right and follow that hallway until further notice.”
I hear a metallic clicking sound as the door unlocks. I crawl to the door and turn the handle to open it, it swings open and I can see the stone hallway painted white. I crawl into the hallway and check to see how high the ceiling is (about 7 foot clearance). I stand up, stretching my arms and my legs, glad I can finally start to walk again, I turn my back to pop it, and my lower back makes a loud cracking sound as it pops. I turn the other way to do it again, and it pops once more. I look at the wall and it has two arrows, one pointing to the left saying (exit) and one to the right saying (testing). I stood there for a few second thinking this over, wondering if I go left if it’s really the exit or if it’s a trap. I turn to go right and make my way down the white hallway, the floor and walls are both white, both very clean looking, the ceiling is also white and clean looking as well.
As I walk down the hallway, I put my hand against the stone wall, and the feeling as I drag it across the smooth stone brings a smile to my face. As I continue down the long hallway I notice there is a security camera in the corner, so I stop and I examine it. As I do, the voice in the collar starts to speak again.
“Subject 27, I see you notice the security camera, don’t pay it any attention. Now, Subject 27, please continue down the hallway a little bit more and take the first door to your right.”
I continue down the white hallway until I eventually see a couple of doors. There are total of 4 wooden doors, Two on the right side with about 10 feet apart from each other, and two on the left both with 10 feet apart from each other.
As I approach the doors, I look up and see another camera, and then hear a metallic clicking noise coming from the closest door to my right. I open the door, and walk in. The door behind me locks again and i’m in an open room with a catwalk about 15 feet from the floor with mirrors covering it. At the far end of this room is a giant metal door on a track. The room is fairly largely sized; the ceiling is 20 feet high, from wall to wall it’s about 30 feet, and the floors are smoothed grey metal. The walls are smoothed stone painted white. There are some speakers under the catwalk, 2 cameras in the far left and right corners. The speakers go live and start to speak.
“Subject 27, Welcome to testing room Alpha. Testing room Alpha is for physical testing, to see what are subjects can withstand against certain creatures. Your first test will be against a manticore”
The sliding door starts to open, and my heart starts to race, adrenaline starting to course through my veins. And the only thing I can hear is this massive roar coming from behind the door as it opens.
Credits
Idea(s)/Editing
itsmyfuneral
ZephyrRey