So bright.
It hurt to see. Her vision blurred with the tears that sprang to her pained eyes. They glimmered behind the glassy globules, once blue, now a deep grassy green. Her grandfather had called them her pixie eyes. But he was long gone. Her hair straggled, irritating her further. It stuck to the sheen of sweat filming her face. It poked into her mouth, her nose, and her eyes. The ringlets agitated. Her hands were shackled behind her back, and in turn fixed to a long chain dangling from the ceiling. Her legs, strapped to the floor. She was permanently held in a kneeling position, her body hanging forward. The pain shooting through her arms long since dulled to a numbness that proved even more annoying. Her hands were bruised, her feet were swollen. She had tried to escape, but had been dragged back and beaten with metal cables. They had sliced into her skin.
She lifted her weighty head, feeling her neck groan its complaint, surveying her surroundings with heavy hooded eyes. Her skin was pale; lack of sunlight, lack of fresh air had given her an invalid's pallor. Red rings around her eyes stood out like fresh blood in the snow. Her lips chapped and blue. There was a shadowy figure in the corner. She pulled her sore lips back into a snarl, feeling the skin stretch, almost like it was going to tear off. The tightness of anger rising in her chest. All at once it abated, leaving her numb once more. The shadowy figure in the corner was no more than a corpse. The putrid stench from its rotting flesh, had been torturing her nostrils for the past couple of days. She hung her head again, noting that her clothes were gone. No wonder the air felt so cold, she was dressed in a surgical gown, the back gaping open to reveal her knobbly spine, the paper underwear more commonly used in hospitals.
This however was no hospital.
A laboratory. Hidden deep within the heart of the city. In the neighbourhood known as the rats nest. Where the criminals and scum congregated. Where the most hardened diabolical scientific genius was rumoured to reside. Except she could testify that the rumours were true. Unfortunately, she knew she wouldn't get out of this institution alive. She thought of her family, her friends. The job she loved. She wondered if they were okay. If they were remembering to water her plants. Mundane things clouded her mind, taking it away from her present surroundings. In her darkest moments of depression she bitterly wondered if they had even noticed she was gone. Of course, she reasoned with herself, they must have noticed. The people at work would have noticed she was gone. It was an important position. Her family would have worried that she hadn't gotten in contact with them for a while. She usually called her parents a few times a week. Just to catch up on the gossip in her small town. Her friends… well they would miss her. Or she hoped they would. In her gloomiest hour, she imagined them all celebrating her demise. That was nearly enough to make her give up entirely.
But she didn't. She fought with the strength left in her body. When they came to inject her with the stinging, burning potions. The cocktails of drugs, she lashed out as best she could. She cursed them all, baring her teeth like a wild animal. Meek attempts, weak attempts. But still, she wasn't going down without some sort of resistance. More often than not she earned a beating. Whipped with all sorts of instruments, a cane, a metal bar, whatever came to hand. Bruises mottled her body, the purple oozing into the whiteness. Blood spatter on the floor, dried from past beatings. She tried not to scream in pain. Summoned all her army training, all her past experiences to stop her from crying. Why should she give them the satisfaction?
He studied her from the tiny observation window, mounted in heavy steel door. The glass was bullet proof, and had fine wire mesh inserted inside, which would be electrified when the glass was broken. Escape through busting down the door would be impossible. She still had a look of defiance in her eyes. He studied the notes clipped to the plastic peg, next to her name. How did she do it? How could this weak female experiment, resist the strains of Chaos implanted deep within her? By now she should be transforming, shedding her skin and changing into a beast. A wild animal that he would control, that he could wield like a weapon. He planned to unleash her on the citizens, to inspire terror and fear in this time of calm. In this time of boredom. Of course, he couldn't very well do that now. She was pathetic. Barely clinging to life. Then again, considering her genetics, it was hardly surprising.
He walked along the white, sparkling corridors of his domain, lost in thought. Remembering the past, his scientific research dating back well over forty years. To the one man who had confused the hell out of him. The man who had proved all his experimentation with human genetics and Chaos/Jenova extracts wrong. Well not wrong, obviously the man was a freak. Jenova was able to meld with humans . . . but why it did not combine with that particular man was a mystery. A mystery he hoped to solve with the granddaughter. If she lived that long.