A/N: Why am I starting another story
Seriously, why
Why
WHY
...
Well, I hope you guys like laboratory stories, is all I'm gonna say...
Disclaimer: I don't own RotG. Also, the cover image is a painting by Andreas Brugger, and is thus in the public domain.
"But there's no sense crying
Over every mistake.
You just keep on trying
Till you run out of cake.
And the science gets done,
And you make a neat gun
For the people who are
Still alive."-"Still Alive" from the game "Portal"
It was dark, and it was cold, and he was scared.
The scene was not unfamiliar to him. A torn, crumbling room of an equally torn and crumbling mansion, with grimy, scratched windows that revealed little but for the oppressive cloud of fog surrounding the building. Dust covered every available surface, furniture was rotten and mangled, tapestries were ripped and slashed. He knew this place, yes, and he knew it well.
Too well. Well enough, indeed, that he knew precisely what was going to happen next, and that he would be powerless to stop it.
He turned slowly, examining every corner of the place. Frost was already creeping over the floor, swallowing the room inch by inch, and gradually, as it spread further, he felt a little safer.
Not for long.
"Which one?"
He turned around sharply to find himself face to face with an old man who reminded him vaguely of an aardvark, if an old and slightly decrepit-looking aardvark. The old man smiled a vicious and crooked smile, teeth sharp and twisted, and thrust both of his wizened hands towards him.
"Which one?"
He glanced at the man's hands, uncertain. In one hand lay a blue marble, the color of a sea in springtime, while in the other lay a red marble, crimson like a raven's blood.
"You choose the red one, your friends die and you walk away free. You choose the blue one, your friends live but you stay and work for me. Simple, ain't it? So, which will it be, Frost? Want to see how far down this rabbit hole goes?" *
A faint thought lingered at the corner of his mind, to kill the man and be done with it, but he knew it was not that simple. In this place, life and death were indeterminate things, and something that was dead one moment could be alive the next. It was too big a risk to take.
The old man's gray eyes seemed to burn into his soul, as he tentatively reached out for, and grabbed, the blue marble.
All was still.
Then, the old man's face changed. It twisted and writhed, snarling in savage triumph, a glittering of victory in the stone-gray eyes.
It was his only warning before the house burst into flame.
With a startled yelp, he rushed swiftly to the window, the only immediately obvious venue of escape, He pulled furiously, but the cursed thing was locked, and attempts to break it ended only in abject failure. Panting, frightened, he then attempted to ward off the flames with his powers, but found to his horror that they had mysteriously disappeared, leaving him helpless.
By now, he was desperate to escape. The heat burned, scorching into his skin and leaving harsh burns on his face, arms, and feet. Before he knew it, his cloak was aflame, shirt and pants soon following, and he screamed in agony as his flesh burned and boiled away, making way for the fire to reach his heart.
Finally, the flames devoured his heart and soul, and in the midst of the wildest agonies, he suddenly gave in. Emptiness followed agony, disinterest followed pain, and for good reason, for what is a spirit without a heart and soul?
He stared vacantly at the burning ceiling, aware and yet unaware of the flames still eating away at him. He was too tired to fight, yet too stubborn to die, doomed to lay in limbo between one and the other forevermore.
He closed his eyes, just as the last of his center crumbled to ashes.
(Bunk 23, Floor 2, Sector 3 (S.O.B [Study of Otherworldly Beings]), Erutrepa* Science Facility, Upper Michigan, USA)
(June 15, 2016)
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
As if by a strike from a lightning bolt, he was snapped out of his horrible nightmare, trembling and gasping, by the familiar sound of his wall phone ringing shrilly. He reached out for the handset before he was even fully awake, unhooking it from the base and holding it to his ear, prescripted message flowing out in a harsh monotone. "Principal Investigator* Jack Frost of E.S.F., Sector 3, speaking. State your name, sector, and business."
A voice, calm and collected, crackled over the line, equally flat. "Researcher Thomas Articaw of E.S.F., Sector 3, speaking. Test subjects 4209, 4210, and 4211 have escaped again."
A sigh. "How long ago?"
"Three minutes going on four, tops."
"...Put floors three, four, and five on lock-down, send out security, and report to me with updates every half hour."
"Wilco.*"
The line promptly went dead, and Frost placed the handset back in its place, a small pang of regret in his chest. He felt sorry for the three, he truly did, but his own life, as well as those of his four still-missing coworkers, was at stake. Unless he wanted to ruin all chance of escape, he could only keep his head down and follow protocol.
Quietly praying that the others were still alive and well, wherever they were, the Principal Investigator of S.O.B Laboratories began to get ready for another day of testing.
By the time he made it to the laboratories, casual clothing exchanged for a pristine white lab coat, the three missing test subjects had been recaught. They were being dragged to their respective cells, kicking and screaming, and he watched dispassionately as they fought tooth and nail to get away.
For dryads, they are remarkably vicious, he mused. Then again, anyone would be if they were stuck in this place for long.
Except for you. You chose the weak way, the coward's way, didn't you?
He shivered slightly, and looked to see if the lab's security personnel needed help. However, his staff, human as they were, seemed to be handling the situation well, so he ignored the squabble and slipped quietly into his office, closing the scratched and pockmarked door behind himself. Sighing tiredly, he sat down at his desk.
Three minutes passed before he realized he had yet to accomplish any actual work. Instead, he was staring vacantly at the wood grain of the desk.
It was a lovely desk, really. Made of rosewood, and coated with a varnish that only emboldened the distinctive red of the wood. It looked almost as if blood itself had somehow been incorporated into the varnish. *
Perhaps it was, he thought with a sigh.
Guilt still gnawed at times. Although he had quashed his emotions and buried his morals, days remained when he was trapped in the agony of paralyzing guilt, when he thought of what Tooth or North or Sandy or Bunny would think of him now. Doubtless they would believe him to be heartless, cruel, dangerous...a murderer.
They would be right.
He had killed, certainly. He had seen as members of his own kind writhed and wailed on the operating table, blood flowing freely. He had watched, frozen, as they went mad and were either restrained or destroyed, and all thanks to him. It haunted him, and it would haunt him to his grave.
What choice did he have, though? It was either kill or be killed, hurt or be hurt. In this world, the strong prevailed and the weak fell. If he wanted to have a fighting chance of ever seeing his friends again, he had to survive.
But at what cost? Would you rather die a noble death, or live a coward's life? Would you rather show yourself to your companions as a dead hero, or as a living murderer with hands still steeped in other's blood?
He shivered again, wincing, as he abruptly turned to the filing cabinet on his left and pulled up the files for test No. 481516*, desperate for something to occupy his churning mind with. According to Donovan, some correlation had been found between dryad blood and vigorous plant growth. Apparently, if one sprinkled the ground with the substance, anything planted there would grow into a magnificently large plant. How interesting.
Too bad it took the death of fifteen of them to figure it out, huh? You filthy murderer.
He shivered for the third time, and then went back to work.
A/N:
1-The red marble and the blue marble, as well as the line about the rabbit hole, are all references to "The Matrix".
2-"Erutrepa Science" is a vague reference to the Portal video games, which occur in a twisted science laboratory that does tests on human beings, often killing them. The name of the laboratory is "Aperture Science", and Erutrepa is Aperture spelled backwards.
3-A Principal Investigator (also known as a PI) is essentially the lead researcher and head of the lab in a laboratory study.
4-"Wilco" is a radio procedure word that is short for "I understand and will comply". Contrary to popular belief, "wilco" and "roger" are never used together, as it would be redundant: "wilco" includes the acknowledgement of "roger".
5-This remark on the unusual red varnish is a vague reference to "The Red Violin", a Canadian drama film about a violin that had been made with blood in the varnish, giving the violin an unusual red color. The violin soon became legendary, as whoever played it mysteriously died afterwards.
6-481516 is a reference to Lost, which is a TV show about people stranded on a deserted (or so they think) island. The numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42 are seen multiple times throughout the show.
Also, some of you may be wondering why Jack doesn't simply freeze the whole place and leave, or why the human scientists of S.O.B. laboratories can see him. To you, I can only say...you will see! You will see!
...Review?
