8. Searching
It was dark…why was it dark?
Oh.
His eyes were closed.
Open.
Strange colors. Bright. Painful.
He couldn't move.
Break the glass, get out, get free, get out, get out get out getoutgetoutgetout-
!
Loud!
"STOP."
The running, squeaking things keeled over; the ones in the wall sparked and went dark.
Silence.
Good.
He could move, but not well.
Ouch.
Blood. Broken glass?
Glass? What was that?
A non-crystalline semi-solid created through the fusion of various elements and used to make hard, transparent surfaces such as windows, specimen bottles, and test tubes. The surface is smooth when whole, but shatters into numerous sharp fragments when broken.
How did he know that?
It didn't matter. His feet were bloody.
He was alone.
The (formerly) running, squeaking things were bloody too. Were they like him?
They still weren't moving.
The nearest one was white, with a giant eye in the center of its head and a long tube leading out of its back. How…
A biohazard suit is a garment that is fully self-contained and sealed from the environment. It is intended to protect against biological, chemical, or radioactive agents and is predominantly used by emergency personnel cleaning up contaminated environments and scientists studying hazardous materials.
More knowledge he shouldn't have.
The eye-like window that should have been clear was stained bright, brilliant red.
He touched the suit gently, and it tore under his hand.
The human had trails of fresh blood leading from its (his?) ears, nose, eyes, mouth, and a wound on his forehead. He was dead.
Did I do this? I told him to STOP…
I.
Me.
Who was he?
Who am I?
Experiment: #00000876
Subject: #00000001A
Level: Primera
Designation: Starrk
Zero zero zero…what? That wasn't right…
876. No.
1A. If there was an A, did that mean there was a B? Were there others? But that wasn't him.
Primera? Maybe.
Starrk? Hm. Starrk.
Yes.
My name is Starrk.
With that realization, it was like everything suddenly slotted into place.
He stood up slowly, taking in his surroundings with new eyes. The high tech biology lab was still and dark, even the emergency lights were burnt out spots on the floor, but he could see perfectly fine. Several suited humans (squeaking things, so weak) were sprawled out on the floor, motionless, in pools of their own blood. None of them had any obvious external injuries. All of them had been moving before he spoke. The loud things in the walls were emergency klaxons, but they were as dead as the lights.
Shattered glass littered the floor on all sides, but he couldn't tell what it was from. Where is the glass from?
Nothing.
Guess he wasn't supposed to know that.
There were papers strewn over the floor, covered in dark marks and lines, squares and colors. He knew they meant something, but had no idea what it was.
I can't read them.
But why would an experiment need to read?
An experiment? That's what the…voice...had said. Was that what he was?
Experiment #00000876
Project: Hollowfication
Division: Arrancar
Priority: Low
Hazard Level: EXTREME
Clearance Level: Inaccessible
Location: Seireitei Foundation- Twelfth Division
Location 2: Hueco Mundo Research Institute
Transfer Authorization: Captain Sosuke Aizen (shinigami) 2059-02-14
Transfer Confirmation: Captain Gin Ichimaru (shinigami) 2059-02-16
Status: Discontinued
Disposal: All biological specimens, samples, and DNA, dead and alive, are to be disposed of through euthanization and/or incineration. All technological data and results are to be deleted and backups purged from storage devices. All physical results, such as papers and reports, are to be shredded and burned.
Authorization: General Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto (shinigami) 2059-01-01
Disposal Status: Complete
Confirmation: Captain Mayuri Kurotsuchi (shinigami) 2059-02-15
Disposal? They were going to kill him? How had he survived?
Was anyone else alive?
Yes.
He knew at least one other person (arrancar?) was alive. He could feel it, sense it in his very soul; something that should have been there was now missing. He'd been able to feel it ever since he woke up. In fact, maybe it was the reason he woke up. It was calling to him…was it was in trouble?
It was a part of him, of his soul, that they had taken away. They had no right.
He would get it back, or die trying.
These… 'shinigami'…wouldn't know what hit them.
I like writing about how Starrk could have survived, but it gets repetitive after a while. I doubt the previous ficlet was the last of it, but the genre I always seem to gravitate towards is sci-fi AUs and weird crossovers. Well, that and 'what-if' scenarios. You'll probably be seeing some of those too. I've got one in mind where the captains manage to take Aizen down on execution hill, and then go on to (attempt to) deal with the leaderless arrancar army…we'll see if I ever get it down. Jushiro and Shunsui are also favorites of mine, so you'll be seeing a lot of them in upcoming chapters, too.
Also, believe it or not, this started as:
"The three ships moved through space like phantoms, dwarfing the rest of the fleet in size and yet invisible in their silence. The first was as presumptuous as its captain; it was nearly as large as a space station and bore the traditional flattened circular shape (impractical for direct battle, but Barragan rarely needed to interfere) save for five savage spikes evenly spaced around the edge, ready to impale anything that got close enough. The weaponized electromagnetic cloud of nanobots that roiled above and below the surface would spell instant death for any ship foolish enough to make the attempt."
It was going to describe the ships of the other espada and the shuttles of their fraccion, then detail an Epic Space Battle. But I came to my senses and realized (a) that had nothing to do with the prompt and (b) it would, quite literally, be 'Bleach, but in spaceships and with lasers'. And it would have been focused on all of the captains and espada, not just Starrk. Maybe the visored as well...
I doubt anyone wants to read that but if I get enough support, maybe I'll write it out as a separate story.
