Me: Sorry, for the slight delay. The chapters may be 'few and far between'. To quote Mr. Rockbell. Anyway, I hope that you enjoy the chapters to come and the ones that you may choose to reread. :) The reviews are coming nicely, but, unfortunately, I have to go through the Laboratory Number 5 part, and so, nothing is going to be well. :'(
Dorchet: Oh sure, you just couldn't skip over this part.
Me: Heck no! The main reason that you have fans anyway is because of this experience! Do you want me to just 'skip' this part and not only confuse the readers, but also have your popularity go down?
Dorchet: -stares-
Me: Okay, it's really my popularity that would plummet. –stomps away, defeated-
Sonoma: -holds up sign-
SonomaCurtis owns nothing of FMA. Only her own characters and the attachments she chooses to make between those characters and the actual ones. Please enjoy.
Four weeks. Four weeks without any resemblance of food. So many experiments had come and gone that Dorchet had lost track. Few remained in the room with him. Currently there was a small man with a lizard tail, a large man with horns crammed in on of the smallest cages, and a man in the cage beside Dorchet. He was a newcomer. In fact, this man had only come a day before.
"Hey, hey pal." The man said. Dorchet turned to face him.
"Huh?" He asked, showing that he was listening.
"What's your name?"
"Dorchet. But around here I'm called 156. And your 287." Dorchet stated. All emotion had been lost to him ever since they had killed one experiment for acting as an individual.
"Oh, no. I'm not some number on a list of deaths and successes. My name is Francis." He said defiantly. Dorchet couldn't believe his ears. Francis? At the same moment Francis realized what his fellow experiment had said. Dorchet? In light of their findings both men turned to each other.
"I can't believe it!" Dorchet laughed. Francis followed suit. Through the bars of the cage Francis grabbed Dorchet's arm.
"Do you know what happened to the Colonel?" He asked urgently. Dorchet slowly shook his head.
"No. All I know is that he's another experiment. Something different than us." Dorchet said, racking his brain for the memory of his encounter with Martel. After finding nothing else, Dorchet tried to change the subject. But he just noticed the paleness of Francis' skin. After looking closer her saw the black spots.
"Francis?" He asked. "Look at your skin." Francis did as he was told and laughed sourly.
"Yeah, I was combined with some breed of dog. I'm not sure which."
"Me too." Dorchet replied. For a moment or two they both sat in silence. Suddenly a loud creak broke that silence. Dorchet looked over to the door. Martel stood there and had a bag of something in her hand.
"How's life?" She asked mockingly. Carefully she unsheathed her small knife and ripped open the bag. At the lizard man's cage she teased him by thrusting her arm through the cage bars and waving the knife at him. The man, in an effort to escape, pressed himself against the farthest side. "Aw, c'mon." She laughed and tossed a handful of kibble at the man.
Francis growled. Dorchet reached through the bars and pulled him back.
"Oh no. You're not gonna get yourself killed just yet." Dorchet muttered. Still growling, Francis sat back and watched Martel repeat the process with the large man. Finally she made it to Francis' cage.
"Why, hello handsome." She smiled. Her white teeth flashed. Francis' growl grew louder. Dorchet's grip on his shoulder tightened. Martel opened the cage door and went to get a handful of kibble. Francis took the advantage.
Ripping free of Dorchet's grasp, Francis leapt at Martel. But her reflexes were too fast. In a flash she turned to face Francis. Her knife also met him. Dorchet saw his expression go from contorted rage to shock. He looked down at the knife that was up to its hilt in his stomach. Martel jerked the blade backwards and blood spurted from the wound. Francis looked at Dorchet. Sincere sorrow filled his eyes.
"I survived...that hell...for...this." He said. As soon as he uttered this last word he dropped to the ground. Dorchet's mind told his throat to cry out, but he had frozen. Martel laughed over Francis' body. Still laughing she tossed a little kibble at Dorchet. Then she left.
The next day Dorchet met his commander.