[A/N:] It's nearly 1:30 in the morning and I can't think of anything to say in these author's notes anymore.
Thanks for betaing this, Jeanniebird.
Chapter 14: Conditioned
"In fact, that damn robot made it so I was afraid to sleep. My nightmares got even worse, much more vivid."
I'm afraid to go to sleep. I can't escape the torture, not even in my dreams. I've been awake for days now. I keep getting the feeling they're gonna do something worse to me soon. Something I can't handle at all.
I always wake up screaming and crying, lashing out at figment monsters.
But the thing is, the monsters ain't in this cage. They're on the outside in the too-crisp laboats.
They decide my fate as well as the fate of every other person here –mutant or not.
I don't know. Maybe there're some humans here, or is this just a bunch of mutants turned lab rat?
I may never find out, but something makes me suspect the latter.
"A few days after I broke out the first time, they started behavioral conditioning."
"Doc ordered behavioral conditioning for this one," a tech says to a guard.
They come in with stun wands and backup. They drag me literally kicking and screaming from the cage. I struggle so hard I feel a 'pop' and then agony shooting up my arm.
It doesn't matter though, that just motivates me to struggle all the harder.
"What did that entail?"
"Well, first it was just getting me to cooperate. Cue stun wands. Some jackass zapped me in the base of my skull. It didn't hurt so much as make me nearly pass out and very confused."
I smell anger on him. He doesn't let it show through but I'm torn between becoming defensive and slinking away like the coward I am. Before I can react inappropriately, I smell something strange on him amidst the pity and anger – protectiveness?
"Will someone get her to stay still and shut up already?"
BzzzZAP! One of the guards jabs the stun wand at the base of my skull and I collapse into a pile of mush and bone.
Really throws me for a loop. I groan weakly. Takes me a moment to figure out why I'm lying on the floor. Takes me till they drag me offa it to realize I taste blood 'cuz the shock and fall busted my lip.
It's hard enough for me ta think, let alone fight back.
I continue on with my story.
"By the time I'd started to recover from that, they'd already dragged me over to some other part of… the place," I shudder reflexively at the thought of the name.
"Elise," Professor says gently yet firm. "If you are unable to even say "Weapon X" or the like, how do you expect to be able to overcome your fears of it?"
"Yeah, yeah… 'fear of a name only increases the fear of the object itself', I read Harry Potter. Easier said than done, though."
He nods, "Indubitably."
"Well they set me up in this glorified fish tank and left me there for who knows how long."
"We had some trouble with this one. Thank god for the wands."
"Well, this should chill 'er out," a tech replies.
They hold me still as they put another oxygen mask on me.
I look over and see a large glass tube. A tank, more like it. Like for fish; something you'd see at an aquarium.
It's empty.
Fuckfuckfuck this is what the oxygen mask's for, ain't it?! What'll it be this time, piranhas? Acid?
The head honcho doctor-of-death saunters in while I panic. I growl in his general direction.
"I heard someone call it a 'sensory deprivation chamber'. Apt name. I couldn't see, hear, feel or smell a damned thing."
"Let us commence behavioral conditioning," he says. "With the sensory deprivation chamber."
Whoda what now?
Just as I'd suspected, they stick me in the chamber. A tech hooks my mask up to a tube coming out of the top of the chamber. Don't smell any poisons, just regular old air. Doesn't even have the processed taste somehow. In fact, there's no particular taste or smell I can pick out.
"But before they left me to my fate, they decided it was just the greatest time to take my clothes. I hate that feeling."
"What feeling?" he asks.
"Feeling exposed, scrutinized, like a lab rat."
Before they close the chamber, two guards hold me still so another can untie my gown. I try to fight back, but with a busted shoulder and gnawing fear they'll do worse to me if I resist too hard, I have to give in.
I try to cover myself, but with one limp arm and nothing but the dog tags lying on my bare chest and the oxygen mask on my face, I can't. My face goes hot and red with shame.
I'm just a big lab rat: helpless, naked, and displayed in a glass case.
Someone puts a glorified blindfold helmet over my eyes. The tube starts to fill from the bottom up with goop. I only know because it touches the bottoms of my feet.
All I can smell is the air. I can't see anything. Even my touch is off because the goop is just the right temperature that as it surrounds me it feels like an extension of myself.
No pain this time. Not yet, at least.
The goop blocks out all noise from the outside. Hard to even hear my own heartbeat and breathing. In fact, I can't soon as the goop reaches my ears.
I'm floating. I no longer even have the sensation of my feet on the ground.
"And I was so convinced they were going to hurt me again that I spent the whole time panicking. Looking back it seems stupid that I didn't just be grateful for something that wasn't painful."
"The brain requires input to function properly. That being said, it is difficult to imagine anyone reacting differently than you did."
I feel… nothing. The complete silence is disconcerting at best. With no input I start to get agitated and panicky. Don't know how much air I have but I'm using a lot of it.
Oh god. No no no no. Someone make it stop!
I can't see or hear what they're gonna do to me next.
It seems like ages but nothing comes. Nothing harms me. I'm just alone with my thoughts and the anticipation of pain is torture.
"I guess once they got bored watching me panic, they stuck something in the air supply to knock me out so they could drag me out without getting hurt."
Finally, I taste poison in the air supply. I don't even try to fight it, there's no point.
The darkness that consumes me is a welcome relief.
"When I woke up, I was alone in the snow. I actually thought they'd freed me a moment. But then the wolves came."
I wake up alone in the snow. Still naked.
Did- did they let me go? Am I free?!
Growling, snarling wolves surround me. Saliva drips from their teeth. Their fur is dirty and matted.
"They, the wolves I mean, looked just as bad off as I was. Maybe worse. I felt bad for 'em."
I don't wanna fight them. If they're captive of the same people I am, they've probably been
treated just as bad.
They're more kin to me than the human torturers.
"So I wouldn't fight them. Not until it was too late."
I stand my ground, but don't provoke them. Just the right amount of assertiveness and submission.
One lunges at me. I yelp as the claws tear flesh.
They don't act like normal wolves. Probably crazed from starvation.
At the smell of blood, the rest start to frenzy.
They've got me surrounded. I howl in pain as they bite and rip at me. Blood trickles into the snow and dyes it red.
I try to get them off of me but there're simply too many. My vision starts to fade from blood loss.
My anguished scream falls on uncaring ears.
"I was half-conscious or less when they dragged me back to W-weapon X. Once I'd healed, they sent the wolves on me again."
"Call off the wolves before we don't have a subject to work with," Says the doctor over a guard's radio.
They rescue me from the danger they put me in in the first place. They drag me back, leaving blood trails in the snow.
I'm barely conscious when I hear, "Let it heal, then bring out the wolves again."
Fuck.
When I wake up again, it's just like before: alone and naked in the snow. The wolves start to swarm.
This time, though, I don't bother with the cordial bullshit. I snarl and growl back, ready to fight them off. Adrenaline pumps through my veins making time go slower.
The first one lunges. I grab him by his throat and throw him down. I growl louder. The wolves frenzy again, but I'm ready – and brutal. The fight doesn't last long.
"I won. Against wolves, guards. I killed and I was okay with it."
They have me fight again and again. Sometimes against some guards. I kill the wolves without second thoughts and almost do the same to the guards.
I can't stop myself. Something inside just consumes me and I can only watch in mixed horror and fascination at what I'm truly capable of.