Warning: this chapter contains descriptions of bodily harm and fighting. I will reveal more about the forensics laboratory guard Ivan later.
St. Petersburg Forensics Lab 7
Russian Federation
Maria Nikolaevna Romanova awoke to darkness. The former Grand Duchess opened her eyes, squinting under the harsh glaring lights and breathing hard. She shrieked and trembled, remembering what the horrid Soviet guards had done to her family. They said that they were going to move her family and friend Dr. Botkin to a safe place. They instead had beaten, shot, and stabbed her and her dear family to death!
She whimpered, bursting into tears. She did not know what happened. She felt so alone again as if she were being transported without her sisters to that dreary prison.
And neither did she know what sort of place or realm she had awoken up in. Was this heaven after the wandering gloom she had been within? Perhaps she would see her family again! However, something felt off. She was laying down on a soft surface, and there was a small platform above her…
Minutes passed. Nothing, nobody, had approached her yet.
She saw nothing but a blurred arrangement of lights and silhouettes of objects. She blinked hard a few more times, feeling the places around herself. A wall was to her left, and the steel platforms were only as large as her body. She then looked aside, seeing a strange white room with shelves and desks cluttered with strange devices. Some of them had strange, thin devices flashing strange images and Russian text. Connected to the lit up objects were peculiar gray and black boxes with buttons and strange slots. Cords- Wires of some dark material connected the boxes to the thin, flashing objects.
Her fright only intensified, as she began to hyperventilate, clutching her arms around her naked body. And the sight of other human skeletons enclosed in glass cases upon metal racks did not offer her a comforting sight either. No… Perhaps the Soviets had brought her somewhere to torture or violate her! No, this could not be!
"No, no, no!" She shouted, rolling off the shelf. She fell onto the tiled floor with a hard thump, feeling pain on her back and legs. She felt the cold, dry air against her skin. Yet the faint odors of alcohol and something like mint wafted through the air. She felt perplexed, which soon morphed into mild relief.
This was likely a hospital?
No, that assumption was false. She had died. Hospitals were focused on servicing the still alive. The patients were sick and wounded people. She had once dealt with the Russian soldiers in the Great War as a light nurse. Memories came to mind of uniformed doctors, her father giving medals to the bravest, her mother singing hymns to the suffering and dying, and her sisters handling their nursing duties to those loyal men…
Wherever they were, they were all either dead or had moved away. This saddened and frightened her again. She ran behind a shelf, looking for something to cover herself. A white coat caught her eye, along with rubber pants.
This would do. Wherever she had awoken in, she would find someone to inform and help her. With shaky steps, she made her way to the metal door. She opened it, looking around to see an empty white hallway with numbred, steel doors. Signs on each door read "Sample Room 1A" or some similar title.
She went out of the room, until a shrill noise blasted out from the red boxes high on the walls… Red lights flashed as the holes of the red boxes continued to blare their noise.
She shut her eyes and covered her ears, running down the hallway… Until she hit something and fell onto it. She opened her eyes again to see a uniformed man and another woman in a white lab coat.
They met eyes for approximately two seconds before the woman screamed. Maria felt scared. These people had not expected her to be there. Would they hurt her? She had to speak up!
"No, I won't hurt you! I'm Maria Ro-"
She felt herself being shoved by the uniformed man, who stood up to reach for something in his belt. He pulled out a strange, yellow pistol pointing it at her.
"Still! Hands up, crazy woman!"
The woman in the white coat and black skirt tried to intervene, tapping the man on the shoulder. "Wait, Officer Ivan-"
"No! No! Blyat!" Maria swore, running away.
She thought she had escaped, before she felt something pierce her back. A loud, sharp pattering sound rang through the air, and she tensed up painfully mid step. The former Grand Duchess collapsed unceremoniously onto the hard, tiled floor again.
Trembling, Maria let out a strangled shriek before going unconscious after the voltage ceased.
And the guard turned to the female scientist who he knew as Yulia. He sighed in exasperation, glancing at the unconscious woman on the floor. This would be a nasty ordeal in his duty as the laboratory guard. He should have been paid more for this bullshit.
"Look, Doctor Yulia. You are a scientist. Be rational. The girl was- is most likely a crazy lunatic with delusions of grandeur!"
"I have looked at photographs of Maria Romanova hundreds of times to verify her remains. I have realized that this woman is almost certainly that former Grand Duchess… Even if she was a lunatic, there was no reason to use excessive force! What would she have done to you?"
"What now? Did the princesses somehow rise from the dead? No way!"
"Let me see. I doubt it," Ivan added, groaning.
Yulia pulled out her phone and opened a digitized photograph of Maria Romanov, giving the guard a heated glare. Both of them walked to the barely clothed, still breathing young woman on the floor. She pointed to her face, and then to the photograph on her phone.
Ivan looked at the calm and admittedly beautiful face of the woman before squinting at the photograph. A dreadful feeling went over him as the perfect resemblance became clear. It was as if he had killed someone… A prominent figure in Russian history!
He had messed up big time.
"Fan-Freaking-Tastic…" Ivan groaned, as the scientist raised an eyebrow at him.
"Help me carry this poor woman. She needs a rest, regardless of what happened."
"What-"
"Do it."
Maria awoke again, screaming. She remembered the shock and the pain that accompanied it from the strange weapon. But at least she did not get killed. Whoever that man was, he must have been a guard of some kind…
Another question came to mind… What of the woman in the white coat?
Only this time, she found herself in a hospital bed in a small room with lilac walls. A small bedside table was beside her bed, supporting a vase of white roses. Oh… they were her mother's favorite flowers.
Tears came to her eyes. She was still lost, neglected, and had been shocked by some terrible guard. What sort of torment was this? She did not deserve to die. She did not deserve to be shocked for only escaping the room for help.
Nothing made any sense. She only yearned to see her family and friends again, wherever they had gone.
At least she was wearing a white nightgown. Most likely the woman in the coat took pity on her and clothed her. Maria made a silent promise to thank the other woman later. People like her would never be taken for granted by the former Grand Duchess again. Nor would the adoration and kindness by the common people.
So much had gone wrong during the Revolution, and Maria realized deep in her heart and mind that her parents did not do as good in their reign as she had once thought. Perhaps that was why her family had been so hated and condemned to a brutal massacre.
But she did not see anything from the Soviets. Perhaps she was in another time or place within Russia? Another glance at something hanging on the wall caught her attention… A calendar bore the year. But this only surprised her even more.
2022.
She first died in 1918.
No, this could not be. Everyone she knew and loved had died. And now she had risen in another time so distant and unfamiliar.
She burst into tears again, murmuring the names of the friends she once had. The family she once had. She would not see them again for many years, until she died again.
"Mama… Papa…"
The door gently opened again, revealing the same woman. Maria stopped crying, still hitching as she breathed. She scooted back on the bed, glancing around.
"Who are you? W- What do you want with me?"
"I am Doctor Yulia. I used to study your, well, bones- Before you somehow resurrected, if that term is correct."
"Oh… Was I buried?"
Yulia sighed. "Sadly not. The surviving Romanov relatives did not agree on the legitimacy of your remains, so your remains were placed here for ongoing study and reserve."
"Then what of my sisters?"
"I have seen the news… They have risen too, as strange as it remains to me. But I cannot doubt that what I see is what it is."
"Then please, take me to see them!"
"Not yet. Please be patient, dear. The world is not ready to know of the resurrections yet. President Putin is secretly informed about this situation. Help will come soon enough."
"So… So what of the Soviets?"
"They lost power and were overthrown. Now Russia is more or less like a democratic federation."
"Now, it has been over a century. How about you follow me? I think that you should receive a brief overview of the history since your , well, first death."
Maria could not argue. She looked up again at the scientist, nodding. "Please, I want to know what happened."