gemsofformenos: It's a pretty cool show. But yeah, it's Netflix so if you don't have that, probably a little hard to come by. Sci-Fi is a genre I love but don't get to work with often. Thanks, transformation plotlines are some of my favorites to write! "I couldn't compare characters with the cartoon, I will focus on the idea and how the characters are approaching to me during reading." Works for me! I feel like it's a lot harder to review a fic for a show you don't know. It's cool to know that this premise had enough of a pull for you to give it a try!
"The setting is good. Genetic and medical experiments on humans and Galras by an evil scientist is a promissing start." Gotta love unethical experimentation! "I ask myself, what goals Haggar tries to achieve." Haggar's goals/motives are going to be a bit different than what it was in teh show. "But what really caught my interrest is the way, these experiments will affect the group and Acxa." Thanks, that's actually probably gonna be the bigger focus of this fic; personally I really enjoy working with character dynamics. "She seems to be a strong character and also she seems to was physicaly stronger than a human." She's a very strong character personality wise. She's pretty strong physically as well. "It seems to me, that she was a new member in the team and if I'm right she had switched sides" You are correct about both things, she's new to the team because of a side switch. :D "Also her relationship with Keith. This will become a roller coaster for all of them" very true lol. I'm still trying to decide her relationship with Veronica; usually I actually have her as the love interest. "I will start to learn something about Voltron" Hopefully you do! It's a really fun show.
Her world is painted in a shade of searing purple. It is so bright that she has trouble seeing anything at all. It glares in her eyes and she has trouble gaining her barring. She can hear a whirring; a buzzing and it vibrates in her head. It is torment, and she can't cover her ears. She tries but her hands won't move. They aren't bound, they aren't chained.
But they won't move.
They are not her hands.
And suddenly there is no light at all. Suddenly there are hands all around her they tug at her legs and pull her arms. Raking and clawing and tearing her apart. The hands are all over her body and there are so many of them, they are a vivid luminescent purple. They slap her and prod her, push at her stomach until the air leaves her lungs. They clutch at her and pinch at her and generally assault her but she is paralyzed.
Underneath the buzzing is a greater white noise; a disorienting and intangible babble. An endless and raspy stream of it. The sound comes from the same mouth but at various pitches and volumes. It comes from the same source but it emits from different parts of the nowhere space. A ringing intermingles with the buzzing and the muttering and it all swells in volume.
She feels like she is falling.
The volume rises more.
The hands grasp more firmly.
The UV lights come on, burning so much hotter.
Acxa can't take it anymore, her head pounds and her ears seem to bleed. She can feel it trickling warmly down her neck.
There is a scream and she isn't sure if it is her own or someone else's because it seems to come from across the void. And from the nothingness more screams arise, but somehow the white noise is still louder. The ringing and buzzing is harsher. She is so terribly dizzy. Her body continues to fall, yet it remains in place under the UV lights. She feels liquid on her body running in rivulets, it is gooy and thick.
Her skin is melting away, the UV lights are melting it away.
The vertigo follows her into waking and she cries out. No. It had been a shriek. A sharp and horrified scream. Reflexively, she brings her hands to her face to find that it is still perfectly intact. Her chest rises and falls rapidly and it is a task to slow her frantic breathing.
She was never the type that was prone to dreams, lest of all dreams so vivid, so evil.
A hand snakes around her arm and she hollers again, batting at the offending appendage. In the process she throws herself off of the bed, landing with a painful thud on her already beaten and sensitive hipbone. She gives another quitter, muffled cry.
"Acxa!" The exclamation is nothing but tender concern. And it reality floods back to her.
She is safe.
She is okay.
She heaves herself up and climbs back onto the mattress, shaking all over.
"Are you okay?" Keith asks.
She doesn't know how to answer. She thinks that she is okay but she isn't quite sure. She scoots closer to him and pulls herself as close as she physically can. Earlier she hadn't been at all fond of her smaller build, but it is useful now that she is trying to burrow into Keith.
Her cheeks flush, because she is usually much stronger than this. But tonight, she longs for reassurance, even if she has to let some of her walls down. He rubs at her hair where the horns had been and her breathing begins to slow.
"That must have been some dream." He guesses.
The embarrassment truly has a chance to set in, she has gotten all meek and timid over a dream. "It was." She confirms. "It was…there were…" She tries to find the right descriptors. "There were some real elements to it." She isn't sure if she should call them memories, but they had felt like them. "It felt real…"
"It wasn't." Keith assures her.
But that is just it, she isn't so sure about that, she thinks that it might have been. Or at the very least, parts of it had been true. It sends her heart racing. Faint trickles of fear pulsate on the fringes of her mind.
"What was the nightmare about?"
"The UV room."
.oOo.
"The UV room?" He repeats.
He expects an elaboration but instead she only nods and rolls onto her stomach, burying her face into the pillow. And for a moment he wonders if whatever Haggar has done, made her human in more than just body. She turns her head to face him, she looks as if she wants to say something but she doesn't.
"Is there anything I can do to help you sleep?"
"I don't know, no one has ever tried helping me sleep. How can you help someone sleep?"
Keith chuckles. "Well, uh…Hunk likes a glass of warm milk and a bedtime story. Pidge usually throws on a rainstorm CD. Lance likes talking until he's too tired to talk anymore. Shiro, well, he actually kind of just falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow. I like listening to classic rock."
"What is a CD? What is classic rock?"
He sometimes forgets how little she knows about his world. "Give me a second." He gets up from the bed.
"No!" She says almost immediately. "Don't leave me."
"I'm just getting something from over there." He points at one of the many shelves that line his room. And he does, he ruffles through his CD collection until he finds Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. He also grabs The Beatles and Fleetwood Mac. He'll give her some options. He lays them out on the bed and turns on his bedside lamp. "These are CD's." He motions to his radio, "you put them in here, hit play, and then you get to hear music."
Acxa nods again.
"Pick your favorite."
She looks over the album covers for a second. Finally, she points at Pink Floyd.
"Good choice." He smiles and puts the CD in. He clicks the light off. He was going to have to ask her more about this dream and the UV room in the morning. But for the time his goal is to soothe her. For the time he listens to the music as it flutters about the room. She is facing away from him, but he slides his arm under hers and holds her around the middle.
He hopes that this will help her sleep some. He worries about her. He worries because she hasn't exactly been acting like herself since she has gotten back. And he can't gauge whether it is the product of trauma, the experiments, or a natural shift. He hopes that it is the latter or simply a newer side of her personality.
He doesn't want to kill the mood, but he has to ask, "will you tell me more about your nightmare tomorrow and which parts were the most real?"
"Yes."
He lays awake until he knows that she is asleep again. Hopefully she will sleep through the rest of the night. And with any luck, Pink Floyd will lull him there too and keep him there until the morning. He tries to focus on the song and on the feeling of Acxa bunched up beside him.
Yes, he thinks that he can sleep again.
Much easier, in fact, than he has in awhile.