"Jak." a quiet hoarse voice said simply. She smiled, though it wasn't really a happy smile. She had always wanted to be in the game, but not like this. The adventure was what she had wanted but with all the safety of being able to restart, or even if it was just like a vacation. She moved to the back wall of her cell and rested her back against it, massaging a sore shoulder. She shut her eyes, still hoping that she would wake up and find that she had passed out on her couch. She felt herself slipping into a dreamless sleep. She hated dreamless sleep, time passed much to quickly, and nights like that were boring. That would be the last night that she would ever think that.
Kaida was deep in an empty sleep when the door to her cell was roughly slammed open. She jumped at the noise, her foggy eyes fighting to focus in the low lights. As the sleep cleared the forms of 2 Krimson Guards standing in the doorway began to appear. The pair in red stalked over to her, both with weapons pointed at her head and heart. Kaida pushed herself backwards on the floor until she felt the back wall of the cell. One guard lowered his weapon only to grab her roughly by the arm and pull her out of her cell. The other guard grabbed her opposite arm and the two dragged her down the aisle. At first out of fear, she did nothing, and allowed herself to be pulled, and suddenly all her senses realized at once where she was being taken.
She cried out, fear taking over all of her movements, and started thrashing. In her sudden adrenaline rush she managed to wrench her way out of the grips of the unprepared man on her left, and took a frantic punch at the one on her right. Kaida's fist managed to break through the simple visor, giving him a minor black eye, and slicing up her fist. She barely felt the pain and she was able to pull out of his grasp. She lunged forward, not even thinking about where she might be going, just knowing she had to go. She barely got 3 feet before something hard connected with the back of her head. The blow was not hard enough to knock her out, but enough to knock her down. Kaida saw spots and the pain in her head from the day before returned. A cold chuckle filled her ears as she struggled to clear her head, and she recognized the voice as Erol.
"Is this weak little shit causing you trouble?" he asked the guards condescendingly, though it was also meant as insult to her. He stalked around so that he was in front of Kaida and she could see his relatively clean boots. She lifted a hand to her head, trying to stop the pain, and tried to glare at him, although she could hardly bring herself to look up at him past his knees. She had despised him in the game for being a jackass, but now her dislike had reached a new level. He was sadistic, evil and generally dislike-able she knew, but there was just something worse about him when the slender man stood right in front of her. Erol just laughed in her face and spat on the floor in front of her, and kicked her remaining leaning hand out from under her. Kaida jerked forward and managed to catch herself with her opposite hand, but Erol just laughed.
The guards grabbed her roughly by the upper arms as Erol moved to the side to allow the guards to do their work. The Krimson Guards allowed her no time to get to her feet and basically dragged her the rest of the way and jerked her onto the table, strapping her in. The rest of the way to the table, Kaida had fought to keep her knees, shins and feet from being torn up on the floor and on the table she attempted to resist but with Erol close by she wasn't nearly brave enough to really fight. A light clicked on and glared directly in her eyes from above, adding to her growing headache. She could hear the guards move away, but other people were still moving around her. She tried to turn her strapped down head to see them but with the light in her eyes and her limited movement she fought just to keep her eyes open. Even though she could feel the headache growing in the back of her head, the cuts on her hand and the scrapes on her legs, still she continued to hope that this was just a dream and she would just wake up. Time seemed to slow and she felt like she was burning up under the lights. Her headache made it all worse and she felt like she had been there for ages. Then she heard that voice that she despised most, and at this moment, feared most.
"This is the girl that you told me about, Erol?" the voice was deep, gritty and sounded even just a little bit angry. It was the Baron Praxis, ruler by force and lies of Haven City. Kaida felt herself go just a little cold when he spoke.
"Yes sir." replied Erol, with a little pride in his voice, though she had no idea why. Kaida opened her eyes so slightly, blocking out as much light as she could, trying to see what was going on. She could barely see, but she could see the faint silhouette of the slim, tall Erol, and the heavily built Baron, standing next to her. Her eyes were soon overloaded with light and she had to close her eyes again. A hand reached out and grasped her jaw tightly, turning her head forcibly from one side to the other. She pulled her jaw away with a sudden jerk and snapped the hand. It was a bad idea, she realized as she was rewarded with a swift slap to the side of her face.
"Well, sir?" Erol prompted, obviously looking for approval from his Baron.
"She has small ears and the clothes she has look strange. She looks a bit small, and she has a spirit we'll have to break." Said the Baron.
"She might be small, but I think she could be useful. She looks like she took a hard fall and still a moment ago she punched on of my Krimson Guards. Her body seems resilient, and that bad attitude will be easy enough to tame." Erol replied.
"I suppose. And you think that she would make a good candidate for testing? Many of the prisoners we get are such disappointments." asked the Baron, Kaida could hear his heavy foot steps as he walked around to the other side of the table, still inspecting her.
"At first look, it seems like she might be able to. As I said, she is resilient, and she is obviously of a different make than the other prisoners. But if you would like, we could give her a test today." suggested Erol. The Baron leaned over her and under the light, and she could see the cold smirk on his face.
"I think that would be a good idea." He replied and laughed quietly and sadistically. She began to shiver as she heard clicks and clacks as the began to load and set the machine. Her heart was beating faster as she tried, frantically now, to tell herself that this was only a dream, but it wasn't working. The machine lowered slowly and menacingly, and Kaida could hear the engine start up. A huge spike of a needle lowered towards her, while another smaller one reached for her arm. Suddenly the smaller needle jabbed into her arm, drawing a small amount of blood. A small mechanical computer voice announced its doings. "Running diagnostic." There was a clicking and a small noise and the voice sounded again. "Diagnostic complete. Subject is healthy, free of disease. DNA sequence contains unknown elements. Beginning injection cycle." The small needle retreated back to the machine and, even in the blinding light, she saw large needle move towards her again. She couldn't imagine what vein or artery it could be going for as the tip of the needle pointed to her abdomen. She let out a cry of pain as it peirce her skin and sank deep into her muscles and flesh. The pain was nothing compared to a moment later when the machine began to force the dark eco into her body. With every ounce of eco the truth was finally forced in to her denial ridden mind: this was not a dream. The pain of the eco was not just a feeling, it was tangible. There was no other way to put it, she could almost taste it. She didn't scream until it filled her whole body with the hopeless realization that this was not a dream. Then she screamed. Not the high pitched bloody-murder scream that other girls make, it was a deeper fuller, painful scream.
She screamed until she couldn't breathe, with her eyes wide open even under the bright lights. When the dose of eco that had been put in the machine was done, she felt like she had been under it for days. The needle retreated and another smaller one came to take another sample of her blood. Scanners from the machine look her over, reading her life signs. She couldn't speak, and her eyes were still wide, their pupils all but gone. Kaida was panting heavily with her mouth open, and the spill over of eco could be seen streaking over her like electricity, as her body fought to take in the energies. She thought she heard Praxis laugh somewhere in the background but she couldn't be sure.
"Well, I guess she will be a good one to run a few tests on." The Baron spoke as the machine finished giving him her final diagnostics. "DNA differences huh? I wonder what we can do to remedy that. Certainly I'll have to come up with something..." After his promise, rest of Praxis' words became just noises to her. The pain of the eco was still burning in her body, making all other contact feel dulled while her muscles tensed and released uncontrollably. She could vaguely feel someone un-tying her from the table, and lifting her off it. She knew the floor was scratching her knees badly, but right now it didn't seem that important. Even if she had wanted to she could have done nothing.
What was in her field of vision she could hardly see, it all looked like an underdeveloped picture. She doubted that her eyes had gone back to their normal size. When the guards reached her cell they roughly threw her in and shut the door, laughing lightly at how weak she was now. She didn't move, her body was limp and out of her control. Kaida lay slumped on the floor with her eyes open and unfocused. She could faintly hear small sounds that could have been a scuffle going on in Jak's cell, but she couldn't make herself get up, nor did she feel like she wanted to. Moving would just re-affirm her knowledge that this was real. She stayed that way for a while, not caring how long. She could have gotten up, she could have moved, she could have checked her watch, she could have done a lot of things but she continued to lay there. The pain ebbing, though still throbbing deep in her bones, and her vision had cleared. But it was just the strange and heavy feeling of despair that kept her pinned to the ground under its enormous weight.
She had never felt despair like this before. Kaida had been a girl who lived in a good town, with good parents, with a good amount of money. She was healthy, strong and smart. She had only ever lost a single loved family member but not her parents, and even when she had been sad and believed herself to be despairing, it had never felt like this before. She could hear, faintly, the yells of someone, she assumed Jak, from the testing table, and she wondered if this was how he felt when he had first come to this place here. After all, he had been thrown here from his own word, even if it was just from the past to the future.
After sometime, she didn't know, or care how long, the scuffing and slam that came from nearby told her that Jak had been put back in his cell. With in a relatively short time he began to move around again. She wasn't sure why, but just then, when she heard him moving around, the despair she felt spilled out and she began to cry. She didn't have the energy to cry out loud, or even to sob, but the simple tears trailing down her face said it all. Her breathing was heavy and disjointed as her emotional structure collapsed. She stopped fairly quickly, but remained lying on the floor, her tears pooled by her face. Even when the guards finally put her dish if old gross food in her cell, she didn't move.
Eventually, night fell somewhere outside the walls of the prison and most of the guards left. Some of the brighter lights clicked off, thought I barely affected the light in the cells, and she decided that she should get up. She moved, just crawling, towards her dish and ate random things from it, not even remembering the fruit she had saved for later. Though she would not have eaten it even if she had remembered. All the time she had spent on the ground came back to her. She looked at her watch, but it was broken now. The arching energy from the dark eco test had killed the poor thing and cracked its glass. She took it off, but slipped it in her pocket.
'Way to go Kaida.' she thought to herself, 'You wasted a whole day sulking on the floor.' She knew she had been far more then sulking, but she didn't care, she needed to motivate herself some how. She stood up on weak legs and looked through the window into Jak's cell. His dish was licked clean and he was a sleep on the floor. Kaida felt loneliness set in for a moment and wanted to wake him up. She wrestled with her desires for a companion, but when she noticed that his face was not twisted in pain or fear, she decided to let him sleep. She slipped to the floor again and shut her eyes. It was the first time all day that she realized that she was tired. Kaida had been painfully awake all day, even if she had not been doing anything. She stretched out as best as she could and finally nodded off.
She might have had a good sleep the night before but tonight was almost the opposite. Memories and nightmares filled her mind. Kaida felt as if she was running down a long hallway. It was dark for a time, but then she could see Rika, standing with a friendly scowl on her face. Kaida smiled and tried to run faster, ready to laugh with her friend. However when she got closer, SMACK! She ran into a wall. She fell backwards onto her butt and looked up at the wall to her cell. She tried to find away around it but she couldn't, Kaida was trapped. She grabbed the bars in her cell door and tried to force it open. Suddenly the wall disappeared and she tried to move, but her arms and legs felt like they were tied to something. She turned as best as she could and found that it was that dreaded table. She struggled against the ties but it was pointless the leather straps had her held down tight. Then Praxis was standing there, laughing at her, and she watched as he loaded a needle with dark eco. Then it was just pain.
The pain wasn't nearly as sharp, but it was still there, and she had never had a dream that was so painful. Kaida tried to look around Praxis to see Rika, but she could barely see Rika's face. It was like Rika was floating away, slowly, into the distance. She strained her head forward to see, or even to call out to her, but someone grabbed her neck and forced her back against the table. It was Erol. He smiled sadistically as he pulled out something. Then before she could do anything he was forcing eco down her throat like water. She tried to cough or spit out the substance but it didn't work. Out of the corner of her eye she tried to look and see Rika again, but Rika was turning and walking away, as if she couldn't see her. Kaida wanted to call out to her, but she was gagging on the liquid, she felt like she was drowning. She couldn't breathe, and the substance was burning at the flesh of her throat. She tried to pull away but it didn't work. Then she felt something wet and heavy in her hair, like rain or sweat. Her chest felt like she was going to explode, and tears ran from her eyes as she choked and sputtered. She tried one more time to call out but she just gagged. She felt like she was going to die and then... she woke up.
Something really was wet in her hair. She woke up with a start, jerking upright, and instantly grabbed her throat, breathing heavily. She felt cold sweat on her body and her hands were trembling. Kaida's fingers went to her hair and she could feel water in her hair that wasn't from sweat. But from what? She turned and looked up to see a pair of blue eyes looking at her through the bars of her cell. A hand reaching through them, fingers still dripping with the remainders of a palm full of water. She recognized the worried look belonging to Jak. She sighed and slumped to the ground once more, her breathing still uneven. Her hand on her heart told her it was still beating very quickly. She opened her eyes eventually and looked up at Jak, who was still at the bars dividing their cells.
"Was..." she tried to speak, and she found her throat was raspy and dry. She swallowed hard, the spittle burning at the driest parts of her throat. Her voice was faded like it was over used. "Was I...screaming?" Jak nodded, and Kaida swallowed again and looked at the ground, avoiding Jak's face.
"Do the prisoners here scream in their sleep often?" Kaida asked, quietly and looked back to Jak for a response. Jak nodded again, is cool eyes still on Kaida as if she might pass out at any moment. "Thanks, for waking me up." Jak smiled slightly and she took that for a you- welcome. Jak's face suddenly lit up with a thought and left the window for a moment. He took a fruit from the remainder of his own dinner, one he remembered she had seemed to enjoy, and dropped it through the bars close to her. She picked up the fruit and looked at it wonderingly. She looked up at him, and his eyes told her it was hers. He smiled again then disappeared into his cell.
She sighed and bit into the fruit. The juice dripped down her throat, burning at first then surprisingly, making it feel better. When she was finished with the soft fruit she curled up on the floor, feeling only slightly better. She wasn't sure she wanted to sleep again, the shadows of her nightmare still haunting the corners of her mind. But with what Praxis had said she knew for certain she wouldn't survive without sleep. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep again, hoping for a calmer dream. Kaida had only the slightest bit of an idea that if she thought today was bad, tomorrow would be the worst thing in her entire life...