Author's note: I can assure you, this isn't Valvalis I will be time jumping dramatically at points. It'll be a longer piece but not THAT long.
Also, the doctor in this story may seem a lot more "normal" than he did in the game and there's a reason for that. He's still off his rocker, but not quite as maniacally as he was in the game.
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Chapter Two
One long corridor led to another. The lights slid past her eyes, and her focus began to waver. She was weakening, she could tell. She plodded after the doctor up a series of staircases, her leg rebelling at every step. When would he stop moving?
The injury was worsening. The muscle ached, and she could feel her skin pulling apart instead of knitting together. There was blood seeping through her clothing and down her shin. Thinking about it made her dizzy, so she resolved to simply placing one foot in front of the other and keeping her thoughts on anything but the pain. Just stop moving she prayed.
To her dismay, her prayers went unanswered. The doctor paid her hardly any attention on their ascent, and she knew it was her own fault for following, but how many stairs could the man climb? He nattered on continuously about things she didn't understand, and his peculiar conversations with himself and quick spastic pace, made her believe that whatever was waiting for him at the end of this journey of theirs must be important.
After climbing what seemed to be countless staircases, the doctor finally came to a stop at the entrance of a small darkened chamber. She vaguely observed him fiddle with some gadgets in the wall, and a faint glow then filled the space.
So this is where he lives, she thought dully, looking around her. It was all so strange, so inorganic. Had he been living alone in this place for very long? He scurried around the room frantically flipping switches and studying dials while she stood in the doorway watching. He'd rushed back to this?
Knowing he wasn't going to accommodate her, she searched the room for a chair—anything to rest on. She found a surface that looked suitable for a chair and sat down on it, relieving the weight from her leg. She emitted a sigh of tremendous relief. The pain was still agonizing, but even simply removing weight from her leg had done wonders already. She inspected the wound gingerly with her fingers, wondering just how bad the damage really was. It was a deep gash from midway down her thigh to just above her knee. It was red and swollen and incredibly tender to the touch. It occurred to her that it might be infected, but without medicine, there was nothing to be done about it. She looked up, wondering if the Doctor could do anything for her, or if he even would. He still wasn't looking at her, as if she didn't exist at all, and his constant movement became a blur to her eyes. The dizziness was returning and her eyelids were just beginning to droop when suddenly the blur that was the doctor froze and pointed to her in shock.
"Hm?" she grunted, blinking. Had he finally decided to help her, she wondered?
"You—you're bleeding all over my workspace!!" he cried. "You're going to short circuit something! Got off, get off!"
Groaning, her tired body tried to stand, but her feet felt so heavy and her head so light... She'd barely moved when her knees buckled and she plummeted to the floor. The pain in her leg exploded and her mouth opened in a silent scream.
The doctor furiously hovered around her like some nervous animal. "Now you're bleeding on my floor!" he shrieked, flailing his arms.
She ignored his protests and tried to keep her eyes open, tried to stay alert.
"Are the lights supposed to look like that?" she murmured, slurring her words together.
"Stop that, do you hear me? Stay awake! I don't have time to deal with this! You're not even supposed to be here! I told you not to follow me, and see, you're getting in my way already!"
She barely heard him. She was so tired…all she wanted to do was sleep. The pain was too much, the exhaustion too great….
Gradually the room around her faded to a murky black.
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She awoke with a headache and a throb in her thigh. She was lying flat on something hard and uncomfortable. The lights above her buzzed peculiarly, and she could hear machinery churning away someplace far beneath her.
Experimentally, she moved her limbs. The pain was still present, and so was the weakness, though it wasn't as bad as before. She slowly pushed herself upright and looked around. This new room was long and dimly lit, and as far as she could tell, she was the only person in it. She slipped her feet over the edge of the slab she'd been laying on to stand, but when she looked up, she was startled to see a girl watching her, half buried in shadows. She gazed back, unsure of what to make of this other girl with the uncanny stare. For several minutes, neither of them moved.
"Who are you?" she asked, but received no answer.
A thought suddenly occurred to her.
She slowly limped forward, noticing that the girl mimicked her actions. Only inches away, she extended a hand and found that her fingers met with a sheet of glass. Her eyes widened in surprise and understanding. Her reflection! This person was her!
She looked at herself again, studying her appearance, amazed that she had forgotten her own reflection. Long straight brown hair, blue-gray eyes, a slender face...
"This is who I am?" She asked the mirror.
She pulled at her cheeks, her ears.
"This is what I look like…"
"You're awake!" the doctor's dry crackly voice spoke from behind.
Her observations cut short, she spun to see him standing in a doorway in his strange lab coat.
For a moment she had nothing to say, but then she pointed to her leg. "Did you cure me?"
He wrinkled his forehead, his wiry eyebrows knitting together. "Tricky things, wounds. Tools can do marvelous things with pieces of flesh. But don't overexert yourself or you'll start bleeding on my floor again! I'm no mage, your leg will have to heal the old-fashioned way."
She blinked in confusion.
"How long have I been sleeping?"
"Two, three—no, two days. No, four."
Her head nodded in loose circles. She wished he would make up his mind, but either way, he had cured her of her wound even if it had taken him far longer to do so than she would have liked.
"Thank you for mending my leg."
He puckered his face and frowned. Had he never been thanked for his efforts before?
"Yes, well, I couldn't have you dying in my laboratory. Then I'd have to find someplace to put your corpse."
She raised an eyebrow. Even though she'd lost her memories, even she knew what not to say in such a situation. She offered a small smile to assure him of her sincerity. He scratched his head nervously and she took the moment to look away.
She glanced back at the mirror and saw again the proud features of her face--the high cheek bones and defiant brow…the flashing eyes…
"I wonder how I got here," she said softly.
"Mmm," he grunted. "I wonder that too. Maybe your people will take you back," he said sounding hopeful.
She pursed her lips, still staring at her reflection. "Whoever they are."
When she looked back at the doorway the doctor was gone. She limped over to it and leaned against the doorframe. He was in the other room occupied with strange projects as if he'd never left them.
"What now?" she asked.
"You leave," he sniveled. "You're useless to me, nothing but a child. I don't know how the tower's sensors even picked up on someone so small. Unless of course, you possessed magical powers of some kind and if that's the case…" he trailed off, organizing small phials on a shelf.
She frowned. "Magical powers? Do you know anything about them?"
"About magic?" he laughed dryly. "Not really, no. I have, however, been called a magician with machines."
She frowned, having hoped to find something out about either herself or this place.
"I don't understand. What do you do with machines? What are they like?"
He noisily cleared his throat. "I can't say."
"Why not?"
He turned around, his beady eyes flashing fiercely.
"You misunderstand. It's not that simple. Telling you means involving you, and I can't have any distractions or complications to my plan. You're supposed to be gone, remember?"
"Your plan? A plan to get out of here?"
"No!" he shot back. "I don't care if I stay here or not, so long as I have plenty of work to do I'm perfectly happy staying where I am!"
Now she was curious. Who would voluntarily stay in such a place with no way of leaving?
"Work?"
"I do research!"
"For what?"
"For someone else!" he snapped, and then widened his eyes in surprise. "You! You!"
"What?" she asked, bewildered by his response.
"You tricked me!"
"Tricked you into doing what?"
"Maybe I should have just let you die," he said sourly.
She extended both hands in a placating fashion. "I have no idea what you're talking about!"
He tapped his chin with a finger. "I suppose not. You did lose your memories after all."
She stared at him in disbelief, and decided to guide the conversation down a different direction.
"So you really live and work here alone?"
"I like it that way."
"You don't ever get…lonely?
"I have my creations to keep me company. I'm perfectly happy. Humans are complicated. Complications are bad. I prefer the devoted compliance of something programmed to do as I say—much more reliable that way."
She nodded slowly, feigning that she understood what he'd said.
"You have no way of getting out of here," she prodded.
"I have no reason to leave!" he snapped.
"Then the only way to get out of this place is to fly or teleport using magic?"
He nodded.
She sighed. She had hoped he might know of some way to help her leave, when an idea entered her head.
"What if you helped me find a way? Couldn't you build something?"
He shifted uncomfortably where he stood.
"I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. My superior wouldn't be pleased to know that I wasn't spending all my time on the projects he sanctioned."
"What if I helped you? Two people would get the work done twice as fast. Your 'superior' would never know."
"I can't. Too many variables. If he found out there was an intruder…"
"The sooner I leave, the less time you have to worry about me being discovered," she announced, trying to be as enthusiastic as possible to win his support.
"No! No, no no! You need to leave! Get out!"
She shut her eyes tight with frustration. He was going to make this difficult, but then, so was she. Some spark of memory reminded her that she was no pushover in the face of challenge. She'd find a way to convince him to help her, it just might take more time than she liked.
Somehow or another, finding a way out of this tower was another step to figuring out who she was and why she'd fallen so far from her own reality. If it meant helping this strange man complete his work, so be it.
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Thanks for reading!