~Hope this chapter is as exciting for you guys as it was for me to write. Took my time with this one, but I think this is the good and finished product. Enjoy. Btw-the miniature sculpture that 'was to remind her of all that her (Grandma's) Germans had suffered.' Is depicted in this link as the whole not mini sculpture found in Germany:. . -MsArtemis~

Part 11: Experiment

The air was infused with the scent of hay and honeysuckle, the wooden boards beneath her heel withholding sighs as she slipped into the semi-darkness of the old barn. Glancing around one more time, she slipped the object out of the protection of her plaid shirt. In her palms she cradled a miniature marble sculpture, two twisting black objects dancing around a spray of silver twine. She was only seven, and Grandma had told her she didn't want a little girl to touch her things -but she'd had to see it up close.

The little girl's mischievous eyes trailed the pathway that had led her to the stagnant coolness of the barn. The path was a single strip of meandering dirt that led up to the back door of a plain albescent brick house. The Paris countryside was quiet, the laundry line swaying in the feeble breeze that hardly shook the suns undeniable warmth. A sense of premature safety overcame the child-her Grandmother had not noticed the missing object.

Stroking the sculpture, she studied it, wonder encasing her eyes in a glassy glow. Grandma didn't want her to touch it because she was German-and she had lived through Germany's tough times and this was to remind her of all that her 'Germans' had suffered. But it was so pretty, and the little girl just wanted to look at it once…

The shrill sound of a horse's call was all it took for the seconds to fly by, the 'one look' to be up. Dismayed the small child shakily dropped to her knees, her sense of wonderment abandoned. Ebony and moonbeam shards swirled in her watery eyed vision-hurriedly she tried to sweep up the remains of her Grandma's favorite sculpture. It was to no avail-her hands were too small and chubby and the pieces refused to slip into her open palm without a fight. Sobbing the little girl kept scooping up the pieces-the explosion had gone diagonally, the disaster trail leading right to the open barn door…

Suddenly there was the sweet sound of a whistled melody; a breathy, undeniable sound that made the girl shiver hopelessly-Grandma was coming. Her hands were cut and bleeding, the sobs making awful retching-like sounds as her grandmother's infamous leather boots came into her line of vision. The little girl's head stayed facing the floor-she couldn't look at her Grandma right now, she'd done something wrong, and it felt so bad…

And now Grandma was going to yell at her, tell her that she would never be an artist and that she was never to touch Grandma's things again and what a shame that she wasn't a proper lady…All of these insults rang with an almost invisible familiarity, one that the little girl was too busy to notice.

The child stopped her work.

"Grandma, I-"

Suddenly the Grandma was kneeling down at eye-level, scooping up the chunks of art and pressing them into the open maw of a calico sack. The little girl's mouth dropped open-this wasn't supposed to happen. The floor began pulsing with undeniable palpitations-the Grandma's grizzly hair was thrown out of the way as she looked up, her silvery eyes meeting the girls.

"Shush Ariadne." The little girl's mouth morphed into a straight line as she obeyed, her lower lip quivering as the shaking came to a halt. The Grandma peered into her granddaughter's face with an expected look of vexation-and something else. The girl registered the queer expression as curiosity, the quest to find an answer, and so she leapt to action.

"I didn't want to break it, Grandma! I just wanted to-"

"I understand what you meant to do, mi cheri. " Her voice trembled, breaking on 'cheri' with such emotion that the 7 year old found herself wondering. Grandma Isle was sad? She'd never seen her grandmother shed a tear-she was always brave. Was this her grandma at all? The older woman didn't provide an explanation of what she thought the child had tried to do as well-she was tying up the sack like she was possessed-what was Grandma afraid of? This was wrong. As the grandmother reached her feet, the sack of beautiful debri in her claw-like, wrinkly hands, a wooden support fell from the ceiling landed in between the two of them, demanding attention. Grandma's eyes flashed to the plywood, her silver eyes simpering with distrust and an inkling of fear.

"Grandma-why aren't you mad? Don't you hate me? I broke it! And you, you-"

Her tiny voice was wavering, as if all her unspoken questions were creating a rocky pathway for the other words to follow. Her grandma seemed to understand what she was trying to say however, and to the child's delight the older woman met her gaze. Inside their depths lay a deadly solemnity that the girl found briefly fascinating.

"I loved that sculpture-but that's nothing compared to how I feel about you. Ariadne, I love you."

The little girl stumbled backward, wishing that the scream locked in her chest could fly free. This was wrong; this was so very wrong…Grandma Isle would never say that. This had happened before…but Grandma had yelled at her, told her what a bad girl she was. This wasn't Grandma, it couldn't be; the child's small caramel eyes welled up with tears, the contained shriek slipping out as a transparent whisper: "You're not Grandma."

The older woman looked down on the child, her shadow seeming to claw at the girl's form as her silvery orbs winked maliciously.

"Good job, kid."

And then her Grandma was gone, her form disappearing down the dirt path…the little girl traced the leather boot imprints with her gaze, her lower lip trembling. The barn began vibrating again, the wood suddenly melting away into a thin, see-through material. A rush of wind snatched away the sun and the sky, the smell of a million libraries accompanying it as the wooden barn shifted into a paper structure…The paper was burning, flames licking and peeling away the walls that surrounded the girl, who just stood as everything fell to pieces. As the white overcame her vision she was very aware, for one brief second, of the needle-like feeling of a piece breaking away from a whole-and then she knew nothing.

It was the rumbling beneath Ariadne that made her eyes snap open-and then she felt sick. Rolling over Ariadne coughed openly, allowing her stomach to keep uselessly pumping for something to regurgitate. After a few minutes the sensation slipped away seamlessly, leaving her drained and muscles aching as if she had fallen…it was then that she noticed the black-top beneath her palms. The energy it had taken to not puke came out in short puffs as she pulled one hand away, palm-up, to her face; catching sight of the grit and scrapes on them she assumed she must have tripped.

It was with some severe struggle that she reached her feet and it was only then that she caught sight of her surroundings. Her chest began heaving, her eyes rapidly blinking in utter befuddlement; briefly she had a flashback to that one time she had fallen asleep in her architecture class only to wake up and have no earthly idea where she was. Ahead of her was a glimpse of an empty street, the bricks surrounding her slimy with mold, the moisture running down the walls contributed to the broken gutters that lined the tops of the buildings that made up the alley. Everything was drowning in shadow-the only illumination apparent lay in the sparkling, desolate concrete that made up the deserted road ahead.

Dread crept upon her with steady hands-it was dead silent, not a bird's song or car horn to be heard.

"Hello?"

Her breathy question simmered in the open for several, languid seconds-and then something moved. Out of the darkness near the mouth of the alleyway, a human slid out with reptilian like grace. Ariadne gasped aloud, envying the fluid movements as well as suffering from incredible, numbing fear. For you see, standing before her was Arthur from the Second Dream Level of Inception, the white button-up beneath his dark jacket resonating on corneas like a cave echo. He smirked at her with coal-black eyes before straightening his crimson tie.

"Hello, Ariadne."

Arthur woke up immediately, only allowing an intake of breath through his nose to calm him. Sitting up quickly he surveyed the team's whereabouts with walled off eyes. Everyone was awake (had he really been the last one to wake up?) and all crowded about one chair. His stomach retreated to his throat, trepidation haunting his leg muscles as he reached his feet. Stalking toward the surrounded chair he felt a terrifying familiar feeling that had not been lost on him since he had first experienced it a week ago when he'd received that cursed phone call…

Standing beside Yusuf at the head of the reclining lawn chair he found himself reeling for a half a second; indeed the architect lay before them, her head lolling to the side, her face pallid and lifeless. Cobb was at Ariadne's right in a chair, head in his hands as Lacey glowered down on him.

"How dare you accuse me of letting this happen to her! Why would I even-"

Cobb's head snapped up, as if what little patience he held to him had finally been wasted with her single comment. "What the hell is happening to her, Lacey? You didn't tell us that she wouldn't wake up!" He gestured sharply to the Architect's prone form and Lacey let out a withdrawn sigh before flipping her hair. Arthur, red tinting his vision, grabbed her shoulder forcefully, leaving finger prints on the pale skin there as she was forced to flip around and face him.

"I don't have time for your games-tell us what's going on with her. All of it, now."

Lacey rolled her eyes, huffing out: "What makes you guys think I-"

Arthur's shot his response out at point-blank, cutting her off completely.

"Don't play games. I know why you don't want her here and it's no secret to anyone else either."

Eames, who was at Cobb's left, looked up, his grave face an unusual appearance on him. "Tell the man, for God's sake. There's a life on the line."

Arthur's breath hitched; a life? He turned to Yusuf, as if for confirmation, his stomach immersing in frigid panic as Yusuf searched her limp wrist for a pulse.

"Her heart beat is much higher than normal…ninety one and climbing-at this rate she might have a stroke." Yusuf turned his scathing amber gaze onto Lacey-"You didn't warn us of these side affects."

"I didn't think it was important-she was the one who wanted to be the first of the team to be tested upon! She was the insane one who volunteered to have her memory erased first, not me!"

Arthur seemed hardly in control of anything anymore…pulling up a chair to the foot of Ariadne's chair he slipped out the red die, throwing it low and across the floor of the ware-house. It skidded on the concrete floor, rolling and rolling…

His aura boasted of effortlessness and borderline danger-it made her muscles ache to sprint but she was frozen like a deer in headlights. The glaringly obvious silence was absorbed by every hard surface, so obviously there and solid that, to her horror, he smirked, his eyes a sooty metallic in color.

"Did I scare you? I apologize."

Ariadne's muscles went on lock-down; oh, God, that had sounded exactly like Arthur. Her frozen position caused the iron in his eyes to fade away into a rare-seen reserved warmth. "I apologize; I had just been downtown looking up the mark…" His head leant toward the left as he eyed her up and down, caution strengthening in his gaze. He began to approach her reluctantly, hands lowered in a symbol of peace. "I'm not going to hurt you. You just woke up a few minutes ago in the warehouse and then ran…I guess you must have hurt yourself, judging by the cuts..." Ariadne watched him, her eyes never traveling away from his stoic features.

It was him. She had been foolish to think otherwise; after all, she always woke up dazed and taking a walk to clear her head after a dream was believable. And Arthur couldn't be expected to have a different outfit for every time she saw him-he most likely just happened to wear his current outfit without a single thought related to their one kiss. Though she was very aware of the memorable suit as he came closer, placing his hands on her shoulders.

His mint cool breath brushed her forehead as she gazed up at him, shivering; his expression was destitute save for the sympathy that lay behind the sheet of his chocolate irises. For a moment she comprehended nothing, save for them breathing in and out in the sheer quiet of the alley. She shut her eyes, briefly overwhelmed as his scent overcame her: his breath was mint, his clothes reeking of cleanliness…but deeper, at the skin, she could practically taste the musk on her tongue. Warmth and desire rippled through her, electricity shooting down her spine; she shivered in pleasure, biting down on her tongue as if to cut off the sensation.

"Ariadne…?" he whispered, his breath's featherlike warmth caressing her face…

It was then that she felt a sharp stab to her stomach, so abrupt and violent a moan fell off her lips as she stumbled backward and away from the Point-Man. Arthur's fingers slipped off of her shoulders, releasing her and allowing her to back-track until her spine jarred into a solid surface.

Black washed over her vision; for a fleeting moment she heard a bumbumbumbum pounding in the distance, loud and very palpable-and then he was there again.

"Are you alright?" As if a curtain had been pulled aside she could see him in front of her, much closer than before. They were chest to chest now, his body hard against every line of hers-a ripple of need nearly cut of her response.

"Fine." She huffed, trying to weave around him, only to find her back pressed against a wall; to her utter embarrassment her mistake had been in trying to escape, for in her attempt to do so their bodies had rubbed together in such a way that she tingled all over. She quit all attempts, vying instead with her eyes.

" I need some air, please, Arthur-"

"Do you really need some air?" His voice was a deadly quiet, as if it had killed off all other sound. He pressed in closer, till their faces were maybe two inches away. His eyes were a substantial charcoal, flames defiantly sputtering in them as he huskily murmured:

"Is that what you really want? For me to go away, for you to never get to know me like you so want to…"

The question might as well have been a Brazilian poison dart- it injected her with doubts, doubts she stubbornly, defiantly, not in this moment, wanted to answer.

"No-" Her reply was cut off as he put his arms on either side of her, his fingers digging into the brick as he gently bit the skin of her neck-her sigh shattered the silence to pieces, everything lost to the all consuming sensation. Shaking her head in denial scattered her thoughts, and in doing so, Ariadne caught a glimpse of clarity: Arthur didn't do this…but she was on fire, each butterfly bite he left behind leaking things back into her system.

Arthur didn't like her obviously, he had mentioned a professional relationship…there was something off. There was something…a shot, echoing in her mind, a half-remembered dream…

"Get aw-"she attempted to reach down and shove on his chest, panic flaring inside her with a devastating force; this wasn't Arthur. Unfortunately, her strength had little affect on him; to her horror he pulled away, his eyes alight with manic laughter as his eyes and hands trailed down to her throat.

"My dear…" his words were revoltingly soft as the bricks that made up the alley began to fall out, clay upon clay creating ear-splitting tremors.

His hands found the scarf around her neck, fingering the beading while her vision began to grow black, the sick to her stomach sensation and bumbumbum returning with a blast of calamity. She could still experience him though-could still see the pleasure he took in while seizing the ends of her scarf with savage hostility.

"You are too smart for your own good." He met her eyes one last time, the emotion reflecting in his orbs reminding her of the remains of a broken mirror. Without another word he tugged on each end of the scarf with a vicious amount of concentration-one moment her spine was bent backwards in her effort to breathe, throat burning as she begged and pleaded…

Black mirror shards and snide smiles were the last things she saw before everything rendered to inconsolable shadows.