Chapter 14: Bad sacrifice
By morning, Luna had awoken from the sedatives and Rose decided to feed her breakfast to try and get her accustomed to being treated with kindness. I awoke to the smell of scrambled eggs and bacon and fresh brewed herbal tea and coffee. I followed the scent of the meal, feeling hungry myself, all the way to the living room. I entered the kitchen and made my way to the refrigerator and fetched myself a glass of milk. After drinking it all up, I whipped my mouth of the excess and met Luna in the living room where Luna was being hand-fed by Rose. She was being surprisingly cooperative and simply ate up the eggs and bacon, acting like she was cherishing every bite. She caught a glimpse of me from the corner of her eye and turned her attention to me. "Hey mom, these eggs are delicious. You should try some!" She said to me with enthusiasm and wonder in her voice. I was completely surprised by her reactions. It was as if she had never tasted this kind of food before. "I already have." I hesitantly said to her. "And you can stop calling me 'mom' I'm only eighteen." I then added. Luna seemed slightly disappointed until I suggested, "I don't mind 'sister' though." She perked up with a smile and responded, "Ok, sis!"
I then heard Eric enter the room still half asleep. His face looked like it could concave in on itself, he looked so bad. His hair was messed up and he even hung himself with very little strength. "Rough night?" I asked him, lightly worried. He slowly nodded his head in confirmation. "I kept waking up last night thinking that she had gotten loose and was going to kill us in our sleep." He groggily stated, turning his gaze at Luna. I simply rolled my eyes at how silly this was becoming and assured him, "She wouldn't kill you in your sleep. I'm her target after all. She'd probably just snatch me and run." He shifted his gaze to me as I spoke and shifted his gaze back to Luna, who was giving him an innocent angel look while chewing on a mouthful of eggs. He turned back and headed to the shower to refresh himself after failing to process the events that just occurred. "Wow! You really are a direct copy of me. Same charisma." I blurted out, surprised. She simply smiled at me while continuing to chew on her food.
She finished her meal and Rose then taught both Luna and I to cook for ourselves. I wound up cooking myself eggs and breakfast sausages. Of course Luna had some of my sausages and she enjoyed the taste of them. Throughout the rest of the day, she accompanied us into the glen. There she began asking me questions about it, such as, "So is this where you used to live?", "Which one of these was your room?", and "How many other gummi bears lived here?" Most of her questions were hard to answer, like, "So what happened to the rest of them?" She almost caused me to break down one again, but I had to keep it together. Finally, we made it to the quick tunnels and she was completely blown away from all of the work we had accomplished. Rather than the original look of the tunnels, the rails had been covered with a metal lining as well as the quick cars had been equipped with small wheels to decrease tension and increase speed. The brake of the car had also been reinforced for precautions and the car was also given a small electric engine so it could literally propel itself along the tracks. It was powered by energy collected from Rose's power cell. While Luna was still amazed, she felt as if she had forgotten something. Suddenly the image of the melted clone quickly flashed before her in her mind and she suddenly became afraid once more. However, she was now at war with herself, 'These people have been so nice to me and daddy has been so mean, but I don't wanna get turned into a pile of slag. What should I do?' She fought with herself for two hours while Eric and I continued working on the tunnel paths. The area just ahead of us had completely collapsed and Eric searched around for supplies that he could use to build a support sturdy enough to support the great speeds.
As she continued to debate with herself, a shadow crept up behind her and a frightening familiar voice spoke out, "Ho, ho! So this is Gummi Glen?" Dr. Lavender stated excitedly. Luna shot herself around to look at the owner of the scary voice and screamed the moment she saw his face. We also shot around the moment we heard her scream out like that. I noticed that he had a syringe in his lab coat pocket of what looked like some kind of goldish-green liquid. He pulled it out, holding it in his right hand and said to the little clone, "Thank you for leading me to her. Your purpose here is done." Luna's eyes widened and her pupils shrank in fear. She then began trying to use her legs to slide herself backward away from the insane doctor, his sinister grin saying that he was going to inject her with whatever that was, and that it was going to kill her. "Luna!" I yelled and ran as fast as I could to try and save her from him. I was almost too late as her reared the hand that held the syringe and lunged it at her. She rolled away to dodge and he missed completely. "Sit still you little..." Before he could finish his sentence, I tackled him at the side, causing him to drop the syringe and allowing it to shatter on the ground of the quick tunnels. The goldish-green liquid splashed on the ground and began eating away at the stone ground. "An acid based reduction process!" Eric called out in surprise. "You stupid creature! Do you know what would have happened if that had splashed on you?" Isaac yelled at me and grabbed me by the collar of the tunic. "Sunni!" Eric yelled and tried to proceed to charging at the mad scientist. "Hold it right there!" He demanded, snatching a scalpel from the same lab coat pocket that held the syringe. "Don't move or we'll all see what color her blood is right here, right now." He gave a curious grin from ear to ear as he made his demands, as if it wouldn't bother him to dissect me right now. Of course, Eric stopped in his tracks and began worrying for my ultimate safety.
"How did you find us, anyway?" I asked struggling to keep the blade of the scalpel from slashing my throat. "An interesting little detail that I'll gladly clear up for you." He cackled. "On the back of that abomination's jacket collar happens to be a micro transmitter. I simply followed it the moment her movements stopped for long enough to be considered at least stalking you, and here I am! Now, I'll be taking her back to my laboratory and none of you will follow or pursue. It doesn't matter anyway. She'll be dissected by tomorrow and both Igthorn and I'll both have what we want." He cackled insanely. "What do you mean by that?" Eric demanded his question to be answered. Isaac simply smiled harder, his eyebrows lowering to match his level of insanity. "You mean you don't know? Igthorn knows of your existence and set up a search and destroy party to eliminate you once and for all. In fact, they already know where you are! Before I entered the glen, I transmitted your coordinates anonymously! He wants you dead! But I can't have them simply drop a two thousand pound bomb on you now can I? So I'll be taking you away, they will be erased from existence and now since the failed experiment had survived, they'll believe that her body will be yours! And I'll be long gone with you in tow. You'll be my greatest discovery yet. Once I dissect you, you will be dead! And I can poke around and study you as much as I want!"
"You talk too much Isaac!" Rose suddenly said from behind him. Dr. Lavender turned around just to have a shovel smash him in the face, hard. The force caused him to drop me to the ground as well as his scalpel and I scrambled to get away from the madman. Isaac stumbled backward and grasped his now broken nose in agony and furious anger. "You bitch!" He exclaimed and then reached down to his left hip with his left hand, drew a nine millimeter handgun from a holster under his lab coat and aimed it at Rose. He then proceeded to shout at her, "I will not be denied the knowledge. I will complete my research!" As he finished his little rant, he pulled the trigger of the gun, firing a bullet at her. The bullet struck her in the right shoulder and she was thrown into a spiral from the impact. Rose impacted with the ground on her left side and began screaming in pain from the wound. In the meantime, Luna, who was still tied up for our safety, found a means of freeing herself by locating a piece of metal lying on the ground and rubbing it against the ropes until they snapped. She then proceeded to stand up to run away from the insane doctor and the fight until something in her very being stopped her from doing so. It was a strange feeling, like something that she had longed for in something completely different.
Isaac aimed the gun at me, "You'll still be coming with me gummi bear. Get over here now!" He ordered. I didn't budge. He then relaxed his expression, "He, he, he! That's right. I'm pushing the wrong pressure points." And before anyone could even think, he quickly aimed the gun at Eric and pulled the trigger. The bullet that exited the barrel of the gun struck him in the upper right leg and he collapsed to the ground gripping it. "Eric!" I gasped. I started to run to him to aid in his wounds until, Dr. Lavender shouted, "Enough! Either you come with me, or you can say 'good by' to your human companion. Quite frankly this relationship is an abomination in itself." "How did you..." I started to ask until he interrupted me, "Again, I, in my limitless knowledge, picked up on the way you two looked at each other and worried about each other as you were held captive in my grip. It's disgusting. You, such a marvelous creature, pairing up with a lowly human commoner. Now if you don't come with me, he dies!" His voice continued to become more and more irate as he spoke.