Hey look, a reasonable length update (2,400 words). Isn't that wonderful.

Also, welcome to Rapture. Here's to new 'friendships'.

Chapter 4: Disoriented

At first the gentle humming of the vehicle convinced Fang he was back in the van, and while this made little sense his fuzzy brain refused to let him think about it. He lay on his front with his limbs splayed haphazardly around him, his now-healed cheek chilled from the cold metal he was lying against. He could feel the vehicle maneuvering but his eyes could not open, the neon green lighting blinding his brain with pain whenever they opened a slit.

The humming beneath his skin stopped. Almost immediately afterwards hinges creaked into life, the sound searing through his already-aching head. His eyes still closed, Fang levered himself to his knees, vaguely noticing that his hands were no longer bound. The green light flickered and died as the vehicle shut down, leaving the preteen in darkness.

Finally prizing his eyes open, Fang remained on all fours while he squinted into the black surroundings. He seemed to be in a small, circular pod a bit like a submarine, and could pick out the outline of a chair close by. Fighting through the fuzz around the edges of his brain, Fang took a hold of the chair in both hands and hauled himself to his feet, his legs feeling like jelly.

What the hell did they give me? Was the first coherent thought to cross his mind.

Beyond the chair was a dashboard covered in buttons, though they were all as dark and lifeless as the sub itself. Still gripping the chair, he was about to reach over and attempt to press some buttons to restart the pod when the door at the rear creaked and began to open slowly, a wave of orange light following the door as it made slow progress.

He squinted into the light, raising a hand to shield his eyes despite the shake in his legs. The musty smell of the sub finally registered to his senses, and for the first time his mind was clear enough to wonder where he was. His head thumping in rhythm with his heart, Fang took a step towards the opening door, curiosity over-ruling any uncertainty.

As his eyes adjusted to the orange light in the new room, he noticed that the lighting was actually very dim; large sections of the room remained in gloom despite the number of lights, and a few flickered on and off at inconsistent intervals. Finally feeling stable enough to let go of the chair, he took another step towards the room, resting a hand on the edge of the now open airlock.

It was at this point new smells assaulted his senses; a musty damp smell, mixed with the stale smell of urine, the irony tang of decay and the stink of faeces. Having grown up in the School surrounded by these smells, Fang could normally have stomached them and moved on.

But he was still recovering from heavy sedation. So instead, he vomited.

Once his chest was no longer heaving, Fang spat a mouthful of foul-tasting saliva on the floor, his eyes closed and an arm rested on the airlock for support. He couldn't remember the last time he'd physically been sick – he must have been a toddler – but he sure as hell didn't want to do that again anytime soon.

"Such a handsome boy," a high, wavering voice broke the silence. Fang snapped his head up in surprise, but there were no shapes in the gloom. For a moment he wondered if he'd imagined the voice, if he was going mad already, when what looked like a cloud of red dust flew across the room and suddenly formed a human shape barely an inch from him.

The surprise caused the preteen to stumble; he took a step backwards and fell over the edge of the sub's airlock, landing with a dull thud on the metal floor behind him, legs splayed over the lip. Not only had something just appeared from nowhere, but it smelled atrocious, and the way it was studying him made him nervous.

The creature appeared to be female, based on her attire; a white calf-length dress torn and ripped in various placed, drowned in stains varying from almost black to a fresh blood-red, the iron-scented nature of which left no doubt in Fang's mind that it certainly was blood.

She tilted her wicker-masked face to the side, a slight twitch in her neck, before bending over and running a dirty hand over the boy's face. Her movements were swift and snake-like, almost enchanting to behind. The boy didn't move, somewhere between fear and curiosity, his mouth slightly open as her fingers traced his jawline. "My Simon was this handsome," she continued, her voice high and sorrowful. "But I was right. Yes. I was right. He made such a wonderful barbecue."

Her other hand spontaneously burst into flame, and Fang finally moved.

Planting his feet squarely in her chest, he kicked out with all his might, sending the women screaming in an arch across the room. She threw the fireball with an angered yell, but Fang rolled out of the way, hearing the cold metal of the sub sizzle where his head had been moments before as he scrambled to his feet.

Still pressed up against the wall of the docking bay, Fang scoured the shadows for the woman with his raptor vision, but again he could see no-one. His heart in his throat, he turned his attention to the debris on the floor, searching for anything useful; a hiding place, a weapon, some painkillers to settle the thumping in his head would have been nice too.

Then there was a cackle of laughter and, looking up, Fang was an oddly organised cloud of dust flying straight for him. Making a split-second decision he sprinted for an overturned table, for all the good an already-charred piece of wood would do against fireballs, and ducked behind it.

Somewhere beyond his hiding place, the creature whimpered. "Where did we go wrong, Simon?" The voice was sorrowful, almost human, but tainted with a hint of insanity, the high wavering voice mimicking that of a lost child. "Can you hear the music?" She asked into a room silent except for Fang's heavy breaths. "We could dance, you and I. Dance into the moonlight."

His back up against the overturned table, Fang's eyes finally fell on something useful; a splintered piece of wood as long as his forearm, charred but still solid. He lurched from his hiding place to snatch it without thinking, feeling instantly more secure now he had a weapon in his grasp.

Then the woman materialised inches in front of him again, bent over him as if curious, a foot firmly planted on the weapon he had revealed himself to grab. He gave it a tug, but his strength was absent without leave; it moved half an inch under her weight before his drugged body lost momentum. "You naughty boy," she berated him, swaying a finger as if he were a naughty child. Her other hand caught on fire again, so close it singed his eyebrows. "Now stay still."

Bang

Blood peppered Fang's upturned face. The woman swayed, her eyes rolling up to glance at the hole in her forehead. A tiny trickle of blood began to meander down her brow before the flame on her hand extinguished, and she fell to the ground, her body falling as if made of gelatine.

It was at this point Fang realised how heavily he was breathing, his chest heaving under his shirt, but he could not compel himself to take control of it. He just lay there, staring at the corpse, his hand still lightly grasping the wooden stake despite the slight shake that had begun flowing through his fingers and his eyes wide.

What the fuck is going on? The thought was more of a scream, his mind in turmoil. His mind decided now was a good time to begin to clear, allowing to comprehend the dead body before him with his full processing power.

When a shadow fell across him a minute or so later, the preteen flicked his head around so sharply to look at the newcomer it made the muscles in his neck ache. What he saw did little to lower his adrenaline levels.

The man holding the gun was grotesque; it was the only description that came to Fang's mind. He was at least six and a half feet tall, possibly more, with soft downy blonde hairs covering all of the body that was exposed, including his arms and face. His features looked male, but they were distorted, as if instead of growing up a child's face had been stretched across a man's proportions. The fingers of the hand holding a pistol possessed half-inch claws.

After a fire-throwing woman, a wolf-man seemed tame to Fang. Without looking away from the man he scrambled about for the wooden stake before holding it aloft in both hands before him, setting his face as impassively as possible and hoping his eyes had finally returned to their normal size.

To both his annoyance and his surprise, the man didn't seem to take this threat seriously; he glanced from the stake to the child holding it, then simply walked around them as he tucked his gun back in his belt. Fang followed him by swivelling on his backside, weapon still raised in the man's direction, as he made his way around the preteen and knelt down next to the dead woman.

Then, he began to go through her pockets. While Fang slowly lowered the wooden pole back to the floor he extracted a prep bar and a med kit, which he stuffed into the pockets of his worn jeans, then stood back up. Without a backwards glance at the kid, he moved to leave the room, as casual as if he were about to go out for dinner on a Friday night.

"Wait," Fang shouted after the man, and when that elicited no response he scrambled to his feet and ran after him, bare feet splashing in God-only-knows what as he closed the distance between them. Even then he didn't response but kept walking, pausing only to begin forcing a large metal wheel on a door open.

Stopping next to him, Fang glanced back at the now motionless woman. "Was she even human?" The question wasn't really aimed at anyone, but he felt the man shrug while he hauled the metal wheel around, hearing the grinding of metal on rust. He looked back at the man as he pulled the door open and stepped through. With nowhere else to go, Fang slipped through with him. "Are there more of them? Where are we?"

With that the man rounded on Fang, a hand splayed and aimed for his throat. Ducking, the preteen landed on all fours with his hands splayed, rebalancing his weight before rotating to swipe his legs through those of the wolf-man. The man saw it coming, jumping over the assault, which gave Fang time to roll to the side and regain his feet, a leg set forwards and one set back in the fighting stance he'd learned during Combat Experiments.

The man pivoted on his feet to face him, his fists raised to his chest, but upon seeing the kid in a combat pose he seemed to relax a little, the fists falling to waist-height as he eyes Fang up. Finally, he dropped his hands to his sides, relaxing his fingers, but not closing the distance between them. "How old are you, kid?"

"Fifteen," Fang lied using the age he'd heard the white coats using when discussing his development, still holding his fighting stance despite his opponent's relaxed pose. He ignored the pounding in his ears that signified his headache was still hanging on, even if he felt better elsewhere.

The distorted man seemed to ponder this for a minute. "Where were those moves when the splicer was taking you down?"

Splicer? He wondered, coming to the conclusion he meant the deranged woman from the room before. "I'd just woken up," he decided to be truthful this time, given it was the most reasonable explanation for his physical dullness. "I was drugged. It had only just begun to wear off."

He seems to process this information too before closing the distance between them, clapping a hand on Fang's shoulder and spinning him to face the door on the opposite side of the room. "Do you even know where you are?" He asked, his gruff voice smelling vaguely of mint, as if he hadn't brushed his teeth for years then ate a tic-tac to cover it.

When the preteen shook his head, a grin spread across the man's face that Fang immediately didn't trust, though he couldn't place if it was the nature of the grin or the distortion of the face that made it so. "Well then," the man added, tightening his hand on Fang's shoulder until his claws dug into the cloth of his shirt. "You stick with me kid, and I'll teach you everything you need to know about surviving here. But after I'll need a favour from you, got it?"

Fang glanced down at the floor, considering his options. Given his first encounter with a 'splicer', as this guy called them, if he tried to go solo he would probably end up dead in a matter of days even if his mind were fully functional. The idea of owing this stranger something didn't appeal to him either, but at least he would remain alive long enough to learn what he needed to know. After that, he could ditch the mutant, go solo and hope for the best.

He looked back up at the man, his face still set impassive. "You got a deal. And it's Fang, not kid."

The mutant's smile grew wider, and possibly crueler, but his claws removed themselves from the boy's shirt so the man could give him a playful slap on the back. "That's the spirit, kid. Oh sorry, Fang." He held out a hand to shake with the preteen, the grin never sliding from his face as they sealed the deal.

"You can call me Ari."