RAINFALL || [c. snow]

x

❝LIFE IS A GAME. AND I'VE ALREADY TAUGHT YOU HOW TO PLAY❞ 

𓆩⟡𓆪

[Two Years Prior]

THE COLD AIR sent shivers down her spine as her hands carefully lifted the dropper. "Remember, just a single drop," Dr. Gaul instructed from a distance as she stood behind the protective glass separating them. Even while divided by a barrier, Dolores still felt herself tense from the heat of the doctor's piercing gaze, almost as if watching for every twitch of her body and every fated mistake.

Dolores ordered her hands to cease its trembling as she peered into the glass tube in her other hand, the bluish gray chemical bubbling. Silently, she lowered the tip of the pipette below the rim, pushing her face close but not too close in order to precisely allow one drop to make contact.

The liquid swelled, bubbling and rising to the brim. It secreted a colorless smoke, floating out of its container and washing over her hands. The material of the gloves tight against her skin shifted, tightening and eventually, consumed by the chemical. An icy chill pierced through her hands, a sudden, jolting pain that caught her off guard. Glass shattered against the floor.

"Again," Dr. Gaul clicked her tongue with disapproval. "You held it wrong."

"How so?" Dolores uttered through gritted teeth, gripping her own shaking hand to relieve the burning sensation within her skin. The smoke overflowed the container no matter how she turned it. "You don't allow me to use the lab equipment to hold it in place. Why?"

"Because for a creation to be truly successful, you must feel its pain."

First it was Professor Demigloss nitpicking every little thing in her warfare essay, and now Dr. Gaul. The stinging pain of her hands certainly didn't contribute to her unsteady emotions as well. She rolled her eyes, "I've already felt the pain, isn't this enough?" It was bad enough that she had to skip almost the entirety of her lunch each day just for her mentor to pester her within this lab.

"Enough?" Dr. Gaul's eyes narrowed, "You call this enough?" Anger flashed across her face. "When I say 'again', I mean 'again', Ms. Imber."

"I've perfected it, have I not? To reach the exact effects you demanded it do."

She held her piercing gaze firmly for a few seconds before Dr. Gaul laced her nimble fingers together, "Very well. Test it, then. But mark my words, it is nothing of perfection."

"Only when it is tried can it take a closer step towards perfection," Dolores argued, joining her mentor behind the protective glass barrier. Her hands fluttered over the control panel, watching as a metal panel rose from the floor.

"No."

"No?" She tilted her head, confused.

"You test with something different this time." Instead of the metal, a coiled serpent rose on a pedestal, centered in a tight fitting cage. Its scales were stunning, gleaming below the lab lights. Its fork tongue flicked indignantly while its golden eyes stared into her's. "Alive."

"That's against the lab protocol."

"I write the lab protocol, Mr. Imber."

Dolores gulped, her gaze flitting between her mentor and the snake. It watched her back, the blackness of its eyes cold against her skin. This was a test, like many before, and she could not afford to falter.