The Turned [Book #1 Turned Trilogy]

Showdown

            |Erik|

            “Hurry up and implant the device, idiot!”

            There are multiple voices coming from every angle of my body, each whispering sound, different from one another. Monotone, deep, pitched. This must be another dream...Thinking to myself. My thoughts are just audible to understand clearly enough.

            “Why do I feel so... numb?”

            Realizing this time I am speaking out loud. People gasp around me in bewilderment. One of them in a white lab coat, reels around my head and peers down into my eyes.

            “He’s awake, hurry! Grab the anesthesia and put him out immediately!” The person peering over me speaks quickly and nervously. I can barely make notice if they are female or male, because my head feels bleary.

            Reaching my right arm into the air, I check to see if I can latch onto something or someone, but immediately I am restrained to the bed by a dozen – if not more – arms and wild hands.

            “No!” My voice is rising, sounding muffled and nervous. I try to sit up, but numerous hands pull me back down again. I kick and yelp like a caged dog, “Who are you people!?”

            Strange voices swirl around my head; positive I hear another language, which I do not understand. Jerking my body around, continuing to yell to gain their attention.

            "What are you saying?” Squirming, tilting my head left, then right, “I don't understand this language!"

            Fight or flight instincts activate, my need to escape becomes all too real. They grab hold my legs and arms, my only choice is to lay in defeat as they strap my body to the bed. My head feels like a hammer is pounding a steel nail into it, and the quick movements aren’t helping. I wince in pain–squeezing my eyelids shut.

            An object punctures my neck. Continuing to mutter protests, the feeling of something entering my blood flows with a burning sensation. Slowly, everything begins to feel calmer. People and devices inside the room zoom in and out, gradually fading.

            A raspy voice from one of the people in the lab coats whispers, “This one’s a fighter.” I look next to them only out of the corner of my eye; nodding their head in agreement, a person says: “Yep, no doubt he’ll be a true leader to the New Army.”

            My eyes feel glued shut by an unbeatable force. My heart races rapidly, and my mouth feels like cotton balls are packed inside it, as though I just got a tooth pulled out. I feel like my body is submerged in water and my head is the only thing that is breaking surface. My arms and legs float effortlessly on the surface of the water and the core of my body barely hits the surface below it. I cannot fathom what is happening to me. These changes occurring, is as though these people are trying to change me into something else, inhuman. I have this one emotion running through my head and all I can feel is...is anger. Rage. Yes...rage...I am so pissed, I want to explode in rage and take a human neck in my hands until they lay limp on the floor, bleeding slowly. I want to fight until I am successful in my quest and mostly, I want to kill anything that crosses my path.

            Feels like hours pass, since I last saw the white lab coat people. I raise my head up enough to get a look around at my surroundings. I have to deal with the sharp pains of the tubing that runs through my arms and legs, in which it is pumping some unknown solution into them. I try to keep my eyelids open to catch a glimpse, and then I notice with disbelief, that I'm the only lab rat.