The Dark Within Us || Loki Laufeyson

7 ~ Earthlings

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For a long time, nothing happened. The other prisoners were silent, either awake or sleeping. The man next to me and I didn't speak and while I hesitated to open my mouth, he didn't seem in the mood to start a conversation anyways. Actually, he never seemed in the mood for anything.

I had started to play with the loose strings of my shirt. I, as the bloody tosser I was, had torn it even more in my sleep and was now left with a big cut in the white fabric and little threads hanging from it. If this was how eternity should be spent in this place...

Then I heard footsteps. I immediately raised my chin to watch who it was, but all of the others didn't even blink at the sound. Two guards appeared from the floor above us, stopping right before my cell. Without a word, they opened the barrier and gestured for me to step outside. I did.

They didn't put anything around my wrists. They didn't even put their hands on my shoulders to lead me. What was going on?

I saw my neighbour looking at me, his eyes roaming from my toes to my face and back. Before I allowed my face to turn red for the way he watched me, we had already passed him and headed up the stairs.

After a few turns in the hallways I lost track of where we were. My mind wandered off to the strange man at least a few times, but I tried to focus on where I was actually going. I hadn't eaten yet, so that was a possibility. Maybe a chance to clean myself up.

Then we arrived at a door. It was strange seeing such a regular thing in front of me, since every aspect of this world seemed to be new in some way. One of the guards opened it, revealing quite a small room. It was rather dark, and besides a few tables on the sides the only interesting object in the room was a large platform. On each short side of it, two thin poles reached from the ground to the ceiling.

A woman approached me.

"If you would follow me."
I did as I was told without a word, and she laid me down on the platform. I rested my head on the uncomfortable metal, and while she messed with something I didn't understand, I studied her.

The effects of aging could be clearly found on her shaped face, but she looked mesmerising nonetheless. Her brown hair was neatly put up, and her blue clothes reflected her pale skin perfectly.

Then, suddenly, the platform beneath me lit up in a bright white colour, and something above me appeared too. The woman had turned on—what now appeared to be—a machine of some sorts, and orange sand-like particles floated above me. It moved around as if it were liquid, strings connecting from the poles next to my head to the ones at my feet. Then a replica of my body melted together. I gaped at it.

The woman went to work. Multiple others, whom I now guessed to be some sort of nurses, stood by her and watched her movements. Her hands were controlling the form, it's colours changing to red and yellow and back to orange again.

"What is this?"
I questioned.

"A soul forge. It may help us reveal more about your form."
She went quiet after that, and I didn't dare interrupt her again. Maybe this is what Odin meant when he said they would experiment on me; I hoped it was.

After she switched out with a couple of other women, showing them things and whispering to them, most of the others left the room. There were now only four of us left, from who two other nurses watched silently from the side. The woman continued to move around with her hands, and I genuinely questioned if this was going to help me. Then her eyes widened.