SHIFTER ─ marvel

XIII. The Laboratory Part 2

Chapter Thirteen
Soroya

The trip to Becker's lab took so much less time with the ship. I remember the long plane and taxi rides we had to take to get here, as well as the facade we had to keep up in order to stay alive. It's crazy to think all of that happened nine years ago.

We walk away from our ship and towards the abandoned warehouse that houses the lab. Alex looks around really confused as we make our way through the grassy plain.

"Where's the lab?"

I gesture with my head to the warehouse. "It's beneath this. There's a button in here that opens up a stairwell into the ground."

Alex shakes his head. "Why couldn't they have picked a nicer location? This doesn't scream 'I'm a mad scientist!Fear me!'."

I turn my head and give him an obvious look. "That was the point. They didn't want to be discovered."

As we enter into the warehouse, Alex and I both begin to cough, finding even more dust here than there was last time. It's making my senses go ballistic. I tell my suit to activate and I shift into an owl, just as I did last time. I fly over towards where the switch is and use my beak to flip it. I shift back into a human, looking down at the staircase.

"The stairway is open." I tell them, hearing footsteps as they make their way over. I know Alex doesn't want to bother shifting, so he just follows my scent to find where I am. Bucky follows closely behind him.

Alex is the first to go down the stairs, and before Bucky follows after him, he smiles at me. "You changed into an owl the last time we were here."

I let out a chuckle. "I remember sitting on your shoulder as we descended the stairs."

As we make our way down, I can hear Alex saying; "You know, most couples get nostalgic over the place they had their first date, or their first kiss. But you two get nostalgic over a secret Russian science lab you raided once. I stand by my statement earlier that you two are like a soap opera."

I roll my eyes, slightly annoyed it's too dark for him to see me to do it. "If I want an opinion on my relationship, I'll ask for it, Alex."

"I've never been one to wait for permission to give my opinions."

I scoff, finding the light switch on the wall and flipping it on. "I got that. Can you hold your opinions long enough to search the lab?"

He shrugs. "I'll try my best."

Walking through this lab again brings me major dé jà vu. The lab looks exactly as it had nine years ago, perhaps maybe with more dust and even dimmer lights than last time. And like last time, I feel oddly exposed in this room. All I can think of is the scientists scurrying around this lab, making the serum that altered my life forever. I can see them standing over a picture of me, picking me as one of their targets. I can see Emma Becker's face as she prepares the serums to be given to each test subject. Those poor test subjects who died brutal deaths, leaving me as the only survivor.

I try not to think of those other test subjects. All those innocent children that died, all in the most painful manner possible. Their bodies broken, their lives ripped away before they could ever truly live...