Ever since I've started dreaming I've never dreamed of, y'know normal things. My mind does what it wants when I'm asleep, it travels to animal bodies. So when I saw a huge golden chandelier, a monkey in a nurse's uniform, fluffy golden pillows and art that looked like it was painted by Leonardo da Vinci, it would be my first normal dream EVER.
The monkey started hopping on my bed and chanted, "Bananas! She's awake! Bananas! She's awake! "
I looked down at the awfully comfortable sheets then to marble floor and the huge-ass wood doors. I had been kidnapped! Was my first thought.
"Hey where the heck am I? " I asked the monkey, standing.
He stopped hopping and arched a brow. "Home."
He suddenly glanced at the floor and then back at me, an evil look on his furry face. "Right, forgive me my lady but my master ordered me to do this. "
"Do what? "
"This."
I don't remember how it happened but my chin hit the floor and my hands were restrained to my back.
"What?!" I screeched. "Oh I'm dead aren't I, and this is the after life, where monkeys know karate! "
The huge wooden doors opened and Matt stepped in.
I struggled. "Oh my goodness Matt! You're dead too?! "
He laughed and instructed the monkey to let me go.
I stood, rubbing chin. "What happened, are we actually dead? But what am I wearing—I thought we wore the clothes that we died in. " I had on those hospital gowns patients wore.
Emi then walked through the door too. She had tears in her eyes, but she grinned when she saw me. "Rayne! "
"Okay, okay, monkey, fluffy bed, hospital gown, chandelier... " I couldn't hear myself anymore, I looked at the monkey to Matt to Emi and then to the sky. "I didn't know people could faint in heaven." And then I fell.
I woke up. Finally. The walls were white and my team stood around looking worried. At least my outfit finally fit the environment. When I sat forward they ran for me.
"Are you okay? " Emi asked.
"How's the head? " Matt asked.
"I knew you'd be fine" Flora said, sounding more worried than relieved.
Connor stood off to the side, with a melancholy smile on his face.
I laughed and an instant migraine came over me. My head hit the pillow again and my friends murmured, their faces blurred.
"I had the weirdest dream guys" I mumbled, "there was this ninja monkey nurse—"
The ninja monkey nurse walked through the door with a lady in a lab coat.
My brain pinged. "Oh sweet little fire flies, and carrot cakes, butter cream and the smell of grass."
"Is she alright? " Connor asked, brows furrowed as he listed his head.
"She's fine. Telepaths can have bad migraines when they overuse their abilities, " The doctor lady said, "and sometimes they do that."
"... Cassava pudding, and blue giants, fish bait, and salty sweet potatos... " I went.
"Just talk to her, she'll be back to her normal self in no time. "
The monkey stared at me and I stared back. "I'm real, " He said.
"So, uh, Rayne you passed out at the zoo and then we brought you here to Matt's place, " Emi explained. She held my hand as I spouted nonsense.
"Matt, lives in a hospital? " I muttered.
Emi snorted like that was ridiculous, which it was. "Not even, did you know breezy is filthy rich."
"Potato tomato, apple pie, battery acid, and cats..."
"Normal stuff, " Connor said, "uh your siblings went home. They're safe and unharmed. "
"zoooo..." I drawled.
"The zoo animals are fine, " Flora said, "When you calmed them they walked right back into their cages. And the dinosaur—"
"Is perfectly fine, " Emi chimed in, holding up a piggybank.
"Flying pigs, and scary pots, diamond fart and kale eggs."
"She's gone mental! Simone, you said she'd be fine! " Matt sighed.
The doctor rolled her eyes and noted something on her clip board. "Let her rest."
"Okay fine we'll leave, Connor you tell her the plan. "
"What—plan? " I looked to Connor for an answer.
He smiled gingerly and put a hand on my shoulder. "You should rest first. "
"I'm perfectly fine. Promise, now tell me." I sat up and I felt like my brain juices shook. I tried not to let it show but Connor frowned and his grip tightened around my shoulder.
"We, well, Matt's bulldog is sick—kind off, and we decided we were going to take him to the vet and ask around."
"Good plan, " I mumbled, and looked around. "Where's the monkey? "
"We can do that tomorrow, you can rest for now. "
I pulled my blanket off weakly. "I don't want to sleep my head hurts. "
Connor regarded me an emotion I couldn't comprehend flickering in his eyes. He grabbed my wrist before my feet touched the floor. "I don't want you getting hurt."
I looked back at him sleepily. "My brothers put you up to this, didn't they?"
He bristled and dropped my hand. I smiled and was going to say that's alright but he beat me to it. "You're my team mate, of course I'd be worry about you. "
I laughed and pat his back. "Thanks captain. "
But for some odd reason I wanted him to say no. I wanted him to say he did it because he wanted too. Ugh dreams.
I pushed past him to the door. When I opened it, I felt like I was dreaming. If there's one word I could've said when my jaw dropped it was, "expensive". Floor to ceiling gold, chandeliers and pottery and paintings that looked like they cost more than my life. Emi, Matt and Flora sat on a large sofa, where they ate sandwiches from chinaware plates that looked old and expensive, as they watched TV from a humongous TV set.
"Mumble tumble weed and dried chicken biscuits—"
The monkey handed me a sandwich and shook me by the arm. "Stop it, you weird animal child."
I accepted the sandwich and stuffed my face like a drunk idiot. "Hey, can I have your black belt, " I asked the monkey in between bites of the delicious bread and jam.
The monkey seemed to contemplate this. His lips curled but finally he ripped off his black belt from his nurse uniform and handed it to me. I smiled, mouth still full of expensive sandwich, and tied it around my hospital gown.
Connor watched me from the side, frowning and cringing.
"Where's the mutt! " I called, and my other team mates turned to see me in a black belt and hospital gown.
Before any of them could react to my outfit something round came striding down the hallway. It looked like a meat ball, but also a potato.
"Meet Sir Edward the fifth! " Matt announced.
"Of course his name is Edward, " Emi mumbled.
"Mama Matt! " The bulldog exclaimed as he ran (or well attempted to) to Matt.
"He thinks you're his mama, " I whispered to Matt. He didn't seem to hear me because he lifted the pug to his chest, struggling to hug the obese thing.
➷
"Well, I'm gonna be frank because its for his best. He needs to go on a diet," Dr Marda said, a scary smile on her wrinkly face. When I first saw her, I thought she was a zombie scientist who lived with dead animals but she gave me candy and my mushy brain couldn't help but love her.
"You can't be frank, Dr Murder, that's my grandfather," I muttered as I stroked Matt's obese dog.
The vet looked at me funny then cracked a smile. "You kids been doing stuff you shouldn't be doing? "
"Stuff? " I said, "nope! "
"She's a little—" Connor circled his finger beside his head and grinned.
"Anyways, uh Doctor Marda we were hoping you could consult us, " Emi started.
"Oh yeah um, lay off the fatty food. Two meals a day—"
"No uh we mean—you hear of the giant snake attack last week? " Matt asked.
Dr Marda nodded knowingly and took a seat on her stool. "Don't worry about it kids, HIT took in the snake and I hear she's fine. "
"You work for HIT? " Connor said.
"I have my connections. " She smiled. "Why? What's got kids like you five so curious about that incident?"
"Curiosity, " Emi answered. "So uh, these mutations, how do they work? "
"Well mutations have always been around naturally. Everyone has at least a few mutations in them, the least dangerous kinds of courses. Think of mutations as grammar mistakes, you add or remove a word, you reverse the letters in the sentence or you make spelling mistakes, the sentence hardly makes sense, looses meaning or means something else. Think of DNA as the sentences. DNA is the information that our cells use to function. It's quite complex but to put it simply, the dangerous kind are rare. "
"Could we control them or create mutations? "
"Can we cure cancer? " Dr Marda seemed to enjoy talking to us. "We try. Even healers have difficulty in that area. Nature is inevitable. We have 'mutated' a few plants, simple modifications, nothing too disastrous. I haven't heard of any animal experiments, until this. It's more than just injecting a drug into their bodies, this is breaking down the molecular structure of DNA and rearranging it. This person is well versed in the study of biology."
"Why do you think, someone would want to intentionally mutate animals or people? " Flora, who had been sitting quietly beside me and Edward, said.
"Who said anything about it being intentional? " The vet gave an eerie smile and the pug became uneasy, making me uneasy. "Well that's to say that someone said anything about it. Things go wrong in experiments. Test subjects are hurt, most times they die. "
"It was intentional, " I said and I was surprised I could still form coherent sentences. "They hurt innocent children, they made them test subjects. And it was successful. "
The old woman studied me carefully then nodded, like she understood.
"Who... Who do you think is behind this? " Connor asked.
Dr Marda looked fascinated. "Someone who knows their way around a lab, works with animals, someone smart and ambitious, and someone who would cross the boundry of good into evil without batting an eye."
Whoever he was, he most probably worked in the zoo and liked jazz music.
(A/n: this was long and weird and annoying. Also don't take the info on mutations too seriously, I'm no professional 😅)