Well hello there my awfully loyal fans ;D You make me so happy :P
This is a super early upload for me, bearing in mind I upload on Fridays, but I had written and finished it surprisingly early. So to keep you entertained and off my tail until Friday when I'll go back to normal, here it is....
.....enjoy :) xx
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The most powerful shock I had ever been given coursed through my body, lighting my nerves on fire. It felt like someone was kicking and punching me, over and over again. A raw, half-animal-half-human scream escaped my lips. My claws scraped across the tile floor as I tried to grab onto something, anything, that would stop the pain. My vision kept blurring and flickering as my brain blanked.
As quickly as the tremendous pain had come, it was gone. My muscles slacked.
“Now,” he commanded sternly, “Do as I say and shift.”
I had no control over my body at all. Nothing seemed connected. I couldn’t force my fuzzy brain to let him know that I’d given in and I’d do as he wanted. I wasn’t strong enough to hold out against pain like this. Another shock jolted through me and I screamed again, curling up into a ball. Please make it stop, I whispered to myself. My veins were burning. Everything was burning. Pain everywhere.
“Stop! Stop doing that!” a male voice shouted through the fuzz. Sole’s son? I couldn’t even tell.
“I will when she learns her lesson,” the scientist replied in far too calm a tone for what he was doing to me.
Another voice joined in. “You’re going to kill her! She can’t possibly reply with her mind when you’re disabling her brain like that!”
The shock ended and my body collapsed into a limp heap on the floor. I focused my whole being on sending him several words through the haze, desperate to stop the pain from coursing through me once again.
‘I’ll – I’ll do it,’ I forced out, before letting my heavy eyes fall closed and my head to loll on my paws. My muscles felt like wet tissue, all floppy and squishy. There was no way I could push myself onto my feet.
“You will learn to follow orders first time in the future. Get her a uniform,” he shouted through the glass to another of the scientists. I could sense that he remained in front of me though, towering over me.
As I managed to peel open my eyes and look behind the scientist I noticed Sally, hands pressed up against the glass watching me, eyes full of fear. Both she and Camille were standing now, Camille pressing her face into the fabric of her mother’s white shirt. Would those scrub like clothes be my uniform?
Quick steps echoed through the silent room as a small woman returned, white folded fabric in hand. She gingerly opened the door to my cube and passed the material to the blond man. He thanked her with a nod, before chucking the pile down beside my head. It stung my sensitive nose with the harsh scent of disinfectant. They smelt as if they’d been worn and then washed repeatedly.
The blond scientist took my silence as acceptance and nodded, seemingly very happy with himself for taming me, then turned and stepped out of my cube. “Now that’s over, the collar has been programmed to allow you one shift, which will be to human form. For everyone the walls will black out in precisely thirty seconds and you will be allowed two minutes to change,” he commanded.
As he spoke I finally felt some life returning to my limbs. Tentatively, I pushed myself up and onto my sore feet. I felt all bruised, like someone had been physically kicking me whilst I was down. With a groan I looked up to meet the worried gaze of Sole’s son, when the glass suddenly blacked over his face as if he was the image on a television screen flickering off. I jumped back in shock and hit the wall behind me. It too had become black. My two minutes had begun.
I readied myself for a shift and then began to force myself into my human shape. I grunted in pain as my aching muscles and bones struggled to push and pull against each other. With a final pop I fell to my knees in a tired human form, the collar hanging looser around my neck and cold on my skin. I clenched my fists, rolled my neck and stretched out my body, relieving the tension that had formed in my body after the brutal shocking.
Aware that my time was dwindling, I quickly grabbed the first thing from the pile and unfolded it. It was an identical white shirt to Sally’s and at least three sizes too big for me. I held by breath and pulled it on anyway, tucking my necklace inside, the fabric crisp and as uncomfortable as wearing a shirt made from paper. After dressing myself in the equally sterile bottom half of the outfit I caught my reflection in the black glass surface: tired and ruffled, dressed in the clothes of a patient in a hospital.
As I watched the colour flickered back into the glass and I was face to face with Sole’s son, no more than a piece of glass between us. His sapphire eyes met mine and instantly my cheeks burned. We both quickly span away from each other in embarrassment to face the scientists who lined the space between the cubes, talking to each other and comparing notes. My eyes snapped to the blond scientist as a beeping noise emanated from somewhere upon his person.
He pulled a small object from his shirt pocket and frowned. “We’ll be back soon,” he grunted, turning and gesturing for the rest of the humans to follow him from the room.
I sighed in relief, the tension easing from my body as they left us. I held my hot face in my hands and let my curiosity ask Sole’s son, ‘What did they do to you?’
His surprised consciousness touched mine. ‘You’ve changed your tune,’ was his only response.
My hands dropped and I met his gaze, brow furrowed. ‘What do you mean?’
‘It didn’t seem like you’d even give me the time of day earlier.’
‘Oh,’ I responded quietly, ‘I was... angry. I still am.’
His eyes flashed – blue fire. ‘Do you blame me for all of this?’ he gestured angrily around the room, ‘Everyone else does, but I thought you might be different. It seems not.’ His gaze made me shiver, and then sent a torrent of knife strikes through my heart.
My own anger sparked. ‘Don’t judge me already,’ I growled low, ‘I don’t actually blame you for any of this at all.’
His face fell. The flash of anger in his eyes fizzled and faded. ‘Then why are you angry at me? Why did you brush me aside like that earlier on, in the van?’
I hesitated, clenching my fists. Why had I even started this conversation? ‘Your father killed my father and threw him aside. We were a family of Alphas and So- your father let my mother fall until she hit rock bottom. Then he tore our entire pack apart. I can’t just forgive or forget any of that.’
His eyes clouded as he took in the information. ‘What? He told me that we’d always been Alphas of the pack. I never thought that…’
'The Alpha’s position was held by my ancestors for generations. Look, I even have their original necklace.’ I picked up my precious pendant with a frown and held it up so it glistened under the bright lights. He studied it carefully and his face dropped. ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘It’s a lot to take in you know, that everything you’ve ever believed in, ever known, was a complete load of lies.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true.’ Why was I comforting him?
‘Well I’ve been living his little world my entire life. Almost everything I learnt came from him and tutors he employed – where we came from, who he is, who I am. How do I know that anything I think is true is?’
'I – don’t know,’ I murmured, unsure of what to say.
He sighed and rubbed his temples, pulling away from our conversation, face etched with a frown. I felt even more down than I had before. Why had I even asked him a question?
The doors swung open a moment later and the scientists filtered back in, armed with stacks of thick, paper filled folders. Camille moved behind her mother’s back, still keeping one hand firmly grasped on her shirt. The other shifters all turned to face the collecting group.
The blond scientist turned and addressed the rest of his team. “Complete the initiation of the new subjects that have been assigned to you. Testing will commence tomorrow.” They all nodded and I shivered. Testing?
The scientists moved to the doors of my pack’s cubes and without entering began to reel off names and long codes like identification numbers, ticking and scribbling notes into their folders. Their eyes were keen, excited even. The unease grew in my stomach.
They knew every name of the nineteen shifters captured and had gauged us on our shifting abilities. Mr. Ward had been allowed to watch us and feed all this precious information back to some human scientists for goodness knows what use. Then he’d disappeared – delivered the cargo and taken the money, no idea of what he had done to us.
My attention snapped to the real world as the blond scientist moved to Sole’s son’s cube, watching him like a bird of prey through the glass. Sole’s son gave him a look that exuded power and defiance, but the scientist carried on regardless. “Alexander Sole. Number 17103. Alpha’s son. High level shifting ability and high level strength.” He nodded to himself as his pen scratched across the page, marking it with short hand scribbles.
His name was Alexander? It was a nice name, ironically similar to my own, I thought to myself. I froze and scolded myself, pushing the thought away, just as another one hit me. How had they gotten his details if Mr. Ward hadn’t assessed him? Was that what they’d done whilst he was gone?
“Alexis Matthews,” the scientist called, making me jump, “Number 17104. Alpha’s daughter-” He stopped himself and turned to the small female at his side. “This must be wrong. They have different surnames,” he growled.
She cleared her throat and replied nervously, “There was a slight mistake made. Marcus Sole provided us with false information. 17103 told the truth. He is the Alpha’s offspring and an extra specimen collected. She is not and her position remains unknown.”
I barely contained the anger that flared in my chest as she spoke. There was no recognition that we were actually people too and that we could understand every word she was saying. Specimen? Offspring? She had no right to treat us like low life creatures.
“Thank you, but it would have saved me time if someone had informed me of this at the very beginning, rather than leaving it,” he replied, facing me once again as he crossed something out, “Alexis Matthews. Number 17104. High level shifting ability and high level strength.”
As he moved away I caught sight of the shiny name tag clipped to his white coat pocket. It read ‘Tom Philips’, beside a rather unflattering picture of his face against some sterile background. I scoffed. I wasn’t expecting anything like evil jerk or creature full of hate, but maybe something a little more interesting than Tom Philips.
“We’ll be back in the morning,” Tom informed us a few shifters later, before leading his merry little band of scientists from the room. The door closed slowly, leaving the room in an almost stunned silence.
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Well, what do you think? Will this keep you waiting for Friday? I do hope so :D
Btw, thank you for all my new COMMENTS, VOTES and FANS!!! I even got up to 317 on what's hot! I know it's not super high, but it is for me!!! :D Thank you, keep up those votes, comments and fans ;) xxx