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Home from Hell.....

It was bright again.

I rolled over, much too comfortable to wake up, and pulled up my blankets.

Wait.

Blankets?

I shot up, and screamed as my eyes drank in the room I had been relocated to. My sweater and jeans had been replaced with a hospital gown, the ties loose in the back and barely hiding anything. As if by miracle, my locket was still around my neck, and I clutched it with fear. The darkness hid most of the room's features, but the uniform color white was still blinding. True, the room was strange, but was in no way unfamiliar.

I was back in the white box.

Panicking, I sprang out of bed and rushed to the door, pounding on it and shrieking to be let out. When nobody answered, I sank into a heap in front of the metal entreeway, too numb and terrified to even cry.

I sat there for who knows how long, and I vaguely remember crawling back into the paper white bed that had been my sleeping area for almost a week in my past experience.

When my sense of time had been blurred, assimilated by boredom, the door clicked and swung open. As I sat up quickly, four guards marched in, guns live, and then were followed by a strange woman and more guards.

The guards looked like all of the other guards, but the woman attracted my attention. Her golden hair cascaded down her back, and her perfect hourglass figure was strikingly beautiful in a sky blue, short sleeved turtleneck and a gold patterned pencil skirt. Her facial features were almost perfect, but as soon as I met her eyes, I shuddered with disgust and fear.

Her eyes were simply orbs of hate and insanity, and it showed her own internal struggle with herself. Looking into her pupils was like making eye contact with a mentally insane person. Her lips curled upwards in what I supposed was a smile, and her raging eyes examined me. It was in that moment, when I knew exactly who she was.

Alisa.

"I don't expect you to know me." Alisa began, and her voice sent chills down my spine. "But I am Charlotte Zucherburg, main overseer of this entire wonderful operation. You should feel honored to be able to participate in such a momentous occasion, beneficial to all mankind."

"And you should feel honored I don't smash your face right now, also beneficial to all mankind." I retorted snarkily.

"I see." Charlotte-Alisa looked at me disapprovingly. "As I was saying, you shall be participating in wonderful tests that shall be for the good of all your friends and family."

"Family?" I cocked my head and tapped my chin, pretending to think. "Oh, right, family! Like my mom and dad! You know, the ones you had shot in the head! Those guys, right? As for friends-" I stopped and narrowed my eyes. "As for my friends, where the hell are they?"

"Your parents were sacrificed for a worthy cause, and your friends are probably in the Communal Living Quarters."

"Oh, you mean the dog kennels." I affirmed sarcastically.

"Details." Charlotte-Alisa waved her hand dismissively. "The downfall of perfection. Which, by the way, is within my grasp, thanks to my years of research and a recent and massive leap; your sister."

"Auriela?"

"Her tanecine base, which is what gives you mutants power, is very special. Instead of her base being set in a rigid state, which means only one gift-or, as I like to call it, caprice-it is rather soft, in a way, and very impressionable. When it is injected with another sample of tanecine, one or two bases often take to the new arrival, and mimic it. When the injected tanecine dies, the mimicking bases stay alive and functioning. This results in the subject having multiple powers."

"Is that why Auriela has telepathy like me?" I asked, curious even though my fate was fast approaching.

"No." Charlotte-Alisa looked at me like I was stupid. "Your relation to her was completely coincidental. Don't interrupt me."

"Then don't let me interrupt you." I countered, interrupting her again and throwing her off. When she finally processed it, I was awarded with another glare.

"We are hoping your DNA contains the same type of tanecine as your sister, and perhaps even more impressionable than hers. A base like this; it's the key to my life's work. I have never encountered such a huge part of my research, except for those two people."

"Those two people?" I questioned, unable to help myself.

"Yes, Georgia Harnford and Stanley Peterson....both were completely different people, but they both possessed the power of omniscience. Unfortunately, Stanley died mere days after Georgia's arrival; and Georgia was a victim of a disease called Ondine's Curse. She cannot breathe on her own, and requires a breathing machine at night. She died within a week in the Communal Living Quarters, after falling asleep."

"Why didn't you give her a breathing machine? I mean, she had omniscience, or whatever. I thought you would do whatever it takes."

"First of all, there was no way to tell, and she never told anyone of her condition." Charlotte-Alisa defended herself. "Secondly, we only took possession of her in the first place because some doctors had done some tests and revealed her strange DNA. Her retrieval resulted in a-shall we say-messy cleanup." The woman paused as if remembering something. "When we brought her back, there was no evidence of any gifts, except for her tanecine base, and so she was given no special treatment. Hours before she died, however, we discovered it, took a sample of her DNA, and injected it into your sister, as I'm sure you are aware of by now, with all that time you spent hiding."

"We wouldn't have been hiding if you had possessed the compotency to find us." I remarked snidely.

"Don't get smart with me." Charlotte-Alisa snapped, looking totally pissed off now. "I know Alantia gave you the information to hide your signals for all this time." I pretended to know what she was talking about, and nodded.

"Anyway, as I was saying...." Charlotte-Alisa motioned to her guards, and before I had time to react, two of them grabbed my arms and lifted me off the ground a few inches, where I dangled helplessly. "You have an appointment to make." her lips curled into her gruesome approximate of a smile again, then addressed the guards holding me captive. "Bensen, Moulder, take her to Lab 4B; Dr. Menkenshov is waiting." I began to kick, scream, bite, and punch as I was dragged out of the room, but my steroid worshippers acted as if I weighed nothing.

I continued to fight as I was escorted down the hall and to a closed and locked door flanked by two guards, who nodded to my chaperones as they admitted them into the lab. As Bensen and Moulder forced me on a stainless-steel slab in the middle of the room, I kept struggling, even though it was futile, as the two cuffed metal bracelets on my arms, legs, and neck. My eyes scanned the room fearfully, as scientists scurried about, prepping an array of horrifying 'medical' instruments. Sweat poured down my face, mingling with tears, as the full force of the situation slammed into me like a thousand-ton rock.

I was going to die.

After all this, I was going to die.

Suddenly, an impossibly tall, lanky scientist was looming over me, giving me a glare with piercing blue eyes from under big, bushy, black eyebrows peppered with gray, like his hair. I guessed he was Dr. Menkenshov.

"Please, don't do this." I begged him. "You have a choice. She doesn't own you." He laughed a bone-chilling laugh.

"I was family friend of the Sider-" he spoke in an extremely thick Russian accent, and his eyes squinted somewhat as he paused. "Zucherburgs." he corrected himself, and continued. "After Charlotte's parents become U.S. citizens, they make frequent visits back to their homeland, Russia, and I watched Charlotte grow up. I was the only one who saw the ingenuity in her method of dealing with you people, and I was a great support and friend to her during her difficult times as her parents chastised her for using new way. When Charlotte began this operation, I was first on board." It was just my luck to get Charlotte-Alisa's most trusted and closest friend for this. I closed my eyes, silently trying to accept fate.

"Okay." I finally spoke. "I'm ready. Put me under."

"Put you under?" a cruel smile tugged at his thin lips. "Oh, niet, niet! Do you know how much anesthesia costs? Oh, no, none of that!" He gestured to one of his helpers, and she started preparing something on a nearby table. While she was busy with that, Dr. Menkenshov examined me with unbridled curiosity, and I felt horribly exposed, just lying there with nothing but the thin hospital gown.

When he was finally done, the doctor turned and took something from the nurse. Once the Russian scientist was facing me again, I choked out a half sob, half shriek, at what was in his hand. He smiled at me, taking a sick enjoyment in my horror.

"This is my pride and joy." he described the syringe filled with a nasty green liquid. "Longest needle in the world at twelve and a half inches, and the concoction inside-potion of own making. It's still work in progress, and it usually kill patient more often than not, but who is counting, yes?" My eyes focused on the needle, and began struggling wildly as the man came closer and closer, his eyes full of malice and perverse pleasure. As he was standing over me, his finger accidentally jostled the plunger, and a pin-head sized droplet splashed on my gown. It fizzled, then evaporated, leaving a tiny hole in the clothing. Sick to my stomach with dread, I stared at the hole, then at the doctor as he too examined the recent imperfection.

"I guess batch is faulty." Dr. Menkenshov seemed almost disappointed, then shrugged. "Oh, well."

I watched in numb shock as the shot rapidly descended to my neck, and my mind frantically raced, as if it could save me. But instead, the needle came closer and closer, until it was only a hair's breadth away.

Closing my eyes, I tried to block it all out.

I was going to die.

Author's Note

Uh oh.....:(

Reviews

[CrimsonBlaze]

I was wincing over and over at the needle part. I am not a big fan of shots and being scarred for life after stumbling upon a picture with a long needle slice through an arm, it definitely didn't help in helping myself be braver with needles. And here, a needle that's like TWELVE INCHES??? I would scream, kick, bite, and try to run away and uibgaobiaobiobvioabifv..... This chapter caught me >:)