Chapter 19: Faculty 13
Eve~
I opened my eyes to water. There was water around me. I could not break the surface, I flailed my arms around but it had no effect. I felt a terrifying weight on me, holding me down. Water filled my lungs, burning them from the inside, my …chest felt like it was going to explode. Panic clawed at my throat as I desperately tried to reach the surface, but no matter how hard I fought, I couldn't break free. The water was everywhere, cold and suffocating, pressing in on me from all sides.
I kicked and thrashed, but it was no use. My limbs were heavy, useless, as if they were weighed down by invisible chains. I tried to scream, but no sound came out—just the desperate gurgle of water rushing into my lungs. My vision blurred, darkness creeping in at the edges.
This can't be real. This isn't real.
But it felt real. The crushing weight of the water, the burning in my chest, the coldness creeping into my bones. My mind screamed at me to keep fighting, but my body was giving up, sinking deeper into the endless abyss. Darkness began to claw the edges of my vision, my eyeslids drooping.
Just when I thought I couldn't take another second, I broke the surface. I had been yanked up by my hair.
"Test twenty five," a familiar professional voice said. "Sucesss,"
I panted, still destabilized as I looked around, my stomach sunk. The room was a metallic, cold grey that would sink into my bones, tables of and tables littered with beakers, burners and syringes filled with various liquids, all labeled with numbers I couldn't understand. The air was sterile, tinged with the sharp smell of chemicals that made my stomach churn.
My body trembled, my muscles weak from the nightmare. The remnants of the drowning sensation still clung to my chest, my breaths shallow and uneven. But the fear of drowning had nothing on the horror than clutched my heart now as I took in my environment.
This was THE Lab. Faculty 13
I struggled to focus, my body trembling as reality dawned on me. The place I had fought so hard to forget. The cold, metallic walls, the sharp stench of chemicals—it all came crashing back like a wave, drowning me again in memories I had buried deep. I had survived it once, but now it was back, twisted, more terrifying than before. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think past the suffocating fear that wrapped around me
Instinct kicked in. I tried to move, to escape the nightmare. My legs buckled, but I forced myself to stand, adrenaline flooding my veins as I darted towards the door.
But before I could take another step, rough hands grabbed me, yanking me back. A scream tore through my throat as I struggled.
The men in white, did not even ad much after blink. They were recording, analyzing, planning as I thrashed again their hold.
"Princess," a voice that echoed in my nightmares called. I turned to him. A bald headed man with, cruel bottomless eyes stared at me. "We have to test you. Lycans have spontaneous healing so you should be fine." He was unnervingly calm as she spoke. But nothing that he could say would ever be ever to calm me down. Because I knew what came next.
Dr Feinstead turned to his collegues who were holding me. "Let's commence test twenty six."
"No, please—" I gasped, thrashing against the restraints. I could hear my pulse in my ears, frantic, as panic clawed at my throat.
But they didn't care. They never did. I had become nothing more than a lab rat because of the Lycan I had awakened. But Rhea never spoke since I was injected with wolfbane but it did not stops them from theorizing that her Lycan esesence would have tainted mine and given me some Lycan properties. The thought filled me with grief and a bit of hope. My wolf had been lost but a part of her had been left behind.
I was dragged into a small, transparent room, its walls gleaming under the harsh, artificial lights. The glass closed around me, sealing me in, trapping me in this hell. I was clamped unto a seat and I strained against the clamps, my wrists raw, my breath coming in shallow, desperate gasps.
Then I smelled it.
Gasoline.
The overhead vents hissed as they sprayed the room with the sickly, pungent smell of fuel. My heart stuttered in my chest. I knew what was coming. I had been through this before. But that knowledge didn't make it any less horrifying. The fear ripped through me, raw and real, as the gasoline coated my skin, soaking into my hair, clinging to my clothes.
Dr Feinstead and his colleagues stood just outside of tht glass cube which note pads in their hands, ready to record my misery.
I closed my eyes, willing it to stop, willing it to be over. But it wasn't over. It would never be over.
And then came the fire.
The flames ignited instantly, roaring to life with a ferocity that swallowed me whole. My scream tore through the room as the fire consumed me. It was everywhere—on my skin, in my lungs, devouring me from the inside out. The pain was unimaginable, far beyond anything I had ever felt before. My skin bubbled and cracked, my nerves ablaze with agony as the fire seared through every inch of my body.
I could smell my own flesh burning. I could hear my skin sizzle, the sound sickening, the pain endless. The heat was unbearable, suffocating, pressing down on me with its fiery grip. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't escape. I was trapped, imprisoned in my own body, forced to endure every second of the torment with no reprieve in sight.
I thrashed against the chair, my body convulsing as the flames ate me alive. My throat was raw from screaming, but the fire wouldn't stop. It wouldn't let me die. It was everywhere, consuming everything.
My body tried to heal, tried to stitch itself back together, but the flames wouldn't let it. Every time my skin began to mend, the fire burned it away again, over and over, an endless cycle of destruction and regeneration. The pain was relentless, stretching out into an eternity where there was no escape, no relief. My mind was breaking, shattering under the weight of it all.
I was going to die.
I wanted to die.