The Scientist

Participants:

s_bao-wei_icon.gif nightmare_icon.gif

Scene Title The Scientist
Synopsis So much disassociation from humankind must mean that you were never one yourself.
Date December 12, 2009

I was just guessing,

At numbers and figures,

Pulling the puzzles apart;

Questions of science,

Science and progress,

Do not speak as loud as my heart…

Wake up.

Wake up.

Do you feel like sleeping? Really?

Something is going on, you can hear it.

Yǒu yī gè xiōng bù dāo.

The burning penetration of a knife sears into the top of the sleeper's chest, not only quaking him from slumber but delivering a wound so deep that it makes him writhe. There are dull tugs at his limbs and below his ribs. Wide belts- the leather is rough against his outer layer, rubbing rawness into skin where it ties. He bucks at a second pain in the opposite side of his chest, finally wrenching open his eyes.

There are only lights up above, circular and blurry; the white light mixes with blue from somewhere in the room, casting a ghastly glow over the walls to the right and left. He cranes his neck to look at his shoulder to the left. Sticking out is a long metal spine, dug through into the muscle of his upper arm. Not a knife, no- but close to it. Its twin is stuck in the other side, glistening sterile silver in the light. Blood bubbles up from around each entry, he can feel it even if he cannot see the wounds; it leaks cold down the muscle of his shoulder, which he is straining to not move for fear of more damage. A noise escapes him- it isn't a scream, it is more of a bleat. A bleat of air that summons to his vision a figure clad in pale scrubs and shimmering latex gloves. The light gleams off of a pair of goggles- plastic and emotionless, peering silently back down at him as he fills his chest with air. The next noise never comes, muffled by a snarl of pain. He can feel his face contorting, though it already feels as if it has been stretched open. There is too much air in his lungs, and it is unnatural. Something on his head weighs it down. Everytime it rises up to glance about, only a second passes before something brings it heavily down onto what feels like a frigid metal table. Clank. It is a hollow noise, signaling something inside the crest of his skull, attached there.

The figure looming overhead blocks out light as he leans over to yank out the silver spines. He is slight of build, and for some reason his proportions, though normal and commonly human, appear disarmingly small in scale. The paper mask on his lower face comes into plain view, cap on his head blocking every attribute effectively usable in identification. Lips move under the paper wordlessly before he moves away again. Metallic sounds come out of the air nearby. Tools on a table, in a pan, aligned for use. He knows those sounds- each one has a specfic tone as it is struck blindly against the metal bowl. That is the serrated knife- the needle pliers- the drill bits. The thud of plastic. That is the drill. The large drill. It is only for the thickest of physical shields.

Something electric makes him wriggle again, blood slickening the metal under his back. There is something along his spine- something that props it off of the surface like another layer between walls. The lights swing slightly for some reason, and the table nearby clanks restlessly before hands come out of the dark behind to steady them.

BZZZZZZZZZZ.

Whirring fills the room, echoing off of the sides of his head; the figure comes into sight again, bearing with him an upraised horizontal saw in his gloved hands.

No! Stop!

His chest swells now, vibrating with both terror and with pure rage. Teeth grind before his jaw pops open wide, bellowing at the top of his lungs.

STOP!

No words come out, only that bellow- thunderous and angry, wind feeling as if it is rushing out of his lungs, which now have felt like inflating into the pit of his stomach. He finds his lips, his throat, his tongue- were they numb?

"RELEASE ME!"

The room shivers and rumbles with his voice, noises of metal clanking and lights shaking. The white orbs swing wildly, possibly trying to listen. He can feel his teeth bared and his tongue swollen into his wide cheeks. The man hovering above has removed his presence, the buzzing saw having long stopped buzzing in his eardrums. Given some vague hope by this, muscles strain against leather again, pulling, wriggling, shoving around and gaining more momentum- he throws his weight around as best he possibly can. The table clanks against the floor, and the already small man seems to shrink back into the darker points of his vision. Something else smacks rough to the ground below his table, scraping high-pitched. His thrashing is rewarded by the thready snapping of leather stitched around a steel clasp. One arm is free- and the man foolishly comes nearer. Dragging his shoulder into the table, a powerful swipe reaches out to grab him by the neck.

It never gets there. Through no fault of its own-

-his hand stops, outstretched in the air in its frantic grasp at control. Well, it should be a hand. However, it is not. Not in the human tradition of the word. It is hand-shaped, and his arm feels the same- the joints, the muscles, the tiny motors in his mind recognize it all. His eyes do not.

His limb is heavily muscled on the inside to the point of freakishness; the muscle itself, however, is hidden under a layer of rough, reptilian skin. Thick, bizarrely bright-green skin. It pales on his weighty palm, calloused and instead padded like a feline. His knuckles are knobbly and his fingers crooked in a naturally lizard-like idleness. The tips are toe-shaped- slick, ivory and black claws peek out from slits where they had extended with his swipe. All very …draconic, if there were a proper word. Feline, reptilian, human- he's not sure, but the five digits remind him of the talons possessed of his homeland's symbol. The ink on his back.

Wait, ink on his back? He has scales- there is no-

"Shū shu." A woman's voice touches his ears- he has those, right? The paw lifts up to his skull, feeling face and neck. Yes, ears. flicking little ones, hanging down as only bumps felt under the pads of toes. Something hard growing out of his head just above it. Fingers wrap over it, tugging. A grunt of pain comes, and he reaches for his mouth. It is large, wide, long- hippopotomas comes to mind, during the blur of what is what. His fingers now explore under pliant lips, feeling both sharp canines and flat-edged omnivoruos ivory. Pairs of thick, tail-like whiskers around a cow-like nose, above his low-browed eyes, on his jaw-

"Shū shu." The voice again. He knows it, so he looks towards it. A young woman, with a deceptively soft face and long dark hair stares back down at him, flanked by the man in scrubs. They seem so small- but being adults it must be he that is a scale larger-

Variables come to him as they always do, in the middle of other, more important moments. The young woman smiles at him next; her dark eyes are frigid, but the curve of her lips holds marginal warmth. Her black hair shines blue from one side. Liu Ye removes the paper and soft plastic over his head and face, peering past his sister's shoulder. Song seems to turn further blue, the air in her mouth expelling in smoky cold. The breath that had been so circling angry inside of a scaly chest and expansive torso leaves soundlessly from Bao-Wei now, as his maw opens and his now brilliant orange eyes narrow, reflecting off of the seamless steel bonesaw in Liu's hand. Something pricks him hard in the arm, and his neck jerks to look- he cannot see, the thick squatness of this new neck does not lend flexibility.

"What did you do-" His voice growls, teeth parting in a threat. His tongue lolls slack out of his mouth involuntarily, panting breath a few seconds after the prick of a needle through hard skin. Song says nothing- her brother the same-

But she does withdraw an empty syringe, dotted fluorescent with blue remnants of its missing contents. The world swims with grogginess now, blurs of light and warbled sounds flooding in and out of his ears. Song smiles again, leaving the needle on the scattered steel tools of the nearby table before putting her hands to either side of his ears, another, less muffled set of words coming as a whisper. Her hands then grab onto those things he can feel in his skull- beastly sized, bone-colored horns that allow her to yank his thick neck down and pin his entire head back.

BZZZZZZZZZZ.


Oh, tell me you love me,

Come back and haunt me…


Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License