Setting: Holding Cells of the Seventh Generation

Gregory McFarland stiffly straightened his white lab coat as he approached the mechanized door ahead of him. While pausing briefly for a retinal scan and to punch in a 6-digit security code he took a breath as anticipation filled him.

This wasn't the first time that he'd felt this anticipation rise inside his chest, but that didn't make the emotion any less potent. It took all of his self control to keep from clenching his fists and grinning broadly, but he could not appear anything but professional in front of the people, no, the subjects who he was about to face. As the doors slid apart, revealing what lay behind them, he composed himself and walked through.

What he saw before him took his breath away. There were rows and rows of stainless steal holding cells and cages. Some contained men, others women, and there were even a few children scattered among them. All were dressed in hospital gowns, but their personal affects were neatly piled nearby as incentives for good behavior. Many of the subjects were still asleep, but a few stirred lightly and a couple even seemed to have come completely to their senses. He saw a couple of animals in the cells as well, and he was curious. Were these among the animals that he had injected, or were they something else? Maybe experiments that did not go as planned.

But even failures as large as that were a success in his eyes. Before this batch of inoculations he had faced failure after failure. Even in the last generation, which he had deemed a success, the fatality rate had been high. In the first few only a single experiment or two had lasted through the inoculation process. The fifth rate had a fatality rate of over 50% and the sixth had seen nearly a third of their number die swiftly. But this time, it was different. This time, he had won.

Opposite the cells stood a bank of computers. A dozen monitors were mounted on the walls, their LCD displays showing medical conditions and giving information on individual patients. There was also a line of desks with more computers as well as printers and copiers. After all, even a mad scientist has to keep up with the paperwork.

After taking in the scene, McFarland whispered a single word "Beautiful." Then, he cleared his throat and announced to all of the staff and the few awake and awakening inoculates. "Well, we've done it folks, we have achieved the success we have all looked forward to for so long. Thanks to the brilliance gathered in this room, and the dedication of all of us, we have made it to the top of the mountain, and we have seen the sun."

Once everyone was back to work, hooking up monitoring devices and checking data printouts Gregory settled down into a desk chair and watched.

Reain stirred awake hearing someone talking about mountains and the sun but wasn’t conscious enough to understand what the voice said. He kept his eyes squeezed shut as he felt like he had been hit on the head by a 2x4. He groaned as he moved to a more comfortable position before finally opening his eyes. Seeing the cell he was in Reain began to panic, but his mind kept telling him to stay still and not bring attention to himself. Trying to stay calm, Reain surveyed the room, but saw nothing useful except that he was far to the right (from his prospective) of the room but not next to the wall.

Smell was the first thing to come back. Which was odd.

Alcohol. Rubbing alcohol, like in hospitals. All over the place. And plastic. And...something like burnt air, like a neon sign.

And something else that smelled like poison.

Sound came next. Too much of it, just like the smells--beeping, beeping everywhere, and rasping and breathing and clacking, and a sliding sound like the window in his sister's room whenever he tried to close it.

Why was everything so loud? He wanted to cover his ears, but he couldn't find his hands.

A voice. A voice in the dark. The words were so far away--why couldn't he open his eyes?

"...brilliance in this room...dedication...top of the mountain...seen..."

Where was he? It smelled like a hospital, but wrong. It was all wrong. Where were the doctors? What had--

A door in the water. Men, so many men on the beach. Running, and noise--Caleb! Then a silent thunderbolt, and then...

Oh my God.

Wake up. Wake up wake up, he had to wake up! Why wouldn't his eyes open?

Light.

Everything blurry, like underwater. Then shapes. Blobs of light off to one side, something bright on the other. The world was sideways. Computers, a door. People moving, and...

Bars.

Oh my God, get me out. He couldn't get up, his brain was full of sand. Why did he feel so wrong? Why was everything so loud?

Something moved. His hand. It felt wrong. He tried to move it again, wiggle his fingers. But he couldn't find them. Maybe his neck? His neck moved a little. If he could move his neck, he could turn his head, look to see what was wrong with his hand...

It was wrong. It wasn't his hand, it was something else. It was fuzzy. White and fuzzy. It was where his hand was supposed to be, but it wasn't his hand. It was fuzzy.

The sand was sifting out of his brain, now. He heard more voices. The sounds were loud, but the words were far away. He tried to get up again, and the fuzzy thing moved. It was attached to something, maybe that was attached to his hand. Why did his neck feel so stiff? He tried hard and made it move.

The fuzzy thing where his hand should be was attached to a skinny, fuzzy arm, and that ran into a lot more fuzzy. Gray, and splotchy. And further down, a leg, and then a tail. Like a dog.

It scared him. It scared some piece of his mind to death, but he didn't know why. He liked dogs. This was probably a nice dog. But where is the rest of me?

The sand was almost gone, now. He tried to get up again. Had to get up. why was he in a cage with this dog? But then the tail and the leg and the little fuzzy paw all convulsed, and he felt them, and in a rush like a thunderclap and a downpour of cold rain, all the pieces--the smells, the sounds, the stiffness--fit together in his soggy mind, all the logic came alive and in a flash he arrived at the awful, impossible truth.

This was all a dream.

Khar stirred restlessly, and opened her eyes, only to quickly shut them again, the light around her far too bright. Opening her eyes again, slower this time, she looked around the room and saw scientists, murmuring after what she could only guess must have been some kind of motivational speech, and other people in cages around her. Shaking her head and rubbing her eyes, attempting to clear up what she saw, she began to analyze the situation. Realizing she was stuck, and there was no way of opening her cage, she looked around for her flute. Seeing it piled up with her clothes near her, she attempted to reach through the bars to grab it, needing it's comforting coldness in her hands.

Caleb groaned at the pain in his head, rolling over and allowing the smooth surface below him to cool his cheek. The movement was a mistake, and he clenched his jaw at the wave of nausea that hit him. Damnit, he thought fuzzily. I’m getting too old for this. The last time he had gotten drunk and passed out on the floor instead of his bed was in college. And it had been a while since he had last partied--a year? Two? More? When he had suggested to his soon to be brother-in-law that they go out for drinks, it was with the understanding that they would be home before it got too late.

Still. Must’ve been a hell of a night. If only he could remember it. Now, where had he put the aspirin?

He cracked his eyes open, expecting to see the gaudy wallpaper or maybe the cabinets in his apartment’s bathroom. What met his eyes was a world painted in shades of white and stainless steel, clean and shiny and too bright. Caleb winced and blinked a few times, frowning. Steel bars swam into focus, bringing with them a jolt of memories.

Hiking into the woods with his friend. The strange men at the lake. The fight.

“…Ro…” he croaked, throat dry from disuse. He coughed, swallowed, and tried again. “Rook?”

Obviously, he had lost the fight. Not that he’d known what they were fighting over, or even who he was fighting. The only reason he would be in prison was if the guys who had attacked them had been… what? Forest Service? It must have been a mistake. Maybe they had been trespassing. Simple enough; he’d apologize, explain the error, and maybe they’d let him and Rook go by the end of the day. Maybe they wouldn’t even need a lawyer. He hoped not. Affording one wouldn’t be easy.

He sat up carefully and looked around for his friend. The sight that met his eyes was surreal, something out of a horror movie, and he froze.

“What the…” he breathed. This isn’t prison. It was a hospital, but it… wasn’t. He was in a cage. In a line of cages. From what he could see each of them held a single person or animal, and very few of them seemed to be moving. Outside the cages there were computer screens and monitors and white-coated scientists.

A sense of urgency gripped him, cold panic which called for action as surely as his shock had rendered him immobile. Caleb found himself on his feet, gripping the bars of his cell.

“Rook?” He looked around, jerking his head left and right and ignoring the lingering pain and disorientation. A woman reaching through the bars was to his right. A kid about his friend’s age was further down, looking at least somewhat alert. A large dog was a few cages down to his left. A man, a scientist, sat comfortably in a chair. And no one looked remotely familiar.

“Abel?” his voice rose with mounting alarm. “Abel! Where are you?!”

William woke groaning. What had he been drinking last night? The world was swimming around him, swimming and pulsing with a stead rhythm that was driving his stomach to try and make its escape. Will swallowed and gagged as he let his head loll and there was a metallic clang as it smashed into something.

"Sh-argh" Will began, as he bit his tongue and the pain brought sudden clarity to the world which was wrong, so very wrong. Okay, so he'd woken up in a few odd places over the years, but the low metal ceiling was a first. It was almost like a cage.

Will rolled onto his stomach and swore again as he kicked another bar. Had he ended up in a cot or something? Now that would be a story, if he could just discover where he'd found a cot. Or cage as the case may be. Of course, where he had found the money for a night on the town was beyond Will. In fact, he was fairly sure he was skint, why else had he joined that drug...

"Ah, damn it," Will murmured as the sterile room came flooding back to him. There had been a smiling man in a white coat, a needle of something, 'just a little prick' and then the world had gone dark. It was a shame because Will quite liked his kidneys. He used them a lot. But even then that didn't explain the cage.

Will tried to speak, but it came out as a wheeze instead and he gnashed his teeth in frustration. Gripping the bars in both hands he began to shake them, the rattling metal peeling across the lab and the occupants of a couple of the other cages winced.

"Let," he croaked, beginning to find his voice. "Me. Out!"

Nezeret grabbed his head with both hands as he began waking up. He had a serious headache. The reason he felt like this was for him unknown. The only explenation he could come up with was simple. It must be monday he thought. From his headache the reason had to be a bottle of whisky. He opened his eyes, slowly. The light was almost burning bright. As his eyes adjusted, he could make out some figures, and something else. Maybe monitors?

He tried to get up on his feet, but they had been unused for so long that he fell down again. Now he could see properly. He could see the scientists. And that he was locked inside a cell or a cage. He didnt want to figure out. Suddenly his hearing came back. He could hear faint voices, that became louder every second. He heard something about mountains and a sun. And the smell. He didnt recognise it. He had not smelled it before. Now that his basic senses had adjusted, he began thinking. He knew his name. He knew his age. He knew where....no, he didnt know where he lived. Everything was so blurry. Why was he unable to remember? Why was he locked inside this...this....whatever it was? Why was he here at all?

He let his hands fall down. He closed his eyes, and just sat there. He knew one thing. He had to escape. That was the primary target. That, and the tea party with the teddy bear back home. He had to wonder, why did he think so logical? Was it becouse he knew he had to if he had to survive? Or was it becouse his twisted side was still asleep? He looked at the monitors. He had to get out, but yelling and making trouble would not help. He had to wait for the perfect moment. But there was something inside him. Almost like he had some kind of power up while asleep. Almost like he had a second form.

He began laughing inside his head. He had played enough games to know that almost all bosses had a second form. A stronger form that you had to defeat. He could remember games. Bosses. Small one hit kill minions. But for some reason, he held his hand over the eagle tattoo he had. He knew something, but what did his body know that his mind did not. He grabbed his feet and pulled them on top of each other and began to meditate. He could hear a faint voice in his mind.

Nezeret. When your body tries to tell you something, meditate. Open the brigde between your body and your mind, and let them share imformation. Tis will grant you wisdom...or it will give you gas. He had no idea who it was, but i could not hurt. He closed hs eyes, and waited.
((im not so good with grammar in english. As said before, its not my first language. So forgive me if i write something the wrong way. And if you want to correct me, just send a pm))

More voices, now. And now he could understand them. One of them he knew.

"Rook?"

Caleb! Caleb was here, somewhere. Had to get up!

The legs felt so wrong--too short. Weird dream. Normally in dreams things would just work on their own, but this one was being stubborn. He twitched and half-rolled a few times before getting his feet under him. Felt so strange, and his head was still so close to the ground, and it was heavier than it should have been.

He felt sticky. But not normal sticky. Way down deep, under the skin, everything felt sticky.

"Abel? Abel! Where are you?"

I'm here, Caleb! There! Oh God, there were more cages. Caleb's voice was coming from down the row, to the right.

"Rroohu!"

He blinked, and looked around, but there was no one else in the cage. Had that been him? Strange dream.

He shouted again, hearing instead that low bark, and tried to run to the right side of the cage, but none of his feet were where they should have been. He crashed into the floor, sliding into the bars of the cage.

The pain set off his headache, and he clenched his eyes against the throbbing lights.

"Rruh!" Caleb, I'm here! Can you hear me? "Rrooo!"

A small corner of his mind found time to be perplexed by the howl as it slipped from his throat. Very, very strange dream. But the rest of him was occupied with fighting gravity, and trying to find his friend.

Headache. Stabbing headache. Pain in her shoulder, too. Owww. Shouldn't have walked through that alley for a shortcut... What the hell happened just now?
...no. Wait. Can't have been just now. It was light out when she went out like a light (Joanne nearly groaned when she caught herself thinking that), but this seemed twilight-y somehow, and her sense of time told her that it wasn't noon anymore. Couldn't be sure without opening her eyes, but twilight felt about right, somehow. Still, couldn't hurt to check...
Ow! The light, though it was dim, hurt her eyes. She must have tripped and fallen into a wall and hit her head or something. More slowly now, Joanne opened her eyes, shifting slightly so she could sit up and look around.

Her surroundings were slightly fuzzy at first. It took a moment after the blood rushed out of her head before she could see clearly. Grey eyes flashed across her surroundings and Joanne concluded was definitely not the cityscape she was expecting.
This seemed like a laboratory, somehow, or a hospital. It was inside, at least. Several computer monitors along the wall that seemed to point towards 'hospital', since what they were displaying seemed medical-looking; some screens even displayed the squiggly green heartbeat-line. There were people – men, women and children – and animals of all shapes and sizes locked in cages. It took a second for Joanne to realise that so was she. What the hell?

"Rruh! Rrooo!"
Joanne couldn't help but flinch at the sudden loud noise somewhere to her right, bringing her hands up to her ears as well as she could while still disoriented.
"My head..." she groaned, silently cursing herself for not putting some asprins into her pocket this morning. She usually had some, except for today. Maybe she still had some anyway...
Joanne reached for her jeans pocket, eyes closed stiff in a half-hearted attempt to ignore the stabbing headache, but something was wrong. No pockets. Huh? Maybe the other pocket... not there either? But she was sure she'd worn jeans today...?

The temptation to just keep her eyes closed, lie down, go back to sleep and hope it'll make sense in the morning was very tempting. Joanne had already leaned back against the bars behind her to make herself comfortable when she decided that unconsciousness wasn't the best idea in a strange environment, especially when every instinct you had was to get away now because something was Very Very Wrong. Reluctantly, she opened her eyes again and took a look at her body.
These weren't her clothes. Hell, they weren't even clothes at all. It was a hospital gown, in that sickly green color that hospitals used because they thought it was better than plain white when it really wasn't. Her own clothes were in a pile on the floor next to the cage. Tottering a few steps (and hissing because the metal floor was freezing), she tried reaching them, but they were just a few centimetres out of her reach.
"Verdomme..." Joanne hissed. She didn't even get to keep her own clothes?

Utterly lost as to what to do, Joanne sat down again and hugged her legs, a pitiful heap of human. What was happening to her?...

As he often did, Damien woke up slowly, his mind still holding on to fragments of his dreams even as the sounds of the waking world invaded his ears. And what sounds they were; animal noises, machines beeping, people talking... Damien was still far enough away from awake that he couldn't make out what they were saying, but the sounds of their voices served as a grappling hook; by holding on to them, he was able to pull himself out of the silver mists that had clouded his mind.

As his consciousness slowly returned to him, the first thing Damien was aware of was the smell; he had no words to describe it in any great detail, but it smelled like an overcrowded hospital room. The second thing that came to his attention was the pain; a dull headache, centered behind his eyes, gave off pulses of pain in time with his heartbeat. While he lay there, silently willing the grogginess to go away, he realized that the burning in his blood had passed.

*You are such a wimp,* he thought to himself. *This headache is nothing, compared to that. Suck it up, and get up.*

As he slowly raised his head, he noticed that his face seemed heavier than it had been. Carefully opening his eyes, he discovered that he could not focus them as he had used to; everything seemed blurry. Nonetheless, he was able to discern why the weight of his face had changed; a strange, rust-red cylinder or cone had been attached to his mouth and nose, and a rush of air came through it every time he drew breath.

*Is that what this is, some kind of breathing tube?* Damien wondered silently, beginning to feel fear set in. *But why didn't it move across my face when I shook my head? Is it really attached that securely? No... I'd have felt the straps by now. And there's no vacuum seal, either. So how is it still attached? What's going on?*

When his vision cleared, he got his answer. For a moment, Damien could only stare at it in disbelief, his heavy, rapid breath bordering on hyperventilation... then every small, loose thing in the room that contained metal threw itself outward away from Damien's cage, repulsed by a sudden magnetic burst even as he gave voice to an inhuman scream.

And inhuman it was; the sound that ripped loose from the once-human coyote's muzzle was a shrill, unchecked howl of pure terror.

Ripped from her deep sleep by a high shrieking noise, her other senses took a little longer to keep up with her sudden jolt. The first thing that came flooding in was like a stabbing pain, like thousands of millions of tiny knives jabbing at her similtaniously and unrelentless. She let out a groan as she tried to get herself on her knees. She struggled to open her eyes. It was like they didn't want to see what or who was causing the pain. Slowly, they open. She sees rows of cages, bleeping machines and that she's no longer in her beloved hoodie and jeans, but a luke green hospital gown. *Where am I? What is this place?* she thought.

Looking around with clearing vision and her head becoming her own again she noticed more people in these cages. They were all wearing hospital gowns, some awake some stirring. She notices some animals too, some louder than others, all connected to these machines. Confused of the situation, fear growing she started to shake. Cold seeping in, she held herself, unsure what to do or what to say she knelt there, her eyes darting around her immediate surroundings hoping either an answer would come soon or she'd wake up from this weird nightmare like event, she had a feeling in the pit of her stomach though that she wasn't dreaming.

Joanne was too far gone to stir when the horrible, horrible shriek came from the animal somewhere opposite her, too caught up in her own thoughts. Plotting an escape was so much harder than it sounded if you didn't even know where you were.
One of the doctors (scientists?) moving towards her was threatening enough to shake her from her reverie, though. Her breath caught in her throat when she heard the footsteps of the man coming closer and closer, her body tensed up, ready for a fight though clueless about how to live through it...
...and relaxed again when the white-coated man moved right past her, not really looking at her but focussing instead on someone farther down the row. Thank god... It sickened Joanne to know she was glad that someone else was going to suffer instead. Then again, wasn't that the whole idea behind 'schadenfreude'? “Making me feel glad that I'm not you”?

Still, this was bad. Very bad. She had to get out right now or else.. or else...
...or else what?
Nevermind, moot point.
She glanced at the cage closest to her and, glad that there was a human inside instead of an animal, moved slightly closer towards it. Maybe if the doctors would go away, she could strike up a conversation and see if that person knew what was up...
A tiny voice in the back of her head said that they probably wouldn't, or they wouldn't be here. Joanne squashed that voice. Now was definitely not the time to think about that. She just hoped that person was okay, come to think of it. They were suspiciously silent...
...no, no, no, no. Think positive (as far as that's possible). There had to be a way out...

When his howl finally died away, Damien began sucking in breath to refill his lungs. Once done, he realized that his headache had faded as well. It had been replaced by a sense that something was steadily pulling at his body. Not hard enough to produce any effect, but pulling nonetheless.

Despite the innocuousness of such a small detail, he latched onto the thought immediately, using it as an anchor to calm himself somewhat. Once his breathing steadied, he tried to get up.

It was slow going, rising from a sprawled position, and he slipped and stumbled once or twice, but the coyote muscles knew how to move, though Damien himself did not, and he managed to stand on all four feet... not terribly quickly, but more quickly than he had expected.

Calmed further by this minor success, Damien looked around and realized that he was inside one of a row of cages, with various humans and a few animals occupying the rest of them. The cages lined the wall of what seemed like a laboratory of some kind, if the person in the white coat who was now standing in front of Damien's cage was any indication.

Flanked by what could only be a pair of soldiers, the scientist looked at the coyote for a moment, then turned aside, giving Damien a view of the rest of the lab, and spoke to another scientist, who was sitting in a desk chair. "This one was the source, Dr. M. Everything that jumped just now was pushed away from this position."

(It is at this point that I will stop taking literary license, and wait for Lithas to tell me what's supposed to happen next.)

Heather silently glared at the scientists. She had woken up a while ago, her head pounding and her jeans replaced with pants that resembled hospital gown material. Upon realizing she was in a cage and had been kidnapped her first reaction had been her standard one - Rage.

But screaming at the top of her lungs and rattling the bars until her nails had dug bloody crescents in her palms had done no good. When the rage dissipated, She felt like kicking herself. Stupid, stupid stupid. Kevin must be worried sick. She was the only family he had, and she had just run away in a fit of (stupid) temper. Now she had been kidnapped, and no one would even know because she had just blown town without telling anyone where she was going.

She waited for the fear to sink in, but it didn't, at least not quite yet. She was still far to angry at herself and her kidnappers to leave room for any other emotion. So she sat crouched in the back of her cage, watching the guards and the scientists filter in. She listened, barely able to keep from raging again, when she heard what she presumed to be the leader give his victory speech.

As if in a moment of clarity, a single phrase drifted to the front of her mind. It had been the Heraldry Motto for the Black Knight last summer. She hadn't seen that particular motto before and had gladly added it to her collection. De inimico non loquaris sed cogites.

The most important thing right now was to keep her temper under control and memorize the faces in front of her. These were the enemies. The others in cages were her allies. And somehow someway she was going to break free.

The lead scientist seemed to finish his speech and the other were dispersing. She focused of him and with a half smile whisperd "De inimico non loquaris sed cogites" Do not wish ill upon your enemies. Plan it.

Once he heard McFarland start his speech, Kayje slithered from his resting spot, coming to the Plexiglas front of his cell. Having been awake for most of the previous week, he was adapting to his snake body well, though some of the movements were still jerky, and even when still, he seemed to shake.

As others began waking, the snake felt a break in the skin on his face. Guess it's time. Good thing too. I was getting hungry. Squirming between a pair of rocks that decorated his cell, he began to shed his skin. Stopping temporarily as a pair of howls rang through the room, Kayje watched as one subject was led past him.

Finishing his shedding, he looked over his shiny new skin for a moment before bracing himself for the pain soon to come. He straightened himself out as much as he could, focusing on becoming human. His body growing rapidly, arms and legs split from the torso as the tail was pulled in, leaving Kayje naked and flat on the floor, breath hissing through his teeth as he regained his bearings.

She was flying, trying to reach hooyo* and aabbo*, but something kept dragging her backward. She tried to call out to them, but they couldn't hear. She was being chased by men with dark masks, and the men kept growing larger and larger. They were going to swallow her whole. They were circling around her like vultures. And then she was falling.

Sabra jerked awake with a small cry. Her head felt funny, like it was stuffed full of marshmallows. She was cold and uncomfortable.

For a moment she stayed stretched on the cold ground, her eyes open and staring at the ceiling. She knew where she was - or at least, where she wasn't. The bad men had grabbed her in the parking lot and had been carting her around with them ever since. At first they had made her sleep all the time, but one of them said they had to stop because she needed to be 'clean' for 'the procedure.' She didn't know what that meant, but in the cartoons it meant the bad guys were going to give the good guys a special power on accident.

Sabra wasn't stupid, but she wished with all her heart that this was a cartoon instead of real life. In real life, hooyo said the bad guys raped the little girls. Sabra didn't know what 'rape' meant, but it always made hooyo look sad and angry.

She sat up. It was a different cage this time, with more people around. No one was wearing masks. Hopefully that was a good thing. She crawled over to the front of her cage, her marshmallow head saying it wasn't a good idea to stand. When she reached the bars, she sat down and began trying to memorize faces. Aabbo would want to know who had taken his little girl.

Immediately she noticed that everyone was working accept one old guy who was sitting in a chair looking nasty. He looked like Faiza's aabbo, and that made Sabra nervous. Faiza's aabbo had a bad temper and sometimes punished Faiza for silly things. If this stupid old man in his ugly white coat was like that...

Sabra huffed. He looked important, and Faiza's aabbo never hurt her. No one ever hurt Sabra.

"Hey Mister!" she called, glowering through the bars. "Hey footo delo!" she used the strongest swear word she knew. "My aabbo gonna kill you if you don't give me back! My aabbo is an important man and he gonna find you!"

--

*hooyo - mother, aabbo - father in Somali. Most of the time Sabra's other language(s) will be written in English as I am not fluent in Somali (or Arabic). Mom and Dad are the major exceptions.

The blood curdling Howl shocked Khar, and she quickly pulled her hand into the cage. What the hell was that looking to her left, she saw the man in the cage next to her putting up quite a bit of noise. Gathering her wits about her, she stood up. Well, she tried to sit up. her feet went out from under her and she fell, hitting her head on the bars of her cage, and knocking her vision all blurry. "owwwww" was all she could say, and the words echoed painfully in her skull. Let's try that again Kitty. She stood up, this time, much more stable, and got a better view of the room. What she saw Horrified her. Rows upon rows of people and animals in cages, Everybody waking up, general panic and disorder coming from the cages, and maniacal glee in the faces of the people wearing lab coats.

Analyzing the people around her, she thought she almost recognized a scientist. Then her memory of the previous day flooded back to her. Testing rooms. Lots of tests. Scientist lady giving injection, racking pain, world swimming, then nothing.

Coming back to the world, she heard a young girls voice yell at the man sitting in the chair at the end of the row. Strange that she hadn't noticed him in her original survey. She sat down heavily, and then once more started to reach for her flute. this was all too much for her, and she needed music to make the throbbing pain in her head go away.

Voices, floating in inky blackness. The sounds of animals, too. Some struggling, others calling out sadly, worriedly. What is going on? Ethan thought, as he began coming more aware. This is insane... Where the heck am I? Ethan forced himself up, still groggy, and slowly opened his eyes. Before he could get them fully opened, a feeling of nausea hit him like a punch to the gut and Ethan fought the urge to vomit.

Ethan chanced to open his eyes again, letting them slowly adjust to the light as he took in his surroundings in between blinks of his eyelids. Three walls, a ceiling, and a floor, all made of solid steel. One wall made of steel bars and a locking mechanism. Well, looks like I've gotten myself into jail. Ethan reached for his necklace, his 'security blanket' of sorts. For him, his necklace was more than an accessory. It was a bronze coin, with two different images on each side, one of a wolf, howling at the moon; the other was known as the Traveler's Symbol, said to bring good luck to those on a journey. For Ethan, this necklace was priceless, and missing.

"WHO'S GOT IT?!" was the first thing Ethan could force out of his mouth. As he looked around frantically, he noticed that all of his clothing was off of him, piled outside of the cage bars, and he was in a hospital gown. On top of his clothes was his necklace. A feeling of relief flowed through him as just the sight of it calmed him. As he reached for it, he noticed that the clothing was just out of reach. He tried again, straining to reach, but he just couldn't.

Ethan swore, and tried again, failing. Now he was getting pissed. He slammed into the cage bars, trying to make it move.

The first thing David felt when he woke up, was the throbbing pain in his head. There was a lot of noise, and a familiar, but an unpleasant smell. He tried to move his arms and legs, and when he was convinced he still had them, he tried to stand up. As he tried to rise, he slipped and fell. Even though his vision was still blurry, David noticed that the floor was covered in a thin layer of ice. It seemed odd, as he hadn't felt the coldness. Suddenly he felt like throwing up. After taking a few deep breaths, David felt a lot better. Then he started paying attention to his surroundings. He was in a cage in a big, clean room, which could have been from a hospital, except that it had people in it. People and animals. In cages. Many of the conscious people and animals were making noise.

"Oh just shut up. You're making my head hurt even more" David mumbled, mostly to himself.

There were also people who weren't locked in cages. Some people, with white lab coats were walking amongst the cages, looking at those inside them. Then others with guns, most likely guards.

And there also was some other guy, who was seemingly talking to all the scientists and soldiers. Some kind of motivational speech. David couldn't care less.

Then he noticed he was dressed in a hospital gown. He didn't remember putting it on. In fact, he couldn't remember anything about getting here. David pulled his thoughts together. He remembered talking to a man in front of his apartment. Then everything went dark. There were some blurry images of people people with needles. And now this.

Suddenly he jumped up and grabbed the cages, trying to bend them. When the effort seemed futile, David relaxed and sat on the floor of his prison. The headache was coming back.

"Well, at least I've been right about the big corporations. Now I'll just have to wait and see what comes" thought David.