A Touch Of Lightning (COMPLETED!)

Chapter 4 Simple Beauty

       

Chapter 4

Simple Beauty

It was the scent of sausage and eggs that woke him. His dreams were boiling with intensely vivid images of monstrous tables towering with plates of mouth-watering food, images that seemed to carry actual flavors with them. His stomach didn't simply growl hungrily, it gnashed and writhed like a rabid weasel, snatching him up from the pleasant dreams and rudely hurling him into reality. He had never known hunger when in the labs, but ever since he had escaped, it seemed like a constant, very demanding companion.

He opened his eyes, keeping his body completely still, focusing his mind as best he could. It was a method for waking up without alerting anybody nearby that you were awake. It was a trained instinct now, from the years in the lab, where the guards outside his cell might do something wretched to him if they saw he was awake. He had learned that there had been a standing order that if he were sleeping, the guards were not to disturb him. Something about the scientists there wanting him to be fully rested for the next round of experiments.

Now, with his eyes open and his mind desperately trying to clear the fog left behind from the slow-to-dissolve images of dream food, he found himself nearly accosted by his nose. It was like a few of the most delicious scents on earth had been concentrated into this strange room he was in, and those scents were whipping his empty stomach into a mindless frenzy. Not for the first time, Callin wished he could turn off his nose, or at least dial down the intensity.

He gritted his teeth, determined to discern where he was and if he was in danger before he leapt to his feet and dove after whatever was smelling so good, like his stomach frantically demanded. He flicked his gaze around quickly, cataloging escape routes, feeling the tension in his shoulders drift away as he saw many, easy options, including large windows that he could see lead directly out into the night.

He was in a room with a couch and two, large reclining chairs. There was a stone shrouded fireplace, crackling cheerily as it staved off the bitter cold. He was lying on a couch, covered in what looked and smelled like a clean, well-worn, handcrafted quilt. He could smell soap, shampoo, and medical gauze on him. Part of his mind realized somebody had washed and bandaged him, but that realization was overwhelmed by the bitter fury that suddenly boiled within.

The scent of the medical gauze was herald to this unexpectedly powerful surge of memories, so dark, so foul, that it made him growl savagely as his claws slid out. He leapt to his feet, ready for anything, and the quilt fell away. When the air hit his skin he realized he was wearing only some strange, thin cotton shorts. It was so unexpected that it calmed him down, pulling his mind away from the nightmare memories of the lab, freeing him from the jaws of the emotions tied to those memories. He looked down at his chest, seeing the bandages and gauze wrapped around him. There were more bandages wrapped around his shoulder, too.

Motion in his peripheral vision just across the room made him snap his head up as he dropped into a ready crouch, his claws coming up defensively. He found himself staring at a large mirror on the wall. Staring at himself, blinking at the unexpected, unfamiliar image.

He knew he was looking at himself, although he barely recognized the wild image in front of him. It had been years since he had seen a mirror, and he had never seen videos or pictures of himself that he could remember. He saw his shaggy, black hair hanging down over his face, long, unkempt and lifting out in patches from sleep. He was so thin he could see his ribs, but his entire body was corded in taut muscles, fierce power evident in the ripple of their sinuous movement underneath his dark, olive-toned skin. His eyes were brilliant green, large and framed with long, thick, black eyelashes. He wondered at them, reminded of the eyes of a black panther he had seen in a video years ago. Were they his natural eyes, or were they the result of all the genetic modifications at the lab? He certainly had never seen eyes like his in any of the others in the lab.