Subject 3033...(BWAM, Sci-fi Romance, 18+)

Chapter Fifteen

My gloved fists strike the punching bag repetitively, repeatedly, again and again. My knuckles bruise with each pounding motion, they do. The perspiration dribbles down my sculp and rolls down my temples and trickles down the length of my spine. It has been well over eleven days since the very last I saw or spoke with Noe.

He just woke, tucked me into bed then left without a word. Just like that. I have not the clue whether man is safe or in some sort of danger. Whether man still cruises in the land of the living or if he's succumbed to some sort of evil. I do not wish to think as I do but I cannot help it. This world has become darkly, blackly, ugly.

I leap, spin, strike dangling bag with the front of my booted foot till it wriggles and shakes violently as though it pleads for a release of sorts. I punch, punch, duck, punch, punch, duck once more. My body cries out to me. It begs that I should halt in my motions but I relent. Yes, training assists in drowning the frustrations, helps in temporarily shushing those adamant little whispers that refuse to die down during those waking hours when I'm all alone.

And yet, training seems to fail me today, it does. What if man has succumbed to horrible fate at the hands of mutant humans, mutant humans no longer in control of their urges and violent instincts? What if man is horribly injured in a desolate field somewhere? Then, there are those vivid nightmares of those mutant creatures. Nightmares that visit each night like a faithful lover.

Nightmares of the tests they'd run on me back in those labs. The prodding of my naked body, the numerous chemicals they'd pumped into my venations. Yes, our pasts are indeed  like shadows that lurk. Ever there even when we fail to take notice of them. I blink to dispell the plunging thoughts, exhale a sharp slow breath as the aching in my side soars higher.

I take off the gloves that conceal the bruised and broken skin of my knuckles. I press my aching palms atop my slightly-bent and spread-out knees. My chest continues to heave, my breathes heavy, my palpitations thrumming mightly inside my ears and in the hollow of my neck. One minute, three minutes, five minutes of rest. I proceed over to where my bag rests, grab hold of a bottle of water, chug the coolness of drink till the burning inside my chest simmers.

Dubbing beads of sweat from my temples and neck, I rest the towel atop one shoulder, swing the bag onto the other, then make to exit the training room.
"Harlow, you done for the day?"
I turn to look upon speaker, crack a smile in reciprocity of the instructor's own smile -a man, a young ginger with pretty eyes the colour of glowing amber coal.

"Yes, Beryl. I am. But, I will be back tomorrow first thing in the morning."
"Alright, Harlow. Till then," he speaks through smiling teeth and I simply nod as I exit the chamber entirely.
I tread down halls, proceed up to and into Noe's home where I proceed to take a bath and cook myself something small to eat.

Once I wind up my commissions, I find that I exit Noe's home to my next destination -Tokyo's labs. She's supposed to fit a dewei piece into my skin and in all truth, the thought horrifies me to a certain degree. I have had things embedded into my body in the past and I loathed it each time. However, though I hold onto a justified fear, I do trust Tokyo, do trust her expertise and the purity of her heart and intent.

I finally come upon the doors leading into Tokyo's doors and I slip right in. However, I have to halt dead in my moves at the sight that welcomes me. Upon her desk Tokyo sits, her head tilted slightly, her eyes softly shut in raw delight, a few strained moans escaping from past her lipstick-smudged mouth. Between her feet is stood a man so tall, one whose face is obscured and buried into the crook of Tokyo's neck, his one large palm enfolding the woman's bosom.

I turn hastily in attempts to leave but Tokyo's voice calls out to me.
"Oh, Harlow, don't go."
Again, I find that my feet halt all too suddenly and I stand glued to the grounds, my back towards caller. My ears burn with embarrassment. My eyes feel as though they threaten to pop with how horribly they bulge from their sockets. Grace, what is this situation.