Eliminating Slayers

Chapter 9: Vanessa

Vanessa

The familiar fuzz of reality hit me like a brick wall. I had to blink a few times, and force myself not to lose sight of what was real. Immediatly after drinking the tonic, my hearing and scent cut out a little bit, not as much as it used to. They grabbed my arm and injected me with the other stuff. I didn't know what it was called, and it wasn't my job to.

I took a deep breath, and the small amount of scent that actually made it to my brain was what a normal person would get. Compared to what I'm used to, that's like seeing a single pixel on a 100 x 150 picture. That's a huge difference. My hearing was about the same.

When the second drug finally kicked in, reality was mostly gone. I had a little bit of control over it lately, which is good. I'm making a lot of process. I had to remind myself what was reality, and what was illusion. Unlike the actual Punishment I got two years ago, this would only last about two hours, unlike the complete week it had back then. The Mages were using me as a test monkey today. I didn't mind much, but still. Lab rat? Really?

I shook it off, and sat down against the wall. I suddenly felt like I was falling, and jumped up. There was a giant gaping hole in the ground. "Holy shit." I swore loudly. Was that real? Probably not. It wasn't there before, right? I took a deep breath, and touched it slightly, before resting my whole hand on it. The hole disappeared. I had conquered one halucination.

I was out of breath. Fighting off halucinations was a lot of work. I looked around. Nothing seemed unusual. A chair pulled out of the wall, and a familiar tall body sat on it. "Long time no see." the man said. I couldn't quite remember who he was, probably from the state my brain was in.

I stared at him for a long time, before realization hit me. "Lloyd?"

"You forget me after every time we go through this. Don't you?" he shook his head.

"Sorry."

"I don't like it." his once stoic voice grew suddenly angry. He stood up and grabbed the chair, holding it by the back of it, slamming it down on my head. I didn't flinch. I stared straight into Lloyd's furious eyes. When the chair should've made contact, it disappeared, in a mist, and suddenly Lloyd was back in it where it was originally, like he'd never moved. "Two down." he said, nodding approvingly. Lloyd seems to control my halucinations.

There was a flower on his head, and his hair grew red and curly, and his face was pale, with make up. He looked like a clown. It was hilarious. He looked at me expectantly, and I couldn't help but keep laughing. He shook his head, and I started focussing more.

I stared at him, hard. I tried forcing the clown face back. It was a lot of work. It took a long time. Finally, Lloyd's normal face came back. "Three." he told me.

I had a sigh of relief. Two more, and I'll have broken my record. I closed my eyes, and felt a sudden and sharp pain shoot through my back, even though it was against the wall. I quickly jumped up and looked around. Knives were shooting out of the walls. I must've been hit by one.

I did my best to dodge them, but I felt sudden spikes of pain hitting random places. There was no way to dodge them completely. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and looked up in place. "It's not real." I told myself, and the pain stopped. I opened my eyes, the knives were gone.

"Four."

A sudden pain shot through my head, and I couldn't help but scream. It was sharp. Like my brain was about to explode at any moment. I looked up, and Lloyd was walking out of the room. I held my head with one hand as my body gave out, dropping to the ground. I held my other hand out to him. "Lloyd! Don't leave! Help me!" I called out to him.