O U T | The Group Chat

CHAPTER 2

He sighed deeply before pushing the set of iron doors open, a groan involuntarily escaping his lips as his muscles tensed against the weight.

"Fucking doors" he mumbled under his nose and straightened his spine, head high as he eyed the room.

The laboratory was just as he left it - messy, chaotic and filled to the brim with half useful stuff.

All the walls were covered with either cables, paper with random notes scribbled in it or stains of paint or other substances that Larry didn't think about too long unless he wanted his breakfast to see the light of day once again.

In the dead center stood a giant septic tank. It was lit up so the contests were perfectly visible from each side. It was full of a lucid substance in which sat a huge creature.

Around the tank four metal tables were set to form a square. Their surfaces held anything from microscopes, laboratory glassware and books to empty coffee glasses, a stress ball and some crayons.

Larry quickly approached the tank and smiled softly while placing his folder on one of the tables.

"Hi" he said warmly.

The creature turned his way.

It was a huge being. Its head was round with a muzzle stretching ahead where a big set of nostrils was present. Its eyes were stuck in deep sockets, a pair on each side, on top of which were lappets of skin on each side that could be interpreted as eyebrows as they rose slightly at the sight of the man. On the top of the head four spiky structures were adorning it like a crown. They were hard, probably made from bone or cartilage (Larry put his bets on the latter). The head sat on a steady neck which was about a meter long. Along where the spine was stretched a line of more spikes went down and continued along the whole body. Its  torso was wide and its shoulder blades were accompanied by a set of nightly wings which were built from thick bones and skin wrapped around them and forming membranes between them. Its legs were skinny and the toes elongated, each finished with a sharp tallon-like structure. A long tail was wrapped around the creature, coming close to three meters long.

The whole being was covered in black and golden scales aside from the black wings which were made fully from skin. If he was to compare it to anything, the closest would be a dragon, or at least the drawings of dragons he's always seen in children's books.

Larry stared at the being and smiled. It didn't react.

"Let's see what our guy decided to put in you" he clicked his tongue and flipped the pages of his folder all the way to where the notes halted abruptly at some equations "Asshole" he muttered and wrote his name and the date in the upper right corner of the next blank page. He then scanned the shaky notes of Anthony and concluded that the other was trying very hard to maneuver around the animal's immune system to make it accept 'annodrol'. Larry cocked a brow at the weak choice - the drug was supposed to improve concentration, boost adrenaline levels and mobilize the sympathetic nervous system. People usually used it to test coordination and brain functioning in stressful situations. Larry deemed its use quite pointless if the creature was stuck immobile and was not given any seriously dangerous stimuli. Nonetheless he read everything and the results were predictable - the creature began acting erratically and chaotically. It apparently trashed around so hard it managed to fracture the glass of the tank.

Larry frowned. It shouldn't be able to. The glass was as hard as steel - no being should have an ability to even make a scratch on it. He eyed the notes and circled around the tank until he found it. A single, about three centimeters long crack was disrupting the perfectly spotless glass surface.