CSI: I've got a new word goal of 3k words a chapter, so this is a relatively short chapter. It's also me realising that I'm rewriting and therefore don't have to stick to the chapters I had before, so I made the executive decision to make the lab section longer and also do everything I've always wanted to do but haven't because I didn't want chapters to be too long etcetera.
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THE SOLDIERS LIFT HER UP BY HER UPPER ARMS, her body is fully in the air, unlike usual where her legs drag along the floor, making it highly painful to kick and thrash her body despite doing it anyway. This time, she allows herself to be taken to the next room in the cycle, arms too numb from the injections. She needs to keep herself as calm as possible to keep as much energy as she can. Her breaths are already rapid and her chest is tight, as though some invisible person has a hand on her chest and squeezing as hard as they can, wanting to turn it into a mere paste. Her heart beats rapidly, like it's about to burst through her ribs. A growing pit sits in her stomach, anxiety churning away alongside the stomach acid.
She knows exactly what is coming and it terrifies her.
What awaits her, she wishes is all a dream, or nightmare, more accurately. If it were a dream, she'll know it's not real, that, in actual fact, she's perfectly safe, but it isn't a dream, sadly, and she is far from perfectly safe. So, she simply prepares herself. She doesn't take slow breaths immediately, instead counting the tiles they pass by on their way down the corridor. Every time she reaches thirteen, she restarts.
It's a ritual she completes every day; every trip to Room 13. Thirteen tiles, breathe in, five tiles, breathe out.
Over and over until...
Stinging pain spreads across her body, leaving an almost tingling sensation in its path. She notices a more searing pain around her nose and lifts her hand up to touch it, wincing the moment her fingertips touch the skin between her nose and mouth. Casey pulls her hand away and looks at her fingers; deep crimson blood stains her fingertips, a single shine sits in the liquid, but it'll soon disappear as it dries.
Her nose burns, but she ignores it, putting her palms flat on the tiled floor and not thinking about how the tile will most likely stain. Something clicks above her head, so Casey understands that the door to Room 13 is unlocked. Once again, she is picked up, this time with less care so that she can feel herself about to fall.
Before that can happen, however, she's tossed to the side. Her left side lands on the metal cuff on the ground, sitting in the same place it'd fallen during her last visit to the room. She yelps, rolling away from the cuff and reaching to soothe her side, though her hand is quickly snatched up by a soldier. It's dropped as she sits up, eyebrows furrowed and eyes ever-so-slightly narrowed. She's not exactly mad, she's just annoyed that she couldn't even soothe what will become a bruise in an hour or two.
