Merge

2 - Of Test Tubes and Dragons

          I grabbed the bars of the cage and glared at Dr. Reynolds. He sat in a chair, looking at her smugly, a cigarette dangling lazily from his fingers. He took long, infuriating puffs coupled with the quiet, wheezing breaths of someone familiar with smoking.

            Huffing, I turned, looking around at the bare room. There was nothing in it except the cage and the chair Dr. Reynolds was sitting in. The light from a door was visible many hundred feet away. I could tell the walls extended far past the small circle of light provided by the single, dangling light bulb above the cage.

            They had dragged me into the cage after I had kicked another needle from Dr. Reynolds’s hand. The last thing I wanted was more sedative. I smirked as I saw his fingers swelling.

            He narrowed his eyes at me and dropped the cigarette to the floor. He stood and smashed the cherry tip with the steel toe of his boot. He strode over to me, keeping a few feet between him and the bars of the cage.

            I threw my arm between the bars and tried to reach him, but he was just far away enough so my hand uselessly clawed the air right in front of his beaky nose. I pulled my arm back and scowled at him.

            “Quite the attitude you have. Maybe that’s why you’ll be such a good test subject,” the venom was obvious in his voice.

            “Test? What test?” I had a sneaking feeling that this wasn’t your average Chemistry test.

            With an evil smirk, he went to the wall. A large red button pulsated right next to the door, and Dr. Reynolds was a small figure by the time he came up next to it. He pressed the button, and the sound of depressurizing gas emitted from the ceiling somewhere and the floor began to vibrate. I gripped the bars.

            And the walls began to rise.

            A slight crack of light appeared at the far end of the room. I stared at it for a few seconds before I realized that the other walls were rising, too.

            I gawked as the rising walls revealed more cages. Cages filled with lions, polar bears, lizards and…

            Oh my God.

            My eyes widened and my hand clamped over my mouth. I didn’t realize I was stepping back until my back hit the cold bars of the cage.

            I was looking at a dragon.

            It was in a large glass container, only just big enough to fit him. Its icy blue eyes blinked at me. His scales were black while his underbelly and wing membranes were the same blue of its eyes.

            “Caminai here has been waiting for us to find you,” Dr. Reynolds’s voice came up beside me, his hands clasped behind his back, “She’s been anxious to meet you."

            Oh. A girl.

            I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I could see Caminai glaring at the doctor.

            “We plan great things for you two,” Dr. Reynolds clasped his hands in front of him, and his eyes flashed. He went over to a wall on the far right of the room, where a machine sat, quietly humming a mechanical tune. It appeared to be a large super computer…type…thing connected to a tube full of clear, viscous fluid. The tube was human size. I peered closer, expecting to see a floating human body, but there was none.

            The tube was connected to a larger, considerably wider tube filled with the same clear fluid, and that was connected to…

            The dragon’s cage.

            I couldn’t understand it. Was I going to witness the shrinking of a dragon or some transfer of genes?

            Then it hit me.

            I was the experiment.

            “That tube…it’s for me, isn’t it?” I asked sheepishly.

            A chuckle, “My, you are a smart girl, aren’t you?” he pet the contraption lovingly, "I built her myself, you know. Just for you and that brute over there,” he earned a deep, low growl from the dragon that shook the glass she was encased in.

            “Wait, it’s for both of us?” I asked, my brow furrowing, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

            Just then, another voice came up behind me, making me yelp as I whirled around.

            “Allow us to show you,” the Doctor stood there and reached his hand through the bars, grabbing my wrist. He drove a needle into my arm.

            My legs turned to jelly, and I crumpled to the ground.

            There it was again. That fuzzy euphoria where I can’t tell whose hands turned me around. Who slings me over their shoulder. Who put me on another gurney and wheeled me into another stark white room.

            I recognized the female voice of the nurse, who undressed me down to my underwear and put me in a hospital gown. She put me back on the gurney and wheeled me back into the darkness, where my mind finally went black.

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          If you're irritated witht the shortness of these chapters, I promise you they get longer after this. I'm hoping you're enjoying the story so far, and I would love to hear your thoughts on it!