The Moon Dragon

Chapter Seven

Sylvia's mind felt clearer than it had felt in ages, when the scientists came in on Monday morning.

The Doctor wasn't with them.

The blood was gone from the laboratory, disappeared by nervous cleaners who had avoided looking in her direction. The realization that they were scared of her was something of a thrill. The blood in her cell was still there, smeared by her attempts to clean it up herself. Guess nobody was brave enough to come in and clean it up themselves.

She watched with her slitted pupils as the scientist greeted each other with stagnant emotions, the tension in the room thick enough to cut with a butter knife.

When nobody addressed the elephant (dragon) in the room, they all settled down to work. It was sometime soon that they went to convene together, and Sylvia pricked her elongated ears to listen in.

"There is still work to be done despite the Doctor's unfortunate....absence." Comb-over scientist said. He was the next figure of authority in the room, it seemed. "The Doctor's work on extracting the Start Matter from its DNA is something we cannot continue without her, but your individual research, you can continue with, and I would like to suggest we use this opportunity to perform some psychological tests that we have not yet had the chance to do so. Such as fear-conditioning paradigms?"

There were vague murmurs of agreement.

They dispersed for another minute or so before gathering before the glass. Sylvia glared at them. Most of them had clipboards and pens posed to write, the main guy had some kind of tablet-device that he was tapping at.

Without warning, at the press of a button, the speaker built into the wall beside the camera let out a low, long tone.

Beeeeep- It went, and Sylvia blinked up at it.

Then she doubled over, letting out a yowl, as suddenly the innocent metal band around her back ankle lit her whole body up in burning pain.

The fire left her body a moment later, leaving her breathing hard, pressed as close to the wall as she could get. What the HECK was that?

"It shows major development of the amygdala in that reaction." One of the scientists was saying.

"Interesting," another said. "I didn't expect 'flight' to be its first reaction."

"This test is always an enlightening one," Head-scientist replied. "Let's go again."

Oh no- was all that Sylvia had time to think, before the tone sounded again.

Beeeeep!

Electricity burned through her, and it felt like it burned forever. In just a moment, it was over again, and all her muscles were left trembling, her whole body shaking. Smoke curled from her nose.

And they kept going.

They couldn't have continued longer than ten minutes, but with agony repeating itself over and over, it felt much, much longer.

And just like that, as if they hadn't just spent an age torturing her, the scientists all went back to their desks and continued working like nothing had happened.

Sylvia went back to pacing. Her tail lashed against the floor. She couldn't spread her wings to their full span in this room, and they ached to be free.

It was the next day when they returned, and she waited, nervous, and they watched her again with their clipboards and tablets.

Beeeeep! Went the speaker.

Sylvia cowered in the corner. The heart-rate monitor was going rapid-fire. Her whole body tensed, her breathing spasmed.

But the pain never came.