The Black Angel [Gratsu]

Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Four

★ Natsu's POV ★

I was in a maze.

Again.

Only this time, it wasn't some sick, twisted nightmare.

No matter how many times I pinched myself, no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn't get myself to wake up.

The cuffs on my ankles weighed me down and pulled me back from going forward. All the walls were white; every turn seemed like the wrong one. Every time I made a wrong choice in the maze, the anklets sent excruciatingly painful electric shocks through my body.

I was sweating as I whirled around again. I had no idea where I was, where I was going, or where I had just been. I was in a world of white. I knew if I stopped running, the electricity would come back, and every time I went the wrong way, the decibel of the shocks would increase. I was scrambling for the exit now, in tears of joy when I found the path that led to the end.

When I reached the exit, I collapsed onto the floor, heaving in choppy breaths. I heard computerized applause all around me, and I squinted to see the panel of scientists observing from the next floor up in a glass viewing area. Their faces were unrecognizable, like someone had blurred them out with Photoshop.

"Well done, Thirteen!" The voice that made me shiver, the voice of Hypnosia herself, cooed. Her voice was crackly over the speaker system.

"That was better than last time," Another murmured into the intercom.

"Again," I heard Asano say. He sounded older, more worn down. "Make him do it again."

Two scientists from the lower level flocked towards me, scooping me up and pulling me to my feet. I tried to resist, to pull away, but a shock to my ankles made me scream and comply. I allowed them to drag me towards the entrance - I could gather that the maze was about fifty square feet - and dropped me like a sack of potatoes.

I pushed myself to standing position and readied myself to go through the maze again. This was my fourth run-through; by this point I was starting to get a sense of the order of turns I had to make. I hoped that when I finally learned to breeze through the maze, they'd let me go for the night to recover.

I heard a countdown; a monotonous, robotic voice counting 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... I bolted into the maze when I heard the ding to go. Adrenaline pumped through me, making me unable to feel the fatigue of running all day. Before the maze test, which measures my blood pressure and my instinctual abilities - much like the inhumane Tyron rat in a maze experiment - I had been forced to see how quickly I could fly by being chained and in a wind tunnel. The currents increased up to 30 miles an hour, which made it extremely tiring to keep flying.

I was physically exhausted, on the brink of passing out after the eight straight hours of being pushed to my physical limits. This will be the last time, Natsu, I promised myself, although I knew that wasn't true. Everything would repeat again tomorrow; another round of twisted experiments testing what's going on in my body.

The scientists seem incredibly interested in the acid levels of my body. Based on what I could gather from muffled words in my half-conscious state, the acidity gave me extra endurance, which is why they were testing to see how long I could run or fly without fainting.

Or dying, maybe.

They also thought it was the reason why I never died past the age of thirteen. I never knew myself, actually. I remember the day before my thirteenth birthday very clearly. I was sitting on the very edge my platform, letting the entire day tick by. I wanted my last day to be something completely relaxing, so I read books and watched nature all day. I figured when I finally collapsed at midnight, I would fall into the abyss between the mountains below, never allowing any of the Lab people to find my body again.