placebo's machine

Awaken 2

Awaken

Consciousness came suddenly.

Evangeline’s eyes snapped open, her body lifting forward almost immediately. Her feet shuffled, hitting the wall. She was dizzy, and vertigo darkened her eyes. She braced a hand against the wall, taking deep breaths.

Blinking, Evangeline tried to make sense of her surroundings. It was a narrow room…no. Not a room. A shaft of some sort, reaching straight up into the sky. Sky! Evangeline had never seen the sky. She squinted, looking up. It wasn’t much. No stars, even. Just a dark grey color.

The shaft was circular, and very deep in the ground. Maybe a hundred feet or so. Evangeline stepped forward, trying to see how big it was. There were no lights… she was almost blind.

As she left the wall she had been pressed against, Evangeline felt a burning sensation on her back. Twisting, she tried to see what could cause it.

Something was protruding from her back. Black… black and silver, with clear patches. She grasped it with a hand, and drew it toward her. It was quite long. She ran a hand down its length, finding the end. Layers of slender ovals, overlapping but not seeming to serve a purpose. Tilting her head, Evangeline thought that they resembled feathers.

Feathers…

It was a wing.

Metal, sure, and plastic, but a wing nonetheless. Evangeline groped her back, trying to find the other. After a few seconds, she found a metal plate secured to her skin, which served as the base for a pair of wings attached to her back.

She tried pulling on the wing. It didn’t come off, but the burning intensified. She felt along the base, trying to find a way to get them off. Her fingers brushed a button, and she pushed it, triumphant. Free!

But with a whirring sound, the wings seemed to take on a mind of their own. Blinking lights lit up the corners and edges, tiny bulbs trailing down the steel feathers. They weren’t colored, but a blinding white.

The wings were easier to manage now, seeming to operate as a muscle. Experimentally, Evangeline flapped one. The wind it created rocked her on her heels.

Evangeline looked at her feet. They weren’t bare anymore. She was clothed in black boots that laced up the side, with grey pants tucked in. A long- sleeved white shirt under a black vest with holes cut in it to allow her wings freedom.

Something struck her as odd. Her arms felt… lighter.

Evangeline didn’t want to look.

Slowly, she brought her arm to eye level. With trembling fingers she pushed back the sleeve. It was thick enough that what she was looking for could be under there, but… It wasn’t.

Where the exhaust pipe on her arm used to be was only a rough circle of burn-like scars around her wrist. Evangeline drew in a shaking breath and looked at her other arm. The same. She ran her hands up to her elbows, to her shoulders, but it was nothing but smooth skin. She poked the new scars on her wrist. They were sore, but seemed healed, a lot tougher than the rest of her skin.

Panic seized her suddenly. She had to get out of there! She ran to the wall, but it was smooth metal, nothing to hold on to. Evangeline felt it, looking for a crack, anything. Her fingers found a seam, but when she tried to pull herself up on it she slipped and fell on her back. More pain erupted on her shoulder blades and she felt something warm trickling down under her shirt.

An idea came to her, but Evangeline brushed it away. It would be insane!

But the lights on her wings kept on catching her eyes. She flapped them again, both of them. The wind pushed her back a bit, sending her to the wall.