The Pale Cage

Chapter 8

Raeburn wasn't sure how much more of this he could handle. He thought that they would mess with him for a while and then dump him back into his room. But he had been left in the same position for six hours straight. Sure the scientists would get tired and they'd leave, but others replaced them, starting up where they left off. And they kept him awake, through all of it. No anesthesia, no analgesics, conscious while they poked and prodded and cut. Raeburn thought of the woman on the operating table. He had hoped she wasn't conscious through all of that...But from the look of things, she probably wasn't offered anything to dull the pain either.

Raeburn had not seen the green-eyed girl and there was no communicating with these people. Any time that he tried to speak only earned him more pain. After the first suffocation, they repeated the act each time a new minion came in, just to show off his bypass system. Then they decided that they needed samples of his lungs and tissues of his skin. Raeburn had several places up and down his arms and legs with large gaping holes where pieces of tissue had been cut away. His chest hurt where they did the lung biopsy. All of it was done while he was conscious. He was given another drug during those procedures, it made his body heavier than lead. He had hoped that it would dull the pain, Raeburn was getting tired of having his hope being cut to pieces. He felt every slice of pain, but he couldn't scream or move.

Then Martin came back. Raeburn wanted Martin dead. Martin took the most pleasure out of watching him struggle and it was Martin who discovered Raeburn's weakness. A crowd gathered around Raeburn. The drug that had immobilized him before had worn off by the time Martin decided to play with him. So he had his mouth clamped shut, he would not yell, he would not cry out, that's what Martin wanted. He would not give it to him. He held his breath when Martin touched the vulnerable area. Martin gently applied pressure to the bundle of nerves. Raeburn wrenched his eyes shut, but with each second Martin increased the pressure. Air hissed across his teeth as the pain quickly became unbearable. Martin had everyone's attention now, he began to dig his fingers into the tangle of nerves. Raeburn couldn't keep quiet, he gasped at the agony and fruitlessly tried to shake Martin off. To his surprise, Martin stopped his attack. Raeburn panted for air. He opened his eyes and relaxed when he saw Martin stand back.

"Dr. Roane will need to see this." One of them said, he turned quickly to leave the lab.

"Why would Time Lords even have such a weakness?" Another voiced.

"Do you think the Expert knew about this?" Said someone else.

"She's due for a beating for not saying anything."

Raeburn looked up at the monsters. Whomever this 'Expert' was, was certainly not here by choice. He had a really bad feeling that she was River and he worried that whatever she was doing here...she was in hell too.

The scientists all took turns prodding the hypersensitive area. They took a marker and actually drew a circle around it. The scientist, who ran off, returned with 'permission' from Dr. Roane to take samples. Raeburn did not want to live through this.

"Please, render me unconscious, don't do this." He begged them. "With whatever is left of your humanity, your mercy, please, at least do this while I am unconscious." His eyes connected with Franklin. "Please."

Franklin turned his gaze away as the others prepared to cut more chunks out of Raeburn's flesh. A dull pinch pulled his eyes away from the glint of the scalpel. The green-eyed girl was back and she was injecting him with a new drug. Raeburn squinted at her, he couldn't understand why no one else seemed to notice her. He opened his mouth to speak, but pressure at his shoulder drew his gaze back to Martin. Martin was slicing into Raeburn's bundle of nerves. Raeburn watched in horror, but he couldn't get his brain to work. Thinking had become horribly difficult. It was like an out-of-body experience, he could clearly see it happening, and he knew he should be in agony, but his whole entire being felt like pudding. His eyes slowly slid back to where the girl had been, but she was gone. Finally he realized that she was why he couldn't feel anything. She was why his vision was going blurry and his thinking becoming muddled. He didn't know who she was, but he was sure she was trying to help him. Raeburn winced at the welling up of his dark red-orange blood. He floated in the clouds, watching the evil scientists cut him open. He was quite thankful for the green-eyed girl. Raeburn's eyes rolled back into his head and his whole world went black.