Smoke on the Hills

1

"Code Triple-O is displaying aggressive behaviour yet again, Doctor." One of the researchers stated, observing the young girls behaviour through the monitor. She was sat in the corner of her room, viciously clawing at the chain attached to her ankle in a fierce attempt to escape and growling out of frustration when she realised it wasn't working.

She was the only one chained up, all of the other subjects acted and behaved normally, but Triple-O was Feral, that's her instinct, it's clear now that she was given the wrong chip and her brain cannot control her body, she is controlled by feral instincts and that's it, but that couldn't be changed so she was just put in her own special research facility and undergoes different tests to the rest of the subjects.

"Send Doctor Francis in to examine her." Dr. Anderson sighed, she was in charge of Triple-O's health and wellbeing, but everyone knew she disliked Triple-O, giving her as little attention as possible and on more than one situation putting her in near death situations. Dr. Anderson thought she was too much effort and that no more data could be collected from her so she was useless. It was obvious she couldn't fight without killing other subjects so she couldn't even be sent to the Arena.

Dr. Francis, on the other hand, had taken a liking to Triple-O, unlike the rest of the research team, he didn't call her a 'wild animal', and he often volunteered to be the one to go into the room with her because, in his words, "she's still human, after all." He had a kind heart, but that wasn't a good thing in this case because mentally, Triple-O was a wild animal.

He banged on the door twice before unlocking it, to let her know he was coming in. Immediately, Triple-O stopped clawing at her chains and sat in the corner of the room, still growling, but this time she was cowering instead of getting ready to attack. She was scared of him.

"Hello, Triple-O, how're you today?" He asked in a soft voice, slowly closing the door behind him to hide the guards, they also scared her and made her more likely to attack them because that's all they did to her.

No answer.

"I'm just going to have a look at your chain, you seem to have done quite a bit of damage to yourself because of them," he looked her bloody hands, her nails were almost hanging off and her fingertips were pretty much torn to shreds. She also had a trail of blood rolling down her chin from attempting to bite through the metal. "Look, I've got the key, I'm going to undo them, so stay still please."

Hesitantly, Triple-O stretched her leg out to Dr. Francis, who unlocked the chain and then stepped away from her. She crouched, still in the corner of the room, before shaking her leg and stretching it. Despite the fact that she couldn't talk, she could still understand what he was saying.

She looked at the door, and then back at the doctor, her eyes were still human eyes, not that of a wild animal, emerald green and full of life, but her matted hair and dirty body said otherwise. She wore the standard white jumpsuit that all subjects were required to wear, but hers was stained and torn.

The doctor pulled out a remote from his pocket and Triple-O curled up into a ball and whimpered, he'd forgotten Dr. Anderson used it to test out the 'overdrive' setting, just thinking about it made everyone shudder, it was a bad idea.

He looked at the remote and clicked on the glowing red button, Triple-O looked at him and tilted her head. "I just deactivated your chip," he smiled "it's going to stay off for a day, so please have a wash and eat something, Triple-O, I can't stand seeing you like this."

She stared at him blankly and blinked a couple of times before shifting her gaze to the door. He smiled and nodded before walking out of the room, locking the door behind himself.

Triple-O didn't know what to do with herself, this was the first time since she'd arrived that her chip had been deactivated. Shakily, she stood up and limped to the bathroom before turning the shower on. She flinched at the sudden burst of water, but quickly took off her jumpsuit and stood under the water.

She picked up the bottle of shampoo and examined it before squirting a bit on her finger and tasting it, but quickly realised it wasn't for eating when she saw the word 'hair' on it. She did as it said and washed her hair with it, then washed her body, after giving the shower gel a taste test, too.

Once she was done in the shower, Triple-O shook herself dry and went back into her living room to sleep. She sat down and examined her nails, which were torn to shreds, and looked at the blood on the walls. As she trailed her fingertips down the red stains, she mumbled the word "pain."

Dr. Francis, who had been observing her behaviour since he left the room, quickly wrote down what she was doing. It seemed to him like she had forgotten how to be human, her Feral trait had been activated for too long and she didn't know who she was, it upset him to see what she was like.

He looked over at her file and read her details, Lilith Hughes, aged nineteen, she was originally a student from a small town, but after being examined by one of the scientists, they thought she was the perfect candidate to test the Feral trait on.

They were wrong, of course. Triple-O, Lilith, was just a young girl, and like all the other test subjects, she had friends and a family before she was captured, she had a bright future, but that was taken away from her when the project started, and Dr. Francis hated that.