Pearl

Chapter Six: Contingency Plan

Warning: Forced captivity

Deep in the forest of Indiana, within the confines of the modest grey building hiding in the trees, with three sets of speculative eyes upon her, Emma Pearson woke up.

Her whole body tensed, muscles flexing instinctively as her brain failed to process what her eyes were taking in. She could make nothing of what she saw, her disorientation reducing otherwise familiar objects to little more than abstract shapes. 

She held still, the fine hairs all over her body at absolute attention as some sixth sense told her not to move, a preprogrammed response left over from her caveman ancestors who slept in fear of sharp-toothed predators.

Emma fought through these paralyzing instincts, forcing herself to blink. Slowly, she began to process some small aspects of her environment.

The chill of the smooth surface at her back, the bite of the restraints all down her body, the coldly curious gazes of the three oval faces she didn't recognize leaning over her – none of it made sense.

A lump built in Emma'a throat, the unasked questions that she didn't even know enough to form congregating into an unexpressed, wordless scream. 

She opened her mouth to speak but almost forgot how to breathe as various fear responses competed at once and forced her to take in air in short, desperate pants.

"She's beginning to panic," an emotionless, accented voice observed, and Emma's eyes snapped to the face of the woman who spoke. She searched for something, anything, to ground her in this strange new world but received nothing from that expressionless face.

"How nice of her to join us, and just when we were about to begin, too," a second face said, almost purring.

Emma met those eyes too. She lost herself for a moment in the intensity of that gaze, pinned into place by the possessiveness she saw there like a butterfly nailed into a board for collection and display.

Emma's lungs felt heavy, claustrophobia crouching on her chest as the pressure of her own confusion trapped her. 

The faces continued to speak, but the words felt clouded.

"If she's conscious, the subject may try to obstruct or fight Pearl's path through the sinuses," the first face spoke again. "I've prepared the sample to be small enough that we can use the orbit if necessary."

"Approved. Are the sensors set and ready?" the second face replied, turning to the last face.

"Set and ready," that face repeated. 

This last face did not look at Emma.

The voices devolved into un-interpretable noises that bombarded Emma as her brain began to shut down, rejecting this unimaginable environment. The metal clasps of the restraints clinked against the hard surface of the table as her body trembled.

This simply wasn't real, couldn't be real, and Emma closed her eyes to embrace the senseless terror that overrode any further attempts to interpret or understand her situation. 

The shock washed her clean of any thoughts or emotion, and she floated in the void she had just emerged from.

A hundred years later a hand grabbed her face, and Emma recognized the powdery scent of latex gloves.

Emma crinkled her nose, her face scrunching up. Was she at the dentist's? She squinted her eyes open to check.

Where three faces had been, one remained, with a surgical mask covering the lower half. The eyes watched her through wired lenses, sucking her in like mazes as excitement swirled within them.