Camp IX | ✓

17

     The harsh lights were what first woke me. Even before I opened my eyes, I felt the light pushing on my eyelids turning blackness into a light red color. The surface I was laying on felt smooth and cold under my hands. I took a breath. The air tasted stale like the room hadn't been aired out in years.

     I heard people moving around the room, the clink of metal on metal, and snatches of whispered conversations.

     "Did it work?" A masculine voice off to my left asked.

     "I'm not sure," a female answered much closer. "Her hair hasn't turned back to silver like the others."

     There was a sigh from the man and footsteps came towards me. I heard the soft scuffle of soles against the floor before they stopped near my head.

     "She's the last one. Of course, something had to go wrong with her," the man sounded tired, defeated in a way.

     "But we did the reverse procedure the exact same as the others."

     Another female voice joined the conversation. This one was soft and the farthest away.

     "Did Griffin mess up somehow in the extraction?"

     What had been hazy before came flooding back. The boy in my living room. Arms holding me, dragging me back. The pain in my neck. Blaze crumpled on the floor. Oh shit...Blaze.

      I forgot that I wasn't alone in the room, wrenched open my eyes and sat up so fast that spots danced in front of my eyes. Before I could move again, a splitting headache burst across my forehead and I gasped at the sudden pain.

     There was a flurry of movement and a small woman appeared at my side. Her silver hair was pulled into a high bun atop her head and wrinkles stood out on her skin. Her purple eyes didn't burn as harshly as the ones in New York did. They smoldered instead with worry.

     On the other side of me stood two more of them. One looked like a copy of the short women but quite a bit younger and the other was the man I'd heard talking. He stood hands clasped behind his back and he made no movement towards me. His eyes stared at me from a sharp face blank of any emotions. His cheekbones looked as though they could cut through the toughest diamond and his thin lips were locked together betraying no emotion. Though he looked old, it wasn't in a feeble grandpa way. He looked like he'd picked a fight with time and won.

     I quickly looked away from him. He scared me. So, of course, he had to be the first one to speak.

     "I'm glad to see you're awake Nova."

     I glanced back over at him. He didn't look glad, or happy, just cold like stone. And how did he know my name? I'd certainly never met him in my life. I would have remembered.

     He stopped looking at me and started for the door on the other end of the room. He moved in crisp, clean movements. I reminded me of the way a soldier moved.

     "Follow me," he said just before reaching the door. "You have to give your mission report to the Council."

      "My what?" I sputtered.

     I forgot temporarily that I was surrounded by aliens and at their mercy. Confusion clouded my brain and the more I tried to think, the more the confusion and pain from my headache grew.

     The man turned around sharply. His eyes now narrowed and staring straight at me. I shrank under his withering glare. 

     "Berkely..." The woman at my side warned. "We knew this was a possibility when her hair didn't change back."

     What the hell did she mean "change back"? Had they been running experiments on me? Ignoring the quickly growing pain in my head, I slipped off the table I'd been sitting on. My knees almost gave out when I hit the floor. I forced them to move me across the room and towards a tray of tools that was resting on a shelf at the edge of the room. I picked it up and flipped it over. The tools chattered to the ground with a harsh sound but I didn't care.

     I studied myself in the reflection on the back of the tray. Through it was warped and distorted, I could make out myself. The same old blond hair and brilliant blue eyes stared back at me. I breathed a sigh of relief. For a second I was worried I'd been like them, all silver hair and violet eyes. Thin and hallow like a skeleton.

     Behind me, the man, Berkley, and the woman were exchanging words in a low clipped tone. They kept glancing over at me. Her eyes worried and his dark.

     "What do we do?"

     "I'll inform the Council of this recent development. They'll know what to do," Berkely sighed, annoyed at something. Probably me messing up his plans.

     I didn't like that look. It made me feel like a rabbit and he was the wolf, ready to bite my head off. The pain in my head had escalated to a point where it was all I could do not to cry out. In a last ditch effort to do something, anything, I snatched a tool out of the pile I'd created. It resembled a scalpel but its blade was longer.

     I hid it behind my leg with trembling fingers. Between the pain and mounting panic in my chest, I felt like I might burst. Here I was, in a foreign room that probably wasn't on Earth and surrounded by aliens. My whole body was shaking by now, out of fear and panic. Was this what Blaze felt like before one of his panic attacks?

     Berkely whispered something in the woman's ear and left. The sound of the door shutting sounded like a tomb being sealed. My heart lept in my chest, banging against my ribs. My head felt like it was splitting open. Darkness hovered at the edge of my vision but I pushed it away. These aliens would do something to me if I passed out again, I just knew it. Like hell I'd be their pincushion guineapig.

     The short women moved towards me slowly, hands open and outstretched to show me she was unarmed.

     "Nova," she said soothingly. "It's just me remember?"

     "Remember?" I spat between my clenched teeth. "I think I'd remember meeting someone from this horrible place."

     Her face fell like I'd hurt her. Good.

    I advanced, scalpel held firmly in my hand. The fear in my stomach had been replaced by anger. White hot anger. And I forgot for a moment that I didn't have the upper hand.

     "You and your whole damn spaceship is going to regret ever coming here. You're going to regret invading Earth," I hissed as I stepped towards the woman. "Because we're going to wipe every last one of you rotten aliens from existence."

     The woman lost the calm mask that she'd been wearing. Her eyes glittered, as dark as the night sky and they narrowed.

     "Then I hope you're willing to be the first to die."

     There was a sharp pain in my neck again. Just like before, My senses dulled and I collapsed into the arms of the second women. I'd completely forgotten about her. The older woman's dark gaze watched me fall and they were the last thing I saw before submitting to the darkness.