NOT UR FREAK (Avengers fan-fiction)

Capitulo Siete: Tests

Something I learned about people...

if they do it once they'll do it again.

-Unknown-

They come soon after. Men and women in more white coats than I've ever seen in my life. They don't scream, or speak angrily, or even regard us at all except to tell us to be quiet, and sit still. Which we were doing anyway.

They pin a laminated piece of paper with numbers on it to our chests, ordering us to memorize the number, and wait by the door if we hear it called. The woman trying to pin all the numbers to our fronts takes one look at my shirt and sends for a new one to be brought. It's a pale blue V-neck several sizes too large, made from a stiff, coarse fabric.

I run my hands over the scratchy surface, and appreciate the way it falls almost to my knees. If I curl up and stretch it a little, I can fit my entire body under the warmth-holding material. It's a good thing too, the room seems to be getting colder, and the smooth concrete floors sap your body heat rather than hold it.

The white-coated people, they must be doctors, select a small number of children, and lead them out of the room. The remaining men pass out more food, and I attack mine ravenously. I was right, it is gross. It is also filling, and for that much I am grateful.

After we are fed the Doctors collect all the packages littering the ground and leave the room silently. The room is so quiet I can hear the labored breathing of Elise, who must have broken several ribs when Maria beat her. So quiet that there is nothing to muffle the sound of the screams.

They tear through the walls and echo down the hallways. The clashing, almost inhuman sounds eroding all other senses. We listen tensely, terror growing. The only sound we're able to pin-point that of the boy's cries. Cold fear roots in my stomach, and somehow, I know that down the hallway, behind door D13, this is happening. I don't know what they could possibly be doing to elicit these sounds, but I know that we are next.

I feel sick, and apparently, I'm not the only one, because a boy in front of me pitches to the side and retches into the darkness.

The screams stop soon after, and there is only the sound of occasional footsteps outside the door to break our tense silence. Even Elise quiets her raspy breathing.

Hours pass, but none of us attempts to sleep, or even stretch our cramped legs. We simply wait, eyes only straying from the light-silhouetted door to glance at the frightened faces beside us. The only movement the rise and fall chests as we draw in the cold air.

Finally, I hear the sound of approaching footsteps and pray to whatever god will hear me that they will pass. They don't.

There is a sharp click and a grating noise as the bolt-lock is removed and the door thrown open. Someone brightens the lights, and a few White-Coats filter in. One of them prattles off a list of numbers, and the others find the children with those numbers pinned to their shirts.

A woman pulls Javier to his feet and ushers him over to the open door. He pauses there, and gives me a backward glance. His eyes are worried, so worried I think maybe he is going to break away from them and run back. But the woman shoves him through the door and closes it, leaving us in the same murky gray as before.

The room seems impossibly empty now, and somehow much darker than it was before. The silent spell seems to have broken, and I can clearly hear the muffled sobs coming from the children around me. I feel tears forming in my own eyes, but blink them away angrily. Crying doesn't ever do anything, except make things worse, and Heaven knows I did not need this situation to get any worse.

I hear more people coming, and scooch myself into the corner nearest me before the door opens. I make out a wiry coils of Mariah's hair before she is shoved through the doorway. Three more forms stumble through and a final child is dragged, unconscious into the room.

****

It must be hours later that the door opens again. The lights are brightened once more, and I shrink further into my corner. A different list of numbers is called out, and the remainder of the children are herded from toward the door. I can see more of the hallway from my angle, so it isn't hard to know that the woman grabbing each child's shirt-front is reading their numbers. Once they are confirmed, she marks something on a little book in her other hand and pushes them past her to the other Doctors. It only takes a few moments before she realizes that they are missing one of the numbers. She speaks for a moment in a quiet, annoyed voice and then walks into the still bright room. Her eyes scan the group quickly before they land on me.

"Viens, petite merde." Her face is made completely of angles, points, and lines. Like someone had forgotten to add flesh to her body, and only skin and bone were left.

She seems to be contemplating something for a moment before she says, "Ven." It is the first word I've heard in Spanish from any of them, but I have no intention to listen to it.

Sighing tiredly, she steps around the unconscious boy and reaches for me. I manage to dodge her first few attempts at grabbing me, but by the third she is angry. When her arm does fasten around my chest, I know she has no intention of letting go.

She deflects my flailing limbs easily and drags me through the door. From there I am passed from one arm to another as the men and women try to still my flailing limbs. We pass the group of returning children, and I see a blur of what might be Javier as I am flung from one pair of arms to the next. I don't scream, what was the point? No one cared, and if they did it wouldn't be for me, but the Doctors pulling me along.

When we reach the clean section, I know it is only a matter of time before I'm on that table again. Desperate tears blur my vision, and I don't try to hold them back.

I scream at the Doctors, the walls, the doors and tables and machines. I won't go in there; they can't make me. Even as I think this, I know it's not true. One thing I've learned throughout my short time on earth; they can always make you. Someone pulls me against themselves, pinning my arms to my sides and the back of my head to their stomach. A wet rag is forced over my mouth, and an overpowering sweetness invades my nose and burn my throat. I hold my breath but am too late, the drugs have already started to take effect.

My eyelids droop of their own accord, but I fight sleep with all my might.

"That one first, she's mostly asleep already." It's the man who shot Maria, but blurrier. He's pointing at me, but I'm too tired to try and figure out what he said.

The woman drags me into the adjoining room, which I can tell isn't the one where I was given stitches, though it still has the table and straps.

I struggle to keep my eyes open as they begin to strap me to the table, my entire focus on staying alert. I can barely make out the fuzzy form of the American, staring down on me, and the hands of some other Doctor as he fastens something around my mouth. It is two straps that fit tightly around the back of my head and meet with a third that goes over the top, all holding a rubber ball inside my mouth, pressing down on my tongue and making it difficult to swallow. A gag. I realize as the American leans over me again.

"You are a fighter." His words are meaningless to me, and I can hardly register the sensation of a needle entering my arm, a feeling that will become a defining part of life in the following days, before sleep descends on me, deep and dark and heavy. "That's good, we don't have room for anything else." A dreamless sleep, in which I am released from the world -for however short a period- into a sea of calm.

Well, hi Y'all. I can't say I'm especially pleased with this chapter, and I have absolutely no excuse for not finishing it sooner. Yes, I have been busy, but also lazy. Anywho, thanks for reading, and have fun with the rest of your way-too-long lists. Lots of love, your local Elephant.

Sayonara