Six opens her eyes to the sound of people talking .
"Do not worry,Professor, specimen number Six will make a full recovery. "
A foreign voice tells someone near her.
She sees the white walls she's too familiar with and sits up but with a pain in the side of her head which she massages with her hand.
She looks to the other side of her bed and sees tge scientist from earlier waling someone out of the room.
"I...I'm sorry sir."
"Next time I ask you if you can handle a case, tell me the truth, is that understood, Number Six?"
"Y...yes sir." Her heart sinks as she responds.
He steps out leaving her alone with a ding sound coming from the floor.
The lines between the tiles glow bright blue and A robotic feminine voice speaks.
"Results of today's task:
Threat reduction rate for Specimen eight: ninety percent.
Threat reduction rate for Specimen eleven:
Zero percent.
Overal score: Failure.
Dinner will be withheld for tonight."
A tear rolls down her cheek.
"I deserve that."
She wipes it and clutches the metal sphere tightly.
The next day , Six stays in bed just as the scientist enters the room.
"Specimen number Six, it's time for your daily rounds."
With baggy eyes, she gets up and walks with the scientist to another room, meeting a room filled with lions surrounding a dark skinned female child playing with coloured building blocks
The scientist reads out the case file to her but she simply walks in, her veins glow white.
She walks towards the child with veins glowing red and the lions prepare to pounce on her, she simply walks through them as they have no mass.
She sits next to the girl and helps her build a model house out of blocks.
The girl giggles and applauds it,hugging her and as she does, the lions fade. She walks back to the scientist.
"Who's next?"
They go back to the room with the dark skinned boy.
"Shit!" She utters and on realizing she did, covers her mouth.
"That's ten points off your daily assessment. "
"I'm so sorry sir." She says reaching for his hand which he pulls away immediately.
"Just do your job, Specimen."
She walks in and sees the boy, this time he's faving the wall with a book in his hand. The cover reads:
"The Shadow by Hans Christian Anderson."
"What do you want? " he asks.
"To do my job."
"So you admit you don't even care."
He turns around to face her, with a disgusted look on his face.
"No...I don't and I'm really tired so let's just get this over with."
"You're just like the rest of the..."
"Can anything sensible come from that hole in your face or do I have to assume your brain lacks the ability to understand that you're not the only one in this mess?"
"Well I'm in the lowest..."
"I wasn't done! Don't interrupt me. Yeah you're in the lowest place isolated from not only humans but people like you as well but being an entitled crap basket isn't going to help you!"
He stays silent until Number Six breaks the silence.
"Nothing to say?!"
His body trembled at her question.
"I...I'm sorry. "
"Good,now please let me help you."
"Y...you can't...."
"She sighs and speaks through her headphones.
"I cannot handle the..."
"Wait, wait...I didn't mean it like that. It's just I've had this "thing" in my head for so long, I barely sleep and lots of people come down to "help" me but they always leave me with worse headaches and the thing feels even stronger after that.
"Have you ever tried just talking to peoplethat come?"
"They don't want to talk,just follow a script and leave me."
She sits on the floor facing him.
"Okay, I'm here. Let's talk."
After about an hour of them talking, the scientist returns and Six leaves with him.
In her room, the AI voice gives her the assessment for the day.
"Pass." is all she heard and a full tray of food with vegetables a carton of milk and a glass of water and a boiled egg.
Her smile is radiant as she voraciously devours everything on the tray.
A green dome appears around them and she hears a familiar voice.
"You're really gonna eat that lab food?"
The boy from earlier sits on her bed holding the metal sphere.
"Hey, drop that!" She snatches it from him.
"You need to leave or we'll both be in trouble."
"No we won't."
He grabs her hand and pulls her out of the room and she sees a green light covering the entire facility. With scientist frozen in mid walking motion.
"What the hell
"How did you get out of your room? Aren't there A.E.Rs?"
"I guess I'm too tough to be caged, now come on, let's get you some real food."
He carries her and jumps off the hallway with railings. She screams but soon realises they're falling slowly.
"Wow!"
"I thought so too when I first figured out I could do this."
He leads her to a cafeteria where scientists are eating, they see a all sorts of foods there.
"Umm...what's that?" She says pointing to a pizza."
"You're kidding right?"
She shakes here head.zane puts a few slices on a tray.
"Let's head back to the rooms ans you can tell me if you like it."
"Why don't we just eat here? She takes one of the scientists glasses and tosses it in a trashcan.
He take the notepad from one of the scientist.
"Let's see what these jerks have been writing about us."
She sees personal notes but goes to a page that catches her attention.
"Hands of Salvation...Zane...Your name's Zane?" She looks at a page with his picture and name on it.
"Huh, they just call me specimen one."
He says looking at the notebook with her.
"I guess you can just call me Zane then. Hey let's see if we can find your real name."
Zane starts to feel a sharp headache and his veins start gloeing brighter.
"You okay?"
"I uh...let's just get back..."
He falls over, his veins now glowing bright through his clothes and even his eyes glow green.
"Zane!"
Her veins glow and she touches him.
She finds herself in the snowy forest area again, the creature from efore is far away from her, it follows footprints leading to a wooden house.
Six sees someone inside the house watching from the closed windows.
She takes the long route qround the house, avoidingthe creature. She arrives at the backdoor. She meets a garage without a vehicle or and tools, the door leads to a living room and a staircase to the side.
She hears the creature banging on the door, kicking it off its hinges.
Six runs up the stairs seeing a much younger Zane hiding under blankets with blood dripping froma claw wound in his stomach
"Six...I'm scared."
She hugs him, holding him close.
"Hey, you're gonna be okay. "
She hears growlingq nd behind her is the creature breathing on her back with ice cold breath; she turns arpund to see its deer-shaped face a skelton for a face and no eyes in its sockets but gren light growing from them, it has coiled antlers growi N g out of its head, it has humanoid limbs but hunches over and coils its inhumanly log fingers around Six's neck, holding her up as it chokes her.
She tried punching its arm but it feels.like hitting stone. It's eyes immediately turn to Zane who starts punching it's leg.
"Leave her alone!"
It's toe nails become razor sharp and digs them into Zanes abdomen.
He screams but holds into the creature's foot, able to remove one of it's sharp nails and stabbing it in the foot with it.
The creature roars and a white light covers them.
Six regains consciousness with strangle marks on her neck and Zane face up bleeding from his abdomen. His veins stop glowing and time resumes, the scientists rush to him as Six compresses the wound screaming for help