Experimentation
Chapter 22

Trina’s eyes light with curiosity at the room in front of us, the walls lined with pictures of all the “Light” patients with their medical history and the experiments that were done on them surrounding them. My heart sank when I saw pictures of what they did to Trina, her body restrained down on a board where they had pulled her limbs in all directions with fire surrounding her, almost baking her alive. The look of pain on her face could crush the most naïve and innocent of souls, pure agony had been displayed when Trina looked at the picture herself, “It’s okay Ria, I had forgiven them for what they had done and you should too.” She had quickly covered that look when she said those words. I grabbed her hand and squeezed it to my chest letting my love for her be shown, even if I can’t say it, her hand gently stroked my cheek and she smiled. “I love you too Ria, but the sooner we get the evidence the sooner we can leave this awful place.” Trina grabs what looks like being a cell phone and starts to snap pictures. I walk around the room and notice that there is another door hidden in the panels of the wood. Trina is fully engrossed in her “collecting of evidence” that she doesn’t see the indent in the wall.

I slowly push the tiny door open and walk into a dark cavern, the electricity that fills my body starts to fill my eyes letting the room light up in front of me. The hallway is long filled with webs and dust. At first glance I would assume that this hasn’t been used in years but the middle of the floor is clean, not a speck of dust in the perfect row, this must be important. I slowly began making my way down the hall, not caring or the dangers that may lay ahead, all my mind can focus on is getting justice for those who had died. The creaking of the wood below me starts to set an eerie feeling in my body and even with the light guiding my way, the darkness gives me a feeling of certain death. My mind begins to race and my heart starts to accelerate its beating causing my breath to shorten. Calm down Irisa, I need to stay calm. The electricity that onces was relaxed in my body starts to spark from my fingertips, the sparks begin to form a protective wall around me. As the end of the hall becomes clear, there is yet another door. I feel the light wanting to become grounded therefore I aim my palms towards the door and let go of the restraint that kept my power in, the sparks start to become bigger and happen very quickly feeling it take over my veins and then boom! I set a bolt of what looks to be lightning shot out of my hand and blast towards the door once it hit I am blast back by shards that were once the metal door and land on my back.

As the surrounding smoke begins to clear, I slowly lift myself of the ground and with my guard up, head into the room. The rubble was sharp and jagged, having to maneuver my bare feet was hard especially when I don’t need anymore scars to add to my mind as I physically heal all the time. As I walk past the wall of smoke and found clear ground, the room in front of me was terrifying. The walls filled with pictures of me and two others that I don’t recognize, the photos had the “Lessons and punishments” displayed to its fullest. All three of us had different ways of being tortured, and it had different effects on all of us. The first one had what looked to be like a fire chamber, their body seemed to be burning and the scars looked painful. That poor boy, he looks only to be 10. My eyes trained to the aftermath once they had ejected “syrup” into him, his body almost engulfed in fire with his eyes a bright amber. The second person looks to be attached to a mri machine, wires surrounding her body, in her veins. The brainwave chart in the corner is going crazy it seems, this simulates that the person is in pain or extreme distress. The next photo of her looks straight from a movie, her eyes turned a bright green compared to her normal brown eyes, green circles surround her eyes and spread out down her neck and ending at her arms. I walked over to “my” wall and just stared at the first picture for a while, “Irisa?” and a hand touched my shoulder and I couldn’t keep strong.

I don’t know how long I’ve been crying for, Trina just stroke my back and let my tears soak her shirt. Her comfort helps calm myself down and away from the memory of that tortuous pain. I lift my head and look at the second picture and surprisingly wasn’t scared. My eyes swirling with the bright blue lighting, silver and blue around my eyes going down my cheeks and surrounding my body but majorly my chest, my chest has swirls that let my heart stand out, the source of my affliction. “Is that how I look when.. It takes over?” I whisper to Trina resting my head on her shoulder, her warm breath against my forehead is welcoming and helps my body relax. Trina grabs my head in her hand, “That’s how the machine sees you but that’s not your true beauty because true beauty is how you perceive yourself. All I see in this picture is you, not a monster or a horror but the beautiful you that I know and love, this picture shows how you have a battle going on inside you and you are fighting to win. I know in your heart you want to embrace this new power you have but you are too afraid to take that next step, and that’s okay. It’s okay to be afraid of letting go of the past and when you accept who you are now, then you will forever be your beautiful self.” as she finishes her heartfelt words she lays a gentle kiss on my forehead.

I slowly stand up straight and grab the phone from her hand, “What are you doing Ria?” Trina says as I start to take pictures of the surrounding evidence, as I was about to take a picture of the transformations Trina shot out and grabbed my wrist, I looked at her in confusion and she whispered only one word. “Don’t.” She took the phone from my hand and placed it in her pocket. “We have enough evidence.” She turned towards the door and walked back into the hidden hall, wanting to leave this place as swiftly as possible. I take one more look around the room and just felt sadness, I am not the only one who had been tortured, be in pain because of that awful man. Without even a second thought I pulled out the lighter that resided in my pocket and start to set papers aflame, no one needs to see this room, there is enough evidence in the room next door that we don’t need to be reminded of this agonizing experience. After a minute of lighting 3 papers, one on each wall, almost the entire room was engulfed with flames. I stood in the hallway watching it burn, happy with the results that are being displayed but then it dawned on me. Trina hasn’t said a word or even made a sound for the last 4 minutes, this thought causes my mind to lose control and my body takes over.

I sprint down the hallway and get to the tiny door as I try to pull it open it would only budge a slight bit. I peek my head near the tiny opening that is available and see that the door is restrained by a rope being stuffed underneath, as I was going to fry the rope I heard a voice, “Katrina, dear why won’t you tell me where she is?” I see Edwin walk in the room with his arm gripping onto Trina’s upper arm, pushing her onto the desk. “I won’t listen to you anymore, and apparently neither will you. I don’t know where Irisa is!” Trina boomed at Edwin pulling her arm out of his grasp. Edwin let out a sinister laugh and started to walk closer to her almost pinning her against the wall. “Sweet Katrina, I was the one who let you near her. I gave you her to watch and see if she was perfect for my experiments, you did what I asked then. You gave me all the evidence I needed for her to take your place but you won’t let me know something as simple as a location.” I gasped, Katrina was the one who told on me. I turn around at look at the fire that’s starting to grow behind me, sending smoke down the hall trying to escape the hall. I have to shut the door a slight bit, narrowing my sight to just Katrina and Edwin. “I only did that because you threatened to kill my brother, you said that if I valued his life that I would do what you said but you made her just like Isaac.” Katrina shouted at Edwin, I turned my head towards the fire and thought of the little boy’s pictures in there, was that her brother?

My mind caught up in the chaos of the fire that I stopped listening to Edwin and Katrina, she betrayed me for her brother? I wish I could say I was anger about that but I’m not, I just wished she told me. My eyes stung with the tears and smoke in my eyes mixing together, causing more pain to course through my body. I turned back to the two people outside my door, Edwin’s hand is in his jacket’s pocket and Katrina on the ground holding her face in pain. She’s hurt? I start trying to push the door open harder pushing but Trina raised her slightly for me to stop and for the first time, I listen to her. I watch her look into Edwin’s eyes and said the bravest thing anyone could say to him,” Fuck you.”

Edwin grabs the object in his pocket and pointed it at her, I rubbed my eyes to try to see what it was more clearly but I couldn’t get the smoke out of my eyes. “Goodbye Katrina.” Before she could do anything a booming noise rung through the room, Katrina’s body jerks forward in pain. Edwin released his sinister laugh and walked out of the room as I looked at her. I saw what happened, she was shot.

I blow off the door and ran towards Trina, her chest pulling towards my body. She was shot in the chest. I place my hand over the bullet hole and pressed it down trying to stop the bleed. The bright red warmth of the blood starts to cover my hands as it flows out of her, it must have hit something important. It covers her once white shirt and starts dripping on the floor surrounding us. She moves her mouth, and a groan comes out, I shake my head at her, “Don’t speak, just relax and stay calm. You’ll be okay, just stay calm and breath.” I can see her chest struggling to move, she shoots up slightly and starts to cough. As she coughs blood is spilling out of her mouth, dark sticky blood covering me in it. I start to stroke her hair trying to calm her down while laying her against my chest, she turns to me with sad eyes. She opens her mouth once more and starts to speak slowly “I….” I know where she’s going with this and I’m not giving up yet. I start to shaking my head again but she doesn’t listen this time, “Love….. You.” She mutters out those last words as her lips touch mine and she goes limp.

I held her in disbelief, she can’t be dead. No! I look into her still open eyes and there is no more light, just a pale glaze over them. My mind started to swirl in and out of reality falling into our memories, the silence that surrounds me is starting to cave in. She’s gone, dead in my arms. The blood that once pumped through her veins was now drenching my outfit, her once lively skin now pale as her life slipped away. I don’t know how long I sat there, but I just held her in my arms, rocking back and forth. In the back of the room a pipe starts to drip as I let tears fall from my eyes. “Why did you have to go? We were so close to our happiness, remember the beach? The place you wanted our first kiss to be, with our feet dug in the sand, the oceans saltiness breeze and the sun glistening off our skin. The light would fall on me just right, you would lose all control of yourself and you would just lay it on me.” I let out a laugh, with the tears falling heavier than before. “I guess fate had a different path for both of us to follow.” I place my hand on top of her eyelids and slowly closed her eyes.

While she was still secure in my arms, I placed her on a medical table that was resting in the corner of the room. I grabbed her hand one last time placing my lips on her palm, “Goodbye.” I said as I pushed her into the engulfing flames and sealed the door behind me. I place my palms on the door feeling the heat rise and I slowly backed away falling backwards and landing next to the leaking pipe, listening to the drips.

Drip…

Drip…

Drip….

He killed her, shot her in cold blood because of me

Drip…

Drip…

Drip…

She will never be able to see her brother, walk on the beach, go to Rome like she dreamed

Drip…

Drip…

Drip…

She died therefore I could live the life she wanted me to live.

Drip…

Drip…

Drip…

The same sound echoes in the room, over and over, again and again. Never stops, it keeps going, and its driven me mad.

Drip…

Drip...

Drip…

I won’t be like the rest, to give up the fight. The fight we must fight every night and it’s not the battle that those believe.

Drip…

Drip...

Drip…

I am different now. I am powerful now and they overlooked me because I played their game smart. Ha, those... Darken don’t know that their experiments had changed me. The Darken hasn’t seen my light.

Drip…

Drip...

Drip…

I won’t give up without a fight.

Drip…

Drip…

Drip…