The Lab Rats

Story

Part One
Welcome To The Island

Superheroes, are they real? The kind that swoop in and save the day? People with powers we could only dream of? The answer is yes, and no. There are those with extraordinary powers, but the protection of others isn't their main concern. Travel far out into the ocean to a remote island not marked on any map known. The island is full of jungle. Tall trees and majestic waterfalls where colorful but dangerous animals roam.
But there is one settlement in the form of a large camouflage building with a tall fence shot through with electricity. Built and armed guards paced the cleanly cut grass. They all wore the same uniform. Green with brown sleeves and a brown belt with long brown and green pants. A symbol rested on their shoulders that showed their rank. All of them had the same symbol except one man who was yelling at another for being childish after catching him playing on his phone.
Inside the building was much neater despite the military look outside. It had a clean tan carpet and light blue walls. Comfortable chairs were set up like a waiting room. People worked quietly behind the desk. The phone sat silently. After all who would call a place that no one knew about?
One guard was sitting on one of the chairs. He was a strong looking man and very big in body structure. He had cleanly cut blonde hair that was almost short enough for him to be bald. He wore a different uniform than the guards outside. He wore a long sleeved light blue shirt, pants of the same color and a black belt. All together the uniform was very simple and plain.
His weapon was sitting in his lap, it was moving up and down along with his leg as he tapped it. The room was so insanely quiet that the man was driven to making his own sounds to keep himself occupied. He listened to the simple sound of taps his foot made.
His day was not starting off very good. The people working at the desk would not let him through. They said they needed to renew something. He didn't care what the reason was, all he cared about was that he was being held here when he could be doing his job. He completely absorbed himself into the rhythmic but simple sound of his foot. Tap tap, blong, tap, tap. He almost didn't notice when the lady at the desk told him he could go.
"Mr. Adams, you can go now. Thank you for waiting." She said softly.
"Umf." Adams mumbled as he passed the desk to the elevator. He reached out and pushed the button and waited for the elevator to arrive. There was only one button to push which had a large printed black arrow pointing down on it. Adams didn't understand why there was an arrow on it. This floor was the only one with a button like it. Maybe it was because on this floor you could only go down? Maybe the last floor, which he was not allowed to go, had a arrow pointing up? Who knows? Who cares? Why look into such little details if they aren't interesting? This was what was on Adams's mind until the elevator came and the doors opened.
The elevator had large white tiles for a floor. There was room for nine tiles. The walls were a clean and flat metal. They were reflective enough for Adams to see his face but not clear enough to tell if he had a large zit on his face or not. For a long time Adams didn't care if he had a zit on his face. But when he started his job he was often scolded for not having a crisp appearance, so he started to care more, just a little bit.
He pushed the button with the large 4 printed on it and moved to the right back corner where he always stood unless someone was already there. Then he would stand beside them unless they had forgotten to put on deodorant that morning. Adams was very sensitive to odd smells. But because of his time working on this unknown island 'odd' smells were things like applesauce.
Adams leaned his head back so the top of his head touched the cold metal behind him and listened to the sounds of the elevator working. Cling-cling-cling-cling, bang. The doors slid open and revealed a long room with several tables and chairs around them. There were cabinets, stoves, dishwashers and fridges guarding all sides of the walls. The floor was covered with ugly small blue tiles that really needed a more thorough cleaning. All together the room looked like a kitchen for a family of about fifty.
Adams ignored the food the other employees had left on the tables to share. He knew that the chairs were spindly old things that would never hold his weight. Plus he was already behind schedule. He made his way to one of the cabinets and pulled out four plates then pulled open the door to one of the fridges and pulled out four bottles of water, four packets of carrots and four pre made sandwiches. He stacked all of this on the plate on top of the pile of four plates. He walked with care back to the elevator. Once he got to the door he sat down the pile to push the button for the elevator and picked the pile back up.
He did not have the wait for the elevator this time because it had not been summoned by anyone else. Before he stepped inside he heard an unfortunate guard sit on a chair and fall to the ground on his bum and he grinned. Once in he elbowed the desired number and returned to his corner and waited. It did not take long before the doors opened again. This room was more of a hallway with doors along the walls.
Each door was marked with bold, large, black letters. A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 B1 B2 B3. The doors kept going until a turn in the hallway. Adams assumed that the doors kept going but he never had a need to ever go see. Adams didn't even look at the doors on both sides of him until he got to the Cs. C1 C2 C3 stop. There was his door, C3.
The handle on the door was the type that you could open by just pushing down on it with your elbow. Once inside he pushed the door back into the closed possession with his rear end. The room had four cells, three had vertical bars and one had bars both vertical and horizontal leaving square holes not even big enough for a mouse to squeeze through.
Adams sat down the food and plates and stuck each item on a plate and picked up one. He unhooked his set of keys that hung from his belt and separated the one color coded brown from the others. He tried to stick the key in the keyhole but put it in upside down. He cursed to himself and turned it around. He seemed to never get the keys in without a fight with the special shaped metal bar.
The people held here had very few rights, one of them was the right to move around the objects of their cell to their liking. The occupant of this cell choose to drag his mattress into the far right of the cell. That was where he was sitting with his head down close to his shoulders and staring at Adams. He was a small boy of about sixteen. He wasn't very big or strong looking. He was at a healthy weight but he still looked skinny. He had unkempt brown hair and dim brown eyes. He wore a short sleeved grey shirt and long grey pants. There was C3 printed on both of them. He looked like a perfectly normal person if it wasn't for the large folded wings perched on his back. They were a light brown with a even lighter brown feathers near the top.
Adams opened the door to the cell just enough for him to pass through. The boy did not move at all but his eyes, which where locked on Adams. Adams grinned softly as he sat down the plate of food.
"Why do you always get so stiff when I am around? I never have hurt you." He said, with mock hurt in his voice. The boy's wings seemed to smash in closer to his body as if he was trying to become smaller.
"Your keeping me here." He mumbled.
"It's my job." Adams replied. The boy did not answer, he just watched Adams with a pitiful look on his face. Adams turned his back on the boy and opened the cell door. He turned and rotated the key, which he had left in the lock, to close the door. He listened for the click that signaled that the door was locked and the boy could not escape. Cling. He smiled and pulled the key out and started to get the next key for the cell beside the boy's.
The found key was colored black. The cell was very different from the three others. The bars did not allow anyone or anything other than a small bug to poke through the holes. Inside there was no mattress, just a large red dog bed. One side of the walls was covered in various types of bird perches. The left wall had three different types of cat towers. There was several types of ripped paper and fabrics. There was a large net hung up on the ceiling for some large animal to climb in and rest. Adams looked around the room calmly, looking to pin point the resident. His eyes fell on a pitch black great horned owl. Its large, round green eyes stared back at him.
It opened it's 37 inch wingspan and jumped off the perch and drifted down to the ground. As it fell it body shifted. It became bigger and the feathers flattened into soft black fur. The flat face moved outward and whiskers sprouted from the cheeks. By the time it hit the floor a large panther stood before Adams.
"Ah, May. Why must you be so hostile?" Adams said pleasantly. May responded by lifting her lip and revealing two sets of white teeth. Adams was completely unfazed by her actions, in fact he was quiet used to it. A soft ringing started to sound, the kind you get in your ears. It moved higher and higher until it was almost deafening. The bars shook, which added a metallic ring to the mix. May growled and backed up, lifting her large head and pulling back her rounded ears. Adams continued to watch her without an change in expression. May yowled and rolled onto the floor. Her body changed once again. The fur sank into her skin all over her body but her head which grew down to her waist. In a moment a young girl laid sprawled on the floor. She was very attractive with beautiful long black hair and bright green eyes. She seemed to be slim but with a closer look you could see she was a built and powerful.
Adams opened the cell door just enough for the plate and his hand to fit through and placed the plate on the floor. Adams wasn't too keen on going into May's cell. She was quick to anger and only found solutions in fighting. Also May had been able to escape her cell before. She had done it four times while under other guards. Because of the difficulty of keeping her under control she was moved to Adams room, C3. Though May was a pain, Adams liked the fact that she was here because it showed that he was good enough to keep her in check. After all, she hadn't gotten away with him before.
As Adams turned away May pulled herself up into a sitting position but he ignored her. He pulled out the key colored as red and reached out to open the next cell door.
That's when the creature jumped up and clung to the bars. She was a smaller girl, about eleven with long bright ginger hair and sparkling brown eyes. She wore the same grey outfit as May and the boy. Her legs were covered in a cream colored fur and her feet were paws. A fluffy cream tail with a black tip swished behind her and two large fennec fox ears perched on top of her head. She smiled widely at Adam and tilted her head.
"Well, hello." She lengthened the word 'hello' so that it was five seconds longer than normal. Her grip on the bars was slowly failing her as she slid down closer to the floor.
"Yuie, please get off the door." Adams said. His face clearly showed that he was not amused by the young girl's actions.
Yuie allowed gravity to pull her of the bars, the whole time she pouted. He stuck the key in the lock and turned it until he heard the sound he knew meant it was open. Click. She flopped on the floor, her legs staying where ever they landed. She looked up at Adams and pulled back her large fennec fox ears and widened her eyes as he opened the door and stepped in. Adams turned his head slightly to the left, rolled his eyes and sighed deeply.
"What do you want?" He said, annoyance dotting his voice.
"Different food!" She wined. "Can't I have something like a cookie?"
Adams frowned at her and sat down the food.
"No." He said flatly, then turned his back on her and left the room. She fake cried as Adams locked the cell door and when he turned away she stuffed the food in her mouth. Adams moved on to the last cell. Just standing beside the cell makes a person shiver. Not in fear, the place was just cold, so cold the floor had a thin layer of ice covering it. The boy in the cell seemed disinterested in Adams, he sat on his bed looking at his hands. When Adams opened the door he looked up with a frown and narrowed eyes then looked down again.
"You better not be making those icicle things again." Adams warned. The boy rolled his eyes before saying,
"There more than that."
"Whatever."
Adams sat down the food on the floor and left the cell. He walked around the room to double check all the cells were locked before leaving the room.

Part Two
Introductions

The boy in the first cell watched as Adams left the room. Once the door had closed he sighed, as if the breath had relived him of a burden he was holding onto. He reached for the small box beside his bed and dropped it on his lap. He undid the simple latch and opened the box. Inside was old paper, large feathers and ink. He pulled out one piece of paper, a feather and the ink. He sat the paper on the floor and opened the ink. He dipped the feather's end into the dark liquid and started to draw on the paper. He glanced over at the cell parallel to his. The boy there was building something from ice that appeared to be somewhat rat shaped.
"Hey Caleb, what do you think they do with your sculptures when they remove them?" He asked. Caleb removed his hands from the to-be rat and looked across the hall.
"Probably sell them or use them in parties." He suddenly looked angered.
"I hate to think they are using them to make profit, a rather think they melt them down." He said.
"Adams doesn't like you making them so they very well be doing that." The boy said. Caleb shrugged and then they were silent for a while.
"Asher, what are you making over there?" Caleb asked. The boy looked up from his work, hearing his name.
"I don't know anything but the stuff in the lab, so I can really only make things you make, just on paper." Asher said.
"Seems reasonable." Caleb said.
"What is that, an animal?" Asher asked. Caleb smiled, Asher didn't know much about the outside world so he often had to explain things to him. Which he didn't mind but it did make him sad. Because he never see those things again and Asher will never see them.
"Its a rat, well, it will be a rat. They are animals, they can be pets or pests. They are much smaller than this, about the size of your hand. They got thin fur and a long tail, which I haven't made yet." Caleb explained as he worked.
Asher stared at the ice rat, images flickered through his mind. A white rat running on a table to his hand. One with a tan head standing on its hind legs, reaching for a treat. He shook his head and leaned back, putting his hand on his forehead.
"You ok?" Caleb asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Asher closed his eyes and thought of the images. Asher had been on the outside before but was either sold to the labs by a family member or he a mass murder, or was kidnapped. He didn't have a clue which, but hopped he never killed anyone. He was informed that he had been hurt on the way to the labs which resulted in him forgetting everything and no one feels inclined to fill him in. Sometimes a sound, seeing something or doing something will trigger a memory to resurface. He was pretty sure his father was some kind of criminal. Being in the labs was much like being in jail so many things triggered memories of visiting a tall and imitating man in a place he had described to Caleb, who said it was a prison. Now he knew he had two rats at some point. Not information that was that helpful. He opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. A ceiling to knew way too well. He pin pointed the long crack in the stone and followed it down to the small holes that make the shape of a smiley face. He sighed deeply then picked up his paper and a feather. He flipped through the pages until get got to a picture of a large bird. Its wings were folded up on its back and its long neck curved backward so it almost rested on its back. Its head blended in with its body, it had a small beady eye and a black marking that covered around the eye and down to the beak. It had an average sized beak with a black mark on the end. Asher was told that it was meant to be pure white, but the beak. But the picture wasn't shaded yet so he went to work to finish the drawing. Hours went by with nothing out of the ordinary. Caleb created animals out of ice and Asher copied them on paper. Every once in a while Yuie knocked over a line of dominos or May clawed something apart but mostly the place was quiet. At about twelve they started to get fidgety. Asher kept glancing up at the clock placed above the door and he was rubbing his hands. Yuie picked up her dominos and carefully placed them in a neat pile in the back of her room. Her ears were smashed to the back of her head. When the door opened Asher flinched, well it was more then a flinch, more like jump. Three people stepped into the room. One was a large man with thin cut blonde hair, clearly Adams. The other two were wearing lab coats. The man was thin and short. He had short brown hair and long bangs which he had parted to the left and pinned down with a brown pin that was almost identical to his hair color. His black rectangle glasses covered pale hazel eyes. The women beside him was just a bit taller than him. She also had brown hair that was about the same length as his but she let it down in a more girly style. She wore no glasses but had the same hazel eyes. She held a white box with a clear cover, inside were labeled syringes. The women opened it with delicate looking fingers. Her nails were painted with a different animal face on each nail. The man took a moment staring into the box before picking one up. The contents of the syringe was dark red with a metallic shine to it when the light hit it right. During this time Adams had unlocked Asher's door but was keeping it closed. When the man turned around Adams opened the door, it made a long and low creaking sound as it opened. The man smiled pleasantly at Asher but he did not budge from his place on his bed. He knew that his man was very deceiving. Adams closed the door behind him. He turned the key but kept it in the lock then leaned back on the wall. He looked like he was resting but he was watching through narrowed eyes. The man walked confidently toward Asher. He held out his hand expectantly which caused Asher to flinch. He stared at his hand for a moment before he realized what he wanted. Asher let him take his arm and stiffened as cold metal slid under his skin. Once it was removed he pulled his arm away and cradled it. Burning pain shot up from his arm. The man turned away and walked back to the door and waited until Adams opened the door for him. Once the door was locked in place and the people were on the opposite side of the door, Asher relaxed a little. He took up his paper and softly dipped a feather into the black liquid and tried to ignore Yuie's wines as they forced her down in order to get the shot in her. She always fussed and made it harder on herself. Asher sighed as he made a bad line. His acing arm was making it hard to keep his hand steady. He laid down the paper, deciding to wait until the pain subsided before drawing again. He looked over at Caleb's cell. He had discarded the sculpture and hidden it the best he could beside his bed. He was smoothing out a small ball in his hand, trying to hide his nervousness. Asher didn't see why he would be worried. These two scientists specialized in DNA's, Caleb was a Gifted. Finally the man was able to compleat his task and left Yuie's room, leaving her to bawl. Asher frowned, the shot wasn't that bad. He watched the two scientist and Adams leave and felt himself relax. Caleb dropped the ball and let it spread over the floor, covering it in ice, then picked up his sculpture.
"Would you shut up! He got the same shot and he isn't screaming his head off!" May yelled. Asher released an angry sigh. May never referred anyone to their names, he doubted she even knew them.
"It hurts!" Yuie wined and Asher could hear her rolling around on the floor. He moved to the bars of his cell to see her. She was on the ground on her back and wobbling back and forth like a turtle stuck on its back. At the corner of his eye he saw Caleb make a small misshapen ball and roll it toward Yuie's cell.
"Hold that to the spot. It should help." He said kindly but Asher could his expression and Yuie could not. He was not pleased by her disturbance. She did what he said and her yells became small whimpers until they completely died out. Asher flopped over on his bed and stared up at the ceiling. This was the time where nothing happened unless they were needed for a test. It was about twelve and the lights where shut off at ten. That was ten hours of sitting around in a small cell but Asher was used to it. He could hear Yuie pulling out her dominos and pouring them out on the floor.

Caleb worked silently on his sculpture. He could manipulate the ice as though it was clay. He could roll a ball out into a line or flatten it easily without cracking it. Holding a ball of ice for long periods of time didn't bother him. He wasn't sure how low in temperature he could take but he was sure a scientist would take care of that for him. They had already seen how much heat he could take. He clenched his fist that wasn't holding the sculpture at the thought of that experiment. They had almost killed him then. They had kept rising the temperature while he lay on the floor, sweating, panting and losing his hold on everything. He looked around the room to find any blank spots on the walls but found none. That was odd, he hasn't checked them in a while and some spot should need to be covered again. With a confused look on his face he sat down his art and walked over to the walls and touched it. He walked around the wall, examining it closely but finding nothing. He was a little confused but he wasn't going to complain about it. It was about time they changed the temperature of his cell. What was the point of heating a cell that he was just going to cool down? He sat back down and returned to his work. He looked across the hallway at Asher. He was laying on his back on his bed, his arm twitching a bit. He narrowed his eyes before speaking.
"Are you ok?" He asked. He watched Asher straighten his arms behind up to prop himself up. Once up he stretched his arm, wincing as he did.
"It just hurts more than normal, that's all." He said.
"Do you think it is the same one?" Caleb asked. DNAs all get a shot each day in order to complete a large long going test. Their goal was to make them act as much as possible to their animal counterpart. Asher looked down at the injection area and Caleb saw his eyes widen.
"It doesn't look normal." He said. He held up his arm so Caleb could see it. There was a large red spot where the liquid was injected. His veins in his arm could be easily seen and seemed to be a green color.
"What the hell?" Caleb sat down his sculpture and walked to the door of his cell. Asher clenched his fist and lowered his arm.
"It really hurts." He said, pain was clearly heard in his voice.
"Whenever they do new stuff like this they stick around to see what it does, so why aren't they here?" Caleb said.
"What's wrong with Ashy?" Yuie said as she jumped up and down at the door of her cell. Caleb turned his head in order to see her. She was on the wall horizontal to his and it was hard to see her.
"Is your arm hurting?" He asked. She shook her head.
"Nope!" She said cheerfully as she set up her dominos in a shape of a house. Caleb was about to speak when he heard the yelling in the hallway. His pale blue eyes locked on the door and watched it be shoved open. A very angry man stood at the door way. He was a skinny and tall man with flat hair that hung to just below his ears. He had an almost feminine look to him, but his walk wasn't. He stomped to Asher's cell and angrily pushed in the key. Asher had stood up and moved to the back of his cell. Caleb recognized the man as Daril. He was a scientist that worked with Gifteds. His goal was to change the strength of Gifteds in order to better control them. The two scientists followed him. The man was calm and looking over his glasses but the women looked almost as mad as Daril. Daril stormed up to Asher and pushed him right over. He fell on the floor, as he landed he emitted a small 'oomf'. The women rushed in after him, hazel fire in her eyes. Daril gripped Asher's wrist and pulled it up above his head.
"What is this?" He growled, glaring at the two.
"Clearly it is one of our subjects, now get your hand off of it!" The women said back in the same nasty tone. It, that was all they where, an it, an item without feelings or emotions. Daril rolled his eyes, he took his time in order for it to be one hundred percent noticeable.
"I know what it is, I am not stupid. I am asking what you did to it." He said and he tugged on Asher's arm. Caleb, even from across the room, could see Asher wince in pain and discomfort.
"Now, now you two can't we talk this over rather than yelling at each other? Your stressing it out." The man spoke in a flat, almost calm voice. He reached out and placed a hand on Daril's. Somehow he managed to look both disinterested and threatening at the same time. Daril met his gaze without hesitation.
"I needed that, what I am I going to do now?" Daril said, struggling to keep calm. As he spoke he quickly glanced at Caleb. The look send a shiver down Caleb's spine.
"That shot was meant for me." He thought.
"Well simply make a new one. It's not like we /wanted/ to do this. Who knows what it will do to it." The man said, keeping his eyes locked on Darl. Caleb could see Asher swallow as if he was trying to keep away his nervousness, it wasn't working. There was a silent moment where the two men glared at each other before Daril let Asher's hand drop. Once he was released Asher pulled back his arm to his body as if it where holding a valuable and easily breakable item. His brown eyes moved quickly to scientist to scientist.
"Your helping figuring out what it's going to do to it." The woman demanded. Daril released large breath of air but
"Whatever" was all he said. He pushed past the women, almost hitting into her. She looked like she was going to yell again not a shake of her brother's head stopped her. He looked down at Asher who was looking at his arm with wide and fearful eyes. The man smiled softly down at him as if nothing as wrong.
"Come on." He said, he suddenly sounded worked and tired. He held out a hand which Asher took with his good arm and he pulled up, taking Asher with him.

Part Three

Asher was led down the hallway of doors. The women which was known as Jane, was in front while the man, Lucius, was behind him. His hands where not bound but they were held behind his back and around his wings by Lucius. It was uncomfortable with his arms pushing the feathers around his body and brushing up against his clothing. But he knew better than to complain, instead he fixed his eyes on Jane's swishing brown hair in front of him. His arm seemed to be on fire. It prickled like the sparks of a flame and his skin felt like burning embers. As they walked Lucius and Jane spoke of things he didn't understand and he didn't listen. The words became only noise, noise without meaning only a small purpose. It kept Asher's mind on a leash and kept him from thinking of the worst. They paused as they waited for the elevator. He stiffened when he felt a firm poke at his shoulder blade.
"Hey, are you listening?" It was Lucius.
"Huh? I, umm. No." Asher tripped over his words. It wasn't that often when he was allowed to speak at all.
"Can you feel your arm?" He asked as they stepped into the elevator.
"Yes, but it just burns." Asher answered quickly. They wanted quick and straight forward answers or else it could get them angry or frustrated. You didn't want them like that when they were about to injected you with anything they wanted.
"Can you move it?" He asked as Jane pressed a button and the doors closed. Asher wasn't sure about that answer. He tried to move his fingers but was only rewarded with a new shot of stinging pain.
"No." He said softly.
"Oh for god's sake speak up!" Lucius said in a almost teasing manner.
"No." Asher repeated a little louder.
After that Lucius didn't speak to him again. He went back to talking with Jane as they elevator brought them deeper and deeper into the ground. Asher moved his head so he was facing the floor and closed his eyes. He focused on his deep breathing. How his chest moved as his lungs filled with air. Lucius had to give him a shove before he noticed the doors had opened. The hallway had a flat white floor and half the wall was the same white color. The other half was a clear glass as well as the doors. Each room held different but similar things. One held several different flasks and bottles containing a rainbow of colors. Another looked like a kennel with dogs of many breeds locked up cages. The doors were made of clear plastic with evenly placed circle holes. Each dog was fitted with a muzzle that protected the room from endless barks and yips. Another room was lined with expensive and complicated machines and sliver cabinets. In the middle of the room was a examination table. This was the room Jane unlocked and Lucius led Asher into. Once inside the door was automatically locked behind them. Asher felt the pressure around his wrists decease and he let his arms fall to his sides. Lucius walked around him as he did he said,
"Sit." Like one would give a command to a dog. Asher obeyed and rather sloppily got himself onto the cold, reflective sliver examination table. Again they went to their conversation that Asher couldn't truly understand. They stood with their backs toward him. They were looking down at some papers on a desk. Finally Jane turned around and made her way to a cabinet and open a drawer while Lucius continued to look over the papers. Jane picked up a bottle and a syringe. She pushed the nettle into the bottle and pulled up on the plastic top and pushed up on the plunger, filling the syringe with liquid. She sat the bottle down and set her eyes on Asher. She strode up to him and looked at him expectantly.
"Your arm." She said simply. Asher did not react quickly like he usually did. 'Your arm' wasn't a very descriptive demand being that he had two of them. Looking very annoyed, Jane grabbed his uninjured arm and plunged the nettle into his skin. Asher flinched and pulled back before she had finished. He was suddenly momentary blinded by stinging pain and when he recovered he found that she had slapped his cheek.
"You little brat." Jane scolded.
"I apologize, please forgive me." Asher said almost roboticly. Whenever someone got mad at him that is what he said, like a over used line. The words became a way of escape rather than really asking for forgiveness. Jane said nothing in return, she just stood in front of him, watching him. She was quickly joined by Lucius. The began speaking again but the words seemed to go together to a strange meaningless sound. Asher felt Lucius's hand press into his chest. The room's colors blurred into strange colors. The white floor blended with the sliver machines and colorful blinking lights. He seemed to be moving much slower than he thought he should have. His back met up with the hard metal and he stared in confusion up at the ceiling as if he couldn't understand why he was looking at it. Then, there was just blackness. Pictures flickered in his mind. The metallic red color of the injection. The grey ceiling of his cell. The barking of dogs. Images he wouldn't remember then he woke up.

Asher moaned and stretched, arching his back and lifting it off his bed and hitting his head into his pillow. He slowly opened his eyes and saw a grey ceiling. He rolled over, he could feel a pressure around his arm as he did. He was back in his ceil. But he wasn't completely awake and wasn't able to come to that thought. For a hour and a half he laid in his bed, stuck between awake and a sleep. His mind couldn't keep hold of one thought for long.