Dog - 6. Set free

Chapter 6

The pain brought me back.

My hands were on fire. My skin was on fire. I had poured acid on my hand once in chemistry lab by mistake, but it had never burned like this. Every nerve ending in my body was a white-hot, vibrating, taut string of pain.

I screamed and opened my eyes.

Water. Around me. Bubbles floating in front of my vision. I tried moving my hands and panicked when I realized I couldn’t. The panic helped, though. The pain receded. Became manageable.

I couldn’t see. Or – wait. I could, but everything looked foggy. As if I was underwater.

A shadow appeared before me, shaped like a man. A face drew closer, looking at me with cold eyes. It moved its mouth and I heard faint echoes of words.

The pain started again, electric.

I lost consciousness, passing out from how much it hurt, only to be brought back by another episode. The process repeated itself so many times that I lost count, and I found myself beginning to go beyond blind panic and into total madness. I was trapped again in the cell, I knew it, only this time I was being tortured physically as well. And I couldn’t escape. I couldn’t escape, could not, could not –

A memory came to me. Greg. Hang onto a memory, he had said.

But my mind was blank. I couldn’t even remember who I was from how badly everything hurt. I thrashed about helplessly against whatever was binding me, but all I managed to do was make some more bubbles. Why was I underwater? Why wasn’t I drowning?

When the next episode of pain came, I clung onto the memory of Greg. I tried to remember every detail of his grizzled, rugged face, and when the needlelike stabs pierced my spine going from top to bottom I simply thought of him and screamed until I couldn’t scream anymore.

The cycles repeated themselves, again and again. Eventually, I became numb to the pain, or maybe it wasn’t hurting so much anymore. I lost and regained consciousness so many times that I did not even know whether I was dreaming or not. Whenever I tried to move now, my body felt sluggish. I couldn’t feel the fingers in my hands. My nose itched. It itched maddeningly and wouldn’t stop, and what first had started as a small nuisance quickly became unbearable torture. I screamed again, disturbing bubbles everywhere. A light was flashed into my eyes, blinding, painful. But it made the itching go away. For a while.

Darkness came. Nightmares. Then light again, dark. Dreams blended with pain, became one thing, but I wouldn’t let go of my memory of Greg and I blocked out everything else. When the noises began, sharp, piercingly high, drilling into my brain, it was the only thing that kept me from biting my tongue off.

The noises ended, though. And then… Nothing.

I drifted off and fell into deep sleep.

Peace.

When I woke up again, I could move. I felt myself all over, realized I was floating in water. Something tugged at my back, though. I reached with my hands, trying to feel what it was.

Something many-jointed and metallic was attached to my spine and wouldn’t come off. When I tried to yank it out, I realized it was in me, and blind panic made me flail helplessly while I screamed out bubbles.

I grew sleepy immediately afterwards and I realized I had been drugged. I tried to fight it, but…

The next time I woke up, I was on a bed.

I thought it was a dream, at first. I was lying on my back, not floating anymore. I was breathing air.

There was no pain.

“Don’t try to move too much,” a deep voice said, and for some reason it sounded richer, more booming than I remembered. Greg came into my field of view, obscuring some medical monitors.

I tried to ask him what had happened, but all I managed was a faint grunt.

“Wait until the neuro-suppressants wear off. Then we’ll talk.”

I heard faint footsteps approaching and smelled a sudden spike of fear coming from Greg.

“Max is coming,” he said. “I’d better go.”

He left quickly and as the door shut behind him I caught a whiff of Max’s cologne. Fear spiked right through me and I pretended to be asleep before he could enter the room.

The medical monitors and the soft pattern of Max’s footsteps were the only sounds that broke the silence for a long minute. I kept my eyes shut tight and prayed that he would just leave, but to my dismay I heard a chair being dragged forward and then the sound of someone sitting down.

“You are still hopelessly bad at acting, I’m afraid,” Max told me. “You are breathing too fast for someone who is asleep, not to mention the heart rate monitor over here showing me that you are excited or scared about something. How are you feeling, Ryan?”

I opened my eyes, accepting defeat. “Fine, I guess.”

“Is that so? Do me a favor, please. Try and stand up.”

“What?”

“Just try.”

I did, but not because he was telling me to. It had just occurred to me that the door to the room was unlocked, and maybe I could escape.

My legs wouldn’t work.

“As I expected,” Max said to himself, taking out a tablet and writing something down. “Are you in any pain, though? The internal restructuring should be completed by now.”

I considered it, fighting back the fear at not being able to move. I was a little sore, nothing big. My nose itched a little bit. That was it.

“No. Nothing hurts.”

Max made some more notes. “That is most encouraging. And you appear to be lucid, showing no signs of dementia or rabid bloodlust. Excellent.”

“What happened? What did you do to me?”

Max looked up from his pad. “I would like you to rest now, Ryan. You are recuperating much faster than the other test subjects and that is very encouraging. In a couple of days, we will begin testing.”

“Testing? What are you talking about?”

Max ignored me, standing up and exiting the room. I was left on my own, listening to rhythmical beeping. I tried to get out from bed but I couldn’t manage it.

Sleep came in another unstoppable wave, and this time I didn’t even fight against the medication.

I dreamed and it was awful. My nightmares of being trapped were mixed together with movements, jolts, and once the deafening howl of rotor blades. I was freezing cold for a while, then dropping… The nightmares came and went, and I didn’t even know which parts I was dreaming and which parts were happening. I wanted desperately to wake up, but every time I formulated the thought, more sleepiness would come over me and I would be forced to surrender my consciousness. I dreamed I was back at school, only none of the kids knew me and they kept telling me I looked like a werewolf. Then my stomach rumbled and someone was stabbing me with a needle. I saw a flash of the night sky, then blinding white lights.

I woke up fully in a room with padded walls, lit by a single glaring lightbulb overhead.

Everything was quiet.

I blinked, unsure if I was still asleep, but the hunger I felt seemed real, and when I stood on wobbly legs I knew I was fully awake again.

I felt really weak at first, but as I explored the room I felt strength returning quickly. The walls surrounding me were white and featureless, soft to the touch. It was so quiet and so that I could hear myself breathing, and the air had a stuffy quality to it, like a basement that has been closed for too long. The place was small, and I immediately began to feel anxious. I didn’t want to be trapped again, not after everything I had gone through, and I looked everywhere for a door or something.

The floor clicked loudly, making me jump. I watched, suspicious, as a hatch of some kind slid away to reveal 3 glass boxes coming out from the floor. They rose up, automatic, until they were level with the rest of the room. The hatch closed after them, sealing off the opening.

A flat panel I had not noticed before flickered to life on the wall and showed me a message, short and simple.

Pick one.

I looked from it to the boxes, but nothing else changed in the room and I realized I had to do as they asked. The boxes had transparent lids which allowed me to see their contents. The first one held a couple of energy bars. The second one had a water bottle. The third one had a short hunting knife.

I went right for the weapon more out of instinct than anything else, but I stopped with my hand halfway to the box. Was this a trap? Max had said… He had said I was going to be tested. Maybe this was the first test, some kind of evaluation. In which case to think about it carefully.

Except that, right at that moment, the panel began showing a countdown. 10, 9, 8…

I opened the box with the knife before the timer reached zero. As soon as the box opened, the faint sigh of escaping air betrayed the fact that Max had been the last person to handle the knife. I picked it up, sniffing suspiciously. I didn’t like it, but as long as I was prisoner here, I would have to do whatever they wanted me to.

Then it hit me. I could smell. I could tell that Max had handled the weapon just a little while ago, and before that it had been stored in some kind of wooden container. It was insane. How was I able to do that?

The boxes retreated back into the floor, startling me. I clutched the knife in my hand, eyes darting everywhere, in case something threatening happened in front of me. When they were gone, the panel in front of me flashed white for a moment and showed me a new message. It was just a single word.

Survive.

Then a door opened. Suddenly. Where before I had thought there was only solid walls around me, now there was an opening to the right, just big enough for me to cross. I didn’t hesitate this time. I jumped outside.

And screamed.

It was out in the open, surrounded by trees, in some kind of clearing in a forest.

So many smells. So many sounds.

I shut my eyes and covered my ears, but the sensory overload was too great and for a couple of minutes all I knew was pure agony. It was awful. I could smell moist earth around me, and I knew it had rained earlier in the day. The scent of the trees around was intense and penetrating. I could smell sap flowing from a tree trunk that had to be at least ten feet away. I could smell one – no, two – squirrels overhead somewhere, the sharp tang of their fear riding on the gentle breeze. I must have scared them off with my shouting but I couldn’t stop. There was too much for my brain to manage all at once.

I couldn’t block out the sounds, either, even though I was covering my ears with all my strength. Birds cawed, disturbed by my outburst. The squirrels chittered angrily, now safely on the branches of a tall tree. Something large growled nearby, the ground was shaking, but I couldn’t make out what either of those things was. And my own shouts were deafening.

I don’t know how long I stayed like that, but eventually the overload became manageable. I opened my eyes, cringing, expecting more confusion, but everything looked normal. Little by little, I relaxed the pressure from my hands as I covered my ears, and examined my surroundings.

The first thing I realized was that the room or wherever I had been in was gone. The clearing of the forest was covered with knee-high grass that swayed gently in the breeze. The place looked wild, abandoned, and undisturbed.

“Hello?” I said. “Hello?”

There was no answer, and I was completely confused. Looking up at the sky I saw that it was either very late in the day or very early morning. It was cold, and the jacket I was wearing was thin. Only then did I realize that the clothing I was wearing was completely unfamiliar. It looked like hiking gear, bright red, presumably waterproof.

There was a faint rustle over to my left, but when I looked there was nothing there. Shrugging, I tried to get my bearings. Max may have been wanting to test me or whatever, but I was outside, I was free, and I was going to make the most of it. I had to escape.

Walking out of that clearing was one of the hardest things I had ever done. Every noise distracted me, and my motion seemed to disturb dozens of smells that commanded my attention. There was earth and moisture and pollen and rabbit poop. I heard a bird as it flipped noisily, settling on a branch, but when I looked it turned out that the bird was much farther away than I had assumed. Like, really far. Normally I wouldn’t even have been able to hear that.

Max’s words came to me. His mad scientist ramblings, about wanting to improve me with dog DNA. Only, maybe, they hadn’t really been just ramblings.

I made my way through the trees, picking a direction at random, trying not to dwell on that too much. I was hungry, I was cold, and I wanted to get away from everything as fast as I could. So I decided to start running.

Man, did it feel good to be running. I quickly settled into a moderate pace, dodging obstacles in the forest undergrowth, and it just made me feel so alive. Tree trunks whipped by as I sped past them, jumping over gnarled roots and dodging crooked branches. I was barely out of breath by the time I reached a gently sloping hillside, and by my count I had been running for almost 10 minutes. I had never been much of an athlete, so my newfound endurance surprised me, but in a good way. Whatever Max had done to me, or tried to do, at least I would be able to outrun him now.

I was looking up at the hillside when the wind shifted.

It had been blowing in my face the whole time, hinting of growing things, but as soon as it changed direction I froze. It was coming from behind me now, making branches rustle and orange leaves fall. I took in air sharply, then inhaled again, for longer this time. Deeper. The air smelled… Dangerous. Something deep inside me trembled with fear, told me to get running, to get out of there before –

Another branch crunched, timidly, stealthily. My eyes darted around, trying to pinpoint the source of the noise, and then I saw it. A shadow appeared to melt into the space between two tree trunks, low to the ground, covered in silver fur. It was a wolf, smaller than Rex but fully grown nonetheless. It looked mangy, as if it hadn’t eaten in a while. Its eyes, though, were burning. Focused on me.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t believe this was really happening. The wolf, though, kept on approaching, barely making a sound, but to my ears its breathing was unmistakable. It stopped maybe a dozen feet away from me and simply stared, ears laid back, as if sizing me up. When I made as if to move to the right, the wolf snarled, baring its teeth at me, changing from threatening to manic and ferocious in a heartbeat.

My own heart was hammering in my chest and the stench of my own fear was overpowering. Cautiously, I lifted the hunting knife I still held in my hand. The world’s reaction was instantaneous. It shifted his attention to the weapon, growling even more, a primal sound so intimidating that I felt as if I was going to wet myself. I gripped the knife’s handle tight and tried to think of something to do. There were trees I could climb, but then what? I didn’t even know if I would be fast enough. What if –

The wolf snarled, interrupting my thoughts. Then it launched itself at me.