The door closed behind me, and suddenly it was as if I'd stepped into another world.
Gone was the filth and suffocating darkness of the cage. Before me stretched a long, immaculate corridor, bathed in pale light. The air was cold, sanitized, almost artificial.
I squinted, blinded by the neon lights dotting the ceiling. Everything here seemed too clean, too quiet... But behind this clinical facade, something was wrong.
My breath was short, burning my parched throat. My wrists, shackled behind my back, burned under the pressure of the bonds. My body, drained by fatigue, refused to move. So the man holding me simply dragged me along, my feet sliding across the smooth, icy floor.
With each step, the cold ground bit into my bare ankles.
As we advanced, a dull roar echoed through the walls, as if the whole corridor were the belly of a beast ready to swallow me. Our footsteps echoed endlessly, interspersed at times with muffled screams. Rails. Pleas. Then... sometimes... silence.
A silence more terrifying than the screams themselves.
My heart sank.
I wanted to run. To kick, to fight, to scream... But my body no longer obeyed me.
I was an empty shell being dragged into the unknown.
Suddenly, the man forked and pushed open a door on our right.
The room we had just entered was just like the corridor: white, without the slightest impurity, icy cold.
In the center was an operating table, surrounded by devices with flashing screens and cables that coiled like snakes.
The air was denser. Loaded with a metallic odor that stung the nose.
Then a voice rose, low, almost mechanical, piercing the silence like a cold blade.
"Extend subject 37. Prepare him for the Infusion."
Infusion?
Without giving me time to understand, I was lifted abruptly and laid down on the central table. A shiver ran down my spine as my back hit the icy surface.
The next moment, my wrists and ankles were immobilized by metal restraints.
I was a prisoner.
The man who had dragged me this far stepped aside slightly, then grabbed a syringe from a small steel table.
It was full of a yellowish, translucent liquid... but not quite.
As he turned it slightly under the neon light, I caught a glimpse of an iridescent, almost life-like sheen rippling through the fluid.
What was it?
An icy sweat trickled down the back of my neck. My eyes darted from the syringe to the man's back, searching for... something. A hesitation. A doubt. A flaw, however small.
Maybe I hoped he'd change his mind. That a miracle would happen. That he'd help me.
But there was nothing.
The man came back to me, syringe in hand. Still no emotion. No anger. No satisfaction. Not even curiosity.
His empty gaze wasn't on me. It passed right through me.
His face was smooth, devoid of the slightest tension, like that of a doll carrying out a programmed command.
A shiver of horror ran through me. I was already dead, and he was just following protocol.
He raised the syringe.
I tried to move. To struggle. But my own body refused to obey me.
My limbs were heavy, inert. As if something inside me had already accepted the inevitable.
A hoarse whisper escaped my lips:
"Wait..."
No reaction.
The needle glinted for a moment in the harsh light. Then it plunged into my flesh.
And the pain exploded.
Pain infinitely greater than anything I'd ever known.
A searing heat. A searing shock. As if liquid fire had been injected into my veins.
I screamed.
My throat was so dry that every scream felt like it was being torn to shreds. But it was nothing.
The sensation of lava coursing through my muscles, of my heart about to implode, of my skin burning from the inside out...
It was unbearable.
My wrists tightened around the edges of the bed. My back arched in shock.
I wanted to flee. I wanted to tear this thing out of me.
After long minutes of agony, I had reached the point where I could no longer make the slightest movement despite the intensifying pain.
Just then, a shadow slipped behind the curtain. The man who had been there all this time was finally showing his face.
My senses were saturated, my hearing inhibited as if I were underwater, my eyes blurred, my thoughts confused, but I could feel his presence closing in.
The rustle of fabric, the sharp click of shoes on the sanitized floor... Everything was too precise, too measured.
The man was in no hurry.
At last, the curtain opened.
He was tall, dressed in an impeccable gown, thin gloves covering his hands. A surgical mask concealed half his face, but his eyes... His eyes shone with a cold, methodical glint, the glint of those who feel neither remorse nor empathy.
With a slow movement, he slid his gloves over his wrists, revelling in my condition. His gaze was that of a man analyzing a machine, not a child.
"Reactions are as expected."
His voice was poised, implacably calm, but tinged with the tiniest hint of satisfaction. He approached, leaning slightly over my still occasionally spasming body.
"Wow, you're burning up. The pain's intense, isn't it?"
You knew. I thought in my agony.
He knew exactly what was coming and, even worse, he was taking his time savoring it.
That bastard.
I could feel the pain easing and I calmed slightly. I was still trembling under my bonds, every breath an agony.
The only thing keeping me conscious was that insidious voice, that presence that seemed to feed off my suffering.
The man patted the now empty syringe lightly, before inclining his head.
"Hang in there, subject 37. This is just the beginning."
An imperceptible smile showed beneath his mask.
"After all, we'll keep going until you've got some drinkable gasoline to show us."