Chapter 36: Where Am I?
My head aches crazy bad with the weight of that damn bear sitting on my skull, my mouth feels weird
and furry like I just ate my own socks, and I blink at the bright white piercing light as I slowly try to open
my eyes. Flinching at the assault and screwing my face up in reaction. My body is heavy and
disconnected as I try toe to and figure out where I am and what happened to me. I feel like I just
survived a train wreck, and I''m not entirely sure I''m not dead and in the afterlife waiting room. I''m
completely disorientated, everything spinning, and I can barely move my body as though somehow, I''ve
lost use of anything but my eyelids. I feel vacuum pressed to the surface I''m lying t out on and it''s the
most surreal sensation to wake up to.
It takes a minute for my eyes to grow ustomed to the brightness of my surroundings and much like
having a torch shone in your face, it''s painful at first until it starts to level out and an actual ceiling
comes into focus. Watery eyes blurring to rity and blinking repetitively to figure out what I am staring
at.
White square tiles, and a center grey wooden fan that''s on slow and hitting me with a gentle breeze.
The tiles arerge, grubby, and pull my focus enough to let me grasp at the reality of my situation. That
I''m inside a building and no longer on the forest floor.
My gut twists and my insides sink as that filters through. It alles slowly back, the memory of eating
dirt and passing out, and I try to sit hurriedly as panices kicking back into y. Straining with all I
have in me as mild panic sets in.
I can''t move, a tightness across my chest, arms, and legs, yanking me down painfully and when I
attempt a second time, trying to figure out what''s wrong with my body, I realize it''s not me… I''m
restrained. It''s not some weird malfunction of my body after being tranquilized at all.
I manage to tilt my chin, still woozy but able to drag the exaggerated weight of my skull up enough to
look down my body and exhale at the sight I see. Laid out t on a hospital bed of some sort, dressed
in a light medical gown. There are leather straps across me at several points of my torso and legs,
keeping me taped down, and both my ankles and wrists are shackled in wide ck fabric to the side
bars of the bed. The guards are up, holding me in ce, and try as I can to wriggle, I can barely move
an inch. They''re tight, thick, and imprable while I''m in human form.
I turn my head to the side, dizziness making everything sway, getting a nk white painted brick wall
and turn the other way, opening up my view into a small medical room. Brick all around, no windows,
and one white door closed shut with nothing but a high square ss panel in the upper half. There are
cupboards, trolleys, and worktops in here, with all manners of medical kits and supplies, some posters
on the walls that remind me of the doctors surgery in Radstone and an array of panels up near the door
that look pretty high tech. The floor is vinyl tiled in a weird blue grey and apart from the information
posters on dressing wounds, the predominant color in here is white. It''s stark, stinks of disinfectant, and
has the usual low hum of electrical outlets and the whirring fan over my head.
It''s almost eerily silent and deserted, but I know that''s far from reality. There is nothing overly out of
ce for a sick room that causes me any extra rm. I mean, it''s not like I''m waking up mid body
slicing in an alien abduction story.
I feel nauseous, my heart pounding through my ears already, even without the added anxiety of me
waking up and finding myself captive in a strange ce. I''m obviously inside the building now,
somewhere below ground and I have no chance in hell of getting off this bed. My energy levels are low
as hell, I can''t get up, probably not even without the straps, while I haven''te all the way to out of
my drugged stupor.
My first attempt at turning ispletely futile, as with sheer will power, I try in the hopes of wiping the
residue drug out of my system. It''s like I have zero ability, and even breaking my own promise to myself
to never link Colton''s again, I try, desperate for some kind of help right now. Just his reassuring voice,
his always knowing what to do, his words to calm me. I get a ck wall of non-pration, meaning
something is blocking all of my gifts and abilities and I''m right now, no better off than a mere mortal with
no gifts at all.
I wonder what the hell they''ve done to me to subdue all that is supernatural and I don''t have time to
ponder it when a tiny buzzing sound draws my attention up above my head, behind my line of vision.
Wriggling around until I can tilt my head far enough back, arching the very slight amount I can, to see a
camera repositioning in the top corner over my head and focusing its attention on me. I guess my
movements alerted someone to the fact I''m now awake, and I re at it hatefully, visually doing what
my body can''t and rebelling in some small way. I try harder than ever to get movement out of these
straps and give up as a wave of fatigue washes over me and leaves me breathless.
Its futile, I have no strength at all, still groggy enough that my little amount of energy wanes fast and I
jump internally when the door across the room beeps loudly, reverberating through my ears and clicks
to signal someoneing in.
"I see you''re awake, dear girl. I''ve been impatiently poised and ready toe introduce myself to such
a marvel as yourself." The heavy ent is foreign, almost like the Queen of Ennd that I''ve heard on
television in the orphanage, and I screw my face up at the man who strolls in towards me, smiles
weirdly as though eyeing up a special gift someone has left for him by surprise. I''m momentarily taken
aback by the almost caricature way he has of talking.
He''s in his older years with greying fluffy hair, sses, and a balding head. His midriff is round and
portly, which makes his whiteb coat look restrictive and emphasizes he''s wider in size than in height.
I can tell the second he walks in that he''s not wolf; I mean you would never see a wolf in this bad a
physical shape and we definitely do not go bald. Grey over time, but none of that human aging ws
like developing weight or saggy bits. Definitely no losing hair. Wolves stay in their prime until they cash
out past the hundred and so years we live for, and this guy looks like he''s maybe hitting human sixty atCcontent ? exclusive by N?/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.
a push. He has a striped, baby blue shirt on, a peek of green braces, but a dark red polka dot bow tie
that just adds to his peculiarness.
I just stare at him pointedly; eyes steeped in mistrust and give him no response.
"Quite." He says absurdly for no obvious reason as his eyes travel up and down me in the most
disturbing way. I''m definitely being sized up for some sort of alien autopsy. Either that or he''s lost in his
own head and marveling at some wonder that has him smiling like a weirdo.
"Where am I?" I blurt out boldly, not really caring about polite and friendly given my current
predicament, and the fact this asshole has messoed to a bed, while Willy Wonka style bobbing
nearby. My spine is agony at the point of that damn dart, and it feels like I''m ck and blue all over.
Only just beginning to feel my fingers and toes and despite starting to regain some alert, I feel like I''m
not quite here fully yet, and this still has an aura of dreamlike to it.
"Oh, of course… silly me. How rude and utterly awful. Let me introduce myself first. I''m Doctor George
William Robert Adams, I''m the resident chief scientific officer at this facility, and you my dear are our
guest. Sadly, we did have to take some measures for both our safety and yours, given that like my
acquaintances, you seem to possess a certain wonderful gift, but it''s a temporary arrangement until we
be better acquainted. I hope you won''t hold it against us, that without knowing your character or
purpose for trespassing on our doorstep, we acted hastily in a precautionary manner. And your name
is?" It''s a whoosh of ridiculously precise, queen''s English in an exaggerated and somewhat foolish
sense. I''m at a loss. I didn''t think people actually talked or behaved like this, let alone ones who
survived living among the aggressive, low patient, temper driven, wolf kind, like me. He''s a little absurd.
I blink at him, stupefied at that whole upper crust, marble mouthed, mass of weirdness, that came out
of him. He seems like some entric Mary Poppins type character, and I''m sure I might still be high
from whatever they darted me with. I stare right back at him nkly, dropping my head back on the
semi t pillow underneath it and say not a word.
"I know, I know…. You must be thinking the absolute worst after Mr. Deacon took you down with an
elephant dart, and they carted you in here and trussed you up like a Sunday roast on an oven sheet.
Truly, we don''t mean any harm, we would just like to ascertain who you are, where you came from, and
exactly what you were doing snooping around this rather top secret and out of bounds facility. A boring
informality before we can be more hospitable. Please don''t hold it against me." He raises his brow at
me, still smiling like a demented person and removes his sses to clean them on his coat, only
breaking eye contact for a moment before returning them to his face and renewing that creep smile. I''m
starting to wonder if this one is a sandwich short of a pic and maybe this is what happens when you
live in a box underground and don''t see the sun for prolonged periods.
"Passing through. I have no idea what this ce is and no interest in it." I point out nkly, not really
willing to borate, but it only gets a strange hmmm noise in return as he nods at me.
"I see. Except the little issue with that is, you were very clearly caught on our surveince, snooping
around, and checking Tyron''s truck out, before high tailing it into the forest. Oopsy. I believe you, but
they don''t, which is rather disastrous. May I add though… wow, just wow, I''ve never seen, literally ever,
in the real flesh and bone myself, an actual pure and full white furred wolf. It truly was a remarkable
sight, not to side-track the main point and negate the seriousness of your current position, but I just had
to put that out there." He raises his palms in a quirky little jazz hand movement that perfectly times with
the happy wide eyed, lifted brow thing he does. The dude is strange.
Who the hell is this guy, and did he swallow a thesaurus in his formative years? He sure takes the long
way to say anything and it totally throws you off. I honestly can''t tell if this is a tactic to disarm you and
pull information, or if he really is a conversation starved oddball and tends to offload. Maybe he''s just
weird, he has the whole odd outfit thing down to a T for being a weird one.
I''m also shocked to be told my fur is now fully white, although I did have hints and suspicion it was
turning that way, but he just solidified the fact for me. It''s not like I''ve had a mirror, or an ability to take
my head off and use it to look at my full body when turned. No idea why my turning white is happening,
and I wonder if mother experienced the same thing. A w, just like everyone said it was, maybe some
kind of disease that spreads.