Light Shaded Dream

[A thanks to Eärwen for beta-ing this chapter.]

- Chapter Two -

Orlando looked around the cafeteria as the other victims of these experiments ate in an uncomfortable silence while he avoided eye contact with the woman in front of him. His thinking up a plan to escape would have to wait another day, he guessed.

He noticed there were less of them - a lot less than what he remembered. His fingers combing through his long hair found their way to an ear, and he lightly touched and caressed the point of it curiously.

Of course he knew about his pointy ears, but he still couldn’t believe they did this to him. His hair and eye colour were the recent additions, and he wondered how they did it. Even his muscles became tighter and stronger; making him much more well built than what he previously looked like before; a lean, average young man. He couldn’t complain though since he felt better physically, and more so than emotionally.

On the physical aspects of his change, he found out during one of their testing that his sense of balance greatly improved. ’I wish I’d had this balance then,’ He thought, and about his clumsy side before they kidnapped him.

Orlando glanced at the woman - Doctor Mia - before she had the chance to fix her sight on his when he did, and quickly looked down at the tray of untouched food. He pushed the mashed potatoes around enough to make the thick beef gravy pour out on the side, and then he grinned.

‘A vulcano,’ A vulcano? He sighed.

“Some things never change,” Orlando whispered.

“What was that?” asked Doctor Mia.

He gazed up at her. “Nothing…” Trailing off, and he then continued to move his food around with the plastic spoon.

“You should quit playing with your food and eat it,” she suggested. “It’s getting cold.”

‘Thanks for being so caring.’ He thought before speaking to her out loud.

“I would but you’re making me nervous with you constant staring,” and then mumbled, “Bloody witch.”

Doctor Mia slowly smiled in irritation, and raised her hands off of the table, clasping her fingers together.

Resting her chin on her fingers, she replied to his comment. “I’m only waiting for you to finish so we could talk to each other before heading down to the lab where Doctor Jacobs is,” she then questioned, “Or are we going to cause problems again like you have in the past few months?”

Orlando said nothing as he stopped moving his food around, and stared motionlessly at the tray with his hands resting near the sides of it.

She continued. “Shall I remind you of the time when you had real silverware before being demoted down to the plastic ones, and how you finally ended up with just a spoon?”

Doctor Mia smiled again.

Orlando closed his eyes, and let out a low sigh. She knew how to make him angry, and she did it quite easily; his temper was already starting to flare. He used to be down-to-earth and collected, but recently he’s been unstable half the time, and he wondered if the drugs they’ve been giving him were the cause of it.

He only knew they were to blame.

Orlando gripped the plastic spoon in his hand, pressing his thumb against the utensil. He gradually bent the plastic, but didn’t use enough pressure to snap it in half.

He glared at her from underneath his eyebrows, and noticed she was still smiling with an intent to cause him to lash out.

Mia didn’t do this only to him, but to most of the other male patients who finally gave in to her. Orlando on the other hand would rather resist her, and yet she always found something to cause him grief or some other emotional distress.

The young man gazed over his shoulder to four guardsmen keeping an eye on the room behind him. They were close enough to take him down if he were to do something, and him doing something was probable. He winced at the invisible pain of a memory of when he lost it, and the guards had subdued him; sometimes painfully.

Orlando looked back at Mia. “You don’t have to remind me,” he whispered, “but you could go bother someone else who won’t mind your company.”

Mia shrugged. “You used to enjoy my company,” She reached over to him while he focused intently at her face.

Orlando felt her hand over his, and quietly gasped. “Don’t touch me,” He whispered harshly, and hunched up as he drew his arms close. “Just looking at you makes me sick.”

“Do I?”

Leaning back against his chair, he nodded, and stared at his knee.

Mia gazed at him thoughtfully. It truly was difficult for her to understand him because he was younger than the other male patients, but not necessarily the youngest they test on.

“What’s bothering you?” Mia wondered.

Orlando kept staring at his knee when he replied, “It’s obviously you, Doctor Mia.” he muttered.

“I know…I know,” she said, “It isn’t only that, now is it?”

Orlando bit his lower lip while he fell into deep thought for a while. “The last time I checked, there were thirty-five people here a week ago,” he finally spoke in a mere whisper. “What happened to them is what I want to know, and…” There came a long pause, and then he looked back up at her.

“When can I go back home?” asked Orlando. “I want to leave this place…” He licked his lips and then frowned at her. “Don’t you understand that I need to go home to be with my family?”

“I can’t tell you where the others went,” she explained, “because where they went is strictly confidential.”

Mia continued. “I really don’t know when you’ll be able to return home.”

Orlando looked at her in disbelief and sadness.

“But my mum and sister -” He shook his head slowly. “You can’t do this to me.”

“We’re not all the way done with the experiments -” Mia started, but then he quickly interrupted her.

“That’s a bunch of bollocks!” Orlando stood, causing the chair to fall to the floor. “You and the rest of the scientists have lied since the beginning.”

He pointed at her. “You told us once you’ve reached the goal of making us damn elves that you would let us go, but no, you still continue to keep us here,” he then demanded, “For what!”

Mia leaned back, seeing the anger in his eyes nearly scared her. She reached into the pocket of her lab coat and took out a thin box which held a couple of syringes with long hypodermic needles and a small bottle of liquid. The liquid was a strong tranquilizer, and it was powerful enough to knock out any large animal. She slowly stood up, keeping her eyes cautiously on him while the guards approached to her aide.

The drugs they were giving him weren’t working like they should, and they kept changing to another one to control him.

‘We’re either giving him to much or too little of it,’ she thought. ‘His body is rejecting it unlike our other patients, or even making an immunity to it as if it were a virus of some kind.’

She filled the syringe with the tranquilizer, and then kept still while the guards grabbed hold of Orlando by his arms.

Orlando struggled against them wildly, and as he did, he was the centre of attention in the mess hall. He thrashed about in their grasp, screaming and cursing at them, and unfortunately for the young man, they were four strong men. His arms and legs were held tightly as he fought to get away from them, but soon they had him down on the cold floor on his stomach.

One of the guards had his knee in the middle of his back, and another guard had crossed Orlando’s ankles securely and holding them down with his most of his weight. The other two guards held his arms straight out at shoulder’s height, and one of the two held Orlando’s head against the floor on the side of his face.

Orlando struggled a little of what he had left, but found it painfully stupid to fight against them the way they had him down. He stopped, breathing breathlessly, waiting for the woman.

Mia went over to the other side of the table where they were, and looked down with a sigh. She leaned over, and when she did, Orlando’s eyes shifted to the corner of his eyelids to look up at her.

“Why do you always make it so hard on yourself?” Mia wondered aloud. She lightly tapped the needle and squirted some of the liquid out. “Take him to his room after I administer the sedative into him.”

The four guards nodded at her order, and watched her as they waited.

His eyes widened, realizing what was in the syringe. ‘Not this shit again…’ Orlando thought in dismay, wincing at the dark memories.

Mia moved his damp hair out of his face and away from his neck. Then she pierced the needle into the back of his neck near the base of the brain stem, and injected the drug.

Orlando gasped in pain, and his muscles tensed and he jerked underneath the guards. They waited until the tranquilizer circulated throughout his body. When his eyes finally fluttered involuntarily and closed, the guards picked his limp body off of the floor, and walked out of the room with her behind them.


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