➥ THE DEVIL IS A LIE | chimera prompt

[nestingdevil]

It's early morning. The doctors have already gone home, locking away gorged folders marked "CLASSIFIED" that will stay sealed or burned by the time daylight comes again. Bolts have been pulled, cages have been secured, and the fluorescent bulbs have been, with some mercy, shut off for the night. Leaving eyes to wander in the dark, the fear and stink of them as pungent as the sulfuric aftermath the alchemists leave behind.

To the public, Laboratory Five is nothing more than an old relic. A war hero gone and dead, left standing as a reminder or a placeholder for the future. And in some twisted, insidious way that is exactly what it is: in the underbelly, in the deep dark of things to come. Rumors of torture, of experimentation, whisper through its walls. Most cut short by the government's own hand, but it's not like that could really stop it from spreading, no.

And eventually, all of that came back to an attuned and terrible ear.

At first, the night drags on as usual. Howling in the dark, the rattling of cages like bones to the slaughter house. Every once in a while, there's silence but even that is interrupted by the soft thud, tack, thud of a patrol unit just outside. There's no light this far down save the blinking-red rectangles that signal the scheduled lock down. Everything is as it should be:

Buried. With enough bodies still scratching at the inside of their coffin lids to count.

The rejects are the first to notice the change. Frantic sniffs cut off the usual wails, as if some sort of gas has been leaked in that only they can detect. A few bare their teeth in the dark, wildly chasing at iron bars in a frothy rage. Others skitter into the deep corners of their cells and start to pace; as if a wild storm is approaching, despite the clear sky lingering just outside. Horrible crunches and snaps mix with shrilling terror, the sound enough to bring a guard towards the door.

"Hey, hey - ! What the hell has gotten into you freaks?"

But even at the learned-threat, the unfortunate few don't heed the call. Their minds are warped by animal instinct, going on hyper-drive to burn out. The guard bangs the butt of his gun against the iron door once -  a common practice to keep them still. When it doesn't work, he tries again. On the second swing, someone cuts him short.

Or something.

A solitary gunshot goes off with a muted bang behind the door. One second goes by, another. Before a heavy weight slides unseen, giving already-tender minds a way one ticket to mental horror. Rubber slips on something smooth and slick and all of a sudden, the red lights on the inside-frame of the door drearily snap to green.

The wilder Chimeras retake their self-harm debuts; smashing themselves into bars, tearing into the bottom of their cells as if they could somehow dig free of the concrete slaps. The smell of urine and feces is overwhelming, but more so its a different stench. Like the sulfuric aftertaste of a transmutation circle except far, far worse. It stings the toes and bites the nose and well.

Over the hill, they go.

Heavy heels click against the descending stairs, sounding off like the empty trigger of a rifle. Whoever is coming is slow, drawled. Their gait a comfortable saunter, as if the sound doesn't bother. As if the last few seconds couldn't even scratch the surface. There's no hurry to their walk, no urgency in their step. Just at ease, almost too much so. They pause once they're down at the collection of cages and for a brief moment, a wicked sort of red lights up the dark. Filling like sockets in the hollows of an empty skull.

"So - who wants to get out of this cage?"
 

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[sinuate]

The nights always drag on, here. With lockdown come the sounds of it, the snarls and growls and whimpers of the ones that can't tell the difference between light and dark, only that their being bruised and battered and neglected has a brief pause until it all comes around the next morning.

She wants to feel for them, and on some level, perhaps she does. She'd been one of the lucky ones, as well as a handful of others, but they're still treated as the rest of them, aren't they? Caged, kept in the dark, leered at by the guards that don't quite understand what the scientists are attempting to accomplish with their experiments. But they don't question, because they aren't paid to do that, are they?

It's just the beginning of one more night in the dark, ears attuned to the wails of the ones in the other cells, the scrabble and scrape of claws against iron and concrete. She doesn't sleep, barely does more than doze with her back against the wall of her cell, knees bent and arms resting loosely over them, head tilted back and eyes closed toward the ceiling. It's routine. It's familiar.

But the commotion that comes next, most certainly, is not.

The rejects, they get riled up first. Screeches and growls and whines start out as a chorus that loops around the cages, brings her attention up just enough to lift her head and peer into the darkness. They can't have come back so late, can they? Everything can always wait until morning, they can be left alone to mourn what should not have been, or simply turn in circles, round and round in their cages in an attempt to burn off some of that restless energy.

Some, she's caught chewing on the bars. It never does any good, but a certain level of catharsis must lie in such a useless act, and on that front she can never blame them.

The echo of the gunshot reaches her ears and oh, that gets her up and peering out from behind her own set of bars, brows knitting firmly over eyes just barely obscured by a piece of hair falling in front of her line of vision, and even though she strains, she can't make anything out. Can only hear the rhythmic clack of heels across the floor, unhurriedly making their way closer and closer to her.

The lights turn from red to green, and she stares at the door of her cage, uncomprehending. How –

Their would-be savior stands close enough that she's sure he can hear her, and she raises her voice – just a little rought from disuse, but then again, what does she have to say to anything, anyone in here?

"… Is that supposed to be a joke?"