Summary:Isis draws Nick into a disturbing dream. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
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"Come in, come in" The woman in a doctors mask and gown is saying. "Take a seat in the chair and just relax. You remember how this goes, the less you fight it the better it is." There's an exam chair, much like a dentists chair, and a big screen in front of it.
Nick's in a doctor's room? He doesn't remember how he got there, he just knows that he is. He might not realise yet this is a dream.
He can see the instruments laid out on a tray next to the chair and the bands that will hold his hands to the arms.
There's at least two nurses that Nick can see and someone is armed behind him.
Nick sits down because he was already in the process of doing that when he became aware of himself. He shakes himself. Mmmm. Doctor's room. Smells familiar. He doesn't remember having an appointment though. And no, he doesn't know that this is a dream but then Nick is not generally a lucid dreamer. Not unless Isis is about.
Still there are things in it that set him off, that make it more nightmare than dream. One of them is the presence of the armed guard, and the other is the array of surgical tools. He feels good. Healthy. He doesn't need surgery. So when one of the nurses goes to grab his arm he pulls back. There's… no need for this.
The nurses do indeed grab Nicks arms, trying to position them so they can put the bands on. He can also feel the ones at his ankles. He's going to be restrained so he can't move. "Now, now. Remember it's much easier when you don't struggle. How are you meant to be a good soldier if you don't follow orders?" The armed guard moves closer but doesn't point their weapon at him - not yet. The threat is obvious though.
The smells are familiar and the acrid scent of reverbium is one of the strongest. "We're going to continue the tests we've been doing. You've been such a good kitten so far and one of our most promising. But we think you can better and we're going to help with you that. Won't it be good to go into the field with the others?"
Nick shakes himself again. Good Kitten? That's wrong. He's not a Kitten. That shouldn't be… unless… well. Unless this isn't his dream at all. Is it possible he's just seeing through someone else's eyes?
The brown wolfman pulls his arm out of the nurse's hand and growls at the doctor. "I was always an awful Kitten."
Which is true in the sense that he never was one. Nick strains at the one restraint they got on his ankles and pushes back hard on the tray of instruments. Something is not right here. Why is there reverbium here? He only knows of that in one context, a bad one.
The instruments scatter - some drop on the floor. Nick might say I was always an awful Kitten but what he hears himself say is "Kitten is good. Kitten can go out now. Don't need more tests …" The struggle that Nick is having, matches Isis' - it is her dream that he's experiencing.
"Settle down now." The doctors voice is firm and Nick can feel himself being physically restrained. Feel the sting of a needle as it's inserted into his arm.
A feeling of lassitude washes over him and his mind … his mind is wide open. Images start being shown on the screen in front of him. Him, or in this case Isis, doing particular tasks. Nothing particularly untoward, but it's the voice that goes along with those images that creep into his psyche.
"Be a good soldier. Those you see on the screen are enemies and must be destroyed."
There's also a high pitched sound - almost painful for Nick (or is it painful for Isis?) "You belong to us. Belong with us. You will do everything you can to find us …"
Nick winces and cries out in a high pitched canine fashion. He shakes his head, away from the screen and stops trying to struggle by main force which is not what Isis would do. He blinks several times but he feels the pinch of a needle in his arm and eventually his thrashing slows and weakens.
"No. No. No." He keeps saying to himself but that's not what he hears himself saying. Nick shakes his head again. The sound is painfully deafening.
It's not what Nick hears, he hears himself agreeing and promising to be a good kitten, good soldier. He can feel those instructions seep into his mind. The instructions continue and the tone changes slightly "Obedience is good in a soldier. You will follow our lead …"
As the programming goes on, Nick feels the pricks on needles and the sting of drugs as they enter his system. The smell of reverbium is there but they're not using it on him … yet. Whatever this is though, it smells similar and it burns …
It's then that Nick is thrown from the dream violently. "Nooooo!!!!" Isis keens as she thrashes in her sleep and tries to fight. "No, I don't want it to happen …"
Nick is kicked in the side when Isis starts to thrash. He comes awake and rolls off the bed, hitting it with a yelp. The thump of him hitting the floor might jerk Isis awake and if it doesn't the mattress moving when Nick plants his hand on it to haul himself back up probably will.
"Isis! Hey! Isis! Hey LISTEN!"
Being ejected from the dream might leave Nick with a headache and a little disoriented. Hitting the floor probably doesn't help.
The thump has Isis moving, coming up into a defensive crouch - if she were a real cat, her hair would likely be on end and her tail would be fluffed out to its fullest.
"Don't touch me again … I won't let you. Nick will st——" Blinking slowly as Nick bellows, Isis looks at him owlishly. "Did I … wake you?"
"Ow." Is Nick's response. He pulls himself up and shakes himself. "Yes."
It takes him a moment to settle down on the bed again, this time seated. He rubs his elbow which he had landed fairly heavily on. "You were dreaming of surgery." And other things but he doesn't say that. Not yet. It's still to fresh in him memory and he worries that if he gives words to it, it will conjure itself up afresh.
"Does that happen often?"
"Ow?" Isis blinks again, remaining crouched on the edge of the bed. "You're hurt?"
A mask falls over her face when Nick mentions the dream. "… sometimes … How do you kno—- Did I pull you in?" That doesn't happen often, though since they've been investigating reverbium it's happened a few times.
"It's not really a dream but a memory that comes up. That was one of the last times in the lab before …. before you found me."
Nick nods when she asks if he's hurt and takes a deep breath. "A memory. Of the last time you were trained and operated on." He wants to ask what they did to her but at the same time he doesn't really want to know. "Yes you pulled me in. It was awful."
And he only had to dream it. She had to live it. He takes a deep breath. "They gave you instructions…" Does she still… have those, he wonders.
Isis looks crestfallen and drops her head, crawling across the bed to rub her ears against Nicks arm. "I'm sorry. I … didn't mean to." It's probably an interesting question as to why she did. Nick has some fairly strong psychic shields and yet Isis seems to be able do this.
"Yes, the last time. They … they were getting me ready for the next thing …" Where she'd come back changed and smelling like the others.
"Did they? I … don't remember." Isis frowns "I never remember much except the pain and feeling muzzy afterwards. My body would ache and my head would hurt."
Does she still have them? And how are they triggered? Well, the first one - Nick discovered something like that before, didn't he?
"I remember them saying things to you. Using a noise and…" He shakes his head. Nick can still hear that noise. It was painfully piercing. "It hurt. A lot. I don't know how you could hear anything through it but somehow you could."
He really doesn't want to dwell on it more. But some part of him knows that if the Institute's telepaths didn't find it, that stuff is still there. "What do you remember about what they were going to do?"
"I … try not to think about it." But it might explain why Isis had such a violent reaction to the noise when they'd heard it the first time. And no, the telepaths hadn't found it. "It was my life. I'd dream and do what they want. Train and fight and then they'd do things like that."
It wasn't a nice existence and Nick knows that she was kept in a feral state of mind.
"I don't know. They didn't tell me. What I do remember is they tested my claws - measured what I could grip and puncture. They had me vocalise a lot and … they took a lot of blood. One of them said once they'll open me up …"
That had scared her.
"Well they won't now…" Nick says and he means it to be comforting but can he really be sure of that? And could they bring her back? They've tried often enough and it is possible that they have even cloned her. This is also not something he likes to think on.
"Come on. I can't sleep right now. Let's get some warm milk or hot chocolate or something."