Arc 2 ‘Rapture’: Prologue

Daphne groaned as she stirred from her sleep, her whole body aching. Memories of the night before were hazy, but if the brief flashes of noise, booze, and sex playing in her mind were anything to go by then it had been a wild one.

“...Hungry,” she muttered in a gravelly voice that was quite unlike her own. She was surprised for a moment, but let out a chuckle as she was reminded of that Snickers ad on TV.
“You’re not you when you’re hungry,” she said to herself, her smile quickly changing to a frown as it came out in a jumble of grunts and mispronounced syllables. ’Dammit, Shawn was probably too rough on my throat last night,’ she rationalised groggily, despite not being able to recall performing any kind of oral. Her throat did feel rather sore and her neck felt especially strained, as if a weight was bearing down upon it.

Daphne let out a cold shiver and groped around in the dark for that familiar hunk of meat to cuddle up against. “Shawn?” she called gruffly after failing to find him. She expected some sort of response, a groan maybe, but certainly not several panicked squawks and what sounded like the bleat of a goat closeby.

Now Daphne was beginning to feel a bit scared. ‘Where am I?!’ she wondered fretfully as she struggled to her feet. Her body didn’t feel like her own, making the process awkward and somewhat onerous. She felt groggy, every joint seemed to ache, and the fog in her head made it hard to think. But when she finally managed to balance on two feet her head banged against something hard.

Something was terribly wrong. It was unnaturally dark and dreadfully warm, far from what a pleasant bedroom climate ought to be. A noxious smell also hung in the stale air; some sort of bizarre mix of animal fats, sulphur, and spoiled food. Not to mention the scent of blood. Daphne licked her lips despite herself.

Her eyes were quickly adjusting to the darkness now. The silhouettes of strange animals could be seen throughout the room, trapped inside cramped cages or small tanks filled with an unfamiliar blue liquid. With the sight of them came the realisation that she too was trapped inside a cage and that heavy weight around her neck was a metal collar.

She screamed. Her voice startling the occupants of the other cages, which joined her in an inharmonious chorus of squawks, bleats, and howls. Yet they silenced as one. Some sixth sense telling them all that danger drew close. Shortly after Daphne heard the sound of heavy footsteps from behind a large metal door on the far side of the room.

The large bolt on the other side of the door slid out of place and the hinges groaned as it was pushed open. Light blasted into the room, causing Daphne and a few of her fellow captives to hiss and shy away from the sudden change. As her eyes adjusted she saw the figure of a man standing in the doorway. It was by no means a small door frame but the man filled a good deal of it. He must have been quite large and it certainly made for an intimidating image.

“Yurr a noisy bunch today,” the giant spoke in slurred english. He had to be a foreigner though his accent was nothing Daphne could place.

He walked boldly into the dark room, pulling a strange looking baton from its holster and banging it lazily against the steel of the cages.

“Look at you pitiable little monsturrs,” the man grinned. The occupants of the other cages shied away from the baton as it banged against their cage, likely fearful from past experiences. It was clear to Daphne that whoever this man was, he was the real monster. “I really don’t know where the doc gets off making you… but he pays well — and that’s all that matturrs.”

Doc? Daphne had no clue what he was talking about. She wasn’t made by any doctor. She was human! Not some animal to be trapped in a cage! She didn’t belong here!

The giant’s attention turned to Daphne, the baton pausing on her steel cage. “You look like you want to somethin’, little Frankenstein. Well?”

Daphne found herself voiceless as the figure loomed over her cage.

“Oh, that’s right… yurr one of the new ones,” the giant chuckled. “Well, I hope you had yurr fun while it lasted cause yurr sure payin’ the price now, ‘ey? Aww, now don’t gimme those puppy dog eyes. Yurr soul’s ours now, yurr just gonna have to deal with it,” the giant knelt down in front of Daphne’s cage to look her straight in the eye.

She gasped as the face she met was not human. The giant’s skin was tinged green and large tusks protrude from a fat lower lip. “Now, the doc’ll want to take a look at you and check yurr workin’ propurrly, so you better play nice now or I’ll beat you like a piñata. You undurrstand?” Despite asking the question, the monstrous man didn’t even wait for a response before slamming his baton down upon the cage.

A flash of blue light preceded a sharp pain that seized Daphne’s sense as the baton delivered a high voltage of excruciating electricity though the steel bars. The monstrous man let out a sadistic laugh at the sound of Daphne’s howls, letting the current run for several more seconds. Finally the **** ceased and with a smug grin the green-skinned monster unlocked the cage door and seized her by the collar. There was hardly any feeling at all in Daphne’s body and as much as she tried to struggle she couldn’t so much as blink, let alone move a limb. The best she could manage was a pitiable whine as she was unceremoniously dragged out of the room.

She would have at least liked to look around and get a sense for her surroundings, but she couldn’t even manage that much. All she could see were the long fluorescent strips lining the ceiling, beaming light painfully into her eyes as she was dragged along.

They came to a slight pause at a junction in the hallway. From her left, she heard the faint echo of a door opening, and not too long after a small breeze tickled the hairs on her skin, carrying with it fresh air. ‘Escape,’ she thought with a twinge of exuberation. She had a chance if only she could move.

Her heart fell, however, as the green-skinned giant began hauling her in the opposite direction and her hopes of escape sunk deeper with every step. They paused again once they reached the end of the hall where a double set of doors waited for them. Daphne couldn’t get a clear view of them but they seemed to be operated by some sort of electronic lock. The room beyond was bathed in an unpleasantly bright light. Several computers and monitors lined the room, and on one side a large reinforced window overlooked a slightly larger room. It seemed as though that room was their destination, barred again by one last electronic lock.

“Ah, what do we have here?” an unfamiliar voice spoke once they entered inside. “Wonderful, subject 115 seems to have successfully awoken. Place it on the operating table if you would.”

The green-skinned man grunted once in response and Daphne felt herself roughly hoisted up onto a hard surface. She was rolled over so that she was belly up, and moments later she felt her wrists get strapped down. Several more straps tied her arms down before her legs followed.

“Gotta say doc, this little Frankenstein is furr from cute and cuddly,” the green-skinned man said gruffly. “I much prefurred the Lemurr thing, urr that little pup. This one’s just freaky.”

“Frankenstein is the name of the Doctor, Brugo, not the monster.”

“Whatevurr.”

“And in any case, this is a necessary advancement in the experimentation. Previous subjects have shown a lack of mana containment leading to severe degradation of the soul,” as the doctor spoke the sound of a trolley rumbled across the floor to where Daphne lay.

From the corner of her vision, Daphne saw the vague silhouette of the doctor interacting with some sort of tablet and something else responded with an electronic beep seconds later. A small, drone-like thing hovered into her field of view, looking like it belonged in a some sort of sci-fi film rather than reality. She might have been impressed had she not been so terrified.

“Let’s take a proper look at you, then,” the doctor spoke as the drone began to emit some sort of pulsing blue light. “Hmm… bone and muscle structures are holding well, heart rate and blood pressure are abnormally high… less mana retainment then I would have expected; the soul will likely begin degrading in a matter of days, granted it will take longer than earlier subjects.”

“Is that improvement?” the green-skinned man asked. Brugo, was it? What kind of a name was that?

“Slight,” the doctor replied unhappily. “I had hoped for better. Still, the vessel itself is holding up well. We may be able to make some modifications to it once the current soul withers.”

“Whatevurr you say, doc,” Brugo shrugged. “I still don’t get the point in all this. Rapturre makes enough green on its own.”

“Rapture is simply a means to an end. It pales in comparison to the extraordinary mago-scientific achievement this will be, should we succeed. To cure the incurable; it is history in the making, Brugo!”

Daphne by no means shared the doctor’s enthusiasm. Whatever he had planned it was clearly bad news for her.

“Yeah, yeah, whatevurr you say, doc,” Brugo repeated sarcastically.

The doctor ignored his green-skinned companion and continued to look over his tablet while the drone scanned her. Daphne did her best to block it out. Her body was beginning to tingle as sensation slowly but surely came back to her. Perhaps if she could focus hard enough she could move? She tested the theory with the index finger on her left hand.

Nothing.

Even could she move, she knew not what to do after. She was strapped down to the table and only had a vague sense of where the exit was anyway. But she was **** and kept trying regardless. Something else inside her was urging her on, telling her she could do it if she tried.

‘Come on, come on, come on, come on,’ she screamed at herself… and then, finally, a twitch! Her other digits followed shortly, then her wrist… her elbow.

“... What setting was the baton on when you stunned it?” the doctor paused his work to regard Daphne curiously.

“Three, like all the othurrs.”

“Dammit you stupid oaf,” the mad doctor swore as he quickly tapped away on his tablet. A compartment in the bottom of the drone opened and a terrifyingly large needle began to extend from inside. “Did I not explain to you that creatures with high magical resistance needed at least level 5!?”

Daphne was hardly listening. All she knew was that sensation was returning to her limbs. Now was her only chance to escape! She let out a roar and instinctually lashed out at the drone above her. Much to her own surprise, her bindings tore almost instantly and a quick swipe sent the drone spiralling to the floor.

The doctor staggered backwards as Daphne leapt up. She wasn’t a violent person, but instinct and adrenaline overruled her usually passive behaviour as she took a vicious swipe at his face.

The green-skinned giant thundered over to them, baton in hand. “Don’t touch me with that!” she screamed and suddenly the Brugo tumbled over. Something large and thin shadow had whipped towards the monster of a man, sending him sprawling to the floor and clutching at his bleeding chest.

‘Run now!’ instinct screamed at her, kicking her body into motion. She rushed to the door to find it had locked once they’d entered. The only way past was a number pad and some sort of code that she didn’t know. Maybe another time she would have despaired at this, but she was too high on adrenaline to give up just yet. She moved to the glass window and began beating against it with as much strength as she could muster. It must have been reinforced because it didn’t yield.

“COME ON!” she howled.

That same mysterious black shadow from before whipped across her vision again, puncturing a fist-sized hole into the glass. No time to think, she quickly began beating her hands against the shattered glass, widening the gap before she threw her whole body through. She was unfazed as the glass dug into her flesh. The only thing on her mind was escape.

Once inside the monitoring room she was faced again with another electronically locked door. But there was no window to break this time; she had to find another way out. She frantically looked around the room for a way out before her eyes fell on a grate bolted to the roof. A vent! She quickly climbed onto the closest desk and ripped the grate away, before leaping up and grabbing the inside and pulling herself up. The whole maneuver was pulled off with strength and dexterity that was surprising even to Daphne.

Behind her, she heard the voice of the doctor call out. “Scheisse! We can’t let it escape, it will draw too much attention!” Moments later an alarm began to blare throughout the facility.

She ignored it pushed onwards, chanting to herself with every step: