Making her way past the sea of working instruments and work benches, the way was rather cramped up. A maintenance sign hung outside the common washroom. Broken stands and cracked glassware filled boxes were lined in corners. She looked around and took a detour, her bladder pressure building up, snaking her way through the store room section, with old school setup of tiled bench tops. Non functional paraphernalia lining the way she snaked through the narrow passage to the single unit emergency washing unit.
Relieving her bladder, she wipes herself clean with a toilet roll that looks rather course and flowery. Nothing like the double ply paper she is accustomed to. Looking in the dust lined mirror, she realizes her features are rather different, as if the make up or the hairstyle is off. Like it is her, but still it isn't. Stepping out with this dysmorphia crowding her head, she tells herself "Maybe I'm tired, a little rest would make it alright". She runs a hand through her hair, and takes off her glasses. Just then stumbling into a senior who is now practically blocking her way.
"Umm, I'm so sorry I did not see you there." She has an apologetic tone and a thick accent, which almost feels too foreign to her.
"It's okay, I don't think that will be the case for too long". The senior, is looking at her directly. In that moment, she sees she is being cornered. Another lady stands behind this person, dressed in a manner reckoning to those of matrons in the world war era. All white with a double line blue border, looking at her rather sympathetically. Before this 30 something, frail bodied research scientist realizes, she is ambushed by the two and rendered defenseless using her own creations.
In this instant, she almost feels like she has lost all hope, and realizes she can see herself being ambushed from a third person view. She is the one being harmed and also she can see the entire scene unfold in front of her eyes as if she were a spectator to a recorded scene.
The drug delivery system that she developed is used against her by her own superiors. The people she worked for, and trusted with all her life after she was left with no one. She fights back and tries her best to fight off the fine wire tips she sees in front of her eyes. She misses out the one the Prof. had hidden in his other hand, which pricks her in her right carpel as she realizes too late. This all happens in fractions of seconds and not only does she feel the pain being afflicted on her, she also see the exact point where she was hurt as a third person overseeing the incident.
Horror filling her eyes, as the expected route of drugs and after effects literature plays in her head. She would lose all mobility of her limbs and recede into a vegetative state left at the mercy of those around her. For the days to follow until the end of this life, she would be left to rot in a state where there would be no bodily autonomy. Experimented upon and tested for drug safety, she would be a guinea pig in the hands of trial experiments until her body gives up entirely. This entire episode flashes in brief before her eyes as she witnesses her last breath in her minds eye.
In this life, she was a runaway child living far away from her country of birth. Her brain was the only asset which had lead to the sparing of her precious life, or even she would have been slain like the many other young lives back in the camp. Something about her curious gaze and strong grades had lead to the general taking mercy on her. Losing her vision now, as she lost her consciousness, slowly fading away, her thoughts became clearer.
Questions from her current life popped up more strongly than ever, why she was over assertive in cornering situations, Why her fear threshold was low, or why the idea of dying did not scare her? In her minds eye, she she had already seen a thousand deaths and this was just another one she knew she would wake up from.
Breathing heavily Mehr woke up, from yet another mind numbing experience as she clutched her right leg close to her chest. Curled up in a ball on her bed, she was uneasy as her right knee almost touched her knee and a sharp pin prick like pain coursed through her leg. The visuals from her dream and the pain were almost identical, she patted around her bed, to check the time.
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