Adonis Chapter 1.01

“Good morning, subject one.”

The sounds of a calm computerized voice and a pneumatic hiss were the first experiences she could recall as light teased her eyelids into opening. It was as if her body was slowly powering on in chunks, in no hurry to aid in discerning her location and questions that were brewing even before registering sensory input. The first thing she noticed once she began to process what her eyes were seeing was that her world was being filtered through a transparent plastic casing, only inches from her face.

Her hands were the next things she seemed to develop control over, and a quick push revealed that the casing gave way easily, allowing her to repress the panic that was beginning to build in her head as the seconds passed.

Taking a brave step, the woman exited the pod she had been encased in, stepping into silence. The room she observed was bare, a sterile white from floor to ceiling with only modest lighting.

None of it seemed familiar.

She couldn’t recall being in a building like this before, which normally would have set off alarms in her brain—even though there was nothing remotely frightening about her location. However, there was nothing remotely interesting about it either, and it was at that point her curiosity turned to focus on herself.

Turning slowly to face the pod she had exited–the only structure in the room beside what appeared to be a metal table attached to a wall with holes, where some sort of equipment was meant to be mounted–she had intended to look the structure over, but paused as she saw her form mirrored in the transparent lid she had previously pushed off. It had not been obvious before that the woman’s features were as completely foreign to her as the room she was in until that moment, and she found her reflection puzzling.

The woman’s features were soft and youthful, the eyes a brilliant shade of turquoise blue which immediately entranced their owner. She found the gaze from those eyes something of an enigma, as if they were staring through the fabric of space at something inexplicably wondrous, though her overall confused expression said otherwise. The second striking oddity that caught her eye was the pure white hair atop her head, which fell back beyond the shoulders with a slight wave, like snow cascading down a mountain. A petite nose, thin pink lips, and a flawless complexion were noted next after she had taken a lock of her hair in slender fingertips to hold in front of her line of vision, confirming that the reflection was not somehow tricking her senses. Her eyes focusing downwards, she noticed her body was encased in white as well, simple pants and a short-sleeved shirt that looked like sleeping apparel more than anything else. Her hands, arms, even her feet when she bothered to look down that far appeared soft, thin, unrealistically flawless.

It was all wrong, she knew. But when it came to information beyond that simple admission, the girl’s memory failed her. She couldn’t remember names, family, or any details of her past leading up to the moment where she had exited a container the size of a human, but she knew what she was viewing as her appearance was not what she would remember if she could. But what was wrong? She pondered on that for a few moments, as nothing threatened to break the silence and force her to focus attention elsewhere. The first conclusion that she arrived at was that things were too perfect, though that thought didn’t register completely with her. The woman instead recalled something trivial about her hands that was missing, though she had no idea as to what it could be–a scar or some other marking, most likely. However, her hands looked as if they had ever come in contact with anything. The most obvious problem floating in her head was the hair color and eyes, assuming they weren’t simply dyed or altered in some way. She knew that the sort of brilliant color in the retinas was very rare, and white was not a natural color at her age. A sense of certainty kicked in that she at one point had average, boring eyes with average, boring hair. Likely there once existed an average, boring all-around version of herself.

Before she could think on her predicament further, a sound like an elevator ding rang out from the wall to her left, and a glowing blue arrow pointed towards an opening that had begun to slide open without a sound. Along the ground, a matching blue line of light glowed into view, which snaked out of the room and down a hallway, which appeared as quiet and sterile as the room she occupied. Turning about once more in the room to make sure there was nothing more for her to take in of her current environment, she let her curiosity, along with her understanding that arrows are often meant to be followed, take hold. Her feet slowly began to pace forward, possessing a cautious air in her step as each thud of her bare feet echoed out from the cold metallic floor.

The walk seemed to continue for quite some time, past what seemed at first to be blank walls, but upon further inspection the woman discovered each wall occasionally had small creases in them, likely meant to open up like the door that connected her room to the corridor. Odd, it seemed to her, that her door was the only one open. It also struck her as odd that she was following arrows and not another human. Was there always a lack of people in the facility? That thought resonated within her, as she recalled that she had once been in a large facility filled with people coming and going in every direction. From such a vague memory, she was certain of two things at least, that the memory felt recent, and it certainly wasn’t of her current location. But she had to wonder about her recollection, and if it was maybe of her workplace. Perhaps she was a scientist? Her appearance made her out to be too young to be a scientist. Maybe an intern, perhaps, if anything could actually be assumed about her current age based off of her appearance… she couldn’t be certain about that, however. It felt odd to be uncertain about her own age.

She was glad to have come to the end of the hallway, as she was thinking far too much on a subject she had no decent understanding of. The girl wiped her mind clean and focused on what appeared to be a desk in the room the arrows led to, one with a figure sitting behind it, patiently occupying himself with a computer screen. The room itself reminded her of a doctor’s office, which served to reassure her that she in fact wasn’t abducted by aliens or some nonsense. There were chairs along one wall, a small potted plant by her side that appeared to be fake, and the only thing missing yet again was the lack of activity she would expect from what seemed to be a giant facility, if her trek was any indication. The man behind the desk didn’t offer a greeting to the woman as she entered, there was no chatter from other hallways leading into the ghost of a waiting room, the girl was left with silence yet again. Even some horrible elevator music playing through some speakers would have been welcome at this point.

The eerie silence was forcefully broken as the woman stepped slowly to the desk, and began to speak. Or at least she attempted to make sound from her vocal cords, something she had not tried her entire tour through the hallways. The first attempt she made resulted in barely a whispered hiss, which eventually cracked into noise, but all that escaped was “Hhhhhhhhhuh.” Clearing her throat once, she made a second attempt, wondering why it felt like she hadn’t spoken before, either. “Hello,” eventually escaped her lips, though by then she had already attracted the attention of the man behind the desk.

Dressed in a light gray uniform that seemed as dull as the metallic white and gray decor in the room–save for the fake plant–the young man wore a friendly smile with his brown hair brushed to the side. Around one ear was a headset, the small black microphone that rested near his mouth hardly perceptible.

“Hello again, subject one.” It was the same voice that the woman had first heard when she awoke that day, and it continued to speak even though the girl looked like she needed to ask a question or twenty. “Adonis Laboratories is pleased you have completed your cycle in the Reformation Chamber, the newest successful concept developed as the flagship program for our growing company. We would li–”

“Reformation Chamber? What the Hell is a Reformation Chamber?” the girl pressed, since she wanted answers, not the deskjob equivalent to an Academy Award acceptance speech. She had difficulty asserting her voice, however, as her tongue did not want to move in any sort of agile fashion, and her words sounded slightly slurred and lazy.

“A Reformation Chamber is a container that is large enough for the average adult, without being overly bulky for what benefits it can provide. Over the course of the procedure known as Reformation, the target body goes through a process known as destructuralization, where the body is then replaced with a new, synthetically-developed one. Would you like to learn more?” The response was hollow and emotionless, as if the man sitting behind the desk could care less about what impact his words may have on a distraught patient with no name.

“Are you crazy? Of course I want to know more, I don’t remember a thing about Reformation Chambers, not to mention that whole thing you just described! …I don’t remember much about anything, for that matter.”

The man frowned. “No, I am not crazy. Given that you are the first subject to have completed the process, there are no confirmed side-effects discovered from the procedure yet, though a potentially-linked case of amnesia may be what you are currently suffering from. That will be determined shortly. For now, if you would like to learn more about the procedure you have just completed, follow the lighted line down the corridor marked A to the conference room. From there, you will be shown a video and have access to a database that will answer all of your questions on Reformation, or any related areas of interest. Once you are finished there, you will be led to a dining facility, a shower room where new clothes will be provided, and then finally a testing chamber. After sufficient testing, we will determine whether or not it is safe for you to leave the quarantined area.”

The woman stood there silently for a moment, staring at the man feeding her information at speeds too fast for her to process, and unfortunately none of her questions she planned to ask had received any resolution on their own. Given promise that answers were almost literally just around the corner, she did not vocalize a single complaint as she turned to venture down corridor A, returning again to silence. She thought that were she not in some sort of post-procedure daze or shock at the moment, she’d have exploded in a very poetic sort of verbal onslaught that would have emptied all her questions and fears upon the man behind her, and in hindsight she figured that’s exactly what she should have done. She’ll just have to yell at whoever she encounters next, she decided, to make up for it. After all, the confusion that plagued her mind should be cleared before she simply began following directions from strangers.

The young man watched as the white-haired ‘subject one’ exited the lobby area, and then the holographic image flickered off, leaving only an empty desk.