Introduction
It was difficult to feel fear, but the tear trails over her cheeks told Marissa that she could at least pull through this. That whatever Brenan and his team originally had in mind was now no longer the topic at hand. As, clearly, by the mere fact that her clothes had been replaced with that of a white hospital gown, a mishap had occurred at some point.
Over the last few days, she’d felt bored, agitated by the puny amount of progress that they were making, feeling the goals become less and less realistic. There had been no switch in consciousness whatsoever. Merely a change in scenery. Of which she knew there was only herself to scorn for. Yet another reason to not feel like a normal functioning human being.
Somehow she knew to take a firm approach to the fact that she was no longer in the lab. Maybe she wasn’t even in London anymore? If only she could speak and ask Brenan or one of his two assistants, the raven-haired woman whose name was either Kim or Carla, or their fresh-faced apprentice who followed them around like any lap-dog would. But what was there to say? What could she possibly accuse anybody of if she had no knowledge of where she was or what had even landed her in the bed?
It had to have been the gold. She knew it was poisonous all along, but Brenan had said it was a special type. A name that he only knew how to say in German, his native language. So a fat lot of nothing it had meant to her and yet, typical Marissa, she went along with it anyway.
Maybe she wasn’t sick? If it were possible to raise her hands she may press against a bump on her noggin – the pain was certainly focused there. But she could feel very little below the neck now. Couldn’t even raise her head to examine much of herself. No. Something serious had happened. Was happening. Something vicious on the agenda.
That’s when she remembered the can of raspberry soda. She’d been halfway through it when a drunkenness had taken over, with all three of the science-types in the room. And they hadn’t tried to help, either. Back when she’d been swaying around, bumping into this and that...
A door opened somewhere.
The sound of two instruments scraping together could be identified.
Two minutes later she was trying to scream. The blood rushing around as scramblers on a sinking ship would when they saw the wave towering over them in the night. Begging her body to co-operate. But by the time dabs of sensation began to return... she found herself drifting off again.
Just as the hammer and the orbitoclast hovered above her left, watery eye.
