4th/Autumn/518 AV
Aster was suspicious. With the approach of autumn, the activity at the institute had seemingly begun to die down; at least, she wasn't being poked and prodded at nearly as much. Or perhaps she was simply getting used to it.
Her only indication that it indeed had slipped from summer into autumn was the steadily changing hue of her hair; the ends finally being coloured a deep auburn had meant that the watchtowers had indeed flared at some point recently to announce the start of fall. Had she really spent almost an entire season chained up?
The Eth lay quietly on the cot in the small stone room that she had been sharing with the Isur woman for the last season, staring at the ceiling. Her cellmate wasn't particularly talkative, which while Aster tried to tell herself suited her fine, was in fact not fine. She missed interacting with people; most of all, she missed the sunshine.
She heard footsteps approaching the door, but didn't pay them any mind until they stopped, voices drifting into the small room. Aster sat up, narrowing her golden eyes suspiciously at the door, warily waiting for it to open.
It sounded like some sort of argument. Finally, the door swung open, and a man in a white coat entered the room. He was a doctor, if one could even use that word, that Aster hadn't seen before, and he seemed irritated. "Waste of time and resources," He muttered, under his breath. He approached the Isur woman on the cot on the opposite side of the room, and Aster watched silently.
She appeared to be sleeping, so it was easy for the doctor to jam a syringe into her neck. Alarm bells went off in Aster's head, and panic rose in her chest. They were never experimented on in their cell; had they grown tired of their experiments? Were they going to kill her?
Adrenaline surged through the Eth, and Asterope scrambled to her feet as the doctor approached her, a new syringe in hand. The door was still open, Asterope noted, and without giving herself time to think she made a dash for it.
She heard the doctor swear; in the small room, it wasn't hard for him to lunge forward and wrap his hand painfully tight around her arm, jerking her to a halt. Aster cried out, struggling as he dragged her backwards. "Let go of me," She shrieked, her voice hoarse from misuse and sounding alien even to herself. She squirmed, thrashing in his grip, but he was bigger than she was, and she was weak from her season of imprisonment.
A choked half-sob left her as she felt the sharp prick of the needle in her neck, and she stumbled back against the wall when she was released, sliding to the ground. She trembled, blinking back tears; it didn't take long for her vision to begin to swim. She really was going to die there, wasn't she? It felt pathetic. It wasn't so much the thought of death that terrified her, but the thought of what came after.
Would Syna take her back? Would she be forced to return to an entirely mortal shell, with no memories, a new life? Or did empty blackness await her? She didn't have time to think too much about it as darkness washed over her vision, claiming her consciousness.
Word Count: 564
