Preview: Ruination of Nightmares

Here's a sneak peak at the first chapter of my WIP Ruination of Nightmares, a loose non-romance retelling of Beauty and the Beast, in a fantasy/sci-fi setting.

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The Danya Lab owned her. She never realized it more than when the Lab pulled her from the beautiful quiet of the tundra to their testing facilities at the edge of the city. The pulses of life, cold fusion, and electricity tugged at her. As her powers fluctuated to the beat of the extrinsic energies, she shuddered. The prickling surges were distracting at best, maddening at most.

After a week and a half of the usual tests, Mara sat across from an Associate. The woman’s visitor’s badge pulsed on her lapel. Mara knew why they’d chosen her; an emotions test. Why else would they have chosen someone that was similar to Mara in looks, but the opposite in energy? Light aqua pulsed beneath the woman’s pale skin and glinted behind her narrow eyes.

This was the final test. Then, they would send her to the Home. By Anargul, she couldn’t wait for this to be over.

The woman’s thin, painted lips spread in a flat smile. She set a tablet in front of her, then placed her hands on the desk and laced her fingers together. “Overseer of M block, please report on the latest developments of the spirabilis.”

Mara’s fingers curled lightly against the armrests. “The what?”

“Oh, that’s right, they named her while you were out.” The Associate reached up and tucked loose brown curls behind an ear. Mara resisted the urge to do the same with her own frizzy brown hair. “That girl from Precinct 2.” The Associate glanced down at the tablet. “Moriah. You know, her powers are interesting—” Her words flowed for several minutes.

As the woman spoke, Mara nodded. They don’t want a report, she reminded herself. This is a test.

And still the woman kept talking. Talking about how marvelous the gene-splicing had become, about how Moriah’s family was right to give her up, and how Moriah was a fine puzzle piece to be added to the Lab’s main Project.

A thin shade of purple began to seep into the aqua of the Associate.

Mara shifted her hands to her lap and gripped her kneecaps. She kept nodding, and made a conscious effort to breathe. With her power set, breathing wasn’t something she needed to do to live, but sometimes it helped to calm her. The urge to smother and devour the woman’s energy didn’t abate. Neither did the woman’s words. Only now she chatted about purpose; about a greater plan. She sounded so certain of herself. How satisfying would it be to end the droning? To remove the indifference towards something precious? To taste the certainty?

The purple deepened, wriggled into the blue like maggots. Mara licked her lips. The Associate began to cough.

Mara turned her thoughts to the consequences. If she were to drain the woman, the Lab would label it an accident. They would keep her for further testing. Their prize Overseer had to be maintained, after all; breakdowns were normal on the Enhanced. Then, after a day or two, they would realize it had been a conscious choice. What they would do to her afterward was not something she liked to think about. She forced the purple—her color, death—to recede.

The Associate smiled as if something particularly funny had just occurred. She cleared her throat. “Well, that’ll teach me to come to a questioning without a water bottle.”

When the Associate seemed to be finished, Mara waited an extra beat before nodding. Without waiting, she stood and headed to the doors. The Associate didn’t stop her.

As the doors swung shut behind her, and she went down the hall, Mara sighed. She pushed through another set of doors. The buzzing din and swirling blues of the sorting bay crashed against her. They all moved about their tasks, swift and precise, oblivious of her. She wished she could be oblivious of them. The closer they came, and the more she observed the synchrony, the more she wanted to join them. But joining them would mean spreading her energy.

Clasping her hands behind her back, she headed through the bustle to the departure lockers. She went straight to her locker, retrieved her snow gear from the warming rack, dressed, and hurried to the next room. The bay doors weren’t yet opened; at her entry, a red light above the doors went to green. Slowly, the blast doors began to open. The frigid air—balmy for this climate—slid into the room, and played at the end of her coat.

Tugging on a pair of slitted goggles, she hurried to the bikes in the docking bay. As it was the only one with a platform of supplies and a box in the sidecar, she spotted her bike right away.

Each visit, in addition to the usual supplies, she was allowed to choose one gift for each of her charges. She hoped they would be happy with their gifts; a direwolf pup for Miron, and a packet of mixed flower seeds for Moriah.

She slid onto the seat and started the bike. The bay doors finished opening, and she exited into the summer light of the tundra.