December 2001
Feb. 12th, 2007 12:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
there_is_a_meThe first few weeks weren't that bad. Except for the full moons. Those started bad and didn't get any better.
Tests, they said, of him running and him breathing, pissing, eating. Like a physical, the longest and hardest of his life but by God he worked at it. Gave them all the data that they wanted and offered up other things. His blood pressure before he was bit ("We know, Private Witherspoon"), his eyesight, his parent's medical history.
Then they started pushing him. Run faster. Lift more. Identify things by scent when you're blindfolded. Track men through the woods. Track the one man who has a gun.
And they kept taking blood. Kept taking piss. Saliva. Grumbled about being unable to isolate what they wanted.
The first full moon in November he woke up feeling almost as badly as he did in September, with over-sized bandages where he'd been shot several times so that they could keep him down long enough to take blood, piss, and saliva from the wolf.
The second full moon in November he dimly remembered being shot over and over while someone hacked a hunk of flesh out so that they could run more tests.
He hasn't been out of the room in a couple of days. The walls are closing in, getting closer and closer. Someone brings food, and smokes, at regular intervals.
The door opens again, and yet another doctor enters with an orderly. "Good evening, Private Witherspoon. Roll up your sleeve, if you would, and settle into the chair."
He lifts his face, sniffing, "Who's out in the hallway?"
"No need to worry about that, Private. Roll up your sleeve." After a moment he does so, still sniffing. Fear, pleasure, it's a strange mixture. He closes his eyes and turns away. After months of this he's sick of the sight of needles entering his flesh.
He doesn't, obviously, expect the burning agony that sears his arm when they rip out a chunk and put it in a specimen jar. His head snaps around and his teeth pull back as he sees the doctor's silver scalpel going back into a pocket.
"What the fuck?" He starts to stand, to swing his hand over the bleeding hole in his arm. Tranquilizer guns make noises that sound like pif, pif. He hears at least five shots as he hits the ground.
Then things are dark.
Tests, they said, of him running and him breathing, pissing, eating. Like a physical, the longest and hardest of his life but by God he worked at it. Gave them all the data that they wanted and offered up other things. His blood pressure before he was bit ("We know, Private Witherspoon"), his eyesight, his parent's medical history.
Then they started pushing him. Run faster. Lift more. Identify things by scent when you're blindfolded. Track men through the woods. Track the one man who has a gun.
And they kept taking blood. Kept taking piss. Saliva. Grumbled about being unable to isolate what they wanted.
The first full moon in November he woke up feeling almost as badly as he did in September, with over-sized bandages where he'd been shot several times so that they could keep him down long enough to take blood, piss, and saliva from the wolf.
The second full moon in November he dimly remembered being shot over and over while someone hacked a hunk of flesh out so that they could run more tests.
He hasn't been out of the room in a couple of days. The walls are closing in, getting closer and closer. Someone brings food, and smokes, at regular intervals.
The door opens again, and yet another doctor enters with an orderly. "Good evening, Private Witherspoon. Roll up your sleeve, if you would, and settle into the chair."
He lifts his face, sniffing, "Who's out in the hallway?"
"No need to worry about that, Private. Roll up your sleeve." After a moment he does so, still sniffing. Fear, pleasure, it's a strange mixture. He closes his eyes and turns away. After months of this he's sick of the sight of needles entering his flesh.
He doesn't, obviously, expect the burning agony that sears his arm when they rip out a chunk and put it in a specimen jar. His head snaps around and his teeth pull back as he sees the doctor's silver scalpel going back into a pocket.
"What the fuck?" He starts to stand, to swing his hand over the bleeding hole in his arm. Tranquilizer guns make noises that sound like pif, pif. He hears at least five shots as he hits the ground.
Then things are dark.
