Echo's Chop Shop ====================================================================== The white walls appear blurred, his assumption is that everything is smooth, curved and clinical were he to have clear vision to see it. But he does not have clear vision. What he has is flashing lights and some blinding pain in a very, almost impossibly bright room. He cannot make out his captors, they are distorted, almost glitching due to some atmospheric factor or his weakness and injury. They shuffle around the bed in which is strapped busying themselves with the work of his misery. He can feel something behind him, above his head, he knows what they are doing there; routing around in his cracked skull scooping and stabbing. Occasionally he feels his limbs twitch as they hit the right spot. There is no sound but that of a heavy air conditioning or ship life support system. He tries to focus his attention on the creatures around him once more. They have long faces, short legs, and what looks like two upright protruding antennas extend from the top of their heads. No, are those ears? It's hard to tell. They have large black eyes. There is a scream in the distance, and he finds his gaze drawn to an angle he has not previously looked. He can see now that he is not alone in this chamber. Another creature is strapped to a bed identical to his. This creature is also surrounded by busy ear things. In this instance they are removing the prisoner's leg with some kind of laser bone saw. He witnesses the full act, and then notes with distain that they dump the lower leg, now limp, onto the floor with a callous disregard. One of the creatures then mutters something, it's an alien tongue but the lyrical nature is highly suggestive of magic. The newly formed stump on the prisoner's leg glows green for a moment and then what looks like a huge spider's leg extends with velocity from it. He makes out a small black nose on the ear creatures for the first time, it is twitching on all of those observing the results of their spell on the stump. He jerks in pain as the routing around underneath his own cracked skull becomes sharper. There is a snap and over his head something flies into the distance and onto the floor. It takes a moment to register what it was, what's happening, before he realises that what he saw was a shard of his own skull, casually snapped off by hand and discarded on the floor like the leg of the other poor soul. The pain is getting worse, and his legs and arms are twitching. All hopes of escape, all hopes of future, are fading now. Another scream from the sister bed. He realises that the other prisoner is a women. That's all he'll ever know about her. One of his jailers moves directly into his eyeline, the huge black eyes and twitching nose set between the long high set ears is terrifying. The face shows no emotion, a simple blank look. He braces himself, for the end, or worse, a magical spider leg. Instead, an explosion rocks the room. He snaps his head to the right and sees a gaping hole has appeared in the wall. Through it armed black uniformed humans, three of them, are firing weapons. The number '51' becomes apparent to him on their uniform patches. Two of them rush toward him, and cut through the binding straps quickly, and before he knows it he is hefted onto the shoulders of the largest of the three. "My Lord..." the words are distant and hard to understand "... sorry we couldn't get here sooner, let's get the fuck out of this chop shop..." He is fading from consciousness, drifting into painful sleep, the last thing he sees before lapsing completely is a single recognisable icon on the damaged double doors of the clinical chamber... The face of the rabbit. The mark of Lord Echo. ====================================================================== www.endless-chronicles.com ====================================================================== EOF