Luzifer’s vision began to dim strangely… it wasn’t fading to black like with a sedative it was fading into a mix of colors, browns greens, earthy colors. He leaned against the wall of the cell, what had they made him take? It was having a disturbing hallucinogenic effect and there was a feeling to it, something vague and unplaceable that he didn’t like. But he didn’t have long to analyze it. He was slowly succumbing to its effects and lost consciousness.
The scientists observed from the next room. One of the walls was actually a one-way window and it allowed them to view the occupant of the room without giving him the feeling of human contact. There were two scientists from that were wholly dedicated to the project, and they were righting down their observations on their not pads. One was rather young, possibly having only gotten his doctor a year or so before, while the other was old, having been well-experienced even before he had come to work on the imaginary numbers project. “I worry about the effects this will have. We don’t have any clear idea what this drug is! All we know is that it affects the brain and the optical systems causing a prolonged loss of consciousness accompanied by stimuli within the nervous system in the brain. We have absolutely no idea how it will react with other drugs in his system or-“
“It doesn’t matter. You read the letter. The person knew about this project and knew about Luzifer and Satan and knew their exact product numbers as well as all the passcodes. Who ever wrote it and sent the drug in is pretty high up in the project or was. At any rate can we really afford to pass up a new method of conditioning?”
“Tch… I don’t trust him though. Why wouldn’t he give his name?”
“You know how those people can be. Eccentric. Just better to test it and see its effects.”
Luzifer was sitting under the boughs of the tree. He remembered it. Its trunk and branches shimmering and waving under a blinding sun which cast the air from his lungs and left him panting and hot. The leaves, flush and red with a summer bloom of flowers, seemed to be unable to stop the lances of the sun’s heat from cutting through him and scorching his core. He hadn’t been here in so long. He had never wanted to be here but never wanted to return but he felt attached to it by a chain of duty. A chain which led down into the trees roots, too the body which lay there among them.
Things were wrong though. The tree was surrounded by a plain, wide and expansive. It seemed, along with the blistering sun, to be holding him here. He could see, fading in the distance, a city of people but he knew with such crystal air as this the city could possibly be fifty miles or more away. He would die before he made it. Die because of this staring, judging sun. What was wrong about this plain, what made him feel off balance and cautious, was that the tree was not on a plain. It was in the middle of a park somewhere in the city. He remembered. The cold night air. The moon bright and scornful over head. The red liquid seeping into his mouth, as her fluids flowed into and onto him, covering him with their still-warmth. Her eye with its unseeing stare, separating his layers onto the ground to be read.
There was a trickle coming from the ground, a flowing presence, like a worm, burrowing up to the surface. But he lay there still. The sun was filling his eye with its reflected glare, dancing off of waving grass blades into the eye giving him a hangover like feeling, even though he had never drank alcohol in his life. The light stabbed at his weakening brain and his thoughts came being smashed aside by it never settling and the wind only served to blow more heat across his face, the air morbidly dry.
The burrowing in the ground grew in sensation, tingling up from his leg until a hand reached out and grabbed it. He was filled with both horror and apathy, both keeping him from moving as her whispering voice saying those words. Those sweetly stabbing, singing words, that dwelled in his chest. There was this clash in his chest of self-loathing mixed with cold, determination. Twisting together. Something tapped on his head, soft and shy. He looked up. Another tap hit his forehead, and the voice and hand began to hiss. He touched his forehead feeling a fluid on his head. It was water… or maybe saliva. It was cold and looking up against he could see a small cloud in the sky, its shape vaguely human but bestial. It had wings and bore a massive polearm. It began to rain slightly and pulling a scythe from over his shoulder he cut of the hand and stood up. He climbed up into the boughs of the trees and looked out toward the city. Who needed the city? Here was just fine.
Luzifer’s eye opened. The purple of it stony and strange. He didn’t look different but he didn’t look the same. He felt a horror and revulsion inside him but there was something else… something strange… he stood up and looked across the room where his vomit from earlier was starting to dry. It was strange, he could see something. Something strange. And as he looked around a corner, he realized he was moving. But couldn’t think of how.
The drug hit him again… it was intense and his veins beat inside of him, throbbing with overflowing vessels filled with blood, hormones, and enzymes. He was in a box. Glass on. Cold. Steel like in sinew but not in thought or deed. What? That didn’t make sense. But whatever, it was cold and there was no place to move. He could feel its edges but it left him no room, even to twist. There he was in a glass box as people walked by. And he watched them. Unseen. Unfeeling. The place changed.
He held his head in his hands. His green hair block his sight completely. There was sweet necter flowing over him, dripping lackadaisically from his body. It felt sticky and vile. Like saliva or other fluids from people. He opened his violet eye. She was standing over him. Her face bore that same serene smile he remembered. That same smile she had born while putting her suitcases in her car. It was strange. He could never see her accepting that bastard into her. There was never anything between them. It had always been so scientific, so planned. And it scared him. He felt weak in front of her. Muttering a quick “I’m sorry” he sagged to his knees. Watching his younger self crucify a shadow on the wall. It was strange watching the fluids seep from the younger him. He tried to place the milky serum… was that… could it… be ambrosia?
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