Steel Yourself... || Mutation
In the dream she’d been running from something, whether it was a mob or a monster Delilah wasn’t quite sure. She woke with a jerk, teeth clenched on a building scream. It wasn’t the first nightmare she’d had in the Theory and she was sure it wouldn’t be the last. Her family had been on her mind more than she’d ever admit and her uncertainty of their safety was no doubt the main source of her troubled nights as of late. Swallowing down the urge to pour herself a drink she swung her legs from the bed and closed her eyes on a building hangover. The morning light pouring through her bedroom window was soft and not at all something she was accustomed to.
Her head ached just enough to make her feel uneasy. Though she’d had her fair share of hangovers there was no way she’d had enough to drink the night before to warrant much more than a dull pound. The minute she’d heard the Doctor’s voice she’d gone straight to her room, all thoughts of alcohol forgotten momentarily. She’d already gone through one vaccination and she wasn’t going to stick around to see if he was assigning some equally terrible cold preventative. Given the choice of doing as he asked and catching whatever had been going around, Delilah would take being sick.
She lowered her head, eyes still closed to the light and massaged at her temples, attempting to relieve the pressure as much as she could. Nothing. Clearly today was not going to be her day. With a sigh, she dropped her face into her palms then jumped as the sound of metal hitting metal briefly filled the room. “What the fuck?” Her eyes sprang open and she stood quickly. Were they doing construction outside? But it had sounded like it had been right in front of her. Poking her head out of her bedroom door and into the living room she called quietly, “Hello?” Silence was the only answer she got. They had supposedly taken care of the murderer from before but she didn’t trust them not to let another one in. And wouldn’t it be just my luck to be the first victim in the second round of killings.
Trying not to think about killers, Lilah pulled the door shut behind her a little too fast, determined to be dressed if she was going to meet her demise. The knob pulled off in her hand, the wood of the door cracking as it was forced against the frame. She growled slightly under her breath. Wasn’t it just like this place to fall apart when she needed it most? “Cheap piece of sh-“ Delilah paused, eyeing the skin of the hand that held the now useless door knob. Was that paint? Dropping the object she held, she scratched at the metallic skin with a matching metal nail and hand. The sound of metal scraping metal made her teeth ache and she stopped, puzzled. After a moment, she realized that it wasn’t just her hands; the material ran up her arms and seemed to cover every bit of her that she could see.
“This is a dream,” she told herself firmly as she walked to the bathroom. “Wake up.” The face in the mirror was familiar though it looked as if it too had been coated in the same substance as the rest of her body. Her eyes were wide with shock as she gingerly touched a fingertip to her cheek. “Wake up,” she repeated with less conviction. Had she taken something the night before but forgotten? There were no holes in the evening that would indicate something like that. Maybe someone had slipped something into her drink… But surely it would have worn off by now. She refused to panic even as she felt a tightening in her chest.
The Doctor had begun to talk about the vaccine. Maybe it had strange hallucinogenic side effects. Like some kind of slow release LSD. Lilah scratched absently at her arms as she tried to remember what a person was supposed to do in a situation like this. Clearly everything she was seeing wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. People didn’t just go to sleep normal one night and wake up the next day a metal freak. “Come off!” Her nails ripped at the material but it didn’t budge. With a scream of frustration she slammed her forearm into the doorframe. She flinched as she realized what she’d done, waiting for the pain of a broken arm to jar her back into reality. Instead she found herself staring at a crumbling chunk of wall, her arm intact and pain free.
Her knees went weak and she backed up until she hit the bathtub, sitting with a thump as she stared at what she’d done. She was too shocked to even realize that her limbs had slowly begun to return to normal. “Clearly I’m losing my fucking mind.” A few minutes passed before she was able to stand and walk back to the mirror. Her face looked like it always did; any sign of the change it had undergone moments before was gone. Stopping only briefly in her bedroom to dress, Lilah slipped out the front door, breathing a sigh of relief as she entered the hallway. The idea of staying alone in her room with her thoughts and the proof of what had just happened was too much for her. Barkers wouldn’t be open for hours but she’d be content to wait outside until it did.