✧ ﹙ 𓉸 ﹚ @f1sts : this place is different from what i remember. i guess… things never really stay the same, do they? ⊹
a chill completely unrelated to the encroaching winter air crawls down her spine. the building is a living entity -- it reaches, claws with its empty windows and broken doorways to pull her back towards its dark heart. but this is no longer the lab she knew. gone are the bright fluorescent lights flickering above while she endured set trials, gone is the hum of machinery pulsing with the rhythm of her suffering and, though it pained her to admit, her power. twisted, never ending hallways, once sterile and clinical, now stood hollow, devoid of life. shadows stretch long upon the floor, crawling like specters from some forgotten dream. she can almost hear the whispers of doctors, the cold, disinterested voices of those who moulded her into something she hadn't fully understood until much later. ❛ yes. it is colder. ❜ she says, like it's the most important thing.
janessa stands there, in the center of the wreckage -- caught between the girl she had been and the woman she's becoming -- a thousand nightmares threatening to drown her. ( i came here to find out who i was. to see if i was the monster. ) she glances briefly to the three armed guards keeping their distance behind them, before turning to violet, the faintest of smiles pulling across her face; it doesn't quite reach her eyes. ❛ no. things do not stay the same. ❜ they've arrived at an observation room, only this time, for the first time, they're on the other side. looking through the cracked glass, inside the very space she would sit, hooked and wired up. she wonders whatever happened to that poor kitty. a lone finger traces along the thin window, ❛ it's... different. not familiar. hard to find where everything is. ❜ it's a different world when you're not being observed, when you stand in the spaces of who came before you -- no longer the prey.
every so often, jane remembers she's not the sole visitor affected by this secret endeavor; she is not alone in confronting intrusive memories. violet wasn't invited purely for muscle -- they have owens and his men for protection, after all. she focuses on vi, opposed to the echos spreading around her: ❛ you are still good? ❜ she asks gently, facing her friend, manner open and genuine. ❛ if you go, i will be okay by myself. not scared. ❜