Title: Worse Than Death
Author: Love In Vein
Summary: A young woman is kidnapped and becomes part of Project Olympus, a government-funded experiment on DNA manipulation with horrifying side-effects.
Disclaimer: Everything in this story belongs to me, unless it's a product or some other pop-culture reference.

Chapter 1

"It doesn’t bother me...it doesn’t bother me," Danielle whispered softly to herself as she ducked out of the break-room of the store where she worked. It was a small relief to be able to go home. A so very small relief.

They were still watching her, she knew. She could feel their prying eyes on her back and just knew they would be speaking of her once she closed that door. She didn’t really know why. Perhaps it was her weakness. Perhaps it was her lack of confidence, that undeniable sin. Her lack of close connections, no real friends to speak of. Yes, she supposed, there were a million and one reasons why the gossip flew around her like a cloud of little gnats. But it didn’t matter; it wasn’t like she actually cared. Or so she repeated to herself over and over again.

She crossed the checkerboard patterned linoleum floor quickly and breathed a sigh of relief as the automatic doors opened with a whoosh into the night air. Once out of the store she broke into a jog across the grey asphalt. It was scary here in the dark. There were only a few lights making little round pools that didn’t stretch much further than the exact spot that they hit. As she jogged she saw a black speck. Could be anything, maybe even a figment of her imagination. Only it wasn’t. The black speck grew closer and closer until what it was became clear. A black van, devoid of any lettering was rumbling towards her. Danielle made a choking noise in her throat and began to run faster, her legs pumping harder than they ever had in her natural-born life. Her feet slapped frantically across the hard parking lot and her sides ached and burned but she couldn’t stop. Finally the van seemed to disappear and she slowed her pace, taking gulps of oxygen and resting her hands on her knees. But just as soon as she stopped the van reappeared, grinding to a halt in front of her. The door slid open and two men, both dressed in full black suits jumped out and tackled her to the ground when she started to run. "Help! HELP!" Danielle screamed.

One man produced a syringe filled with a clear liquid. "Everything is going to be all right, Miss Johnson," he said as he plunged the needle deep into her neck, while his partner held her down firmly.

Danielle continued screaming in her mind as her body slowly shut down. When her struggles finally ceased the two men picked her up and carried her into the van with them. Then they slid the door closed and the van drove off into the dark night.

--

When Danielle finally came to it was in a white, windowless room. She sat up groggily, her head pounding and her body aching, and took stock of her surroundings. A bunk bed was attached to the right wall with harsh steel beams that also formed the frames of the top and bottom bunks. At the foot of the bunks was a trunk. On the left side was a stainless steel desk that had one hard-looking metal chair in front of it. The desk was clear except for a computer that seemed to be attached to the surface. There was a door on what she guessed had to be the front of the room with a slot in it and on the opposite wall were a sink, a mirror, and a toilet. A speaker was set in the upper left-hand corner.

Then the door opened and two white coated men roughly threw someone into the room with her. He landed with a thud onto the cold floor and dragged himself to the toilet. Danielle turned away with a mixture of pity and revulsion as he vomited violently into the stainless steal bowl. She turned back in time to see him wipe bright red drool off of his chin and then wash his face and hands in the sink. "Welcome to Hell," he rasped as he stumbled to the bottom bunk and dropped with what seemed like extreme exhaustion onto the thin mattress.

"What’s going on?" Danielle asked timidly.

The man (well, he seemed a bit young for that title) opened his bloodshot blue-green eyes and sneered. "Well, princess, you’re sincerely fucked."

"I’m no one’s princess. Just tell me, okay? Then I’ll leave you alone for good."

He sighed and shifted onto his side to get a good look at her. Despite what she always thought, Danielle wasn’t bad to look at. Longish black hair, brown eyes, tan complexion. Although not in shape, she wasn’t what you would call overweight. "All right, kid..." he started.

"Danielle, the name’s Danielle," she interrupted.

"Danielle, fine, whatever. You lose your name here anyway. I used to be Jeremy. Now I’m number 1482," Jeremy said. Thinking about what your name was painful at first. Then everything just becomes numb. "I don’t know where we are, really. All I know is that it’s the government and that we’re part of something called Project Olympus. And that Project Olympus makes you feel worse than death but nothing they do lets us die."

"What do you mean?" Danielle asked, panic beginning to descend on her like a shadow.

"Just what I said. You’ll see," Jeremy said and rolled over, effectively ending the conversation.

--

Sometime later Danielle was awakened by a shrill ringing echoing out of the speaker. So it wasn’t some awful nightmare. The ringing soon ended and the door swung open. Before she could get her bearings the men in the white coats entered and stood in front of the bunks. "Come with us," one of them said to her.

Thinking it best not to argue, she climbed off the top bunk and allowed them to take her arms. She glanced back and noticed that Jeremy was gone. "Hey, where’s Jeremy?" she asked.

"1482 is already being tested," one of the men said shortly.

After that they walked Danielle silently to another room, but this one was different. It had the look of an operating room in a hospital and this chilled her to the core. They instructed her to lie down on the table and her survival instincts started to kick in. "No!" she shouted and began to struggle against their tight grips.

"Why do they always do this?" one orderly mused to the other.

"Stupidity, maybe?" the other answer as they wrestled Danielle, who was kicking, punching and screaming as best she could, onto the table and strapped down her arms and legs. They also put straps across her throat and abdomen. Then they shook their heads in what might have been pity and left, closing and locking the door behind them.

Danielle’s screaming by that time had turned to crying and her tears slid off the sides of her face. ‘Why is this happening?’ she thought and her mind turned over and over the image of Jeremy vomiting blood and how awful he had looked the night before. And his words. That the government was doing this, doing something so horrible to them.

Her thoughts were cut off by the entrance of someone new to the room. "Hello, 2702, my name is Dr. Bering. This will be the start of your tests," said the man.

‘2702? So, that is what I am now. A number," Danielle thought morosely.

"We will be performing some experiments today," Dr. Bering said an almost conversational tone, as one assistant wheeled a strange tray to one side of the table she was strapped to, and another wheeled an identical tray to the opposite side.

The trays had several syringes with different colored liquid in them. The syringes were attached to tubes of corresponding colors, and these tubes ran down into the underside of the tray where there was a large metal cylinder to which they were attached. Dr. Bering leaned over Danielle’s body and made some approving noises. "Very nice veins, very nice," he muttered to himself.

"All right, you know what to do," he said to his assistants. "First though, I must administer the initial injection."

Before he did so, Dr. Bering’s assistants cut off most of Danielle’s clothing, leaving her in only her underwear. Then he took a syringe with blue liquid off the tray and walked over to her right arm. This time he was silent as he slowly emptied the needle into the large vein in the crook of her arm. Danielle felt as if her body was on fire, but she could not move or speak. Her eyes widened in horror as Dr. Bering’s assistant placed each needle into her arms, legs, and neck at various points. The liquid in them drained into her body as other needles drew out her blood and ran it through the cylinder.

This process was repeated several times until Dr. Bering seemed satisfied. "I would say that went well, but we’ll have to wait and see," he said.

He pressed a button and soon the orderlies came back. They unstrapped Danielle’s unconscious body and put her on a gurney and wheeled her out of the room. As they wheeled her down the hall she started to wake up but found she could hardly move. It was as if any strength had been completely removed from her body. Once they arrived at her room they picked her up and dumped her onto the floor carelessly. Then the door was closed and locked once again.

Danielle didn’t wake up again until she felt herself being lowered onto a wet floor. Soon water was rushing over her and she opened her eyes in shock and choked hard. "Well, good to see you alive," a friendly female voice said.

Danielle opened her eyes and looked up at a matronly woman. She looked to be in her mid-40s, with greying hair and kind green eyes. "What? Where am I? Who are you?" Danielle asked in bewilderment.

"You can call me Ms. Erin. You’re in the showers. Can’t have you all stinky now, can we?" Ms. Erin said jokingly. She handed Danielle a small bar of soap and a bottle of shampoo and turned to leave. "I’ll be back in ten minutes."

Danielle slowly peeled off her undergarments and ran the soap over her body, her mind trying to process everything that had just happened. She looked at her arms and was shocked to see that not one mark was anywhere in sight. But, she was so sure that Dr. Bering and all of what had happened in that room were real. But were they? She pushed that confusing thought out of her mind and concentrated on washing her hair, that being a difficult task for her at the moment. Her arms felt like lead and it took all her effort to raise them and get suds in her hair. Finally as she was washing the last of the soap down the drain Ms. Erin reappeared with a pile of clothes in her arms. "Here you go," she said and handed them to Danielle. "Get dressed quickly or you’ll miss dinner. Oh, and there are spare sets of those in your trunk."

Danielle dressed as fast as she could in the plain white t-shirt and baggy black cargo pants. She slipped on the soft sneakers she was given and then followed Ms. Erin down the hall.

They arrived at another room that looked the same as all the others but Danielle knew that this wasn’t her room. Ms. Erin produced a small card from the front pocket of her salmon-colored button-down shirt and ran it through the identification pad. The indicator light turned green and the door clicked open. Ms. Erin pushed it open and gestured for Danielle to follow her in.

This new room was a bit larger than her room but smaller than either the shower room or the "operating room" she had been in before. There were several round metal tables set up in various spots around the room and the walls were actually painted a light blue. There were two windows with bars on them that looked out to a large field.

Ms. Erin led Danielle to a table where three other people around her age sat and she took a seat in one of the empty chairs. Ms. Erin sat in the last empty chair and pulled in her seat. "Before you ask me, I will be your counselor here at Project Olympus. You will come to me with any questions you may have or problems you may be having. I will also request that you give me any information on your fellow project members if you feel that they are a danger to themselves or others. Now, this is the room in which our new arrivals eat their first meal. Hereafter you will be taken to breakfast and dinner in the common room and be given assigned seating there. Understood?"

Danielle and the others intoned a soft ‘yes’. "That’s good. Any questions?" Ms. Erin asked.

Danielle, unsure of what to do, held up her hand. "Yes, 2702?"

"Why exactly are we here? Why was I chosen?" Danielle asked.

"You are here because you are all extremely intelligent, young, and have been determined to have good potential for this project to work on you," answered Ms. Erin.

"What is Project Olympus?" asked another girl with light blonde air cropped close in a pixie cut and dark blue eyes.

"That I cannot reveal to you at the moment. Suffice to say that it is very important research."

"How will we know if the project works on us?" Danielle asked. The other two in the group seemed to be very out of it.

"You’ll know soon enough," was the only answer Ms. Erin gave. She then stood up to leave. "I will let you talk among yourselves for now. The food will be arriving soon."

The four watched as Ms. Erin left. Once she was had left the room the blonde girl gave Danielle a soft smile. "Hi, my name is Jenna. What’s yours?"

"Danielle, although it seems like we’ll be numbers from now on."

Jenna frowned. "Yeah, it does seem like that. Hey, what do you suppose is wrong with them?" she asked, referring to the boy and girl who were just sort of staring off into space, their arms dangling at their sides and their mouths slightly open.

"I don’t know. But hey, look at this!" Danielle exclaimed and she lifted the girl’s arm. There were puncture marks all over it, the ones that Danielle imagined should have been on her arms and legs.

"That’s weird. I could have sworn that those were on me too, but there’s not a mark on me anywhere. This is really scary," Jenna said quietly, and lightly ran her fingers over her own arms.

"I know. Do you have any family?"

"No. Not anymore," Jenna answered matter-of-factly. "Do you?"

"No. Do you think that’s why they chose us?"

"Maybe."

Before they could discuss this any further a man came to their table with two trays of food. He set them down before Danielle and Jenna. "Hey, what about them?" Danielle asked, pointing to the two others.

"They will be put in special care," he answered and left before she could ask anymore questions.

As the two girls began to eat the boiled chicken and plain vegetables in silence, Danielle felt a strange rumbling in her stomach, a feeling she couldn’t quite explain. It was like her entire body was protesting the food that was entering her body. It was a dull sort of pain that rolled around and seemed to be making its way through her veins and into every part of her body. She looked over at Jenna and she seemed to be experiencing the same feelings. She looked up at Danielle and in her eyes was a mixture of pain, confusion, and panic. They both pushed their trays away in disgust and that’s when the nausea set in for both girls. They pushed away from their table and ran to trashcans at opposite ends of the room where they both threw up the small bit of food they had eaten.

It seemed that they were being watched because at that very moment Ms Erin and four large guards entered. Two guards each picked up one girl and were instructed to put them back in their rooms. Ms. Erin smiled to herself as they left. "Just as I’d hoped," she said quietly. She looked up at one of the camera and nodded silently.