Amren could still clearly remember what had happened. Well, it wasn't overly complicated after all. She had simply hit her head. And now, she was submerged in the familiar green of her drams.

However, something was strange. For one, the dreamlike quality was missing. This state of mind where one drifts from one thought to the next, without any apparent rhyme or reason was missing. Her thoughts were crystal clear.

Then, there was the cold. Where she had previously felt like she was floating, now everything was cold and wet. She was surprised that she had never realized that she was simply swimming in some green sludge. That, obviously, also meant that she was breathing said sludge. Which was also becoming a problem. Whatever was allowing her to breathe this stuff, was slowly stopping to work. With every breath, she could feel that she got less and less oxygen.

And, lastly, there was the problem of her missing left arm and eye. While she wasn't capable of moving much when this was a dream, now her motor function and awareness of her own body had increased considerably. However, now that the dreamlike quality of it all was gone, she realized that she couldn't see with her left eye. She couldn't even blink with it. Even if she tried simply nothing happened. And the same went for her left arm.

Trying her best to keep her breathing steady, Amren reached out with her working right arm, quickly hitting against a hard obstacle in front of her. It felt mostly like glass, or some kind of plastic, but she couldn't tell what exactly because of the fluid around her. Carefully felling along it in all directions, she quickly came to a conclusion.

She was floating in a strange, green liquid, trapped inside a big glass tube. She could picture how it would look from the outside: Like a specimen inside an alien test tube. Like the result of some mad professor's experiments. Like the ultimate creation of some insane supervillain...

No, no matter how real this feels, this has to be a dream, right? I'm probably somewhere in a hospital bed, trapped in a coma dream, right?

Sadly, she couldn't remember how long she would be supported in a case like that. And who the one to support her would be. Did her insurance cover a situation like this? Maybe, but she didn't think so, at least not for too long. Now, she suddenly regretted parting with her parents as she did. Sure, they had tried to push her into stuff she didn't want, even going as far as arranging a marriage with some rich guy she didn't know. But now, they might be her only hope to keep her alive until she could wake up again.

Amren stopped her musings. No matter how much she hoped that this was all just a dream, it felt very damn real. Especially her dire need for fresh air. She somehow had to get out of this thing.

Her very first thought was simply trying to punch the wall, hoping it would shatter. Never mind water, now she knew what it must feel like to try to punch something while swimming in honey. At least that was what she imagined it would feel like.

At least, now she could rule out the possibility of being some kind of ultimate creature of destruction. Or this stuff was specially made to keep her securely locked up in her little tube. But, as far as she could guess, she was probably just a failed experiment. Either way, it didn't work.

Next, she looked up and down, quickly realizing that the ceiling and floor just appeared as two circles in darker green, the viscous fluid obfuscating any and all details.

Instead, Amren brought up her right arm, pushing herself with her back against the cold outside wall as she maneuvers her arm up. Just about ten centimeters above her head, her hand hit against the ceiling, pushing her body down in the process. She almost cried out when her toes suddenly got stuck inside the metal grate that was the floor.

Quickly, she pulled her legs up and sat her feet back on the ground, careful not to hurt herself. Then, she continued to feel around the ceiling, hoping against hope that she would find anything but a smooth ceiling. There was nothing. No buttons. No levers. No emergency brakes.

By now, no matter how much she tried to suppress it, her panic began to rise up. Even if it was all a dream, she didn't want to try suffocating, and air? No, breathable slime? Oxygen. And oxygen was running out. And the adrenalin that had kept her clearheaded until now, was running out as well.

Her breathing became hard, as close to hyperventilating as was possible when you were breathing slime. Her working right eye rolled around in its socket, trying to get just a hint of something, anything. On the left side of her body, she noticed a shadow. Her arm. It seemed like she still had it. Still, she couldn't feel it or move even though she tried to now.

Then, the wall behind her disappeared.

Amren fell backward, the green sludge landing on top of her pressing her body painfully against the ground as it flows away over the ground. Within moments, the slime suddenly starts bubbling, a burning sensation appearing all over her body. Suddenly, she got a coughing fit, green steam shooting out of her mouth, only for her to take her first breath of stale air which once again prompted a feeling as if her lungs were bursting, causing her to violently cough out even more green steam.

It took her a few minutes of flailing around on the cold ground before the entirety of the green slime had turned into steam and disappeared. Only then did Amren realizes that the feeling of burning hot pain had been nothing but a trick played by her mind, caused by the sounds similar to boiling water made by the dissolving of the green liquid.

Amren was cold and felt miserable, and lying completely naked on a metal grid didn't help. Trying to roll over her right shoulder, she quickly got caught on something. It took her a moment to realize that, despite not being able to feel it, she had a left arm. And now that the green stuff was gone, and she could see more than different shades of green, she could take a look at it.

The first thing she noticed was that the arm was definitely not natural. It looked just like a normal, human arm, just with the skin missing. Every single muscle was clearly visible and looked to be made of some kind of mix between metal and plastic, colored in different shades of grey.

Actually looks pretty cool... Amren thought.

If it just wasn't completely useless and in place of her own, working arm. And considering all she knew about robotic prostheses, which honestly wasn't much, they were weaker, slower, and only had a pre-established set of hand positions one could choose from.

In other words, she would very much like to have her own arm back!

Wait... If my left arm that isn't working is actually some kind of prosthesis, does that mean my left eye is...

Before she even finished the thought, she was already carefully feeling for her eye with her hand. All she found was a smooth metallic surface, covering everything from the brow to her cheekbone. And that wasn't all. Following the artificial surface with her fingers, she realized that it extended out from her brow over her left temple, covering the left side of her head similar to an undercut, because, obviously, where the metal supplanted her skin, she didn't have any hair. That also made her notice that her dreadlocks were undone, something that shouldn't be possible. Then again, this whole situation was kinda impossible, to begin with. And, at the very least, her hair was quite a bit longer than before, where it previously reached her shoulder blades, now it reached all the way down to her lower back.

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Continuing to feel along the metal parts in her face, Amren realized that it covered a lot more than she had thought. Not only her eye and the left side of her skull, but she could also feel a small break in the material before it continued to cover a few centimeters of her jaw, and even down the left side of her neck in a pattern of overlapping metal scales until it connected with her left shoulder and the prosthetic there.

Amren labouriously turned herself onto her stomach, slowly pushing herself up with her one working arm. She felt incredibly weak, all of her hard-won muscle and stamina gone from her body. Also, something about her body just felt plain wrong. It wasn't just that she sometimes felt as if her blood was wriggling around, which profoundly creeped her out. But, everything, just felt wrong.

From what she had seen of her body, it was definitely her own body. Besides the parts that obviously weren't, of course. But, despite her absolute control over her body's every motion still being there, she always seemed to "miss" by just a tiny bit, causing her to stagger around like a drunk.

For the first time, Amren took a proper look at her surroundings. Despite the almost complete darkness, she could see surprisingly well. The room was surprisingly small, maybe five or six square meters all in all. Right in the middle, she could make out a small, round platform and a similar counterpart two meters above it. Probably what was left of her container.

The outside wall of the room was completely covered in consoles. But, contrary to what she had expected from the overall sci-fi feel her situation, and prosthetics, had given her, they weren't covered in buttons, levers, and screens. No, everywhere she looked, there were strange metal structures, runes, and crystal balls. Thin wires of different metals, interwoven into countless shapes, often reminding Amren of dreamcatchers. Strange runes, connected by lines, creating all kinds of magic circles. And crystal balls with motes of light floating inside them, as if someone had caught a bunch of glowworms and locked them inside, making them the only light source in the room.

Amren could actually see some smaller, more pyramid-shaped crystals on the walls in regular distances, but if her guess was right, and they were lamps, then they were currently turned off.

But, in the end, nothing in this room made any sense to Amren. This had to be the single most brutal and extravagant prank of all time. Hell, just that green slime must have been some kind of military secret, else she would have definitely heard about stuff like that. A fluid that you could breathe? And probably even eat as well, considering she wasn't feeling hungry in the least? Something like that would probably the invention of the century.

No, She had to remind herself: this is all just a dream.

But, if she was being honest, it all felt so real that she had a hard time believing that.

Maybe, she just woke up from a coma, but she was out for such a long time that everything changed? That still didn't explain why everything looked magicy. Also, she didn't think she had aged at all. Her body may be weak, but it was just because it hadn't been used for far too long.

In that case, maybe she had become part of some kind of secret government experiment? Maybe all those conspiracy theories had been right and the governments were keeping a lot more technology for themselves than everyone thought. Maybe they even had magic and mind control? Maybe, birds were actually government spy drones?

No, now she just felt silly. Amren shook her head. In the end, it didn't actually matter. Until proven otherwise, she would assume that this was real, she was in a completely foreign place, and just to be sure, that everything was hostile. At least everything in this laboratory or whatever this place was. At least until she got out and found a crowd of people that were clearly not involved with whatever this place was.

Wait... I don't know where I am, and I don't even know what year it is. Even if I were to find people, there is no guarantee that they understand English, is there?

Again, in the end, it didn't really matter. Not until she got that far. But first of all, she needed clothes.

Or maybe they have some kind of nudist culture? Maybe whoever is out there thinks that covering your body with cloth is blasphemous?

No, she had to stop it with these stupid idle thoughts. There was no use in worrying about things she didn't, couldn't, know. All it was doing, was delaying the inevitable.

Amren turned towards the only piece of wall that didn't have any consoles. The door. Interestingly enough, it was completely made from stone. Actually, now that she got a closer look, Amren realized that the entire room was covered in stone. Stone so smooth that it reminded her of marble, and yet it was colored in the boring grey of totally average stone. She would have thought it to be a pretty strange choice in room decor, had it not been for the fact that there wasn't a single gap in the wall. Nothing that indicated that the stone had been manufactured somewhere else and then got stuck on the wall. Almost as if the entire room had been carved out of one gigantic boulder.

Amren stepped forward, noticing that there wasn't any indication of a handle on the door, she simply pushed against it. The door swung open silently, much easier than she would have expected from a door made from stone.

Amren stepped out onto a corridor. It didn't have much in terms of beauty to it, carved out of the same grey stone as the room earlier. Luckily, it wasn't completely dark. What Amren had earlier assumed to be lamps, had now been proven to be just that. While they weren't on the walls this time, she could make out cleanly cut crystals attached to the ceiling in regular intervals. Though only one out of four still had a dim shine to itself.

It wasn't much, but still enough that Amren wouldn't run into any walls. It also told her that this place had been abandoned. Or they had horrible janitors.

The question now was, what should she do? On both sides of the corridor, she could make out several doors. Lots of smaller ones on her side, and two bigger ones on the opposite side of the corridor. If she turned left, she could see the end where, of course, there was another door.

She could either check the doors one by one and hope she would find something useful, maybe some clothes and food. Although, she wasn't exactly hungry. Maybe the green stuff could also double as food? Would make sense considering how it had been used.

Another possibility Amren saw, was to go directly to the door at the end. It would make sense for there to be something.

Lastly, she could go right. Problem was, over there, none of the lamps worked, making it impossible for Amren to see what's there.

In the end, Amren turned right. While her current nudity was highly uncomfortable, it had allowed her to feel the light draft coming from that direction. And if she could believe the stories, that meant there would be an exit. Or an air conditioner...

Quickly, Amren reached the end, only there noticing that the corridor made a left turn. However, there she could make out light once again. A short while later, Amren stood at the entrance to what seemed to be a gigantic room. She couldn't exactly tell how large it was in the dim light, but she could make out tables and chairs all around. Though, most seemed to be broken and shoved to the sides.

To her right, she could make out something interesting though. Not only was it the origin of the cold draft, but it was also an unusual structure in what seemed to be a common area.

It was a set of walls, almost two meters in height and one wide with a small pedestal on the outside that would allow someone of Amren's size to just about look over the wall. Through the gaps, Amren could also make out a second set of such walls, just slightly lower in height, and as far as she could tell, there seemed to be several layers, all in half-circles around what seemed to be the exit.

Quickly, Amren made her way over there and began climbing through the labyrinth. Well, not exactly Labyrinth, but it was still highly inconvenient. It was only after she had climbed through all seven layers of walls and stood right in the middle that Amren realized what this was.

A defensive position. In front of her, she could see a long, straight corridor, just small enough that two people wouldn't be able to walk side by side. That way, people would get funneled into the half-circle one by one, where people would wait behind the cover of their walls and shoot the poor invader with whatever they were shooting. It couldn't be guns though, for that the walls were too high to make it convenient.

As she looked around, Amren also realized that there were quite a few cracks and scratches all over the smooth stone floor and walls, further supporting her theory of a defensive position. But it also told her something else.

The defensive position had seen use. And that means, there had been a fight.