Contamination [Lalia]

[wimdy]

Errands. They had her running errands.

Callisto Canton is no errand girl. Just because she'd cause a small fire while trying to heat a sample to see the effect on the cells didn't mean that she had to practically be humiliated by a demotion to errand girl. Who did they think they were? Calli was one of the brightest and freshest minds on their team. Everyone had been looking at the same samples the same way for weeks before she'd been brought into the project and already they had improvements. She brought new ideas to the table. They'd been staring at the page far too long. They needed a fresh set of eyes and they had one.

Except she was being the errand girl. She could practically feel her face lighting up. Her skin was hot with irritation and her skin was crawling with resentment. How dare they reduce her to such a servile position? Sure, it was only for a week, but it was humiliating. She was stuck picking up samples and delivering files for an entire week! She could die from frustration. Her whole life was about finding a cure. A cure for what? For anything. As long as she was helping her people of Panem, she'd be happy to find a permanent cure for sneezing. It was her calling. Calli knew that's what she was supposed to be doing, so why was she being constantly alienated and disregarded as a member of her father's team? It aggravated her to no end. They had no respect for her whatsoever and she couldn't understand it.

Calli grumbled curses under her breath, damning the gods who put her in the position she was in. Not only did she have to deliver files, but it was their lunch break. Half of the scientists were gone while the other half stayed back to keep working. Of course, she was supposed to be on break, but one of her superiors decided to give her a last minute assignment. Her feet glided across the floor to cross the hall and reach the adjacent stairs. She took them two by two, bouncing up a floor of the tiny building easily and exiting into the corridor before her. Peaking both ways quickly, she scurried down the sterile, white, linoleum tiled hallway and pulled open a door.

Three people, all older males, snapped their heads up to look at her. Calli stood her ground, narrowing her eyes as she slipped several of the files she had onto a desk by the door. She quickly fled the hostile environment, glaring at the door as it clicked shut. One down, one to go. Sliding quickly across to the opposite door, Calli slipped inside quietly and moved to set down the remaining files on another desk. Now, just to escape. She turned on her heel and reached for the door only to hear a crash of papers behind her. One of the files was scattered on the floor.

Calli groaned, trying to ignore the odd stares and disapproving gazes on her back as she bent down to piece together the file again. She wanted to be sucked into a black hole, away from all judgment thrown her way. It's not like they knew her anyway. They didn't have the right to judge her. No, she was right. They couldn't say a word about her. Resent i her confidence, Calli blocked out everything around her as he deft fingers swiped up the dropped papers.

No one could bring her down.

[L△LIA]

( K A N G G U N K I M )

The universe works on a math equation
That never even ever really even ends in the end
Infinity spirals out creation
We're on the tip of its tongue and it is saying
We ain't sure where you stand

You feel very important today. Maybe it's because your shirt is ironed so crisply or perhaps it's because you caught a glimpse of yourself in the shine of your shoes a few minutes ago and noticed what a good hair day you're having, but you seem to have every reason to hold your chin up and marvel at how everyone who's shorter than you suddenly looks rather like a minion. So having walked into your father's office at the lab, only to find it vacant, you can't seem to think of any good reason as to why you shouldn't take a few liberties with the space.

The first thing you do is plop down in his desk chair, spinning round in the seat several times as though it were an extremely plush seat on an amusement ride. However, somewhere around the third or fourth circle, you stop yourself with a jolt, disappointed to catch yourself acting like such a child. You are not Kang Kim because of your lack of maturity, oh no. Setting your mouth into an excessively straight line with absolutely no remnant of the giddy grin you were sporting a mere moment ago, you straighten up and brush your shoulder off. There's no need to act like Hyun Ae just because no one's around to see. Propping your feet up on the edge of the desk in front of you, you pick up a stray pen and begin idly spinning it in your fingers, casually fidgeting away the time until your father returns. You're not allowed into the labs on your own yet, which might annoy you if you didn't have so much respect for authority and the rightful order of things, so you have no choice but to wait. No matter how important you feel today, you are still too young to be anything more than an intern — a brilliant keystone of an intern, that is.

When the door clicks open, announcing the entry of someone whose footsteps tread far too lightly to be your father, your hand instinctively clamps onto the pen as you drop your feet to the ground at light-speed, leaning forward to try to make yourself look busy — and important. But doesn't that go without saying? Secretly cocking a grin to yourself, you give a slight but firm nod of acknowledgment as the person behind you sets — important! — files near where one of your elbows is propped. You don't turn to see what was delivered or who brought it until you're certain you hear the errand girl heading for the door.

Now, perhaps it's theoretically possible that your elbow could be capable of accidentally knocking that file to the ground, except you're Kang Kim and you don't make such petty mistakes, so of course they fell because she did a sub par job of setting them down. Your theory seems quite sound and all logic points to this being yet another successful feat of scientific reasoning on your part, so when she kneels down to reassemble the file into something resembling order, you certainly don't feel obligated to leave your cushy seat to help. Even after noticing that one of the papers seems to have gotten caught beneath one of your shoes, the most you can be bothered to do is to disdainfully toe it in her direction. The paper scratches against the floor as you slide it over and the friction doesn't sound as though it's doing any favors in the name of preservation, but you just cough and cross your leg in the opposite direction before she has the opportunity to point that out.

It's only at the last moment, when you deign to glance down, that a hint of recognition sparks and causes you to raise a judgmental eyebrow as you meet her eyes. "Moving up in the ranks, I see." You can't exactly be bothered to match a name to her face, but she's familiar enough — she's from the other division, the ones who waste away their time searching for ways to cure coughs and sniffles. With an understated flick of your fingers, you send one of the papers that had managed to hold it's ground on the desk fluttering down in her direction. After all, you are acutely aware of your perception of the hierarchy in this lab. You're about to impress upon her the necessity for responsibility and attention to detail while delivering such integral scientific documents when the whoop of an alarm dares to interrupt you.

As the overhead florescent lighting cuts out, replaced with the dull red glow of emergency lights and the sound of automatic locks clicking into place — a lock down — you're somewhat miffed to realize that you're no longer the most important thing happening in this lab today.

[wimdy]

Pain is only a pulse
If you just stop feeling it
You might be able to use
The very thing that makes us up

When first entering the room, Calli hadn't paid attention to the man at the desk at all. In fact, she'd been trying to ignore him and be ignored in return. She didn't want another glare thrown at her. No, she's had plenty of those already. [Really, I wasn't trying to set the lab on fire, or Mr. Carawits or whatever his name is. I was trying to purify their rotten sample. Not like they had any better ideas than fire.] She wanted a quiet day of peace and delivering useless files when she could be saving the world. Back to the man at the desk. He was staring intently at said desk, pen clamped in his hand like it was his lifeboat. Calli stared at him for a minute from the floor as she gathered papers, wondering just who the hell he was that he couldn't even help her pick up a few papers.

Instead of snapping at the king of the room, she continued to gather the papers together. Into her view came a foot, casually pushing a paper her way. She looked up at the man again, frowning she saw he still refused to look at her. Seriously, who is this jerk? Calli raised an inquisitive eyebrow at the foot, coughing obnoxiously as she snatched the paper away. She glanced at the dirt trails across the information before sighing and shoving it into the folder with the others and leaning to get another paper. It is only then that he decided to grace her with his voice. Her eyes shot up to meet his, outrage flashing across the dark brown orbs. He seemed familiar somehow, but that didn't matter to her as she watched him drop the last of the missing papers. Calli plucked it from the air and placed it inside the file before standing and slamming it on the desk.

"Yes, actually, I am. I see that they've promoted you from watching the clock tick away to staring blankly at a desk that isn't yours and playing king of the lab," she snaped, finally realizing where she's seen him. Their fathers know each other well due to their work, but she'd seen him shadowing his father in the past. No doubt this is his lab. He's lucky I don't shove that pen right-

Calli's colorful thoughts were cut short by the lights flickering off and the lock on the door clicking shut. She whirled to stare at the door in shock. They were cast into darkness for a moment before the red emergency lights came on. Red lights. Oh yes, she remembered those well. It was surprising considering she could hardly remember anything else about the time she first saw them. Calli had been far too shaken at the time to absorb anything else around her, but those red lights... She'd never forget them.

---

Calli whined like the fifteen-year old she was, glaring at the liquid chemicals before them. They'd been there for hours, trying to make tiny shifts in the alkaline level of the compound without upsetting the balance it already had. It was harder than it seemed to be at first glance. Add too much of one solution, it would start to turn a murky brown that did nothing. Add too much of another, it would begin to fizz uncontrolably. Mix them together and you get nothing at all. It was aggravating and taking too much time and Calli was soooo bored. Her father only shot her a whithering glance before putting down one of the beakers and standing up. He told her- babied her- he was going to talk to a superior about something and not to touch anything. Callie twiddled her thumbs, staring at the beaker in front of her, narrowing her eyes. No. No. Bad thoughts, Calli. You can't touch anything remember? Her hands reached out anyway, fingers curling around a cool, clear tube and dumping in inside the beaker. The compound gurgled and spewed suddenly, spilling its mess all over the counter and Calli's hands. Red lights came on just before Calli's mind went off.

---

Calli's eyes stayed fixed on the nearest red light, her left hand massaging the scarred flesh on her right hand of its own accord. The skin was pink and wrinkled and hairless, smooth and unfeeling. Ever since the accident, her hands could hardly feel anything. They could feel pressure, but their actual sense of hot and cold temperatures and soothing and grating textures just didn't register. Her fingertips had been burned off as well, the pads of her fingers smooth to the touch. Calli missed having fingerprints, as odd as it sounded. She missed the subtle bumps and ridges of the skin, the graceful swirls that would supposedly set her apart. Now there was only bare, pink skin wrapped over her bones. Her left hand continued to massage gently, drawing patterns across the mottled skin as her gaze dropped from the light.

Her mind seemed to register that there was someone else in the room again as she detached herself from her memories. Eyes hardening, she stared silently at the other occupant of the room, daring him to speak. It was only a matter of time.

[/justify]
Lyrics: Time Consumer by Coheed and Cambria