r.a.b. (reg) wrote in epiloguesic, @ 2015-05-11 21:37:00 |
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The sound of a deep percussive rumble wakes him from sleep, the bed shaking and rattling beneath him. Regulus stares up at the ceiling, his mind foggy. Whatever it was, it reminds him of something— Exploding Snap. That was it. The cards in his hands, the frantic rush to tap them with a wand, the jolt of schoolboy adrenaline. One minute later, the whole world becomes a lot more frantic: there’s a shrieking alarm and their bunks are lifting up and flinging them off, bleary-eyed researchers stumbling to their feet and poking their heads out into the hallways. It’s still dark. This is no dream, no drill; hands are snatching up wands and they’re hurrying towards the main laboratory, where the walls are shuddering and roiling, where security are putting up their valiant effort. “No,” he hears one of his coworkers muttering as they run, an angry venomous rattle, “no, no no, I’ve worked too bloody hard for this—” It’s one of the raids. The explosions are a deeper sound than Regulus is accustomed to, the colours muted: more reds and oranges, less vermilion and green and blue. He can smell something in the air, acrid and reeking. He can’t remember the name of it, but it must be that Muggle invention, the exploding powder they use. Ingenious, he thinks, just before dodging a curse flung in his direction. Regulus tosses up a shield charm from sheer reflex, staying to the sides of the room. Coward, you coward—but he’s a researcher, not a fighter, and sometimes feels like barely even that. The guards and the masked attackers are moving faster than he can track, volleying magic back and forth, and occasionally there’s another one of those explosions, shrapnel blasting right through the wall, the priceless equipment, their stacks of documents, breaking through to— Oh. The specimens. The rest of it passes in a blur, all his senses knife-sharp yet his mind dulled in shock. The shield doesn’t catch everything, which he doesn’t realise until he notices warm blood trickling down his temple. Regulus fires off a few stunning spells, but otherwise huddles behind an operating table until he can feel the sounds fading away, his heartbeat returning to normal. (He can be brave, he knows he can be brave; but he refuses to be brave for this.) Once everything is quiet, he clambers back to his feet and stands in the rubble, staring out at the gaping hole in the side of their facility. The wards are lying in tatters, spells still sizzling and popping. It isn’t even dawn yet. It’s pitch-black outside and there’s nothing to be seen but the bodies of the guards. The Unspeakable colleague who was so angry earlier. More things he can’t even look at, because he sees that the holding cells are empty, the paperwork in flames. Ten Muggleborns—no, subjects—missing. Ones he’d been taught to think of as their numbers, A5-451 and B1-849 and C3-160, their skin warped beyond human anyway, the Unspeakables’ trained tunnel vision narrowing everything down to drops of magic for their unspeakable work. Contagion and disease and cures and watching how they might spread, because St. Mungo’s is a machine that consumes, and is always in need of raw data. Which is gone now. Regulus stands within the emptied and destroyed lab, a sickening twist in his gut at the thought of the Ministry’s displeasure; knowing he’ll have to be reassigned to another project now, and that they’ve lost years’ worth of work. But he can’t help but wonder if he’s a little relieved. |