Prologue

A sweet voice of a little girl kept on ringing in her ears. It sounded very familiar and made her heart yearn to feel the presence of being around a warm embrace.

She longed to know who it was, but her eyes wouldn't open. There was a deep pain in her heart while the little girl's voice slowly faded.

The darkness of winter perturbed her mind. Lyra recalled that fateful night when she was about to cross the street, a black van unexpectedly stopped in front of her.

Lyra was immediately surprised, her heart jumped in fright, as she subconsciously stepped back. Just two steps more and she would have been hit.

The stoplight had already turned red and the signal for pedestrians indicated green, a clear sign that she could safely cross the street, but then, that vehicle suddenly appeared at a speed so fast that the brakes screeched on the entire length of street when it forcefully stopped before her.

After being frightened, Lyra was completely incensed. She could feel rage and hate building in her chest. She couldn't imagine what would've happened to her if she was hit.

Lyra was about to open her mouth to scold the driver when the vehicle's door suddenly opened. A group of well-built men wearing black suits, their faces covered with black cloth, swiftly came down and surrounded her.

They grabbed her, gripping her arms and waist, giving her a chance to neither scream nor struggle. Held by a strong arm from behind, a hand covered her nose and mouth with a handkerchief.

There was a strong medicinal smell coming from the handkerchief that penetrated her senses as she tried to shake her head in struggle. Immediately feeling weak, Lyra couldn't gather enough strength until she lost consciousness. The last thing her waning consciousness remembered was when they carried her inside the van.

As it was already eleven in the evening, there were not many people around. Besides, who would ever think that some people would suddenly abduct an unknown person like her. She was just a nobody, who came from an average family. A mere student that was staying in a free apartment.

Not knowing how long she passed out, Lyra, who was wondering about the reason for her abduction, slowly woke up. Probably due to the aftereffects of the medicine used on her, she can hardly move her finger. Every part of her body felt weak, even her eyelids seemed heavy and unable to open.

It took a few minutes for Lyra to finally be able to open her eyes. With a blurry vision and a bit of headache, she tried to look around to find out where she was. It was then that Lyra noticed that she was lying on a cold single sized metal bed which didn't even have a bed sheet.

Slowly regaining her sight, a frightening room appeared before her after having a clearer visual of the place. The room was very small, you can reach the wall in just five to six steps from the metal bed.

On the right side of the bed, there was a bit of light passing through a small glass on the wall but it was covered with grills. It was a window, so small that it only allowed a bit of sunlight to pass through.

Being in that kind of place, Lyra started getting nervous. Her heart began beating fast. She really had no clue why she would suddenly get kidnapped. She wanted to know, but maybe due to the aftereffects of the medicine used on her and the unexpected situation, she can't calmly think.

Trying to slowly calm her mind and jumping heart, Lyra tried hard to carefully speculate the possibilities of her situation. Looking around, she felt like she was in prison. Aside from the small bed she was currently lying in, there was also a small plastic door on the left side of the room, common to the bathroom doors for hospitals.

Facing her feet, across the wall, there was a steel plate. It appeared like some sort of electronic door that she had only ever seen in movies. It was tightly closed with a scanner and number keys to enter some codes.

A short time later, there was a series of rattling buttons being pressed on the other side of the steel door. When it stopped, the door beeps twice before it opens.

A slim built, middle aged man came in. He walked towards the bed that she was weakly lying in. He looked to be about somewhere between forty to fifty years old. He stopped on her left side and stood next to the bed.

Without him wearing any face mask, Lyra could clearly see his face. His countenance seemed like he was a westerner. He had a tall build and his looks were not inferior despite his age. He had a pair of clear, dark eyes hidden beneath his eye glasses while he wore a white doctor's coat.

"I didn't expect you to wake up sooner," the middle-aged man said in a low and masculine voice. He had a European accent, and it came across like a kind elder, but his eyes revealed something that made Lyra feel frightened.

His eyes seemed to turn darker as he stared intently at her. Before Lyra could ask who he was, the middle-aged man calmly moved his hand towards his coat's pocket and took a syringe filled with green liquid.

He slowly bent his waist as he moved closer to Lyra. Using his other arm to grab her left arm, he swiftly pierced the needle straight on her arm without warning.

Lyra wanted to struggle as soon as the middle-aged man took out the syringe. Unfortunately, her body still felt weak. Unable to resist, she can only watch as the green liquid slowly entered her vein.

In seconds, Lyra could feel a biting pain where the needle was inserted. She knew that no matter what kind of liquid was being injected into her, it was spreading fast as she began to feel dizzy and her vision turned dark.

As darkness covered her eyes, Lyra could feel the needle leaving her body. There was also an eerie silence within the room, but she knew that the middle-aged man was still standing on the same spot as she could still hear his stable breathing.

Unfortunately, Lyra wasn't able to see what he was doing as her vision remained dark. It was until she heard another series of ticking sounds followed by a few beeps, then the sound of the steel door being opened again.

Another set of footsteps can be heard, echoing in the room. Whoever it was, he or she was slowly approaching the bed. The footsteps stopped next to the middle-aged man whom Lyra first met. An excited and malicious voice rang in Lyra's ears. While she could not see who the man was or imagine what he looked like, she could imagine the face of a mad scientist whom she had seen in the movies.

His words, however, made her heart tremble in fear. "Dr Muller, I have heard that the first drug has no adverse effect on her body. I bet she can turn into a pure werewolf. Who could be better than any of the test subjects we received this year?"

"We are not certain yet. After all, it's only been two days. We have to wait for another three days to verify if it will go well," Dr Muller nonchalantly said.

After his words fell on Lyra's ears, her mind slowly turned blank. She had no idea what happened next because she slowly lost consciousness.

***

With that vague memory emerged in Lyra's mind. She started feeling pain all over her body as if each vein was going to explode while she was being drowned.

Lyra tried moving, but the feeling of sinking in the water coupled with the feeling of small ropes being wrapped and connected around her body, prevented her from making any movements, rendering her unable to struggle as her eyes remained completely shut.

Every time Lyra tried to move, the similar feeling of having drips in the hospital, conjectured the idea that there were multiple medical tubes connected to her veins. If she wasn't mistaken, the ones that were wrapped around her body were medical tubes as well.

With a panicked heart, Lyra tried to breathe enough, she could feel a tight oxygen mask on her. She had guessed it to be so because of the tubes inserted into her flesh. Besides, it seemed to cover her mouth and nose and she could still breathe despite being surrounded by water.

By slowly opening her eyes, in a blurry vision, everything around her was slowly revealed. While trying to move her fingers, Lyra waited until her eyesight became clearer.

Even though her vision was still blurry, Lyra realized that her vision was reasonably clearer, though she had water around her, as compared to when she went swimming before she was abducted.

Having a relatively clear vision while in the water, it was then that Lyra realized that she was being contained inside a transparent, filled with clear-water, glass tank. The sheer size of the tank was big enough to fit two people.

Lyra tried hard to see the surrounding area outside the huge, transparent glass tank. But because of the water in her eyes, she could only roughly see the blurry appearance of two men holding some documents. They appeared to be reviewing some data, raising their heads to look at her from time to time.

Feeling like a fish inside a tank, Lyra wanted to break free. But those plastic tubes connected to her flesh would inflict terrible pain that kept on torturing her with her every move. It was like her flesh was being ripped apart.

Not long after, Lyra vaguely heard unclear, muffled voices. Despite the smothered words that they uttered, she understood the words, "She will be Test Subject Zero".