Laboratory Of Secrets

Soon enough, just as Silas had promised, Eren found out what occupied most of the top floor.

It was Silas's laboratory.

Upon their arrival — after scanning the professor's irises — automatic sliding doors hissed open to reveal an immaculate, white corridor that stretched out before them like a tunnel.

Stepping into the lab, Eren was immediately struck by its cutting edge ambiance. The air in the lab was sterilized and crisp, with a hint of antiseptic and the faint hum of machinery.

Eren stared wide-eyed at the size and magnificence of it.

The technology of his mother's lab was decades behind this, it was obvious.

He knew, however, that this comparison was not unbiased, since Silas's was eight years ahead of the one he found in the hatch.

Also, it did not smell of dust and neglect. Eren figured this was owed to Silas's aide. There was not much a man in a wheelchair could do when it came to cleaning.

They walked until they were swallowed in the maze of 3D models, holographs and test tubes, the fluorescent casting them in harsh lighting.

It was all so unnerving, if Eren was being honest. Worse of all, it reminded him of his mother and the aching hole her absence created.

"What are we doing here?" He asked tentatively.

"Since we have no samples of the liquid you drank in the hatch, I will have to test you, see what it is exactly you ingested, and while we are at it, we can also appraise your system. It seems being in the dream state altered your physique and capabilities. This, I need more information on. It would do us no good to work blindly.”

They had arrived in front of what resembled a table which was set diagonally so that it was halfway vertical and halfway horizontal. The table was plugged to a number of machines, all humming silently, all operational.

"Please, get on this." Silas instructed in a tone that told Eren this was not the first time the man was examining a person.

He hesitated for a quarter of a second before doing as he had been asked. He got onto the table and let the aide strap him in, moving from one end of the table to the other wordlessly, almost in a ghostly fashion.

When he stepped back, Silas glided forward.

After days of examining the man as he moved, Eren was still nowhere close to comprehending the physics of his locomotion. The man seemed to slide on thin air. His ease with the wheelchair suggested there was no ground beneath him.

"Is it to your taste?" The professor asked.

From his perch on the table, his view of the man was a slanted one and this made Silas a tad wider than he actually was.

At Eren's stare of incomprehension, the man smiled, then rolled his chair over to the legion of computers that sat on a sleek table right near to the examination table.

Eren took deep breaths to steady himself. He had been strapped down and the warm leather bit into his arm.

While he was not in any danger of being assaulted, the helplessness of being held down brought memories of the last time he had felt entirely helpless to the forefront of his mind.

'Drake,' he thought bitterly. It came back to him in hateful flashes.

The dirty blonde hair falling into Drake's face. The cruel smirk the boy wore when he was hurting someone. The shadows hiding underneath the strong lines of his cheekbones.

The last time he’d seen that face, his vision was blurred with the dark red of blood. His blood.

Eren ground his teeth with fierce hate.

'It would be pound for pound from here on,' he promised himself. 'An eye for eye.'

If they laid hands on him without sanction, he would make them bleed for it. Somebody had to, at some point.

Members of elite families like the Winchester family, the KHANS had somehow begun to see themselves as gods, and began to think of themselves as excluded from consequence. The thought of that, had over the years, made Eren a very angry person.

The clicking sound of the professor's fingers crunching against the keyboard brought him back to the present. Silas stared unsure at whatever he saw on the screen and glanced warily at Eren.

"What?"

The professor shook his head.

Eren was not certain if the gesture meant 'there is nothing to worry about' or 'I can't wrap my head around what I just saw’.

And while he hoped for the best, he knew fate had never been particularly kind to him.

At Silas's behest, the aide undid the straps clasping Eren's arms and ankles to the table.

"What did you find?" He asked again.

Once more, Silas answered him with silence.

The man then turned his chair around and wheeled himself in the opposite direction, which was an entire wall of lockers.

He pulled open one of them and retrieved what turned out to be a stack of files. He handed the papers to Eren who was still seated on the examination table, somewhat perplexed.

"What you will see there," Silas began, even before he opened the file, "is not a what. It is a who. And the answer is me. The Human Edifier was one of my projects."

"Was?"

"That is, before your mother's passing."

The folder contained images of tubes, chemistry and calculations that Eren could not dream to understand in two lifetimes. But one thing was clear, a serum of some sort was being engineered.

Soon, he found a photo of the serum.

He was mildly surprised to find it was the same one he discovered in the hatch: a light, crimson liquid that seemed to sparkle under the glare of bright light.

"What is it?" He asked Silas.

"Something your mother and I made. Rather, something we were developing to help the Awakened along on their journey. We never quite got around to perfecting it."

The professor's eyes narrowed at the thought. He gripped the arm of the wheelchair so hard, his knuckles turned a bloodless white.

Eren recognised rage when he happened to encounter it.

Perhaps, this was because he had known only rage for so long a time, the emotion felt like home.

The man wore it well. He hid it well, too, Eren decided. Maybe a little too well.

Eren's rage, on the other hand, was a savage, flapping thing that strove always to escape him.

"Why?" Eren asked in a small voice, even though he was sure that he already knew the answer to this question.

"They killed her before we could make it something of value. They killed her for it, Eren. When you described it, I had my suspicions, but I remained unsure."

"Doubt is the curse of science, huh?" Eren said, a sad smile on his face.

"It is. However, for your mother, this was never the case. Perhaps, this was why she thrived easily where others so often failed. This, I am of complete certainty, is why she thrived where I failed."

The man always spoke in parables. Eren could barely follow his train of thought.

He was accustomed to that though, having had his mother as a parent.

He was always compelled to ask questions, which made him seem like an inquisitive child in his childhood. A deduction that was not necessarily accurate.

In truth, Eren simply disliked being confused.

"Plain English, Professor," he said.

The man huffed, but he obliged Eren. "By all indications, your mother must have discovered what was wrong with the serum, where we erred. And then she corrected it. She perfected the serum, Eren."

Eren turned this bit of information over in his mind.

It was another small fragment of the truth of what led to his mother's disappearance. The bits were all coming together like parts of a jigsaw puzzle.

Eren did not like the shape it was taking, but he preferred this illumination to staying in the dark.

"And the strange text I have been seeing? Do you have any idea what that is?"

To this, Silas offered him something that seemed much like a conspiratorial grin. It startled Eren for a split second, the professor smiling at him.

“Ah," the man said. "That? I believe that the credit for that one goes to me."