Chapter 32 – In a land far, far away

I open my eyes and look around the room. The lab-coat doesn’t seem to have gotten the desired results, at least he’s still shaking his head in frustration.

“Setting two,” he orders. I smile in satisfaction. If they’re going back to two I have won, they have nothing more to throw at me. I look around me, look at the doctors, take in the scene. At the desk, a nurse is monitoring a small screen with a flat line. I almost let a ‘Ha!’ out in spite and relief. I feel my cheeks rise up as a huge smile spreads across my face. I feel like punching the air and laughing. The others are all still huddled around the table, looking at something there. I lean up against the wall and observe the idiots playing torture with no victim. I shake my head at them and turn around to try the door. It’s locked. Normally I would just unlock it mentally, but using powers is not safe in here. I look over my shoulder. None of them seem to be paying attention to me, or even be aware of me. It seems safe enough to stick around, gather some intel. A pained moan escapes someone on the table. I guess it’s not empty after all. Wonder why they didn’t put me back in my cage though. I sneak up next to one of the nurses and look down on the table to see what they’re doing.

My stomach drops and my hand flies to my mouth to keep a scream from emerging. I can see her fingers twitching, her lips pursed, trying not to scream, putting on a brave face. I reach out to yank the needles out of her arm, but my hand goes right through them, through the arm and everything. I have one choice, and one choice only. I reach out mentally instead and this time the pipes move at my say. I close in around them, and I pull before realizing what’s wrong with this picture. Marie is at home, she’s not on the table there. Uncle Howard assured me they couldn’t find my family, couldn’t catch them. Marie isn’t here. I let go of the pipes and let them fall.

It dawns on me, slowly, but surely. Setting five: hallucinations.I back away from my little sister, away from the table. She moans again, and this time I recognize her voice in the painful sound. I sink down to the floor and lean against the door.

It was my fifth birthday. The table was on fire. Marie was clapping. Marie is not on the table. Marie is not in pain. Marie is clapping. Marie is happy. Marie is home. Marie is clapping.

“Is this how you treat family?” the sergeant demands. I look up and see the greying mustache twisted up at one side, the eyebrow above it matching the movement. “Is this all family means to you?” I try to muster a defiant argument that they left me behind, family evidently doesn’t mean much to them either, but I know it’s a lie even before I can utter it. If they had seen another way they would have taken it. Instead, I look down and bury my head in my arms.

“Marie is clapping. Marie is clapping. Marie is clapping.”

They say you learn something new every day. The next day I learn what setting three and four are. Three is a feeling of not being able to breathe, and four I think is simply adrenaline. The thing about adrenaline, especially when your body can’t explain its presence, is that you end up going into a kind of hyperdrive. You know there’s an enemy, you know there’s danger, your body is telling you to either fight or fly, but you’re strapped down with no chance of flight, and there’s no obvious enemy to fight. I guess I could take out the lab-coat, but honestly, I don’t see him as life-threatening, so I was looking for something else. Something of real danger. Something I could fight. It is basically a panic attack, and after a while, I was just happy I didn’t have any weapon but my brain. Had I had a knife I feel sure I would have been slicing away at the air, trying to hit anything at all. Had I had a gun I would probably have ended up shooting myself in the head somehow. As it is, all I have is my mind, years of experience of controlling my ability, and a stern reminder from a once lost uncle not to do anything.

I focus on my mantra, repeat it in my mind, use every ounce of mental focus I have on picturing the scene, holding on to the sound. Marie was clapping. The table was on fire. That alone should be enough to send anyone panicking, but fire is so normal under our roof, we took the fire alarms out as soon as Andy showed his gift. Marie clapping is another thing though. The tiny baby hands beat together more and more fiercely, more and more loudly, more and more frequently. The sound resonates through my brain, hits the side of my skull and bounces back with echoes multiplying with every impact.

I don’t know if I actually scream, or if I just imagine doing it, but it doesn’t work. The sound won’t stop. I imagine sticking my head into the cake in the memory, just to muffle the sound, but that doesn’t work either, the sound is inside me. I imagine the cake melting through my skull, the heavy cream frosting settling like a protective layer around my fragile brain, the coolness subduing me, slowing it all down. For a little while, there’s a sort of peace, a sort of distorted, unreal quiet, even though the noise remains. The noise remains, but it’s more distant, less violent, and slower.

That’s when I hear it. Another sound, something so beautiful it’s unreal, impossible even. But even in my hyped up state I could recognize it anywhere. Even in my drugged up state my brain can’t alter this memory.

My mother’s voice rings out of the chaos, high and clear, and beautiful like a spring day. Happy birthday. I focus on it, let it draw me in, let it embrace me. I relax. I let go. I’m carried back to my cage.

The days continue like that, split between the cage, the exam room and the toilet breaks three times a day (no more, no less) where armed guards escort us one by one to the most filthy toilets you’ve ever seen. But with each passing hour more and more of them seem to accept that they won’t break me.

“Are you sure she’s lost control? She seems exceptionally…”

“Shut up.” The conversation ends with that but is picked up again the next day at setting three.

“If she isn’t an Unassigned, if she’s still in control, she’s not a danger to anyone. We’re torturing an innocent girl for no reason at all.” That nurse doesn’t appear at my ‘treatments’ again after that.

“It’s been days, she hasn’t shown any sign of losing control yet,” a brave nurse says at the fifth ‘treatment’. “I don’t think I could have gone through what she’s survived without lashing out at some point.” She too is replaced.

I curl up on the floor. Uncle Howard claimed he had a plan. I don’t know for sure how long it’s been, but if you ask me it’s been too long. Too long a wait, too long a trial. It’s time to consider alternatives.

“The four days are up,” I hear the lab coat say from their end of the hall. Something about that number makes me pay attention. “Any sign of him?”

“None, sir,” a nurse replies.

“Could have told them that, those idiots upstairs,” he mumbles to himself. “Commence a full man hunt, I want him brought to me immediately.” Brody. It must be Wednesday then, time for his treatment. I smile lightly, not sure my facial muscles could have made a real smile. He’s still free at least. He has the key to my room, he doesn’t need to use his powers to get in there. As long as he keeps moving between the class room floors and the dorm floors and doesn’t get spotted, he’ll be fine.