To Infinity
Prolouge
The room was bright.
Hell, all of the rooms were bright.
…
Every. Single. ROOM in this God forsaken building was colored a nauseating sterile white.
…
Rarely was there a color change, and if there was…
I fought back the shudder that threatened to run up my spine from the unwelcome thought.
I couldn’t show any signs of weakness.
Weakness meant fear, and fear meant failure.
And failure…
…
…
meant death… Not that that had worked out well for me before.
A soft beeping sound followed by the whirring of gears from inside the wall interrupted my spiraling thoughts. My eyes darted to the left without moving my head, there was a door in the wall that wasn’t visible to the unknowing.
They had brought me and two other girls into this room through that door. It wasn’t completely invisible to us either. Our eyes were good enough that we could make out the miniscule crack that was the doorway when the door was closed.
Keeping myself facing forward, I felt the other two girls' eyes dart towards the same wall mine had. We were always in-sync with each other. Rarely was there a time that one of us didn’t know what the other was doing. But that was just the way it was. The three of us were always together.
Our programming demanded it.
We were called “The Fates” by the others here. They were terrified to utter our names, fearing that if they did, they would be our next targets. With that fear, brought around the nicknames that the three of us ended up going by.
My attention was brought back to the present as a man in a white coat entered the room holding a pen and clipboard. He was part of the group that we had nicknamed “The Pokies'' or “Pokies” for short. They were the ones in charge of the facility we lived in. Which seemed to give them the excuse to use us as pin cushions.
The scars on my arms were proof of that.
This one was younger than the other pokies wandering the halls. Nothing was very distinctive about his appearance, but all the pokies looked the same after a while. This one wore thick-lensed glasses, his brown hair falling over the rims, beginning to hide his eyes.
He seemed nervous.
This made me wonder which stories about us were currently circulating the facility. We weren’t always close to the others, because of some of my… defects, so we weren’t always in on what “legends” were being told.
The pokie checked over his clipboard, looking warily towards us. His eyes darted back and forth from us to his clipboard then back again. Occasionally, he glanced towards where the door would be, his thoughts racing as he slowly realized how under qualified he was to be in the same room as us.
He was new.
That was easy to see.
He appeared to be a test for us, and he was clearly regretting agreeing to it.
We stood in a row, staring straight ahead, shoulders back, no sign of smiles anywhere on our faces… my only and closest friends here on either side of me.
Our faces portrayed years of patience training, our backs facing the wall, keeping ourselves at attention as the man continued to nervously glance from his clipboard to us and back again. It was probably the stillest this pokie had ever seen three nine-year-old girls stand. We stared ahead, obediently waiting for our testing to begin.
It wasn’t long before I was aware of a warm feeling creeping into my stomach. The man’s racing thoughts had dulled the sensation earlier. Now that I had pushed most of his thoughts out of my head, I realized that the feeling had started a little before he had walked into the room. But now the sensation was even stronger.
My heart clenched as I felt the rush of adrenaline surge through my body.
This pokie wasn’t experienced enough to know how to hide his fear from me, and it was giving me sharp feelings of euphoria. Which was a problem…
Sweat beaded on my forehead as I attempted to ignore the sensation. Giving it attention would only put me more on edge, and more likely to act out.
The warmth moved through my veins, making my arms tingle from the lack of movement. In a desperate attempt to distract myself, I started thinking about my timeline here. It was something I did to try and keep my days straight, and to help myself focus on things when I was feeling overwhelmed. I went from the few things I remember of how I arrived here, the different tests I’ve gone through and finally on how I had lost my voice.
Not the best memory to be thinking of, but it was a distraction.
I remembered the whole thing in excruciating detail; I had only been semi unconscious during the procedure. It had been terrifying to suddenly be unable to talk. It made me thankful for being a psychic, except for the side effect of picking up on others’ emotions.
Fear was the easiest emotion for me to pick up on. Heck, it constantly surrounded me. There was no plausible reason that I wouldn’t be able to identify fear from any other emotion first.
This ability to “eat fear”, as my friends and I called it, was one of several abilities that had been given to me while living in this facility.
Eating fear was exactly like it sounded. My body processed the emotion and in response it gave me energy. Unfortunately, the energy needed to be released almost immediately or I could black out and hurt people. The pokies had found that out the hard way.
I smiled internally at that thought.
It didn’t take long for the pokies to figure out how to use my excess energy. That was when they started sending me on missions.
Those didn’t start out well…
After the first failed mission, the pokies realized I had to be with the other two Fates for anything to be accomplished correctly.
“Let’s begin the assessment,” the pokie announced, having gathered his wits around him, looking towards me.
My eyes narrowed on him as my attention came back to the present, making him shiver involuntarily.
“Experiment five, step forward.”
I stepped forward, lightheadedness sweeping through my body as I moved closer to him. My attention briefly moved to the wall behind him, noticing as more fear and scrambled thoughts seemed to emit from there.
Either this pokie had friends watching in fear for him, or this was a test of my limits. I pushed back the euphoria that filled my body with electricity, the hairs on my arms seemed to rise from the build up of energy. My heart beat faster as the adrenaline filled my veins. I waited to be instructed on what I was being assessed on first. My muscles burned from the lack of movement as I stood at attention. Just as I had been trained. I needed something to release the tension before I became antsy.
Everything he did seemed to make the waiting worse. The tapping of his pen. The nervous looks from his clipboard, to me, the clipboard, the other two girls, back to the clipboard, to the wall, back to the clipboard. His breath seemed to come in short intervals, not gasping, but definitely a form of uncertainty. “Blades,” he finally instructed, his voice seeming to warble at his demand.
I twirled my hand around, letting it drop limply towards the floor as I exposed my wrist. A hidden blade shot out of a slit in my skin that was otherwise invisible. The silver of the knife glinted in the harsh light of the room.
The pokie seemed to be surprised at the length that had sprung out of my arm, taking a step back as it came to a stop. The blade measured nearly six inches from where it started from my wrist to its tip. I kept my focus on the pokie, not bothering to watch the blade slide back into my arm as I straightened my hand, letting it fall to my side before raising my other arm and repeating the process.
He nodded his head, attempting to swallow his fear, as he scribbled some notes on his clipboard.
I inhaled through my nose, trying to calm my nerves. His fear stunk up the room. I could feel my pupils dilating from its presence. I’m sure I was beginning to look like a junkie at this point. The second hidden blade sheathed as I dropped my other arm, before rolling my shoulders, preparing myself for the next assessment.
The pokie finished his notes then looked up at me. “Wings.”
In my peripheral I could see the white feathered things that were constantly hugging my back as they extended to either side of me.
My wings.
Hell, all of the rooms were bright.
…
Every. Single. ROOM in this God forsaken building was colored a nauseating sterile white.
…
Rarely was there a color change, and if there was…
I fought back the shudder that threatened to run up my spine from the unwelcome thought.
I couldn’t show any signs of weakness.
Weakness meant fear, and fear meant failure.
And failure…
…
…
meant death… Not that that had worked out well for me before.
A soft beeping sound followed by the whirring of gears from inside the wall interrupted my spiraling thoughts. My eyes darted to the left without moving my head, there was a door in the wall that wasn’t visible to the unknowing.
They had brought me and two other girls into this room through that door. It wasn’t completely invisible to us either. Our eyes were good enough that we could make out the miniscule crack that was the doorway when the door was closed.
Keeping myself facing forward, I felt the other two girls' eyes dart towards the same wall mine had. We were always in-sync with each other. Rarely was there a time that one of us didn’t know what the other was doing. But that was just the way it was. The three of us were always together.
Our programming demanded it.
We were called “The Fates” by the others here. They were terrified to utter our names, fearing that if they did, they would be our next targets. With that fear, brought around the nicknames that the three of us ended up going by.
My attention was brought back to the present as a man in a white coat entered the room holding a pen and clipboard. He was part of the group that we had nicknamed “The Pokies'' or “Pokies” for short. They were the ones in charge of the facility we lived in. Which seemed to give them the excuse to use us as pin cushions.
The scars on my arms were proof of that.
This one was younger than the other pokies wandering the halls. Nothing was very distinctive about his appearance, but all the pokies looked the same after a while. This one wore thick-lensed glasses, his brown hair falling over the rims, beginning to hide his eyes.
He seemed nervous.
This made me wonder which stories about us were currently circulating the facility. We weren’t always close to the others, because of some of my… defects, so we weren’t always in on what “legends” were being told.
The pokie checked over his clipboard, looking warily towards us. His eyes darted back and forth from us to his clipboard then back again. Occasionally, he glanced towards where the door would be, his thoughts racing as he slowly realized how under qualified he was to be in the same room as us.
He was new.
That was easy to see.
He appeared to be a test for us, and he was clearly regretting agreeing to it.
We stood in a row, staring straight ahead, shoulders back, no sign of smiles anywhere on our faces… my only and closest friends here on either side of me.
Our faces portrayed years of patience training, our backs facing the wall, keeping ourselves at attention as the man continued to nervously glance from his clipboard to us and back again. It was probably the stillest this pokie had ever seen three nine-year-old girls stand. We stared ahead, obediently waiting for our testing to begin.
It wasn’t long before I was aware of a warm feeling creeping into my stomach. The man’s racing thoughts had dulled the sensation earlier. Now that I had pushed most of his thoughts out of my head, I realized that the feeling had started a little before he had walked into the room. But now the sensation was even stronger.
My heart clenched as I felt the rush of adrenaline surge through my body.
This pokie wasn’t experienced enough to know how to hide his fear from me, and it was giving me sharp feelings of euphoria. Which was a problem…
Sweat beaded on my forehead as I attempted to ignore the sensation. Giving it attention would only put me more on edge, and more likely to act out.
The warmth moved through my veins, making my arms tingle from the lack of movement. In a desperate attempt to distract myself, I started thinking about my timeline here. It was something I did to try and keep my days straight, and to help myself focus on things when I was feeling overwhelmed. I went from the few things I remember of how I arrived here, the different tests I’ve gone through and finally on how I had lost my voice.
Not the best memory to be thinking of, but it was a distraction.
I remembered the whole thing in excruciating detail; I had only been semi unconscious during the procedure. It had been terrifying to suddenly be unable to talk. It made me thankful for being a psychic, except for the side effect of picking up on others’ emotions.
Fear was the easiest emotion for me to pick up on. Heck, it constantly surrounded me. There was no plausible reason that I wouldn’t be able to identify fear from any other emotion first.
This ability to “eat fear”, as my friends and I called it, was one of several abilities that had been given to me while living in this facility.
Eating fear was exactly like it sounded. My body processed the emotion and in response it gave me energy. Unfortunately, the energy needed to be released almost immediately or I could black out and hurt people. The pokies had found that out the hard way.
I smiled internally at that thought.
It didn’t take long for the pokies to figure out how to use my excess energy. That was when they started sending me on missions.
Those didn’t start out well…
After the first failed mission, the pokies realized I had to be with the other two Fates for anything to be accomplished correctly.
“Let’s begin the assessment,” the pokie announced, having gathered his wits around him, looking towards me.
My eyes narrowed on him as my attention came back to the present, making him shiver involuntarily.
“Experiment five, step forward.”
I stepped forward, lightheadedness sweeping through my body as I moved closer to him. My attention briefly moved to the wall behind him, noticing as more fear and scrambled thoughts seemed to emit from there.
Either this pokie had friends watching in fear for him, or this was a test of my limits. I pushed back the euphoria that filled my body with electricity, the hairs on my arms seemed to rise from the build up of energy. My heart beat faster as the adrenaline filled my veins. I waited to be instructed on what I was being assessed on first. My muscles burned from the lack of movement as I stood at attention. Just as I had been trained. I needed something to release the tension before I became antsy.
Everything he did seemed to make the waiting worse. The tapping of his pen. The nervous looks from his clipboard, to me, the clipboard, the other two girls, back to the clipboard, to the wall, back to the clipboard. His breath seemed to come in short intervals, not gasping, but definitely a form of uncertainty. “Blades,” he finally instructed, his voice seeming to warble at his demand.
I twirled my hand around, letting it drop limply towards the floor as I exposed my wrist. A hidden blade shot out of a slit in my skin that was otherwise invisible. The silver of the knife glinted in the harsh light of the room.
The pokie seemed to be surprised at the length that had sprung out of my arm, taking a step back as it came to a stop. The blade measured nearly six inches from where it started from my wrist to its tip. I kept my focus on the pokie, not bothering to watch the blade slide back into my arm as I straightened my hand, letting it fall to my side before raising my other arm and repeating the process.
He nodded his head, attempting to swallow his fear, as he scribbled some notes on his clipboard.
I inhaled through my nose, trying to calm my nerves. His fear stunk up the room. I could feel my pupils dilating from its presence. I’m sure I was beginning to look like a junkie at this point. The second hidden blade sheathed as I dropped my other arm, before rolling my shoulders, preparing myself for the next assessment.
The pokie finished his notes then looked up at me. “Wings.”
In my peripheral I could see the white feathered things that were constantly hugging my back as they extended to either side of me.
My wings.