I am a seraph, tainted by time I am the end result of forced evolution Rogue force in this world, knowing I am not like Them Forced into life by the questions of Man With naught but my skin as my own, I weep Surrounded by objects you others see common Is this what you want, this terror of time? Have you worked all your days to bring this monster to life? I wait for my hour in this damned little cage Wanting nothing but peace, finding nothing but sorrow ---------- Marissa Experiment 421 looked over as the cage next to her rattled. Experiment 1138 was trying to get out again, but those bars wouldn't move for anyone unless they had the proper key. For days, Experiment 421 had listened and even watched Experiment 1138 rattle around, and had wanted to do something, to comfort the poor creature or to at least tell them to stop trying. The drugs in her system forbade her to speak or make movements, so except maybe as a fleeting glance, Experiment 421 had gone unnoticed by Experiment 1138. Every day they came in, pumped her full of pacifying drugs, and left her to sit and listen. Experiment 421 didn't even know what her "roommate" looked like. She would've tried during the night, but 1138 was given sleeping-pills in her dinner and didn't even know it. Experiment 421 had tried waking her up, but the pills had a potency that were beyond her. In the morning it was drugs, in the evening it was drugs, and in between, the two were put through some of the most incredible means of test and torture imaginable. Experiments 421 and 1138 were expected to carry the burden and survive through anything—at least 421 was, though no expectations were placed on 1138's young shoulders—but even the more sturdy of the two seemed weary of the routine. One night, 1138 did not get sleeping pills for some reason, and she stayed awake long enough for 421 to talk to her. "Hey. Eleven thirty-eight. Can you hear me?" Experiment 1138 was mute for awhile. When she spoke, she sounded—as 421 thought—young and feminine. Typical; those scientists had to pick on a poor helpless girl, although if they were interested in her, perhaps she was not really that helpless... "Yeah," whispered 1138 at last. "Who are you?" "Just call me four twenty-one, everyone else does." "Oh. What's your name?" Four twenty-one hadn't really thought about that. She had a name, all right, but she had been called 421 for so long that even she had nearly forgotten it. But there it was, dim yet visible in the murk of her memories. "Marissa, Marissa Wainright. What's yours?" "Hsu Kai Lin. You can call me Kailin if you like." Four twenty-one—Marissa—smiled and tried reaching for her fellow prisoner. "Kailin? Can you reach out and touch me? Don't worry, I'm not gonna hurt you." Marissa waited for the touch of a hand, and felt it grasp her fingers. She breathed in the warmth of the young skin; Kailin was barely even a teenager, she guessed. "Your hand's cold," she whispered. Marissa smiled. "I'm always cold." "...Maybe I can help." Marissa suddenly felt Kailin's hand become gradually warmer, like it was a lamp that could increase its own wattage. The hand felt nearly hot in seconds, but it was a relaxing heat, like a bath or a cup of tea. Marissa hissed a little and drew back. "Oh, I'm sorry. Was it too hot?" "Yeah, a little. Don't worry, I heal quickly. Say, um...don't get the wrong idea, Kailin, but you wouldn't happen to have unusual abilities, would you?" Kailin was silent for awhile. In the darkness of the night, Marissa could not see her thinking. "Why would you ask that?" "I have them myself, and I've met others in this place who shared loosely similar abilities. I just assumed that since you were here..." "You're right," she answered sadly. "I do. I can...create fire, and control it a little. That's how I was able to warm up your hand." Marissa smiled. "Oh. That's a neat trick, but why don't you use it on the cage?" "I've tried, lots of times. I think this is a fireproof container." That'd make sense, Wainright thought. My cage doesn't respond to my abilities, so hers must've been custom-made as well. Was she brought in here by those people when they discovered what she could do? "What people?" said Kailin. Marissa blushed, forgetting her powers for a moment. "Oh, um, those guys that run the tests on us." "They run them on you too?" "They've done it on everybody here," she answered, "but I'm the only one that survived them all. Most everyone I knew here has died." She could hear Kailin gasp and wail, and felt pity for her when she sobbed. Marissa wanted to comfort her, but what could she say? There there, it's going to be all right? We'll get out of here? We can be friends? Marissa had lost everyone she befriended or comforted. Soon, Kailin would join them. What a sad fate. "So you think I'll die?" Marissa blushed again. Her powers, she had to remember her powers! "I...... The odds are not in your favor, unless you can withstand all that punishment. You've shown you can take drugs; they put sleeping pills in your dinner, you know. I think they forgot today since I'm able to talk to you." "They do?" Marissa nodded, even though Kailin couldn't see it. "Then I'll refuse dinner! I'll go without it!" "I'm sure if they can give it to you at dinner, they can give it to you anytime. They've been going easy on you, seeing how far they can push you." "Why?" "For your power. That's what they're interested in. Maybe they want to harness it." "But why?" "It's simple. People who have no power, no great power, seek those with higher power. The hungry envy the well-fed, the poor envy the rich, the low envy the high. Controlling and creating fire is a magnificent ability anybody would want." Silence, possibly three minutes of it. "What about you? What can you do?" Marissa took a deep breath. Kailin, my mouth is closed, but no doubt you can hear me perfectly well. Sometimes when I'm thinking, I can communicate with other people's minds. It's a form of telepathy that has to do with psychic powers, which I have in some form. I can do more than that, but it hurts me a little. Listen, I want you to concentrate on something, anything at all, something simple. I'll tell you what you're thinking about. "So you can read my mind?" Kailin was breathless. It would take days to absorb this information. "No, not unless you put strong feeling into it. Concentrate hard." Kailin didn't know what to think about, but she went for the first thing her senses leaped towards and focused on her worn-out shoe. Her toe wiggled and her heel twisted. She felt how snug it was and wanted to take it off. Marissa smiled. Your shoes. Very good. Kailin, if we ever need to communicate with each other, we should do it like this. Go on, think of something to say; I'll hear you if it's aimed at me. Kailin knew just what she wanted to say: Are you sure you can't use your powers to get us out of here? "Trust me. I've tried. Telekinetic manipulation of objects is completely different from the mental linking of minds. I can't think the bars to bend any more than I can bend your thoughts. It's all mind and matter, and these bars are what matters." Our freedom. "Exactly." "But how can we get free?" "Well, you weren't slipped any drugs tonight, and I don't know why. But maybe we can use that. Look, tomorrow night, eat your dinner same as always so nobody suspects a thing. I'll try sending you mental links so we can stay in touch, but too much will arouse suspicion. They have machines that can monitor my ESP level." "Oh. But how will we escape?" Now it was Marissa's turn to think in silence. I don't know. But I will find out. I'm the only one that can. Three agonizing days later, an idea struck the psychic woman. Kailin, are you awake? ...Barely... The pills are...stronger dose. All right, I'll make this quick. Are you familiar with musical notes? ...Yeah... The scientists and guards are all protected from me probing their minds, so I can't find anything out. If you think you can manage it, I want you to listen for seven musical notes whenever they come into our room. Got it? Seven notes! Seve...note... Why for? It's a password. The keys they type in make a musical sound—beep beep and the like. I want you to follow it. That might be our way of getting out! ...All right... ...Kailin? Marissa lost the girl's mind, and sighed. It was impossible communicating with a sleeping person without causing them damage, and Kailin was the only friend Marissa had. She wouldn't risk it; she would just have to trust that Kailin had been awake enough to remember it all. The morning would bring the artificial light of halogen lamps and the artificial hope of escape, but better a false hope than none at all. Marissa finally drifted off to sleep, though she knew she would never dream. Only people like Kailin dreamt; she just slept in darkness and awoke once the lights came on. ......... "Marissa." Wainright stirred and groaned. She realized she had fallen asleep and managed to get up. Her head felt like a hammer had struck it several times, and her eyes were burning as she forced them open. In spite of the annoying white light in their room, she could not get a glimpse of Kailin. Marissa had an idea of what she looked like, but she would've rather known for sure. Certainly, her friend was a pretty young lady, kind and gentle, strong and yet frail at the same time. Already Marissa loved her as she would love a sister. In that place, everyone under the needle of the scientists was her brother and sister. "I'm up." "Dead." "Whuh?" "Dead, D-E-A-D. The first four letters of the password." Marissa rubbed her eyes and stood, although it took a second to find balance. So Kailin had remembered! She smiled and congratulated the other girl. "Great! Now there are only three letters left. I guess you didn't get them." "No, I only heard the password once, and I only caught the first four letters. Heh...kinda creepy that it spells ‘dead', isn't it?" "I'm sure it's just coincidence." "I hope so," said Kailin nervously. "Hey, guess what? They're torturing a poor panda cub two rooms over! Isn't that awful?! I nearly killed people trying to save her!" "Kailin, I'm not a cruel person, and I like you a whole lot, so don't take this the wrong way when I say...you can't save everything here. These guys torture and test lots of things, human and animal alike. I've even seen what they call cross-breeds." Kailin whimpered, not sure whether she wanted to cry, scream, or faint in nausea. "Cross-breeds?" "Human-animal hybrids. I hear they had a success once long ago, a cross between a girl and a wolf. They called it the ‘werewolf' after the old superstitions." "That's awful!" hissed Kailin. Marissa could hear the girl shivering, and desperately wished to hold her, to quiet her fears and calm her doomed nerves. But she couldn't, so she sat down and crossed her arms, waiting for the tainted breakfast. Then, "So what happened to the girl?" "I dunno. She's not around here, so I guess she either escaped or they let her go. I can't imagine these people letting any of their experiments go free, but maybe they wanted to monitor her in more...open areas, like animal biologists or something." "Ugh. Still horrible." Marissa agreed, but she had long ago forced herself to stop caring. Her heart had been broken too many times before by the cruelty of her captors. "Kailin, the sooner you find out those three letters, the sooner we can get out of here. And maybe save that panda in the process." "...I hope so, poor thing." Breakfast induced severe nausea. Kailin vomited horribly and wailed. Marissa felt she was pregnant with a cactus. The scientists thought their reactions were "intriguing". Lunch gave Marissa unusual feelings of love, devotion, and yearning. She wanted to dive inside Kailin and become part of her. Kailin just urinated. Dinner tasted like beef-flavored cardboard pasted with year-old barbecue sauce. Marissa felt like she could stay up for years afterward; Kailin slept like the dead. She screamed out strange names during the dark hours of the night. "Cab," she said, "dead cab." Marissa couldn't make any sense out of it. Four days later, an escape was staged. Kailin got out and killed five scientists along the way. She took that panda with her; Marissa got caught and was punished. Machines forced her to use her psychic powers again and again, damaging her mind and even her body in the process. After an hour-long marathon of unimaginable agony, Marissa was sent back to her cage to recover, broken and destroyed and unfortunately alive enough to feel it all. She screamed for Kailin as she slept and wept bitterly as she prayed for her friend's success. ......... She woke up two days later. She heard all seven musical notes and whined. D-E-A-D-C-A-B. Kailin had wailed it in her sleep. Marissa wanted to cry, but she held back her tears as a stranger walked up to her. The scientists were not around; they didn't even seem to be anywhere close. The man approaching her wore white, as they did, but something about him made Marissa feel...calm, at peace, relaxed, as if she had not gone through any troubles at all. She stood and shielded her eyes from the light. The man smiled warmly at her and continued to smile as he spoke. "Hello, Marissa Wainright." "You know me?" "Oh, yes, I know quite a bit about you. I have been told much, and I have observed much. I have come here to make you an offer, and I think you will like this offer." "What offer, who are you?" "Does that matter, my child?" She shrugged. "I'm curious." He seemed to smile even wider. "Very well. My name is...oh, I go by so many names. You may call me whatever you wish." "Mister...White, maybe?" "Hmm, that is one of my names. It will do. As for my offer, listen well; you will like what you here. My dear Marissa," said Mr. White lovingly, "you want out of here, do you not?" "Yes, of course, more than anything." "You wish to be free. You wish to find out about yourself. You wish to find out about your friends." "Yes. ...You must really know me if you say that much." "I know...quite a bit about you." Really, now. Yes. Really. Marissa's face widened in amazement, but the man's broad smile calmed her and assured her there was nothing to be startled by. She could be safe now, with him, and free as the wind. "Do you want to come with me?" he asked. She blinked. There was just enough doubt in her mind to question him. "Where to?" "Does it matter? I guarantee, it is better than here. There are no drugs, no tests, nothing of that sort. You will have more friends than you can count, more of a purpose to achieve towards, and more...appreciation for your powers." "Better...than here? Mr. White...sir...I will gladly come with you, no matter where you take me, as long as I am freed from this place." His smile seemed to get bigger, perhaps even more genuine, as he nodded and drew out his hand. "I was hoping you would say that. Come with me, and we will leave this place behind forever." Marissa took his hand, and instantly felt whole, full of herself and complete, and free even as she transcended her cage and came with him. He left the staff a note, of course, but they would never understand it, nor would they get a chance to. Several days later, the entire building would be burned to the ground, thanks in no small part to Kailin herself. But Marissa would not find this out for some time. In the meantime, she had a few fellow lost souls to meet. She even got a glimpse of the werewolf—it too had apparently chosen to follow Mr. White, but the two only saw each other for a moment before they parted. Marissa wanted to ask about the girl-wolf, but Mr. White introduced her to "people who you will see and interact with more often". One of them was called Rancor, although she was really quite a delightful girl; the other was known as Kagemusha, and kept to herself. Marissa gravitated towards Rancor, and learned to laugh again as she whiled away the time and waited for what would happen next. She would not have to wait for long. ---------- May the Lost find their way home, wherever it is, whenever it may be. In the next chapter, the Lost are sent on their first mission together. There is a girl with immense power roaming free and forgotten in the world, and her actions have sparked Mr. White's interest. Can this growing team of lost souls work together and bring back a new member? Find out in the next chapter, "Disintegrator".
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