"Sissy," A speaker directly in front of her boomed, its black and rectangular outline sharp against the soft blue sky and green rolling hills. 

"What?" Day stared in amazement at the beautiful scene. This is what she had only dreamed of, although the voice of her sister had only been a lure. Gazing at a bright blue sun burning about the size of a truck in the sky, she wondered how such a large sun hadn't swallowed them whole. Looking at the grass, she noticed it was still and dead, unlike the descriptions of the time Before, when it was said they waved and rolled with a kind of subtle harmony. This grass seemed spiky and dead. Extending her fingertips, Day felt only... cold. 

"Fake?" She wondered aloud. Taking a step forward, she felt herself run into something solid, and her heart dropped. Gripping the edge of the screen depicting the fake scene, Day ran her finger along it until her hand closed on... a door? Gripping it, she twisted and it opened up into the black stillness of a normal Earthen day now. Her disappointment was twisting her internally and eating away at her insides until there was no hope left. This was it. There was no day. 

"Thank you for helping us with this," A sharp, feminine voice said. "We appreciate it. You passed the simulations just as we expected." 

Day felt a surge of alarm crash through her veins. Had she and Josh been captured, and she being experimented on? That would certainly explain the pain she was just remembering she had felt before she had woken up in her room. Experimentation. What cold, hard people. 

"NO!" Day felt her voice let out an inhuman screech as she stumbled out of the room and started to run down an unseen hill. Switching on her watch light, it lit up just in time for her to jump over a creek and sprint into the trees. She kept on running, but soon she could hear the crash of a vehicle and march of people as they followed her. How had they done this so fast? As she ran, she heard them draw closer. But she couldn't let them catch her or she would be forced into a life of captivity under the government, locked away, beaten down, and chained to a wall for the rest of her life. And she knew the longer she ran, the less mercy she would get, and the worse her life would be. Yet that tiny voice in her head that whispered surrender, they'll catch you in the end she pushed away, pushing at that tiny spark of courage to run, run. Yet they were getting closer, and a voice boomed, "Surrender or UV firearms will be used." and she didn't doubt she wouldn't survive that. Stumbling to a halt, she put up her arms, and fell onto her knees as she realized what she had done. She had surrendered herself. There was no going back now. She was going to be captured. A list of possibilities of what she could have done ran through her head and she felt tears streak down her face. Freedom had been so close...

Then she was surrounded by light and men surrounded her. She was forced onto the ground on her stomach, forced with her arms out wide. The bravery she had felt was gone. Everything was gone. Not willing to struggle any longer, Day let the soldiers slip the sack over her head, fasten cuffs to her wrists and ankles, and carry her somewhere that light seeped from the cloth. Then a door slammed and she realized the cuffs were chained to the floor. She was chained to the floor... in a moving vehicle. And somehow, she was abruptly thrown against the wall and the light faded. 

Day jerked awake, heart crashing in her chest and sweat dripping onto her eyes. At last, reasoning that she was out of harm's way, she relaxed, closing her eyes again... then she froze, a horrible fright overwhelming her body. As she struggled to move it, she realized her arms were numb... but where were they? With blood suddenly pounding in her ears, and black crossing her vision as fear overwhelmed her senses, Day twisted around to find she was in an upright position, and her arms were bound above her head with thick chains. The metal burned against her skin, and she shuddered. Where was she? Looking up, she saw there were iron bands wrapped around her wrists and secured together with an iron bar. From the center of this bar was a chain that was attached to a hook in the ceiling. A hook. Struggling and shaking with the sudden exertion, she leaned forward and let out a small yelp as the metal rubbed, but she somehow managed to swing the chain off the hook, and she fell forward, not able to spread her hands to find her balance. With a pained shout, she crashed onto the ground and lay there, stunned, for a few minutes before rolling onto her back and pulling herself with the sheer power of her hamstrings. Raising both hands tentatively, she found she could also unhook the iron bands from the bar.

"Who designed this," she asked nobody in particular, wrinkling her nose in unexpected amusement, before managing to get to her feet and look around. She was in a small, padded room with a bare, flickering light bulb and floors that were streaked with grime, a thick cloud of dust rising wherever she stepped. Pausing, she lifted a cuffed hand, sneezed and wiped the dirt off of her... wait, was she wearing a hospital gown? Running a hand over her skin, she realized it had been vigorously scrubbed, which was a disturbing thought, and as she pulled it closer to her face, she detected a faint woody smell that rose above the reek of dirt.

"Who..." glancing around nervously, Day walked around the cell, looking for a door before she sat down and contentedly smelled her newly cleaned skin, deciding this was okay.

Suddenly a block in the wall, which turned out to be a door, opened and a man with a stiff black uniform and several guns tucked on his belt trotted in, his hat adorned with a strange, triangular medallion. Glancing down at her, free from her chains, with a lost, dreamy look in her eyes, he started with surprise, his movements synchronized and calculated, before leaning his head out the door and shouting an order at possibly a guard in the hallway. Day looked up at him carelessly, shrugging and turning away. However, when the man returned with thick, black chains and a sack the size of her head, she leaned back, shouting,

"Get that away from me! I'll come with you, whatever! I don't even care."

The man blinked in surprise, tilting his head in question. "Why not?" The officer watched as the small girl in the hospital gown stiffened as a question sprang into her head.

"I don't know," she gazed imploringly at him, something desperate in her gaze.

"Well anyway," he continued. "You are wanted for questioning." Grabbing her arm, he bound her hands behind her back and slid the sack over her head despite her cries. A common fact was that all hostages were given chemicals that weakened their muscles, and so he did it easily. He was still surprised she had gotten out of her chains, but they were made on purpose that way to test the strengths of the prisoner and gauge whether they were a threat or not. Prodding her forward, he took her arm and marched her down the corridors, oblivious to her as she stumbled and faltered, uncertain the direction, and unable to feel in the darkness. With a shake, she struggled to free herself from the metal that bound her wrists, and nearly fell before the man snaked his hand around her waist and hauled her to her feet.

"All right?" He demanded in a clipped voice, slamming his heels to the floor and spinning sharply to face her.

"Um, yeah. I'm fine I guess... I me-"

"No matter." The officer turned away from the clueless girl, pulling her arm forward and keeping a steady pace no matter if her feet dragged helplessly on the floor, at last reaching a clean white door. Scanning his uniform, and adjusting his triangular medallion, the official rapped on the door, shoved her forward so she stood nervously, and took a pace back. When the door opened, the man bowed his head respectfully.

The officer ripped the sack off her head and Day found herself looking at two meaty hands that could easily wring her neck. She felt her bound hands twitch nervously and she looked away for a moment before looking back at the man. He was tall and muscular, and he wore a ragged tank, and thick black pants to have once appeared to be an official uniform, but were ripped and soiled now. However, the huge man moved aside and bowed respectfully to a woman that was standing behind him.

"Finally?" she asked the guard coldly, and the man lowered his head in shame mutely. Turning back around to the girl, Day cowered in front of the woman's glare and felt her head lower against her will. 

"Why did you run?" The woman snapped as she clasped a cold hand over Day's bare arm and steered her through a door into a stone cold cell where there was a chair and a table. 

At least they're direct, Day thought to herself as she sat herself down and leaned back uncomfortably. 

"Why did you run?" The woman repeated herself with a visible grimace and perched on the edge of the table in front of Day, while Day couldn't help but notice how attractive she was even as she shook in the awful fear.  

"Run? I didn't run," Day muttered to the woman as she melted into the hard chair under the cold woman's glare. "Are you single?" 

The woman blinked, before turning away and muttering into a slot in the wall, "Girl lost her memory, clearly forgot about social order. Lock away subject immediately. I want nothing to do with the likes of her." She was blinking in surprise, in disappointment, almost as if Day had done something wrong. Glancing around the stone cell in resignment, Day felt her form slouch as if her spine had liquefied. 

"I don't want to be locked away," Day muttered as the woman exited the room and the small cell was slammed into darkness. "Please, no. PLEASE!!!" 

The fear was all it took for the small girl in the paper hospital gown to fall off the chair and to her knees in the abyss of darkness that had swallowed her whole in less than an instant, the complete darkness that represented the whole darn outside world for thousands more years until the sun came in all its entirety to swallow this miserable planet and end it, end it all. 

"End it, end it please. End it now, end it, end it..." A chant that orbited around her heart but couldn't yet get inside. 

Even as she felt the shadows surround her and bind her wrists and ankles, pushing her up and forward, all she whispered was "end it."

If she couldn't remember what there was to live for, then there was nothing to live for. 

If she knew the bleakness of her future, why should she live it? 

So there was everything worth dying for right in front of her. 

"Where should we put her?" A gruff voice that dragged over the fringes of her consciousness a second before she was immersed into the world of light and living, her still, bound legs dragged along the floor as she was pushed forward into the bright, empty hallway. 

"Cell 294 with Subject 77, Private." A voice to her ear that tore through her system like a bullet that went through her body completely. 

"Who?" Day croaked, overwhelmed at the thought of a roommate. "I get to not be in isolation?"

"Don't get too excited, shrimp. This is to get your memory back."

"Silence, private!" Came a harsh yell along with the whistle of air as a hand sliced forward and met flesh. A yelp of pain. "Consider where you place those words!"

"Sir, yes sir!" Came the rigid, trembling reply as the man's voice cracked. "Subject 78 reporting for duty, erm custody, duty for the government, for... um-"

"Shut up!" The commanding officer's barreled chest came into view and he shoved the man back sharply. "Are you a man or a child, Private?"

"Agefluid, sir."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean, man? You ain't got a birthday, ain't never matured?" 

"If you say I ain't never matured, that implies that I did mature given two negatives will always equal a positive, sir, and that is-"

"Did I look like I came here for a grammar lesson, Private?" Came the response that made Day internally grin, feeling herself lighten slightly as the two older men bickered. 

"With all due respect, sir, you did ask for it."

"Ask for my head!" Came the reply. Followed by an uncomfortable pause. 

"Get the kid to her cell, and quickly now. We'll finish this later."

"Finish what later?" Came the sweet, innocent reply as the soldier, suddenly nervous, gripped Day's soldiers with two clammy hands and pushed her forward. 

"Who is the person in with me?" Day asked the boy, curious, as her shoulders were shoved forward. 

"He's a boy," the soldier leaned around her and winked, his eyes dancing with some unknown mischief. 

"PRIVATE!" The more authorative figure bellowed from around the corner and the soldier jerked back sharply, face suddenly blanching with fear. "YOU WILL KEEP YOUR MOUTH CLOSED."

"Sorry sir, yes sir." The soldier glanced around the hallway nervously, and gripping Day's limp shoulders in his hands, he hauled forward a few feet and prodded her back so she could stumble forward. "Come on, we're running out of time."

"What?" Day glanced at the soldier blankly, noticing for the first time the youth in his face. Leaning forward, he whispered quietly, 

"Nice acting, Day. Day." 

"What?" Wrinkling her nose, Day gave the soldier a look and turned back. "Just get me where I should go. I'm so sick of this." Gazing at the boy's confused look, she sighed and managed to score a few steps on her own before she leaned heavily against the wall, looking at her hands as they pressed into the wall. "Nice blue eyes, I guess." Now that she looked, she could see the blue eyes, strange and eerie in the stark whiteness of the halls. 

"Day," the soldier randomly pulled a hat from his backpack and tipped it towards her before setting it on. "It's me, Josh." 

"Josh..." Day searched her memory for anyone named Josh, but her memory was empty and shallow. Searching her memories somewhat resembled diving into a pool to go deep, yet you are in the shallow end. And when she was overwhelmed with horror at the absence of her memories, it felt as if her head had cracked the bottom. Cracked the bottom, and spilled out the darkness that leaked from the injury in her head and swirled through the emptiness, tainting it with its clouds of blackness. Quickly hiding the agony spilling across her face, Day smoothed out her paper gown and stated, "I know no Josh."