"Insanity is our inability to communicate our ideas. So all us are in one degree or another insane. But don't confuse insanity with a loss of control. You have two choices: to control your mind or let your mind control you."

-

Paulo Coehlo, Veronika Decides To Die

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https://youtu.be/Td6R3TmEbcA

It was nowhere.

An endless void stuck in the precipice of here and there – then and now.

She was a wandering specter on a one-person Exodus, treading through the vast surreal land of fear and desire, seeking refuge in the state of being and nothing – in absolute absence.

For in the absence, no matter how terrifying the deafening silence could be, it was the only thing keeping her from losing any vestige of sanity.

Before she, herself, is truly lost in oblivion.

Yet, no matter how safe she felt, it was all momentary.

Safety meant stopping. The chance of being cornered and trapped inside a labyrinth of her mind could happen in the blink of an eye.

She had to act now. Quickly.

Softly padding across the room, she presses her head against the door.

Satisfied of the lack of footsteps from the other side, she crouches down under the bed, keeping in mind of the precious seconds ticking by before another set of footsteps would eventually descend outside her quarters.

She reaches down at the foot of the bed, trailing her hand upwards until it slips between the metallic springs underneath the mattress.

Feeling the smooth papery texture against her fingertips, she grabs the thin ream of paper as well as a small ballpoint pen beside it.

Standing straighter now, she looks around her, a reflex of paranoia she couldn't quite shake away.

She glances around the room, looking past the eerie darkness that occupied the room and takes a deep breath.

Though some would feel consumed by the darkness and even fear it, all she felt was gratitude.

It was only in the dark can she truly find herself safely hidden, protected from the ever-watching eyes.

The knowledge that she was alone, far from their clutches. At least, physically.

She treads quietly to another side of the room where a dim single shaft of light flows through a tiny frosted window.

Huddled into a ball, she sits under the sparse light, the thin ream of paper on her lap.

The pen's tip shakily hovers in her left hand, threatening to drop a blot of ink on the fine surface of the paper. It was uncomfortable, the long unfelt feeling of writing.

Delicately, she adds pressure to the tip, watching in fascination as the ink follows every stroke of letter.

A light scuffle echoes throughout the room.

She freezes.

She sharply turns towards the door across the room, waiting for any sign of entry.

After a few moments when no one from the other side had decided to open the door, she turns back to the task at hand.

This was her only chance.

After so many years of devising a way to elude them from truly getting to her, from reaching into the deepest recesses of her mind, she had managed to patiently wait, taking note of their routine and finding a way to escape.

Little did they know, that beneath her pathetic excuse for Failure, she had uncovered an unlikely skill.

Months had passed, alone in solitary confinement, pretending to be unconscious while the wards were down, and a few staff where sent to deliver her meals, she strove to master her abilities.

And, though she knew that the longer she stayed, and the more she used her abilities, the bigger the chances are that she would be eventually caught.

She grips the pen tightly, roughly scribbling down on the paper in small illegible strokes.

It was a couple of days earlier that she caught wind of their plan.

She knew they were on to her. Somehow, they knew that' she wasn't a Failure, and that she was hiding something.

Luckily, they never had the means to find out.

And they never will, she firmly swears to herself, checking her mental shields are in place.

Still, that didn't change the fact that they had plan to dissect her mind, strip her of every thought and memory until all that's left is a soulless corpse devoid of any thought or emotion.

A creature much worse than them.

Using every drop of her energy, though scarce as it is, she had managed to compel one of the guards to provide her with papers and a pen during one of his meal runs – as well as time as he disables the cameras in the room for a good hour.

And now, the first part of her plan is about to take place. 

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SCRITCH! SCRITCH! SCRITCH! The scratching sound goes on as she writes, mouthing every word.

"My name is Nikol Apollymi Lavelle. I am 15 years old. It had been...seven(?) years since I was taken from my home and I... am a Misfit." 

She heavily emphasizes, underlining the word as though it was the root of all her affliction.

Because, undoubtedly, it was.

She glances over her shoulder, eyeing the metal door of a small cubicle cemented at the corner until she catches her own reflection staring back at her.

No matter how bad the lighting was, her eyes still stood apart from her other features, highlighted with specks that give them an unnatural silvery glow.

The same glow that betrays her own kind.

She forces her attention back to the paper, writing faster, her strokes more fluid now.

"No one knows where we came from, or how we can become what we are now.

"Some people say our history traces back before the evolution of men, where we were descendants of the gods. A last link to a lost civilization punished by the gods themselves and cursed to forever roam the faces of this earth.

"Others would simply wave it off as genetics," she absentmindedly traces her forefinger on the inside of her elbow where a scar covers her skin.

She can still feel the pinprick sensation of needless being injected into her, leaving her dazed and numb, unaffected by the sound of the various fluids gurgling near a machine as they were pumped into her.

"A much more evolved species of men that could wreck havoc and bring devastation on a whim," Like her, she almost writes, slipping into the memory of a pale ginger-haired girl a few years older than her.

Covered in flames with a crazed look in her eyes, she immerses herself fully into the blazing inferno of destruction; like a lover's embrace. 

The owner of that memory, a guard, witnessed it all as his former comrades were disintegrated into ashes.

She still shivers from that thought.

"We were feared, viewed as a threat to the existence of humans. We were a plague, a dangerous reminder that could render the complete obsolescence of their kind.

"Maybe that's why we were hunted," she trails off, her mind briefly recalling another memory, this time rooted from a direct experience.

She had barely stayed for a day, being shown around the grounds, when she saw one of the test subjects on the brink of freedom. Without a blink, he was shot in front of her eyes by one of the human guards.

"Contained,"

She had watched as they dragged the body into a cell.

"Studied on, tortured,"

Continuing with her tour, she had found a glass room beside the cell.

Inside was another test subject strapped unto a chair, screaming as she received shock after shock of electricity.

She tried to push her hand against the glass wall, willing it to reach the nameless girl, only to be scurried away.

"And eventually killed."

With a last glance, she hesitantly turned her back from the excruciating scene.

She didn't have look to know what happened next.

To see through the guards unwavering eyes and know what they were seeing – to sense the sickening satisfaction in their mind.

A flat line on the screen.

Blood dripping down from the test subject's eyes, nose and ears.

The sudden silence making way for death as it sweeps over the place and embraces the lifeless body.

"I don't exactly know how the Primordials did it back in their time, hiding their true selves, masking their existence within the constant masses of humans. They had managed to do so for a few hundred years and through time.

"Eventually, as time went by, their abilities waned, bloodlines diluted as they further interbred themselves with the humans.

"But then the wars came.

"The further it went on, so were the countless rates of death took toll. The Allies and the Central Powers, both opposing leagues, took every armed force they could find useful for battle.

"It was at the brink of their desperation that the Allies searched for a new kind of weapon.

"Living, breathing weapons.

"Super soldiers who could fight their war for them with little risk of human casualties and put a definite end to the war.

"And that's where we came in. They began the experiments on potential candidates called as Initiates – people they found to possess a certain degree of unique and extraordinary abilities.

"During the Harvest, the Initiates were rounded up, evaluated individually, separating the strong from the weak.

"Whoever passed was taken to a process called the Transition, exposed to an alternative energy source where their dormant genes were awakened.

"However, it came with a deadly price. Most of the candidates survived the process, while some who didn't were considered as Failures.

"For those who belonged to the first group were called as Revenants for surviving the deadly toll of the Transition. They were then added to the ranks of war under the care of the Regents.

"Using a conditioning process, an implant was wired into their brain to control and limit their abilities and their emotions.

"The sensation was a kiss of death to their own humanity. It was exactly what the Allies wanted; completely silent and subservient followers ready to do their bidding. Or, at least, until they won the war.

"After that, they didn't need us as much. Disbanding the project, they set my kind free to blend and live in society. However, there were some who didn't have a place to stay and chose to stay.

"However, in the aftermath of the devastating events that happened in the earlier part of the century, the earth was slowly dying. A great need for a new and sustainable energy source had soon take rise.

" Succeeding their offer of the same energy source that caused our Transition, the Regent began to continue the project as well as to hunt, capture, and silence any unwarranted activities of our kind.

"I was only eight when the strange men came into my house. They took me away from my brother and into a place called the Enclave.

"They said I was special, that my mind works in a way that others can't, and that I needed to control it before I hurt someone.

"It was there that I found out about the others. and I wasn't the only one.

"The Revenants were divided into six distinct factions:

"The Tk faction can move and bend objects with their mind. We call them Strikers.

"The J faction are called the Jumpers, who can teleport from one place to another.

"The M faction, also known as Medics, are a team of healers whose main ability is to heal any wound or injury.

"The S faction was a rare breed of Seers that can see precognitive visions of the future.

"The Tp faction, also known as Readers, are skilled with the ability to read and manipulate the mind as they wish.

"Historical research studies confirmed they were the first faction to have surfaced during the war. They are considered as scholars, known for their erudite intellect, as well as for their relentless thirst and ruthless means in acquiring knowledge.

"I was supposed to be a part of this faction before I was transferred to the X faction.

"Also called as Misfits, we are the last faction to be added to the Enclave's Index. We were also the only faction to be wiped out of common Revenant history and thrust into the shadows.

"Barely half the number of the entire S designation or as old as the other factions, few of us remain or rarely turn up on the radar.

"For though we may have no specific order for our skills, we all possess raw and unknown high-gradient abilities that we have no control of or even be aware of.

"At first, the Regent had sought to study us in means of controlling us... only to fail. And so, they viewed us as volatile, unstable, unpredictable, a threat to order who deserve to be hunted down and destroyed.

"But I know differently. There's a reason why they still let us exist.

"Just like any human that fears the unknown, the Regent fears us of what we are; of what we can become; of what we can do. It will only be a matter of time before that happens, and when it does..."

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CLICK! The doorknob twists and turns.

She rubs the back of her eyes, as if wiping unshed tears. Not that she needed to.

Tears were a luxury, a distant memory form her childhood.

Shuffling the papers into a neat pile, Nikol makes a dash towards the bed.

Deftly, she shoves the papers and the pen back between the bed springs before laying her back on the bed.

Eyes closed, her chest heaving, she waited for what might be the longest seconds of her life.

The door creaks silently, the sound of footsteps closing in. She wills her lungs to breathe regularly.

Any second now, she muses.

She hears a velcro strap being opened, heart beats pounding.

As sounds of whispering fabrics pass by, she feels a gloved hand graze her cheek, moving a few locks of hair out of the way.

She flinches at the sudden coldness of a needle prickling the side of her neck. She painstakingly waits for the person to finish the injection and leaver her.

However, that wasn't the case this time.

The relief was momentary when another pressure begins to welt inside her neck.

Like a fire, it burns, spreading to every part of her, boiling every drop of blood in her veins until it evaporates. Her face twists in insurmountable pain.

With mouth wide open, she gasps in its scorching intensity.

She opens her eyes. She searches for the person who had inflicted her torture, hoping to beg them for reprieve.

She found no one.

Instead, all she could see were blurry shapes, obstructed by her overflowing tears of agony.

She turns her eyes to the ceiling, biting her lips from screaming.

She will never give them the benefit of hearing even the softest mewl from her lips. She would rather be burned to death in this maddening hell.

The fire strews on, her control over her faculties ebbs.

She closes her eyes.

Now.

With the last of her power, she surrenders herself to the fire.

Meanwhile, her mind, still intact, floats away.

"I am Nikol Apollymi Lavelle. I am fifteen years old. It had been...I am Nikol... I am.. My name is..."

And so did her memories. 

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I know - it sounds depressing, doesn't it? 

Tell me what you think of this chapter, on where Nikol is being taken to, in the comments section.

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