Chapter One
Slowly, painfully, she opened her eyes. They burned in the light of the Mako bubbling around her, but she forced them not to close. If she closed them, sleep would take her again. She would be forced to return to the flowing stream; to the voice that tortured her there.
It took a moment to pull her head entirely out of slumber. But when she did, she was shocked by her surroundings. Within her tank, everything was bright, but outside the only illumination came from the tank itself. She could see the uneven cavern floor, a jagged wall and short distance to the left, a pool a few feet ahead of her. But of the rest of the cavern, she saw nothing. She had no idea where she was; this most definitely wasn't the laboratory she remembered.
She shifted around slowly, her movements made sluggish by the thick Mako which had kept her suspended in slumber for so very long. A tube jerked sharply out of her arm, and black blood tinted the Mako in her tank. Contamination alarms blared in her ears, startling her. She began to panic. She could barely move in the tiny space, and her own blood was blocking out what low visibility she had in the Mako. She needed to get out.
Painfully, she flexed the muscles in her shoulder. Muscles she had never used. They were not connected to her arm or her back; they controlled a limb unique to people like her. They controlled a limb she had never used before.
Slowly, the singe white wing tore out of her flesh. She wanted to scream in pain, but in the Mako she was not sure if any sound came. The wing stretched out as far is it could, barely six inches behind her. She floated there, wing pulled half way out of her shoulder, blindness slowly falling on her as the hole in her arm continued to bleed. The Mako wouldn't let it clot.
Her heart thundered, her breath rushed. Her skin prickled with cold, and terror made her shiver. So new to life, just woken after almost two decades, and she was going to die.
No… His voice reached her, somehow. Reached her even here, outside of the silvery flow. She tried to shriek again, but the pressure in her ears once more stole the sound away. No, Jenova… you must not die here… Escape. Continue my work. Free Mother…
She felt it taking her, controlling her limbs. Her arms drifted upwards to either side, tubes and needles tearing out of her flesh. The flow of blood increased, until she was suspended in black liquid she could not breathe. But under his control, it did not worry her. Behind, the white wing crushed itself to the walls, desperate to pack all of its feathery expanse into the tiny space. Still damp, her feathers could not stiffen, could not bare their lethal blades to cut out of the tank. She could feel herself dying, and still he did not release her.
Father… She pleaded, trying to thrash in her distress. But her limbs still were not her own. Father, you're killing me! Release me, father!
No, Jenova.. You can not die today. You will be free. You will kill him… for Mother…
Her wing stretched out further. Her fingers spread wide, gathering to them the flowing blue-green-silver of the Lifestream. Pushing the light out towards the walls.
The tank burst.