Vivian's eyes opened slowly to the sound of screeching metal followed by a loud crash. She struggled to focus her sight on the source of the noise and eventually the blurry image of the iron bars enclosing her within her cell became sharp and clear. She lay there naked and defenceless; her body racked with pain, and studied her surroundings in the hope of discovering where she was being held. The walls were made of large slabs of dark grey stone and the ceiling was much the same. She couldn't help but feel slightly claustrophobic, and tried her best to stand, making extra effort to ignore the agonizing state her body was in. Scars infested her skin like disease and it felt as though her bones were rattled and displaced as she tried her best to lift her weight.
Beyond the iron grate that impeded her freedom she saw nothing but darkness. For a moment she couldn't tell whether she was the one in the cage, or whether she was the observer looking in. She didn't have to speculate much longer, however, when the creaking sound of a door opening startled her off her balance and she fell painfully back to the dusty floor. She heard footsteps. At first they were soft, but they grew louder and louder until she was sure the person they belonged to stood right outside her cell. Suddenly, there was a flicker of light and then a burst of warmth. A man draped in black stood before her carrying a torch, his eyes hidden beneath the shadows of his hood, and Vivian felt fear for him.
"So you're awake," the man said, his voice ghostly and echoing, as he edged the torch closer towards her. "Vivian."
Vivian felt a chill run down her spine at his mention of her name. Was she supposed to know this strange man? It could be assumed, at the very least, that he knew her. With much effort she pulled herself up from the floor and leaned against the wall to her right, taking in the man's suspicious choice of clothing. The man frowned at her response and turned away with a sigh. He moved towards a large round table in the centre of the room and Vivian noticed a large pile of books stacked on top of it. The man took one and flipped through it briefly, and Vivian did her best to lift herself upward so that she could peer over his shoulder and see its contents. She failed as a pain seared through her left leg, causing her to collapse onto one knee, and the man turned around again.
"Where did I go wrong?" he muttered eyeing the pathetic sight before him. "You were meant to be the perfect warrior... my perfect warrior!"
Vivian recovered from the pain in her leg and lifted her head to look at him, brushing tangled strands of her dirtied blonde hair from her face. An air of anger had filled the room now and it suddenly became difficult to breathe, as if two invisible hands had wrapped themselves around her neck and were trying to squeeze an answer from her.
"W-warrior?" she mustered breathlessly.
"You don't remember, do you? Perhaps my last experiment shattered your memories," said the man half-in-thought.
"N-no... I don't remember any experiments," replied Vivian.
The man sighed softly and peered into the cell. For a moment she caught sight of his eyes beneath his hood and she let out an inadvertent gasp. They were unlike anything she had ever known, they pierced into her depths and ripped it apart with their deadly red gaze, and she hurriedly backed into the corner of her cell and cowered behind her hands. The man sneered and wrapped his leather-clad hands around the bars of her cell. Vivian could swear she heard the iron rattling as his hands trembled.
"All my efforts to harness the power you displayed when I first found you... meaningless!" he roared. "You were my chance to create a warrior who could surpass Alicia, you were my trump card, and here you lie in a mangled heap in my laboratory; powerless, frail, no different from a HUMAN!"
He slammed the iron grate and turned around to focus his attention back towards the pile of books on the table. Vivian tried her best to contemplate all the things he was saying. Warrior? Experiments? She knew nothing about anything of this! Had she really lost her memories like he'd said? She tried her best to bring something to light but it was as if her entire sense of being had been stolen away and all that was left was... the name Vivian and her mangled body. She needed answers to these questions and the only person who could provide them was this scary being in black that rummaged frantically through the notebooks on the table. Perhaps he was searching for the answer to his previous question, "Where did I go wrong"? Vivian once again, with excruciating difficulty, clawed at the wall and used the leverage to help her stand. She stepped toward the bars imprisoning her and grabbed them with all the strength she could muster.
"Please... who are you?" she asked desperately. "What does all of this mean?"
"My name is Tate. I am a scientist," he explained, still rummaging through the notebooks. "I found you and brought you with me to the Organization, but was ordered to have you destroyed after you killed one of my subordinates."
"I k-killed... no... I couldn't ha--"
"You weren't able to control your power. It was a sacrifice necessary in order for me to recognize your potential as a research subject, and so I carry no grudge." Tate interrupted before turning around, a notebook in each hand. "Obviously I went against my orders and kept you alive. This is my laboratory."
"T-thank you... I think? Before you mentioned experiments..." Vivian pried further.
"It doesn't matter anymore. The Organization has grown suspicious of my frequent departures from headquarters and is soon to have me put under investigation."
Vivian let all of this information swim in her head and felt her stomach clench like a fist when he mentioned he was going to be put under investigation. The man studied the two books in his hand and sighed. With a shake of his head he tossed them both to the floor and made his way around the edge of the room. Vivian soon noticed there were shelves upon shelves of books lined up against the edges of the walls that were just beyond her line of sight before.
"Research notes I've taken down detailing the many times I've failed," Tate explained as he returned to the table at the centre after a few slow laps of the room. "Or perhaps of how many times you have failed me?"
Vivian couldn't help but guilty about his failure and it soon became apparent that Tate's hands were trembling again in frustration. She was overwhelmed by everything he was saying but the more information she was given the more questions that arose in their place. The flame lit room was filled with answers to so many of her questions, her whole life was possibly contained within Tate's research, and she was determined to break free and secure those answers. Vivian noticed a sudden movement and averted her eyes to Tate who had dropped his torch onto the table in front of him. Vivian's eyes widened in shock and she clutched the bars tighter and pulled in an attempt to escape but to no avail. The flames began to consume the research notes and with them Vivian's hope.
"I apologize, but you are now a liability rather then an asset and I will lose my power within the Organization if it is discovered I went behind their back and continued this project," Tate said as he watched the destruction of his work almost with a sadness that mirrored Vivian's.
"No! Please! I need to know what you-- why won't you just tell me?!" Vivian screamed now, shaking the iron bars in desperate panic, as she watched Tate turn around and reach for the door.
"My dream no longer involves you. Burn Vivian; burn and be forgotten…"
Vivian felt tears of desperation begin to well up behind her dark blue eyes as Tate opened the steel door and shut it behind him with a loud crash. The room was ablaze now, and it felt as though the fire was thirsting for her naked flesh as the heat in her cell began to climb. She felt the first tear slip down her cheek as she watched the many notebooks holding the truth behind her past turn to ash before her very eyes, and tried to come to terms with the fact that their author had just left her to die.
The flames drew ever closer and the iron bars enclosing Vivian inside her cell soon began to scold her skin. She backed away from them and toppled against the back wall. A sense of hopelessness overcame her. She was trapped inside this room barred by steel and fire, and even if she should manage to somehow escape her predicament, the little reason she had to continue existing had just been destroyed remorselessly right in front of her. She twitched slightly as a sound rang out in her ears, the sound of a scream, a deafening shrill scream that penetrated every ounce of her being. She held her hands to her ears and closed her eyes shut, but the scream continued on. To bear it was torturing and she soon found herself on her knees, screaming in chorus with it as if to drown the agonized voice out with her own. The flames continued ever closer, unrelenting, and licked at her skin hungrily.
Suddenly the cell walls began to tremble and shake as if Vivian's agony had transcended her being and began its attempt to break free of its further confinement. She felt something suddenly burst outwards from her body and the loud crash of steel soon followed. Vivian's scream subsided and she opened her eyes, coming to her senses again. She knelt there on the dirty floor, her blonde hair drenched with dirt and sweat and her cheeks stained with tears, and looked into the open space in front of her where the iron grate once had been. She stayed there motionless for a few moments trying her best to register what had happened, spotting the grate a few feet in front of her. She didn't have time to process how it got there, because the fire had gotten even closer and was beginning to feast on her skin.
Clambering up quickly on instinct, she limped forward as quickly as she could, doing her best to ignore the excruciating pain that came with stepping naked into a wall of fire. She screamed in agony but kept moving forwards, dragging her body towards the door at the back of the room in a frantic attempt to survive. She didn't know why, but she had to. She had to live! Tears streamed and flesh blistered and bubbled as the heat consumed her. The pain had rendered her senses useless and in her desperation she clambered over the burning table at the room's centre. The fire victimized her flesh with what felt like a million swords at once, piercing her skin before withdrawing and piercing it again.
With a final, strained reach forward she felt the coarse surface of the wrought iron door and forced it open with the last of her strength. A swell of cool air rushed in from the next room and she made a desperate attempt to breathe it in and clear her smoke-filled lungs. Vivian crawled into the room, like a soul that had escaped the gates of Hell, and attempted to close the heavy door behind her. She felt her wrists buckle under the pressure and she let out another painstaking scream. The salty tears that ran down her cheeks brought no comfort to her charred skin, and she collapsed in a sprawled heap by the door, having exhausted the last of her strength.
Vivian's thoughts and feelings raced wildly inside her limp and tortured body. She felt as though she had only just been awarded life, and now it was to be taken from her like this? If only she remembered... if only she remembered who she was and why she had to suffer like this. Perhaps then she could die in peace. She could hear the crackling of fire, the waft of hot air as it entered from the previous room and the choking scent of thick smoke. An anger began to boil up inside her, perhaps more volatile then the fire she had just escaped, and a tingling sensation began to develop in her chest. She refused to accept a death like this as her destiny. She would pry open the hands of fate, force the hand of God, if she had to in order to survive.
The tingling sensation began to spread throughout her body now and slowly Vivian felt it enshroud her body. Slowly but surely she could make out shifting blurs of blue and white and soon enough her sight became clearer and clearer, until she could see her arm in perfect view as a strange, soothing light wrapped itself around it and began healing her burnt skin. It didn't take her long to realize that the strange blue light had engulfed the entirety of her body. The pain that racked her body began to subside and exhaustion soon faded to be replaced with a sudden burst of stamina. Vivian didn't bother taking the time to process what was happening to her, and she reached toward the door, shutting it in a single powerful movement.
The blue light began to withdraw back into her skin and Vivian stood and brought her hands up into her view, studying them carefully as to ascertain where exactly the strange energy had come from. Her eyes drifted downwards to her naked form and she realized that her scarred body too had completely healed and her skin had been left flawless and smooth. She stood there in wonder for a while before realizing that the fire in the room behind her wouldn't remain contained for long. She hurried onwards, passing tables lined with an array of threatening and rather sinister looking implements that Tate had probably used in his research on her, and large bottles filled with strange liquids of all kinds of colours.
She came to another door and opened it swiftly, before closing it behind her and taking in the contents of the next room. It was small and well-lit, with nothing in it aside from a table in the centre of the room. Vivian approached it and noticed there had been something placed on it. Upon closer inspection she realised it was some sort of armour, and beside it was a large broad-bladed sword. She felt an aura of familiarity about them and closed her eyes as blurred images and muffled sounds began to flash in and out of her mind. Her hands ran down the sword's blade and then down the metallic material of the suit. Suddenly she thrust her eyes open and stared at the equipment laid out before her. A word rang clear as day in her ears.
"Claymore."