Forgotten Adventures: Prologue
Phantom Fluorite: F.13 C.7 R.3
I can hear them talking about me, out in the hall. The words are muffled and vague but I know it's about me, it's always about me. When I'm not dancing for Her Radiance, when they're not shocking my form, when they're not mocking me to my half-face, they're out there, talking. About me.
The unusual part of it is that, this time, whatever that is, their words are not loud and obnoxious and hateful. They are hushed, talking behind hands behind doors. As though their conversation were too horrible for even me to know. And, as the Quartz guards usually revel in degrading me in every creative manner possible, it must be horrible indeed.
I can guess. Perhaps I am no longer entertaining, perhaps I have become a mundane travesty to them, the horror of my existence somehow made usual to them through time and exposure. That's what they love, the exposure. To point and jeer and mock. But if they no longer find this amusing… what room is there for me in their world?
If I am no longer a worthy plaything for Her Radiance, no longer worth studying by her scientists, no longer useful as a test subject- what is to become of me?
Well, I imagine it will be what happens to all gems who are no longer useful. Destruction, and recycling. Perhaps my shattered gemstone will serve as a power source for some ungodly machine, a magic weapon, a spaceship, or a toy. Her Radiance so loves anomalies, so perhaps in death I will continue to serve as entertainment for the Most High…
Out in the hall, their muttering turns even softer, and I can feel an emotional shift, a change in the energy. No more derision, it's.. pity. Perhaps a shade of regret. A sliver of guilt. But nevertheless a dedication to what's been decided, knowing there's nothing any two Quartz Soldiers could do to stop, delay, or impede the orders of a Diamond and her court. There is a resigned satisfaction, as though they always knew this would happened, but strangely hoped it would be put off indefinitely, that miniscule guilt wishing for a better way, but seeing none other than contributing to the hurt, to the cycle.
The words die away completely, a most strange occurrence. Only when an officer comes through does that ever normally happen. Now, it is a grim allowance, an inability to protest reality, a failure to drown out truth with selfish, meaningless 'fun' conversation. Even they feel a dark, shallow fluttering in their hearts for my fate.
Inside my cell, inside my mind, I, too, am resigned. I knew this would happen, one day, and I knew it better than most. Perhaps the only one who knew better was the Diamond herself, or her scientists who produced me. Imagine, your experimental cut of gems emerging, almost perfect, almost exactly as desired, but for one mistake. And oh, what a mistake I am. They likely knew, instantly, I was never meant to last. I am not perfect, I am not even standard; how could society accept me, even if I were useful? And I am useful for little more than a cheap laugh these days…
Which leads to the present moment. That dreaded moment where my luck runs out, the laughs dry up, and I am no longer useful. That moment where I am sentenced, as all defects are, to stop being alive. Today's the day, I can feel it, from the silent macabre of the Quartzes outside, to the stillness of the facility, there is a finality in the air I cannot deny.
My finality…
Before I can ponder resistance or the horror of the thought, the door 'shooms' into existence, a panel of light forming before disappearing. The only kind of door that can hold me… An Agate appears in the door, face grim but not displeased. She feels a disturbing satisfaction in thoughts of what is about to happen. She is wordless, though, as she syncs up the electromagnetic chains binding me here to a kind of stylus, effectively leashing me. The chain of electricity jumps and jumbles between the cuffs on my hand and neck to the stylus in her hand. She gives a tug, and I rise, towering over her, obediently. Despite my intimidating height, and yes, it is intimidating, she smirks because she knows she has complete control over me. Tugging again, more harshly than necessary, she leads me away from my room, my cell, and the relative safety of being alone.
The Quartzes follow behind, spears at the ready, as the Agate escorts me to Her Radiance for some semblance of a formal sentencing… as we walk, ever more certainly, to my end. I grind my teeth, tighten my fists.
This cannot be the end.
