How long had she been here? She couldn't tell anymore. There were only voices. Voices and hands and cold and white.

They didn't listen to her. Every day they looked and touched, probed and murmured, and they didn't see. And it was driving her insane.

She was a person. Every day she tried to scream at them, tried to get it through their heads, that she was not their property. They had no right to be doing this to her. She was her own person, hers to decide her own fate.

They didn't think so. She heard them; heard them talk about "the subject" or "No. 17." And she hated it.

Cogito ergo sum! Her mind chanted every day. Cogito ergo sum! I think, therefore I am! I think and therefore I am! I am!

The needles pricked her. She grew numb under their harsh sterility.

Cogito ergo sum, she thought weakly. I am. I'm thinking. I am alive, and cogito ergo sum.

Every day it grew harder to think, to reason. She couldn't feel like before. She couldn't tell day from night or hot from cold. It almost scared her, but she'd been robbed of her ability to fear.

I'm still here though, she persisted, day by day. I am a fighter. Cogito ergo sum.

Sometimes she thought that, maybe, those droning noises she heard on the edge of her mind were meant to be words of some kind. Sometimes she wondered if she were to be concerned about the icy feeling seeping through her veins.

She would get flashes, blurs and colors. Split second images that sometimes she felt were hers; but no, they could not be hers. She never saw anything but blankness. She hadn't opened her eyes in a long time…if ever.

So who were these people she saw in her mind's eye? This young female child, kneeling beside an older male. Both with bright eyes, both with their lips curving upwards…

No… those were hallucinations. How could one whose eyes are perpetually closed see? Impossible. She knew nothing but blankness, frozen veins, needles making her numb and murmuring voices.

I am here, she thought tonelessly, I have always, always been here. I think, and so I am. I think…so I…

Eternities and seconds, spilling onto the floor. Mingling, clashing. Iridescent. Glittering. And yet translucent and white, because she knew only blankness.


What was this?

A sharper sound. Sharper voices. Powerful. What was the first saying?

'Unstrap it.'

What did that mean? Why did it matter?

What was that violent, tearing sound? She didn't like it. She tried to shrink away from it, but she could not move.

'She's waking. Finish undoing the straps.'

A sudden sort of breeze. She was cold. Her wrists and ankles, cold. Uncomfortably free.

'Go on then. Open your eyes.'

What? What was the meaning of that statement?

She struggled a bit more. Clenched her jaw. And then slowly, she opened her gates to the world outside her head.

'I knew you could do it.'

It hurt. Blinding, bright flashes, colors, sounds and sights. Too much. Too much. She let out a pitiful noise through her mouth, felt it resound in the air. She sprawled, arched her back, tried to escape without even shutting her eyes.

'Her glare recovery time will need work, you realize.'

It was fading, the agony. She allowed herself to relax a bit. She was recovering.

'I realize that, sir.'

Now she could see. Now she had the gift of vision. And now she could see the two figures towering over her, and the white room, and the silver tools on her bedside.

One of the figures leaned a bit, to see her better.

'This one, sir. This one is good.'