The Dark Room
Breathe.
Just breathe in. And breathe out.
In. Out.
My eyes were misted as I looked up into the dark tank that loomed in front of me. I didn't want to do this at all. They wanted a new leader for the future, so why couldn't they have chosen someone whose alive now? Except that the senior officers have to create the perfect being. A being that would have the ultimate PSI powers. A being that would ruthlessly destroy the galaxy for us to take freely without trouble.
A being that would never be tainted with love.
Love. That's exactly what I'm feeling now. When the project was announced, they wanted us females to get impregnated or donate our eggs to create it. Who would ever donate their eggs to create a being that would feel constant pain? The men felt exactly the same. They wondered the reasons why the officers wanted to create a being when they could just attempt to hone their PSI skills sharpish. As I stared into the tank once again, I realised the reasons why.
We were tainted. Impure. Worthless. We were loved.
The door opens and a black figure walks in. He rests his arm around my shoulder, and my tail wraps around his. We are not a couple. The memories flood poison back into my head as I remember the day. As no-one had volunteered; we were all made to go inside the Hall to get registered and write our names onto pieces of paper and put them into a hat. As the ink pen left the paper, time froze. As soon as that piece of paper slipped into that hat, my chance was in. I was at risk. Even the most valueless objects like scraps of paper could decide your fate and make your world crumble. As I was considering ripping up my piece of paper and guarantee myself death by PSI Freeze, an officer snatched it away from me and dropped the scrap into the hat. It fluttered down, just like angel wings. Did I do the right thing? Only time could tell.
I waited alongside every other psyched woman in the Hall. We were all concentrating on one thing. Breathing. In and out. We all hoped that it wouldn't be us. No one hoped it would be them. The officers stood up firm, and coldly called out the names. Mine. And the black figure's. Everything crumbled around me, but before blackness could reign, they shot me a powerful dose of PSI back into me. I was denied the mercy of missing the procedure. The procedure that would grip and suck on my blood the rest of my life.
The light is pouring in now. The sunlight soaks into the tank as I am forced to look at my unloved child. He didn't even look normal. He was just a bundle of cells, constantly moving about and absorbing the steady stream of PSI they were force-feeding it. The red streaks slithered about around him, and it was helpless as it grew more and more powerful. I was on the verge of walking away.
But it locked its half-formed eye on me, and made me stay.