Chapter 1
A bump awoke her. Her head twitched and she scowled slightly, she was so warm and dreary that the mere thought of being woken annoyed her. At the next bump that jostled her body, she forced her eyes open the tiniest amount. Lights streaked overhead, shooting stars against a body of white that burned so brightly that she shut her eyes again to spare them the pain.
Another bump, and she felt something dig into her wrists. She moved, and the bite intensified.
She again forced her eyes open, and the scene started to clear. She was moving under fluorescent lights, but that didn't make sense.
She lurched forwards, her arms, legs, and head strain against the uncomfortable straps holding her to the stretcher.
"Hey, hey!" she she shouts, and manages to crane her head enough to see the white-dressed man pulling her down the hallway.
"Where am I? What the hell is happening?!"
The man gives no reply, but stops the cart.
She watches, breathing hard, as he fishes a card from his clothes and swipes it over a door.
The area she's carted into is significantly darker than the one before, the only light it seemed was from doorway to the white hallway, one that was getting further and further away with each minute. She looks to the side and sees doors lining this hallway, doors with wire mesh windows and locks beside them.
"Where are you taking me? What the fuck!" she shouts again, thrashing against her bonds and only managing to sway the rolling stretcher.
Her escort comes to a stop at one of these doors and flashes another card at the reader beside the door frame. It flashes green, and she hears a hiss as the door unlocks and slides open.
She sees the glint of something sharp pulled from the man's pouch, and something inside her recoils at the sight of it.
*Poison,*
"Keep that away from me, you better stay the-" she starts to struggle anew.
The man jams the needle into her neck and she feels her limbs fall numb, then her whole body.
"...fuck away…" she manages to mumble through another person's mouth before the world again becomes darkness.
She shivers against the concrete floor. A moment comes and passes where she tries to remember how she got here before a more troubling thought intrudes on her mind.
"How did I get here,"
She looks around, hoping her cold, somewhat damp surroundings would contain a clue of a sort, but the four concrete walls offer no insight. They instead choose to stare back at her, their unflinching grey eyes piercing her mind and pushing her gaze to the ground, where a face watches her.
She falls back with a yelp, and only after calming her racing heart, does she look back into the puddle. A face she does not recognise looks at her with mild horror as she touches the shaved head, the dark eyes, the pale skin.
"Are you me?" she asks, not expecting the phantom in the water to grace her with an answer.
She scoots back to one of the walls and tucks her legs to her chest. She closes her eyes and tries to search for answers in her own mind.
"How did I get here?"
She squints and tries desperately to recall, but nothing comes forth. Her eyes snap open, a much more burning and disturbing question emerges.
"Who am I?"
She throws herself in front of the puddle once again, sending ripples through the unknown face. Panicked by the stranger in the reflection, her breathing becomes uncontrollable, something in her demands more oxygen, as though that would bring her world back into order. She launches herself at the door to her cell.
"LET ME OUT!" she cries, her voice ringing into the cold silence, "LET ME OUT OF HERE!" she bangs fruitlessly against the solid steel until her fist aches, and screams until her voice gives out.
Someone answers.
*No one's going to open that door,*
She tumbles backwards, splashing into the puddle, and looks around her cell for the source of the voice. After a few moments, she relaxes, then places her ear against one of the walls.
The voice speaks in her other ear, *But I'm here,*
She waves her arm as she spins, hoping to catch whoever is speaking, but her still woozy legs give out and she again falls to the floor. Her head smacks against the concrete and she lies there for a long time.