I Thought My Soul Would Rise And Fly

by GallifreyanDiamond

Anastasia, Missy's half-made/half adopted daughter, reflects on her new life and in a series of flirtations, heists, adventures and small-time rescue operations, attempts to find her new self, post-regeneration. WARNING: If descriptions of violence and emotional trauma bother you, don't read this. This story is told in a series of loosely connected chapters, with lots of flashbacks

1. Chapter 1

Have you ever had your limbs pulled off? No, wait. That's not right...

Have you ever had your limbs pulled off, one at a time, while simultaneously being burned alive? No! That's still not strong enough...

Have you ever been burned and pulled apart and drowned and poked with red-hot bits of iron and stabbed a thousand and one times, all at once? That's what it feels like to regenerate. That's how it felt for me, anyway.

It starts with a faint glow, eminating from the core of your broken body. At first, in your pain-induced delirium, you think maybe it's jaundice, that ailment that turns human infants yellow. Then the glow brightens, sharpens into a golden fire and your mind temporarily clears.

"What's happening?" You ask, turning your wild eyes to meet the icy gaze that's fixed on you in something that may have been wonder. (Whether the eyes belong to death or a normal person witnessing your pain, you don't know.)

"You're regenerating." A female voice answers calmly and something clicks in your head.

Yes, you're dying. Yes, you're going to burn, but then you'll be born again. You'll be different, but you'll live on. Sort of.

Then you think, that's not right: a person can't die and come back. That's stupid. That's been the plot of a zillion other stories, and it's not how yours is going to end.

But it is, replies your mental voice of reason, growing fainter by the moment. This is how your story ends and begins again and ends and begins again in an endless circle. You're going to wake up in a moment.

You can't think anymore after that, it hurts too much. All you can do is scream: let out one last wail to the world, a farewell song that you sing involuntarily to the land you're leaving behind. You scream for all the people you'll miss, all the places you'll never see, the romance you'll never have.

And you burn, from the inside out.

Then you don't know anything, just darkness and pain and the sound of your screaming. You don't know who you are: the word I has no meaning in that dark place within yourself, the place that shouldn't exist anymore.

As your voice of reason promised, though, you wake up. You keep your eyes closed for a moment, feeling the cloth you're lying on against your back.

You open your eyes. You sit up. You ask no one in particular, "Am I dead?"

"No." Comes the answer, from somewhere off to your right, and you climb out of the box-like contraption you were lying in.

But a few days later, after it's been explained to you at least four times, you ask again, "Am I dead?" This time though, you disagree with the answer you get. You realize, that yes, you are dead. The girl you used to be, she is dead, and the word I still has no meaning. You are no one now, just a beautiful ghost with porcelain skin and sapphire eyes. You're dead.

But you aren't. You still breathe, you still walk around, and smile and laugh and flirt. It doesn't mean anything though, because you don't who you are anymore. YOU, the person you knew and were just starting to be okay with, she's dead.