Disclaimer: I don't own Firefly.
Prompt #3: Brain - It's a dangerous thing, especially once they'd done what they did to hers.
Words: 451
The human brain is a marvelous thing, capable of adapting to almost everything. It is a fact that has survived through human evolution.
The doctors at the Academy wanted to test that fact. Behaviorally, psychologically, emotionally, and physically wanted to push the brain to its recorded limits and then smash on through. That was their goal in the search for advancing the human condition. So they claimed.
In reality, they just wanted to create the perfect human weapon.
River Tam is a prime example of that statement. They pushed her beyond sanctioned boundaries and recorded the results, then created more experiments based on her response. They opened up her skull and experimented on her brain, trying to surgically enhance the part of her they believed held potential. They tested her limits afterwards. They devised more tests following that.
And in that span of time, they broke her. Broke what made River Tam a smart, precocious, normal-ish teenage girl and warped her psyche into that of a psychotic, deranged killer with the power to read minds. They held such high expectations for her despite the setbacks, but it was universally accepted that she was unstable.
A well-trained, unstable, half-mad Reader.
Although he had no formal training in the field of psychology, Simon had prescribed a series of mental exercises for River to help her sort out the mess of her ravaged mind. Imaging herself in a safe and calming place, regulating her breathing, calming herself by recalling a happy memory. Soon River was able to slip into a half-trance state and completely block out the outside world.
She'd walk down her home streets and battle Reavers, then turn right around and fly through the black on the back of a silver space dragon named Serenity. Waltzes in state ballrooms on Osiris morphed into firefights on a barren border world. Her mind would wander and drift through a hazy blend of memories and imagination without a care in the world.
River herself changed in those trances. There, she wasn't a damaged person. No broken ramblings, no whispers in her mind, no irrational fears of silent monsters that screamed nothing on a dead world. She was a whole person, and it felt wonderful.
But then she'd wake up, and she'd be herself again. Broken, babbling, fearful, powerful, misunderstood River. The Reader that couldn't keep it together long enough to say or do what needs to be said or done.
Despite everything she knew to the contrary, River still hoped. Hoped that someday, she'd be all right again. After all, the human brain is capable of doing incredible things.
She's living proof of that.
Eh, it's okay? Maybe?
Review please!