Disclaimer- I do not own the Matrix.

Chapter Seven

I don't remember exactly what happened next. I know that I refused to look into the car, but after that there is nothing for a while. I'm sure I had blacked out again. The next thing I remember was waking up in a small room- part of an apartment. I was in a bed and my clothes had been changed. Suddenly though, as if a switch had been pulled in my brain, I was flooded with images. The airport. My parents. The two suited men. The blackness. The crashed car. The Asian man. My parents. My parents. My parents. My parents... They were all I could think of. My parents were dead. I cried.

I did not cry alone for long. A pair of arms came swooping down, holding me, cradling me, comforting me. A calming voice- shushing me. The voice did not say that it was all right, that everything would be fine, for it is still not all right, and it will never be fine. No, that voice does not lie. It might deceive, but it does not lie. I wept into the arms. I wept without shame, without heed of the fact that it was a stranger. I wept because my parents were gone and my first life had died with them.

Are you going to tell him? No, not yet. He is still suffering from shock. What do you want me to do? Teach him- train him. He will have a hard life when he leaves. The best that we can do is make sure that he is ready. I was falling asleep. I heard words that I could not at the time understand. I did not care what they were talking about though. All I wanted to do those first few days was sleep. Sleep away those horrible memories. How long will he stay? Long enough. But I had forgotten what a nightmare was like.