Disclaimer: The characters from Chronicles of Riddick are not owned by Keltic Rave. She is making no money or profit from this, it is intended for entertainment purposes only.
A/N wow this is the first story since I have started working at my other job. Bleh!
Breaking the mind.
Chapter Five.
If anyone had told me a month ago that I would be standing in a room that judged your soul and mind, I would have smiled and nodded and quietly called the people with the white coats and seditives. Now all I can do is wish that all this was a dream, well no not a dream, a horrible nightmare in which I would soon wake from. That I would awake, at home in bed, surrounded by familiar things.
Standing in the middle of the chamber, cold, still in shock and shivering I watch as the door closes leaving me alone with my thoughts and what ever the quasi dead is...are. A mechanical sound starts, grinding down statues lower from the walls showing things. They are draped in a sheer cloth, spider silk yet more sheer. There arew five of the panels... beds? I hear a loud click, echoing though the room, followed by a loud humming.
As if my muscles turn to jelly, bones to lead I fall to my knees, lungs aching, muscles burn with the strain.
Their voices in chorus sound throughout the room, mixtures of many different vocal chords, impossible as there are only five of them, yet the harmony sounds like a hundred.
"Breaking through the cerebrell cortex." I can feel them crawling through my mind, digging in through memories, learning my secrets and deepest fears.
"Get Out" I whisper in my mind, and I hear it echo through the chamber, as I realise I have also said it out loud. My arms collapse and I curl into a ball, my arms now clasping my head tring to feebly protect my sense of self.
Tears leak through shut eyelids. There is nothing I can do to stop the raping of my mind, my memories.
Flash
Around me the quarry where I had grown up. The sight of the white limestone brings a pang of homesickness so accute, tears burn in my eyes. I knew every pocket every crack of stone and pile of rocks. I had bled more then a few times on many a sharp stone. Gone swimming in the fresh water lake, took my frustrations with me when I escaped to it from home.
The memory of it so fresh I can smell the fresh wildflowers, hear the crickets chirp, the bullfrogs, feel the sunlight reflecting from the white limestone. A chill comes over me, I turn around and witness the horrible destruction of my home away from home, what would have happened had I not went to the city on the day the ships landed. Fire and brimstone, ash and darkness it envelopes the land, spreading and eating away from my home. Taking my refuge. I cover my head with my arms knowing I cannot stop what is coming. The fire envelopes me, I feel no heat but a bone searing cold as I am surrounded by darkness.
Emptiness, I feel a piece of self torn away.
Flash
The local bookstore, my escape from reality, my favorite place to relax, let the world pass by. Many an evening spent just zoning in the country style chair right next to the fireplace, enjoying a coffee from the local restaurant. Smiling I sit and let myself be encompassed in soft and worn familiar fabric. I turn to look out the window.
"No, please.." I feel a desperate panic almost sense of deja vu. The fire, consuming everything in its path, the buildings walls go up, stories of adventure, love, fiction, lost in the blaze. Surrounded by flame, chilled to the bone. Darkness follows.
Hollow, safety ripped away.
Flash
Summer one of the many stray animals I have picked up over the years, not just a dog, a faithful companion and best friend, she knew how to truly experience every element, for no rock, leaf, or log would go unexamined; no rustling bush would be overlooked, and even the very air will be inhaled pondered, and noted as being full of valuable information.
She looks up hair on end, hackles raised her home something not right, senses something. Invading and unwelcome. She howls, cannot escape, cannot attack, nor protect. Cowering the last room of the house not in flames, sister smell and presence not right. Chocolate eyes holding such sadness as they disapear in wildfire.
Friendship sundered. Lost.
Flash
My parents, brother, my tenth birthday party, a day in the park, at the waterslides, eating hotdogs off the grill. Erupt in ash and burning.
Achingly void. Home lost.
Cannot think, cannot remember, missing, empty. There should be something there, something more. I know I was... I was. What was. They took it away, I cherished it, safety, friendship, self, home, I know the words, know what they stand for, what they are, but I cannot apply them to me, don't remember it was taken away. Removed.
Oh god. I wish I didn't, but I know what the quasi dead are now.