Chapter 2
Date Unknown
Date Unknown – Location Unknown
The girl known only as Subject Delta passed her time in a tiny cell. There were other cells nearby, but they were empty. Not that she could see into them, but the complete lack of any sound – not even the hiss of another's breathing – told her that she was alone. Sometimes, a man would come by and give her water, and a bowl of tasteless grey mush. It wasn't pleasant to consume, but there was nothing else to eat, and she had to make do with what she had.
Once, she might have been angry. But now she accepted her situation.
She had no idea who she was. She certainly didn't think of herself as Subject Delta, but that was what the man called her. Still, she couldn't quite accept it – it sounded wrong.
But the life she lived did not require her to have a name, it only required her, she supposed, to stay in her cell, and eat and drink when such things were offered. In a way, she was grateful for this life, it had been worse before.
Much, much worse.
When she had first woken up, she had been terrified. She had been lying in her own blood, completely naked, the bitter taste of fear coating the back of her throat. Every muscle had ached, her skin prickling like white-hot knives were running across it, and her head pounding as though a hammer were rebounding off the sides of her skull.
Her back had been burning as though someone set fire to it, and when she reached back to try and discern her injury, she had felt the blood.
Then she had felt the feathers.
They had started as nubs at first, bristles of developing pinions on the curve of her shoulder blades. Feathers and tendons, muscles and bone that grew slowly outward and downward and upward. And that ripped, tore and twisted her body as they progressed. Shredding skin, bursting muscle, knotting nerves and ligaments, warping her very bones in their quest for maturity.
Now, two wings stretched out behind her. Feathered like a bird's, she judged that her wingspan would probably be twice her height.
Not that she could stretch them that far. The cell was too small, just enough room for a toilet in the corner and barely enough space to lie down when she slept at night.
At least, she assumed it was night. The fluorescent lights overhead were painfully bright, but never dimmed. The harsh shadows the bars of her cell threw on the floor never shifted, curving around her body like the stripes on a tiger.
Delta shifted, stretching her wings and making the feathers rustle. They still felt strange, an uncomfortable tug on the skin of her back, where the feathers melt seamlessly into skin, joined from shoulder to past her hip. Strangely, she doesn't question how the ugly wounds her growing wings caused came to be healed so swiftly and so completely. Not even the stretch and pull of scar tissue.
Sometimes, she wondered who she had been. She had no idea of course, but she could try to remember. All too rarely, fragments of memory would surface amidst the sea of nothingness, like flecks of gold in granite. Tastes, smells, blurred visions that vanished before they coalesced into anything she could interpret, snatches of conversation.
The smell of corn, torn ripe from the plant.
The tang of lemon juice on her tongue.
A flash of bright gold in front of her.
And, far more puzzling, a voice. A voice that reverberated within her very soul, genderless, ageless.
"...become my warrior, my messenger...my angel."
oooooooo
Date Unknown – Location Unknown
A harsh clang woke Delta from her sleep. She heard footsteps approach her cell, and tensed instinctively. It was reflex that had never faded, even though no one had done anything to harm her. Perhaps they had...Before.
Before. That black chasm within which anything was possible. The yawning blank in her memory, her mind devoid of any recollection of her life until she regained consciousness in the cell. Before...it could have been anything. A forgotten paradise, or a thankfully-ended nightmare? It didn't matter, either way. The Before was gone, perhaps never to be found again.
The man opened the door to her cell, and Delta didn't so much as twitch when his feet stopped right beside her head, almost treading on her long hair. She didn't care that she was naked, or that she hungry. After all, better to simply accept her situation and avoid pain. She wasn't sure where that thought came from, but she was certain pain came from resistance, some dim memory telling her she had fought them in the Before, and been punished dreadfully for it.
Her eyes rose, and even though she had known that this man's presence caused primal, unreasoning terror to grip her, it's intensity always startled her.
He didn't even look very intimidating. He was tall, but not frighteningly so. His hair had probably once been black, but was now greying heavily, giving it a salt-and-pepper appearance. Green eyes examined her coldly, as though she were little more than an animal.
A tape recorder was held in his hand, and he lifted it to his mouth, a sharp click telling Delta it had been turned on.
"Subject Delta appears fully recovered, apart from lethargy and apparent disinterest in her environment. Her wings seem to be fully developed, and the injuries they caused healed remarkably quickly."
Delta realised he was studying her. Observing her and recording his observations by way of the tape. Somehow, she knew she would have been angry once, but just could not bring herself to care.
"It is also interesting to note her hair grew back, to what my records show was it's original length. All scars and evidence of past injuries appear to have vanished also. Though there is no alteration to her musculature, it has been evidenced by Subject Omega that the alchemically gifted strength need not alter the original physique, as it is metaphysical in origin."
'Oh, do shut up,' Delta though bitterly. 'I want to sleep!'
"I do not detect the presence of daemon's essence, but I presume it is simply lying dormant."
'What the hell is he talking about?' Delta wondered.
He shut off the tape recorder with another click. He strode once around her, his boots finally coming to a stop just in front of her eyes.
"Stand up," he ordered.
'Fuck you,' Delta thought, not knowing where her sudden spark of defiance came from.
"Subject Delta, I ordered you to stand up!" he repeated when she didn't move.
'Why the hell does this guy think I feel any incentive to obey him?'
Delta took a deep breath, then said, quite clearly and quite calmly, "Go fuck yourself."
The man's expression was a study in shock. He backed out of the cell hastily, walking away, switching on his tape recorder as he did so.
"It appears the daemon essence did not anchor in Subject Delta, but I can only guess at how she survived the transmutation without it's interference..."
His voice faded down the corridor, and he was gone. Delta sighed, and closed her eyes.
Perhaps she would dream of Before.