Winds of Nostalgia-
Chapter 2: A Dream Within a Dream
Clare slowly opened her eyes, her blurry vision coming into view. The musty smell of the place reminded her of a dungeon, and the green light reminded her of the chambers she lived in during her training as a Claymore.
"She has silver eyes!" a man's voice exclaimed excitedly.
Clare groggily looked around, to see that she was laying on her back on a table, with three of the Organization's men peering down at her, all robed in black. Green-colored chemical flames burned on the walls on either side of her.
Panic seized her. Oh no. I've been captured, Clare thought. She struggled, but found that her hands and feet were secured with iron chains. Predictably, they did not seem to have any give. Of course they wouldn't, the Organization isn't stupid, Clare thought hopelessly.
Perhaps if I used my powers, I could break free, she thought.
She released her Yoma powers, feeling them course through her like a torrent of energy and power, her muscles rippling beneath her skin, her teeth elongating into Yoma-like fangs. But it was futile. The chains barely budged, despite her efforts.
"There there little one, calm down. You are going to hurt yourself," one of the men said. Clare repressed her powers, feeling the power slide away and her human form return to normalcy.
Clare looked at the man who had spoken and saw that he was scarred with a hideous deformity, perhaps a burn, which covered half of his face. The skin of half his face looked like it had been melted into liquid form and then hastily dried. A single, barely-attached eye with no pupil lay within a dead socket. The deformed man eyed her curiously, his one functioning eye betraying an unnatural excitement.
Clare faintly recognized the man back from her early days in Claymore training. She had seen him only a few times. She figured that he must have been someone high up in the organization. Wait, he was the one who implanted me with Yoma flesh, Clare remembered. The memories were vague. Mostly, she just remembered pain, and the hatred and desire for revenge which burned in her heart.
Clare relaxed, glancing around the room. There was very little she could do but listen and watch, so she did just that. If the Organization had captured her and was keeping her alive, it was either to experiment on her, or to interrogate her in order to learn about the rest of her comrades. Clare braced herself. She did not intend to talk. Never.
"Dae-Sama, this is highly irregular. We have no records of this girl. She appeared out of nowhere on our doorstep. Where could she have come from? Who could have made her?" a black-robed man with a deep voice said. Clare listened carefully. This is strange. They should know who I am. They should be interrogating me. Something feels wrong about all of this, she thought.
"That is what makes this so fascinating, Orsay," the deformed man answered with a crooked smile.
I see, Clare thought, looking between the two men. The one with the deformed face is Dae-Sama. The one wearing the robe who has the deep voice is Orsay.
"Another one of the facilities could have made her without permission. She seems to have been created with our methods," another man proposed.
"This one is clearly not ours. It would be safe to kill it-"
"Hasty and ignorant ideas like that are why you are a handler and not a researcher, Orsay," Dae interrupted. "This one is very interesting. She seems different from the others, the Yoma mutation on her stomach appears to be far less prominent than normal. We must keep her." So they've studied my body thoroughly already. I recognize many of these men. Dae-Sama was the one who originally implanted me. How do none of them recognize me?
"There is truly nothing that will supersede your curiosity, is there, Dae-sama?" Orsay asked bitterly.
"My curiosity has taken us this far, has it not?" Dae replied.
"Still, this concerns the safety of the Organization. We must report this to Rimuto," Orsay insisted, leaving the room.
"Be sure to also report how over-serious you are, Orsay..." Dae called after him in a mocking tone.
After Orsay left, the other robed man followed. Eventually, only Dae remained. Dae studied Clare with the fascination of a child, his one working eye darting up and down her body. By human standards, he was hideous, but Clare was a Claymore, and she'd seen and felt enough to be desensitized to that kind of thing by now. "Don't worry, child. I won't let them kill you. You are far too interesting," Dae cooed.
The fact that she'd attracted the strange fascination of Dae could serve to keep her alive, but it still didn't answer her question. She had no idea of how she had gone from the snows of the north to being strapped onto a table at an Organization facility. How did I get here, she wondered. How do they not recognize me?
Then, Clare recalled her last conscious moments in Pieta. They were quite bizarre. She had met Teresa, or at least something that had taken Teresa's shape. Miria had tried to cut Teresa down, and with a single touch from Teresa's hand, Miria had fell to the ground. The memory ended there.
Did she do the same thing to me as she did to Miria? Are both of us trapped in some kind of fantasy... or perhaps an illusion? Maybe I was trapped in an illusion even before I had the vision of Teresa.
Clare glanced around the dungeon room she was in, and she could see that the room was probably intended for surgery. This is the room where they implant us with the flesh of the Yoma, Clare realized. It all seemed too richly detailed to be a fantasy. Everything about the dungeon was vivid, even the smells, and the feel of the table Clare was strapped to. She glanced up at Dae, wondering if she should ask him a question, or just remain quiet. She decided that her need for information was too great to remain quiet.
"How did I arrive here?" Clare asked. For some reason her voice sounded strange.
My voice is high pitched. Like it was when I was younger, she realized.
"No one knows that, little one," Dae answered. "Not even you, it seems." This seemed only to intrigue him even further.
They don't recognize me, despite the fact that I remember them vividly. They don't seem to realize that I have been implanted with the flesh of a Claymore rather than a Yoma. I must have been taken to a reality where I had not yet been created. Have I been taken to the past? That would explain why he keeps calling me little one. I must be younger, the age of a trainee. Her eyes widened at the thought.
Clare was in a dangerous position. If the Organization thought she had any useful information, they'd probably torture her to find out what she knew. Dae's insatiable curiosity could work against her in this regard. And even if she did reveal to him everything she knew, it was doubtful that she would be believed. She hardly believed, or even understood, the circumstances herself.
If she wanted to escape this dungeon, she would need to convince the Organization of her ignorance and she would have to do it quickly.
"Who am I?" Clare asked.
She hoped her ruse would succeed.
"You don't know?" Dae asked, eying her intently.
"Are you my Papa?" Clare asked, mustering up the most innocent wide-eyed expression that she could. She remembered back to her training, when the Organization had taught her manipulate a mark.
"I could be your Papa," Dae answered, with a widening smile. "Would you like that?"
Clare definitely did not want this insane Organization researcher to be her father, but she needed to stay in character.
"You're nicer than the other men," Clare said innocently. Dae gave her inquisitive look. For a moment, Clare thought that perhaps he'd seen through the ruse, but as Dae smiled gently, the fear passed.
"We'll find a place for you," Dae assured.
Clare did her best to mask her relief behind a smile.
Clare's escort consisted of two of the Organization's guards. Both were armored in steel plate, holding spears. The Organizations human enforcers. It was just as she remembered it.
They guided her down a long hallway of cold stone, into a familiar chamber. Inside the chamber, Clare recalled, the half-Yoma girls were housed in separate cells, by twos, behind iron bars.
Clare could see some of the girls peering out at her, through the bars, grim, empty expressions as she passed them. Some had hair matted with dried blood. Many more seemed not even to take note of her arrival, or were resting in their beds. She passed numerous cells, but she couldn't see any familiar faces within any of the cells.
As she passed on cell, she saw a girl inside, clutching her stomach and moaning in pain. They must have just been implanted. Some of them are still struggling with the transformation. Clare thought.
She could hear some murmurs, but mostly the living quarters were silent. Eventually, the guard stopped in front of one of the iron-barred doorways, pulling out a metal ring with hundreds of keys dangling from it. Clare looked inside the cell. The room was slightly smaller than most, had two beds in the far corner. Across from the beds was a small bin for changes of clothes and undergarments. But it was mostly bare.
Clare could see that another girl was inside, standing in the dark corner of the room. My new room-mate, Clare thought. She wondered who the girl was, or if she'd recognize her. She was too deep in the room to make out her features.
He stuck in the correct key, unlocking the door with a sliding click. The door opened with a rusty groan.
"This is your room, get in," one of the guards ordered, pushing Clare towards the open door. Clare shot a glare at the guard, but did as he said, stepping inside.
They slammed the barred door shut with a metallic crash and the sound of the door being locked behind her quickly followed. She could hear the sound of the guard's metal boots striking the stone floor as they returned to their posts.
The inside was slightly darker than the hall and it took Clare a moment to adjust. Still standing in the corner, her new room-mate cross her arms. The girl began to tap her foot against the floor impatiently.
Clare stared blankly back at her.
"Who the hell are you? What's your name?" the girl asked, greeting Clare aggressively. Clare almost said her name, but stopped herself. I told Dae that I don't know who I am. I will need to stick to that story. Or they will interrogate me.
"I don't know who I am," Clare lied.
"What kind of answer is that?" the other girl said, quirking her head. She stepped towards Clare, into the light. "What kind of moron doesn't know who they are? Eh?"
Clare's eyes widened as the girl's face came into view. It was one of the women who had hunted Teresa when Clare was a little girl. Clare recognized her as the cocky, expressive one, who specialized in acrobatics. I should have known the second I heard her voice, Clare thought.
If this girl, one of the single-digits which hunted Teresa all those years ago, was in front of Clare now as a trainee, then that meant that Clare had somehow been transported to the time when Teresa was a trainee within the organization, or at least within the same time-frame as it.
Clare now remembered the last words she'd heard in Pieta before all of this. I'll give you what you always wanted. And Clare knew what she'd always wanted. I've always wanted to be with Teresa.
And now, here she was, in the Organization's facility with a very real chance that Teresa was also somewhere within the walls. The situation still confused her, but Clare couldn't help but feel excited. Is this an illusion? Is it real? Does it matter?
"Hey! You! What's that weird look for?" the girl demanded, taking another step towards Clare. "This is my room. You're just here because I allow it, understood?"
"Okay," Clare said, playing along with the girl's power play.
"Good then. We'll get along fine, no-name. My name's Noel. Remember it, because I'll only tell you it once."
With Noel's posturing over with, she retired to her bed, sitting up against the pillows. "You can sit down too if you want, no-name," Noel said, gesturing to the second bed beside hers. "You're going to need all the rest you can get, trust me. A couple of weak girls have died in training already. Those that survived the transformation, that is."
Noel tried to sound dismissive when she talked about the weak girl's deaths, but Clare could detect a hint of sadness in her voice, even a small hint of fear. For all of her aggression, Noel was softer than she looked. Of course, Clare knew how little that mattered. When it came to judging Claymores, what they felt inside was of little consequence, it was only their actions that mattered. Inside Priscilla, had been a frightened, tortured, and idealistic little girl. It was Priscilla's actions that made her a monster.
"If you are strong, we can be friends. But if you're a weakling, don't slow me down." Noel said, curling up in her own bed.
Apparently the organization had already dressed her in normal clothes. And since Clare had been given nothing extra, she had no possessions to put at the foot of her bed. Pulling the meager covers back, Clare saw that the mattress, despite being washed, still possessed evidence of blood stains and other stained splotches. It didn't bother her, of course. Clare had slept in worse. She climbed beneath them. As she pulled the blankets over her small, younger body, she remembered that her bed had always been one of the places that she had been safe. She remembered the nights that Elaina and her had held one another. Elaina had been much stronger than Clare in training, but she had always looked out for Clare, like a little sister.
Clare pushed her thoughts of Elaina aside. The reality has changed. She curled up in her sheets, but sleep didn't come immediately. She tried to close her eyes, and kept rolling from side to side to find a comfortable position, but found it difficult to turn off her mind.
In the end, Clare stared up at the stone ceiling, the possibilities filling her head. It was all just too strange for her to sleep. Will I meet Teresa tomorrow? Or maybe this was all one long dream and when I go to bed here, I will wake up back in Pieta.
In any event, Clare suspected that tomorrow was going to be a very interesting day.
In the next cell over, Irene peered out from her own bed-covers at the new girl. Despite the fact that Irene's Yoma powers were still fledgling, she could sense great power in the newcomer. Interesting, it looks as if Teresa will soon have a competitor, Irene thought.
The idea of the arrogant Teresa being brought down a notch made Irene smile as she relaxed, preparing her body for sleep.