May 4, 2012.
Broken glass sinks into the soft flesh of my feet with the first step, bitingly cold and disturbingly reminiscent of the nail that I am still terrified I will once again fail to notice. Unlike the nail, though, the glass sinks away from my skin as I take another step, though it returns when I am once more in contact with the floor.
And the next step brings fire, like coals, like embers, and I feel like I am burning like a little Balinese girl performing the sanghyang dedari. In keeping with this, I continue forwards, two or three quick little steps before I scream.
I feel like I am falling. The floor has danced away from me, and it is like being suspended in liquid that is constantly moving and whipping me around like a rag, and I've lost most of my sense of myself.
I will myself one more step forth, and I pick up the book with hands I'm not entirely sure are there until I touch the book, which is reassuringly solid. The torments peel away from my senses, and I start laughing, because it is nice to not hurt.
The people in charge of the project, however, do not seem particularly happy. They talk amongst themselves, arguing, and for a while I try to follow along. I soon stop, though, because they are too many and too soft and my head begins to ache.
Instead, I slump against the pedestal upon which the book is kept, and carefully I stretch out my legs, half-expecting to feel fire and glass and abyss, and finding none. I rest my face against my knees, and I curl up around the book as tightly as I can.
It's been years. Three of them, in fact, and I must say, if this is the best that the Sanctuary can do, I'm not particularly impressed. They tell me, whenever they have the chance, that they are the Best, and that I am doing excellent work for the betterment of the country, and the Community At Large.
It's good to hear this, because they obviously aren't.
"Have you no dignity, girl? Get up." The voice is one that I have been told belongs to Chandra Salvere, one of the people spearheading the project. People say she's cruel, and I don't think I disagree with them.
"My head hurts," I say softly, and she pulls me up from where I am, grabbing my wrist tightly, and now that hurts too. I drop the book, and all at once the torture resumes.
A/N: Whether her voice is appropriate for an eight-year old or she's just an unusual child, I leave up to you. Though I'm pretty sure this is syntactically similar to how my speech patterns were when I was that age.
Actually, they remind me more of myself at age five, but meh.
Sunshine and laughter and dead butterflies~
Sweethearted.