The woman they called Sigyn was moved to a different place only a few days after that conversation between the man and woman. There had been a larger portion of food waiting for her when she woke, and more than just the block of sludge. There had been some rice in a bowl resting next to a larger than usual cup of water. It was then that she knew something had changed.
The sludge tasted no different, but the water lacked the metal taste that Sigyn had never been able to get used to. Despite that, the rice, though very plain and sticky, was the best thing she had tasted in at least forty years. She scarfed it down so quickly, not even bothering to taste it before she swallowed, that she choked and had to cough to clear her airway. The rice and the block of sludge were gone before Sigyn could stop herself. Food, even something as simple as rice, was food. Sigyn had never thought she would taste anything real again.
Over the next several days things had continued to improve. Showers were now a bi-weekly occurrence, new clothes waiting for her each time. There was even a clean sheet in the first pile that waited for her. The rice had increased in quantity every day. It tasted no better than the first time she had eaten it, but Sigyn felt that she had no room to complain after decades of the sludge they had been feeding her.
And then, everything changed. The lights in her cell suddenly went out, dragging Sigyn out of what had been a restless sleep. The only light came from the cracks around the door, but it wasn't enough to see by, especially since Sigyn's eyes would take time to adjust to this new darkness.
Sigyn, feeling the rush of adrenalin pump through her body for the first time in ten years, forced herself to a corner of her cell, sliding down and making herself the smallest possible target. She waited there, staring at the door for what she thought was hours. She kept anticipating that the door would open and she would be forcefully taken away from her cell to a different prison. The cycle of tensing when she thought someone would come in, then relaxing when they didn't took a toll on her body and mind.
She didn't enjoy this prison, but it was the best one she had ever had the misfortune of being in. It was cold, but it wasn't damp. It was sterile but it was clean. She was fed sludge, but at least she wasn't starving to death. As much as she hated this cell, she didn't want to leave. She had felt as safe as she could in her circumstances, and while she could do nothing to prevent anything that would happen to her she just knew that she had to stay here. It was the only place she felt was her own.
Time continued to pass slowly. Each second Sigyn sat there, the less energy she had. No food was pushed through the hole in the door, the lights never coming back on. Sigyn could see the shape of her hand as she waved it in front of her face. She could see the shape of the rug she called a bed, the small protruding toilet in the wall, the outline of the door that the shower popped out of the wall twice a week.
But Sigyn was tired. Her adrenalin had been absorbed by her body hours ago, and she could no longer feel it running through her veins. She grew weary with each passing minute, her eyes slipping closed before she forced them back open. She had to keep watching the door, she refused to be taken away unaware.
Sigyn's eyelids drooped, and it was several moments before she forced them back open again. A small shadow danced across the sliver of light that entered her cell, something she would have missed had she not had the strength to make her eyes open. Sigyn, seeing it and crushing herself into the wall farther, tensed and waited for the door to open. Adrenalin pulsed through her veins for a second time, causing her heart to beat faster, her entire body on alert.
She watched, waiting for another shadow to pass over her door, but there was nothing. Sigyn sat in that corner for a while longer as the beating of her heart slowed. Her eyes grew heavy again, and she forced them to stay open. She fought with herself as her head slowly slumped forward, only for her to wake up and snap her head back lightly against the wall.
But time and exhaustion took their toll, and eventually, Sigyn fell asleep.
The quiet sound of the door scraping across the floor caused Sigyn to startle awake. The light shining through the door almost blinded her, but she could see several human shapes in the doorway blocking part of the light. Sigyn expected there to be a lot more noise, people talking, the clink of chains, but there was only silence. They walked into her small cell, crowding the space, causing Sigyn to push herself as far into the wall as she could. But she was still there, not able to disappear into the walls of her cells like she wished she could.
As they approached her, she felt an influx of emotions that weren't her own. The defenses she had built years ago after her full ability had manifested had since faded from disuse. She had no emotions to practice repelling except her own, and even she had never been able to silence the spinning thoughts of her own mind. Sigyn had given up trying to keep her mental wall up years ago when there was no one to protect herself from. It had cost too much energy to keep it maintained and with how little she was given to eat, Sigyn had directed her precious energy elsewhere. She regretted that now. It would have been hard, but she chastised herself for the lack of even a small barrier. She wouldn't have been incapacitated completely from the sudden onset of emotions if she had used any extra energy at the end of the day to maintain her barriers.
The two people that had entered her cells approached her cautiously, though Sigyn could only see their intimidating figures. They gently took her by the arms, but pain still laced up her shoulders as they pulled her to a standing position. She let out a small whimper that broke off halfway through the sound, her voice suffering from years of disuse.
She was shaky on her feet, scared, tired, and still weak. But she didn't struggle as the two people gently pushed and guided her to the open door. She had been through a cell transfer enough times to know that it was useless to try to escape. It was always useless to try to escape, especially when she was weak as she was now.
After Sigyn and those two people, who she could now tell were men, stepped out of the cell, she stumbled, the light blinding her for several moments after spending so much time in such a dark place. The onslaught of emotions that suddenly whipped over her was overwhelming. She tried to ignore them, but they only grew stronger could tell that there were five people there, four men and a woman. Their emotions of anger, sadness, impatience, and indifference washed over her, dragging her farther down than the weight of her own emotions ever could have.
Sigyn felt dazed as they gently nudged her to walk down the hallway and then pulled her into an elevator. The emotions had been terrible before, but now the six of them piled close together in such a small space caused Sigyn's head to reel as she lost balance. The sensation of the elevator moving, though she couldn't tell if it was up or down, caused her to topple over completely, falling into the man on her right. The gentleness in which the two men gently pulled her up then supported her by her arms was confusing. Sigyn had only experienced rough and painful touches since the time she had been here, and that gentle support broke her resolve to pieces.
The guard to her left adjusted his hold, settling low enough for his bare hand to touch her uncovered arm. His emotions rushed through that connection, amplifying it until Sigyn was completely overcome by his emotions. The most prominent one was sadness. It ran deep into his mind, a web of tangled thoughts and other sensations. The sadness closest to the surface was one based on the roots of survival, the instinct all humans had to care for another person. An instinct that was currently directed towards her.
But deeper than that was the sharp aching pain of grief. The man had lost someone recently. Sigyn could tell that they had been close, and she sensed that the man whose hand was touching her arm was a father. The emotion ran deeper, telling her that the grief this man felt was for a young son, one that he had lost and would never see again.
With a weak cry, Sigyn tugged her arm, trying to dislodge the man's hand. He didn't let go, but he did shift his hand so that there was no longer any skin to skin contact. Sigyn's head drooped, eyes pooling with tears for the man's sadness which led to her own hopeless existence. Salty drops fell onto her face, slowly at first, then faster until there were wet spots on her shirt and then on the ground between her feet. She made no noise but it was obvious from the way her body hunched in on itself and the way she let her hair cover her eyes. The tension in the air became even more tangible than before as the other five people in the elevator realized she was crying.
The elevator came to a stop, and the door dinged as it opened. The group exited, Sigyn moving her feet as quickly as she could to keep up with the pace that had been set. She looked up from between tangled strands of her hair and saw that they were proceeding down a long hallway. They made a turn, continued down another, identical hallway, before they stopped before a door. The women in the group waved a card in front of a gray card reader, and it lit up green before the sound of hissing air invaded Sigyn's ears. They kept walking down hallway after hallway, stopping three more times to allow the woman to open the door before finally descending a long staircase that was winding around a large cylinder-shaped structure.
Sigyn couldn't help but look up from her feet several minutes later, feeling as if the room they were passing was important. It had a large square opening from the hallway she was being escorted down. It was some sort of lab, a place full of equipment and electronics that Sigyn didn't understand. Where she was looking was one side of a large room with a high, domed ceiling. In it sat a series of panels, upright, looking as if they had just been constructed. There were wires, equipment, lights, sounds. Sigyn had a hard time comprehending the entire scope of the room and she knew she could only see part of it.
Despite all of the new and interesting things in front of her, the most curious, and also the scariest part of the room were the people. There were so many of them, moving about from one place to the next, dragging equipment along the width of the room. And their emotions were a wiggling, writhing beast that hit Sigyn with the force of a horse. Her feet didn't stumble, her body just stopped moving and supporting itself. Her arms tugged painfully as she fell forward, but she didn't feel the pain because of the wave of emotions invading her mind.
It took many moments for old, almost forgotten practices to come back to her. Taking a deep shuddering breath, Sigyn concentrated on the emotions of only one person, herself. If she let her mind and emotions be invaded for much longer she knew she would lose her sense of self. She didn't particularly want to be where she was, guarded by five people in a room full of things she didn't understand, a prisoner of people she didn't know, but being aware was better than what might happen if she didn't get herself under control. She could be a husk, still having awareness, but living a life devoid of any emotions at all. She had only been close to that point once, when her ability had manifested, and she didn't feel a need to repeat it.
In only a few breaths, using practices that had been so familiar once and were now a struggle, Sigyn managed to push a shaky wall around her mind, effectively blocking the worst of the emotions that were circulating the room.
She got her feet under her, realizing that her group of people had stopped, waiting for her to pick herself up, or for someone to just drag her down the hall. But Sigyn looked up, seeing all the faces staring at her through the bodies of the group of people that surrounded her. But there were three people in particular that her eyes were drawn to.
The three of them, their bodies angled in a way that suggested they had been talking to each other, had all turned their heads to look at her. One of the men was dark-skinned, wearing all black, bald, and had an eyepatch. He looked angry, though Sigyn couldn't decide if it was directed towards her or something completely unrelated. The other man had lighter skin, a round belly, and a confused look on his face. He didn't look particularly intelligent, but something about him told Sigyn that he was much smarter than his looks gave away. He would be important. But the woman was the one that Sigyn's eyes locked on.
She was taller than Sigyn, thin, wearing a black suit with weapons she had never seen. Her brown hair was pulled up behind her head, her blue eyes staring into Sigyn's with a look cold calculation. Sigyn had seen the look before and knew that the woman would do nothing to help. Sigyn looked away, not wanting to see the faces of people she knew would never help her.
The group passed the entrance of the room, entering another endless hallway. The farther from that giant emotion-filled room she was, the easier it was to hold the wall around her mind. But, as the group turned another corner, the walls crumbled, and Sigyn could feel the emotions of the other five people hit her again. She could only cringe. Her strength had given out. At least what she had done had allowed her to pass out of the influence of the mass of people in that room.
Several steps later the group reached a door, different from the others. This one had a small window in it, and a manual deadbolt lock as if the electronic locks couldn't be trusted. The woman, just as she had for every other door they passed through stepped forward. She unlocked this door with a key, not a card. She pulled the door open with a sad look at Sigyn.
Just as gently as before, the two men that held her arms guided her through the door and into the white cell. Sigyn didn't resist as they settled her on the bed shoved against the far wall. She sat there as they left, the door closing behind them, and the lock clicking into place. The women, then one of the men that hadn't been holding onto her arms on the way to this new cell looked through the window in the door. Their mouths moved, but no sound penetrated through the metal that separated guard and prisoner. Then they disappeared. Sigyn could only feel relieved when their emotions left as they walked away.
After a few moments to adjust, Sigyn took a look around her newest place of residence. The room was larger than her last cell and was better in every way she could think of. Sigyn could already tell that the air was warmer, that she wouldn't shiver at night like she had for several years. There was a bed, a real one. There was no frame to it, that would be too risky in a cell meant for a dangerous prisoner, but there was a mattress, complete with sheets, a pillow, and even a heavy blanket. In the back corner was a small alcove where the toilet sat. A wall blocked it from the view of the door, but it was still open. The cell was bigger than her old one, allowing her to take more than two steps in any direction. She could take five nice sized paces down the length and width of the room.
But Sigyn didn't leave the mattress. She was afraid that there had been a mistake, that it wasn't hers. She kept glancing at the door, worried that someone was going to take that comfort away from her. So Sigyn slipped between the sheets, pulling the blanket up around her chin, clutching it tight. She felt safer tucked into the bed. She didn't sleep, even though the lights dimmed signaling the end of the day. Instead, she let out a shuttering breath, hoping that it would calm her. But the time for calming breaths was gone. Only moments later Sigyn's body was taken over, wracked by sobs that she couldn't control.
It was a long time after her tears left dried tracks down her face that Sigyn finally drifted off into something that was almost sleep. She lay there in that half-asleep haze, not worrying about what would happen next, but also too fearful to pass into anything deeper than a doze.
A small, almost silent beep brought her out of that sleepy haze, and she raised her head to find the source of the noise. There was a small red light by the door, one that blinked over and over. Sigyn, tired, but unable to ignore her curiosity, climbed off the mattress and went to the blinking light.
There was a door about waist high, a small handle attached to it horizontally. Gingerly, she pulled the handle, jumping when the door folded down. Sigyn crouched slightly, turning her head to get a better view of what was inside. It was food. Sigyn reached in, pulling the tray out, finding a block of sludge, rice, and mashed potatoes? Was that…Was that actually apple juice in her cup?
Sigyn pulled the tray towards her, clutching it tightly. Not bothering to go back to sit on the bed, she used her fingers to gently dip out a mound of mashed potatoes. She shoved her fingers into her mouth, then moaned at the wonderful taste. It was like the rice, plain and unseasoned, but it was creamy and soft. She had missed real food.
Sigyn savored every bite of rice and mashed potatoes before eating the block of sludge and washing it down with small sips of the weak watered down apple juice. She couldn't remember the last time she had been so happy.
Her stomach the fullest it had been for a long while, Sigyn decided sleep was the next thing she needed. She knew she had been malnourished, had not been able to do anything about it, but she needed time to recover. Food, time, and sleep would work wonders on both her physical and mental health.
Even though Sigyn had only just climbed out of bed to eat, she returned to it, happy that it was so comfortable and still slightly warm. Sigyn decided a few moments later that she would only leave the security of the blankets that covered her for food and to take care of necessary bodily functions. Otherwise, she would give herself plenty of time to rest and start to recover from the day of emotional torture. And when she woke, she would start practicing keeping a wall maintained around her mind. She didn't want a repeat of what had happened earlier that day. But for now, she slept.