The days were less terrible than they had been before, but the boredom returned with a vengeance. Sigyn had determined that she was still too weak to spend more than a few moments every hour or so building the wall around her mind. The process drained her, and by the end of each day, she was exhausted. But she wasn't so tired that she didn't notice the daily visitors she had right before her evening meal was delivered.
They looked at her through the window in the door, watching as she went about her business. Surely they would get bored eventually, because going about her business was nothing more than sitting on her mattress, staring at the wall, the door, the place the food came out of, or the newly discovered seam in which the shower extended from in the same small alcove as the toilet. She practiced blocking their emotions, testing the walls she built up over those small moments, gauging how much she had improved from the night before. It was slow progress, but she pushed herself to the edge of her ability until she thought she would faint from the strain.
When she was no longer able to hold up her wall, she would look through the small window, still sitting on her mattress, and study the faces pressed to the other side. Most of them were young and curious. They only came in pairs, probably too afraid to draw attention from others as they observed the prisoner who didn't age. Once they realized she could actually see them, their faces disappeared from view, the quiet beep sounding as her meal was pushed through from the other side, and then their emotions retreated down the hallway.
Sigyn had counted at least eight days since she had been put in this new cell, and already she was improving. There was a definition to her body that hadn't been there before, her skin, while pale, wasn't sickly looking, and she was able to get up and move when she wanted, not having to save her energy.
As each day had passed, Sigyn had been surprised at the small bits of energy her body was now collecting. She knew she had been tired before, and she still felt tired now, but the exhaustion she felt now was nothing in comparison. With these small improvements, and the hope that the more nourishing food would still come, Sigyn might actually be able to come up with a plan of escape.
On the eighth day, when the usual man and women dropped off her breakfast, Sigyn had found something unusual behind the small door along with her food. There was the tray of rice, mashed potatoes, a smaller block of sludge, an apple which had been added to her meal the day before, and a cup of grape juice.
Behind that tray was something that Sigyn hadn't seen for longer than she cared to remember. A hairbrush. Temporarily forgetting about her food, Sigyn grabbed the brush and started working on her terribly knotted hair. It would take days for her to fully untangle, but Sigyn had the time. She ate her breakfast, built a wall around her mind and maintained it for a few seconds, before returning to her hair.
The hours of that day passed much the same, Sigyn brushing her hair, pausing to rest her hands and to put up a wall and hold it for a few moments before letting it fall and repeating the process.
A quiet beep started her out of the daze she had been drawn in by, and she looked over to see the red light blinking. Confused, Sigyn sat her brush down on the mattress and went to the small door. Opening it found a neatly folded stack of cream fabric. Walking back to the bed, she sat the stack down, pulling the top piece open to reveal a long shirt. The next was a pair of trousers, a drawstring at the waist. Sigyn, having not received such nice clothes in a long time hurried to put them on. It was a wonderful feeling having fresh clothes, ones that were clean and smelled of an interesting combination instead of the scentless soap she used during her shower to wash the worn fabric as well as she could.
The last three pieces of folded fabric was sheets to replace the ones currently on her bed, and a blanket to replace the one she already had. Sigyn worked slowly, unsure of why she would suddenly be provided with these new luxuries, but not willing to question her stroke of good luck too much. She decided that the old blanket would remain on her bed with the new one. She no longer shivered as she fell asleep after her evening meal, but it was still cold in the cell with all its surfaces that offered no insulation. Her old clothes and the dirty sheets she put in the little door the new ones had come through.
They were not retrieved immediately just as Sigyn thought, but she didn't mind. She had new clothes! Things were looking up. She was almost being treated like a human again. Almost.
Her dinner came soon after, and the dirty sheets and clothes were gone from the compartment when she opened it. She had ignored the two men who looked through her window, focusing on her food instead, still savoring each bite. She was as happy as she had been for the past two weeks that it wasn't just the sludge she was being fed.
Sigyn climbed into her bed as the lights dimmed, now with two blankets weighing down on her, making her feel the safest she had experienced since she had been put in this cell. She was completely warm for once. The day had been one of the best she had ever lived through. After successfully brushing the tangles out of the bottom fourth of her hair, receiving new clothes and bedding, and blocking the emotions of her two onlookers without exhaustion as they brought her dinner and looked into her window, she felt as if the day was an accomplishment. She wanted to be free of her prison, but as far as days went, she had experienced much worse ones.
With thoughts of eventual freedom, Sigyn fell asleep, only waking once the beep of the compartment announced it was ready to be opened.
Her eyes were blurry once they opened, with crust at the corners. She had slept uninterrupted for the first time since she had started to gain her energy back, and she woke with a spring in her step like she had never experienced before.
She rolled off of her mattress, standing gracefully, and opened the compartment door to discover that she had been left something new on her tray. It was meat, and upon closer inspection, Sigyn found that it was a small slice of ham. She ate some rice first, slurping down orange juice, before taking a small bite of the ham. Immediately after swallowing, she took a bigger bite, chewing quickly, and biting off another piece before she had finished chewing the bite that was already in her mouth. Meat had always been her favorite food group, and to get a taste of it after so long was like going home, even if it was just for a moment.
She was ten years old, her family sitting around the dinner table. They weren't rich, but the food they ate was of the best quality, and she and her two siblings were able to go to a better school than most. Her mother pulled out a large pot of ham from the oven. The smell that was already lingering in the air became stronger as the steam wafted through the kitchen.
Her mother smiled at her father as she placed the ham on the table, and he stood to start carving. He placed generous piles of meat onto each of their plates as her mother started dipping out fried potatoes, steamed carrots, and green beans.
Once her father sat back in his chair, the five of them joined hands as her father led them in prayer. When he was done, they all began to eat.
Sigyn sat on her mattress, lost in that memory she didn't even know she had. She knew she had a mother and father, everyone did, but she hadn't remembered their faces. It had been so long ago, and her memories had become foggy from the constant state of starvation and malnourishment she had experienced over the last several decades. She had gained back snippets of her life before, but never something as solid and detailed as that memory was.
She knew it meant that her body was recovering more each day. There had been improvements, small but meaningful, for the past five days, and the hope in her chest grew with each passing improvement. She never expected to survive as long as she had, and she had never expected to make a full recovery, though she still wasn't sure if she ever would. She was well on her way through, and that in itself was an accomplishment.
After the food was gone, Sigyn sat on the floor facing the door, her legs crossed and hands resting on her knees, her eyes closed. After being able to block the emotions of those two people the day before, Sigyn knew it was time to start cracking down on retraining herself.
She started with building the strongest wall she could, holding it for a few seconds, then letting it fall. She would take a deep breath then start the process again. It was hard work building the wall, but as the hours passed it started to become easier. She could hold the wall up for a shorter period each time she rebuilt, but Sigyn had expected that. That wasn't the purpose of this practice. The purpose was to make her wall stronger, to practice the act of actually pulling it up so when she needed to it would be second nature.
She took an hours break before the two guards who would bring her food arrived, and laid in bed, resting up for her next test. The emotions of the guards, another man and woman, brushed against her mind, caused her to wake from her doze, and she settled back on the ground in the same position as before. When they were right outside her door, Sigyn built a wall as quickly as she could, sighing in relief as their emotions became muffled to a point that they were almost gone. She spent the time the guards remained there finding ways to strengthen the wall so that no emotion was able to get through, and committed the improvements to her memory to make sure that the next time she built a wall it would be stronger.
Exhausted to the point of passing out, Sigyn opened her eyes and they fell immediately to the faces in the window. She didn't know it, but despite her exhaustion, her eyes were alight with an icy fire that instantly sent the guards putting her food in the compartment then scurrying off.
Sigyn ate quickly, had a brief shower to wash away traces of the sweat that accumulated over her day of mental exercise, and fell onto the mattress, pulling the blankets over her before she fell asleep.
Her mind hurt. Her brain throbbed with every heartbeat as if she had been hit over the head repeatedly. Despite her mental muscles being so strained, Sigyn, after she had eaten her usual breakfast of rice, mashed potatoes, a sludge block, orange juice, and ham, had settled back into the same position as the day before. Instead of bringing up a wall, she cleared her mind of everything. She slowed her thoughts until the only thing she thought of was the silence that had surrounded her. No emotions, no pain, no thoughts.
After she had been that way for an hour, Sigyn started building the walls, taking her time, adding to it layer by layer, replicating what she had built last night to keep the emotions out. She held it as long as she could until the pain came back and she was forced to drop it with a gasp.
Her mind throbbed again, strained with the work it had been put through, but she only meditated, clearing her mind once more before building and holding the wall a second time. When the wall fell, she repeated the process, completing a third time, when she stopped, the strain on her mind too much to continue.
Instead, she stood up, taking the brush from the floor where she had left it, and started untangling her hair once again. As she worked on her hair, she started pacing around the length, then width of her cell, walking in the square shape. It wasn't much exercise, but it was something to get her muscles to stretch, to start to strengthen them. They were weak after having spent several years in a cell that was just big enough for her to stretch out while laying down, let alone allowing her to stretch her legs by walking.
Her legs grew shaky after a time, and her arms tired after pulling and untangling her mass of hair. She finally allowed herself some rest, sitting on top of her blankets and leaning against the wall. She closed her eyes for what only felt like a moment, but was awakened by the faint emotions that were coming closer and closer.
Sigyn swung her eyes towards the window, not really feeling like being watched after the exhausting day she had put herself through. She just wanted to eat, crawl under the blankets and sleep until her mind wasn't throbbing anymore. But she knew that she couldn't slack off, that her ability to stay herself depended on how well she could protect her mind. So when the guards, two men, were close enough, she snapped her wall in place, just as she had practiced, and was happy to find that it blocked their emotions out of her head.
When they peaked through the window, and saw her staring at them, they put her food in the compartment without another look. Sigyn's walls were falling by the time they were halfway down the hallway, but she felt happy in her success of keeping them completely blocked for almost the entire duration of their stay. She was exhausted, mentally and physically, so she ate quickly, almost not tasting the food, and fell asleep.
Her mother was in her room, laying covered in blankets, pale and glistening with sweat as the girl and her two siblings stood at the foot of the bed. Her father was in a chair next to his wife, holding her hand as her labored breaths became slower with each passing minute.
The girl was seventeen, her brother fifteen, and her sister only twelve, and she stood between them, holding each of their hands in hers. She could feel their emotions churning with sadness, grief, and worry, and she did her best to soothe away their pain while hiding her own. She would stay strong for them, and for her mother and father, until she could go to a place where her outbreak wouldn't affect anyone.
But until she could, she stood tall and strong for her family.
As the light outside the windows grew dimmer, her mother started asking for her sister. Her father stood, allowing her sister to sit by the bed and hold her hand as they talked. While the two of them sat there, the girl took her father's hand, doing what she could to help keep him calm during her mother's last moments. She let go of her brother's hand when her mother started asking for him next, and took her sister's hand in her now empty one, looking at her tear-streaked face. She didn't take away her grief, but simply made it more bearable. She refused to let the last thing her mother would see to be her hysterically sobbing daughter.
Then her mother finally asked for her. The girl let go of her sister and father's hands, taking her brother's place in the chair.
"Take care of them," her mother whispered to her. "You have always been the strongest of us, but you must not let my passing affect you so much that you forget to support them. Do you understand?"
Her mother's grip on her hand was tight, and she could feel the desperation and the pain that her mother felt.
"Of course, mother. Of course, I'll take care of them."
Her mother nodded. "One more thing," her mother said, her voice becoming weaker, and the girl leaned down, making sure that she caught every word. "There's a reason you're different, a reason your father and I never told you. You've given both your father and me so much, and I am so happy that you came into our lives. When things are better… When things are better make him tell you. Make him… tell you what happened… on your birthday." Her mother gasped for breath, and there was a long pause where no one spoke. "I love all of you."
The girl clutched her mother's hand, drawing away her fear, and giving her calm and peaceful emotions. Only a minute later the girl felt her mother's emotions fade, and she took a deep breath, dropping her mother's hand and turning to the rest of her family.
"She's gone."
Sigyn woke with a gasp, her dream pulling at her mind as the memory settled into place. But the sound that had actually woken her, the sound of a key in a lock, brought her eyes to the door as she heard the deadbolt slip out of place.
Adrenalin pumped into her veins, causing her to jump up and settle into a defensive position she had learned a long time ago. She knew her muscles lacked the strength to use any of the maneuvers she had learned, and though she remembered how to do them she was sure that correct execution would be out of the question. But they could rot in hell if they thought she would go anywhere with them without a fight. Especially since she had the energy to actually defend herself this time.
Sigyn checked the walls around her mind, half surprised and half proud to find that she had already thrown them up, effectively blocking out their emotions. All those hours of building the walls around her mind paid off. At the very least it was now so natural that she didn't have to think to do it in a dangerous situation.
The door swung open, and the five same guards that had brought her here were standing outside her door. She stared at them, begging them not to come in, and also warning them. Sigyn knew it wouldn't work, but she had to try.
The woman stepped forward, less than half a pace inside the cell, and she spoke, looking into Sigyn's eyes.
"Please come with us. We don't want to hurt you, and we aren't taking you anywhere you could be hurt. Just come with us willingly." Her voice was soft, begging, empathetic.
Sigyn didn't believe it for one second. She let her walls drop some, just enough to snake out a tendril of her mind to try and find out how much of the truth the woman was telling.
Sigyn was surprised to find that the woman seemed to be telling the truth, and one of the men behind her seemed to believe her as well. But the man who held grief so deep in his heart for his son had emotions that were completely different. He felt disgust. It wasn't towards her, but towards someone who was a commander of the man. He didn't agree with whatever it was he had been told to do, but there was nothing he could do but follow the orders given to him. He would lose his job if he even tried.
One of the other two remaining men felt a glee at what was in store for her. His emotions were tainted with a sickening red feel, something that Sigyn only remembered encountering a long time ago in a much dirtier and darker place than this. The other man, who leaked with intelligence, seemed indifferent about the whole matter from his expression, and he had his emotions locked up tight. Her abilities were not strong enough to pierce the rather impressive shield that surrounded his mind.
She didn't have a chance to study the group more, for the woman took another step forward, allowing two of the men to follow her into the cell. Sigyn's shields snapped back up.
"No," was the only answer Sigyn gave to the woman's plea.
The woman's face turned sad. "I'm sorry, but we are only doing this for your own good."
The entire group stepped forward, farther into her cell and Sigyn prepared to fight.