Sigyn blinked in confusion. She was sitting in the same chair, in the same position she was in before she had been transported to that other cell. The blue cube was on her lap just as before, it's light still bright, but less intense. There were several moments where she sat there, thinking over what had transpired, before reaching out to the cube once again. It was dormant, the energy that usually radiated off of it gone. It acknowledged her presence with a flicker of pleasure and smug accomplishment. It had known that she would be able to accept the things it wanted to show her.
She pulled her mind away from the cube, building her walls quickly as she felt a presence enter the range of her mind. They came closer to her, then turned down a different hallway before she couldn't feel their presence anymore.
She stood up gently, her legs rushing with blood and pins and needles, and walked over to the small door, placing the cube gently inside. As soon as that door closed, the larger door to her cell opened, and she quickly stepped inside, hoping that a meal would be waiting for her. She checked the compartment, finding it empty, and flopped down onto her mattress.
She had spent some time with the cube she knew, but there was no real way to tell how long it was. Was it even close to time for her dinner? Did they skip out on feeding her since she was otherwise occupied?
She knew what hunger felt like, had starved for years on scraps and leftovers and sludge. This was different. Her body was tired, exhausted, achy. This was not hunger that ensured survival. No, this was hunger derived from the use of energy, of so much energy that the body needed to replace it quickly if it wished to survive.
Sigyn had only felt this way a few times in her life, and mostly when she was young. When she had first started practicing with her abilities she had been ravenous. She had eaten more than her growing brother and sister combined. But, when she finally realized that she felt that way because she was pushing herself to close too her limit, she stopped, focusing on smaller things instead of the big picture.
The cube must have used a lot of energy, some of her own included, to show her the man in the cell. He may be important, or he may just simply have been a way for the cube to communicate with her. It could have just been a coincidence. There was no way for Sigyn to be able to tell for sure without allowing the cube to show her visions again. But at that moment, all she could think about was about the two guards that had suddenly appeared at the edge of her range and were coming towards her.
She stood from her bed, and took up a spot next to the door, peering through the small window. She felt and saw them as they rounded a corner, approached her door with a tray of food in one of their hands, before taking a look through the window. The taller man jumped back in surprise at seeing her standing there, his mouth moving as he talked to the other man.
The second man, the same one who had been carrying the tray, went mostly out of her view as he placed the tray in her compartment. She rushed to it, tapping her fingers against the door as she waited for the 'beep' that indicated her meal was served.
As soon as she heard that little noise, she yanked open the door, reaching for the tray inside. Grabbing it, she settled on her bed, taking a few moments to track the movements of the two guards as they walked away, stretching her mind as far as she could follow them.
When they were out of her range, she started eating her food, taking her time to taste it, but also eating quickly. Her meal of turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, green beans, and corn brought memories to the surface of her mind. They were brief glimpses of her family as they ate and laughed and joked, all gathered around the table with a full turkey at the center. There were a dozen people seated at that table, faces that she knew but could not add names or relationships too. But they were family. And that day was very special.
Sigyn sighed, her food finished, and put the tray back in the compartment. She was drained after the energy the cube had borrowed from her, and nothing felt better than laying down on her mattress despite the dreams that invaded her mind.
The cold had seeped into the house, consuming almost everything. Only two fires were keeping the house warm, and those who lived there huddled in front of them. The pile of firewood just outside the back door had dwindled to almost nothing, but there were still large logs waiting to be split just a few steps away.
The girl was outside, lifting the ax above her head, aiming at a log before bringing the ax down. A small crack appeared down the middle of the log, but it was still a ways from being split. The girl raised and lowered the ax over and over until two pieces finally split apart and the girl stepped away breathing heavily.
Hours went by and the girls muscles screamed with each strike of the ax. But her family needed to be warm. Her father had locked himself in his room, only accepting firewood when she left it at his door with water and food. He was the one that usually took care of the firewood, chopping it, making sure there was enough to get them through the next few days. But he was mourning, and she was the oldest. Some things needed to be taken care of, things she needed to step up and do. She tended to her mothers duties as well, directing and helping the maid clean and maintain the house. She sent her siblings to school, all the while trying to continue her education by reading the books in the library.
But weeks past, and still her father never left his room. The finances were becoming a problem. Her father hadn't been to work in over a month, and he wasn't paying the bills like he should. The girl tried, but she didn't know what she was doing.
Letters started coming, requesting payments for various items inside the house, then warnings when the girl couldn't figure out how to access her parents bank accounts without her father's presence.
Her siblings were more well behaved than they had ever been in their life, and often they would try to help her figure out how to keep the house going. But they were so young the girl couldn't let their childhood be dragged down if there was something she could do to prevent it.
The president of the bank arrived at her house two months after the death of their mother. The girl had answered, not knowing who was at the door, or what they wanted. The man only asked to speak to her father, though she told him her father wasn't seeing visitors at that time.
The girl tried for over half of an hour to get her father out of his room. She knocked, begged, and cried for him to come out. She tried to tell him that she couldn't do everything on her own, that his being locked in that room was ruining the family. There wasn't an answer.
She went to the man from the bank, apologizing as he fetched his hat from the closet by the door. She explained that it was a hard time for her family, that her father had taken her mother's loss harder than any of them had.
"I'm sorry," He said to her, opening the door. "But it's come to the point in which I have to report it to my superiors. You should look into removing yourself and your siblings from this house if things continue."
And then he was gone, leaving the girl as alone and filled with so much more dread then before. She went back to her father's door, knocking, then pounding on the door with her fist. She yelled as she finally broke down, a wave of power forcing its way out from under her skin. She sobbed, leaning against her fathers door, stumbling in surprise as the door opened.
Her father was sitting in an armchair, his head resting against the wings, a pistol in his hand. The girl stood there watching as her father passed the pistol from hand to hand, the gold decoration glinting in the light from the window outside.
"Your mother was my life."
The girl started at the sound of his voice, having heard it so rarely in the past couple of months. His voice was scratchy, matching his unkempt appearance. He was thin, pale, his hair longer than she had ever seen it and tangled so badly it would just have to be cut off. His expression was indifferent as he watched the pistol pass back and forth, but the girl could feel the emotions radiating off of him.
The grief was almost completely overwhelming. The girl was already on a precipice, and the intense waves of emotions from her father made her teeter, almost falling over the edge. The grief was terrible, but the complete hopelessness sent her crashing down to the floor.
Her knees hit the hardwood with a crack that she both felt and heard, and sobs escaped her chest as her father finally looked away from the pistol and at his daughter.
"She and I were so happy, but we couldn't manage to produce any children. And then, suddenly, you were there. A woman came to our door in the middle of the night, sobbing and crying and about to have a baby. She told us she was sick, that she wasn't going to make it through the delivery. But your mother promised the woman that she would take care of her child as if it was her own."
Her father took a deep breath, looking over at the small table next to his chair where a photograph of her mother sat in a frame.
"After you were born the woman told us you were going to be different, that there were things about you that wouldn't make sense. We didn't understand then what she was telling us, but we didn't get a chance to ask more. She took her last breath only moments later.
"We loved you, but your mother just absolutely adored you. You were always with her. You were only two years old when a strange power came from you. We didn't understand what had happened, but only a few months later your mother was pregnant with your brother. You allowed her to have children, though we don't what you could have done to make that possible.
"You gave us everything." He looked back at the girl, still on her knees, tears running down her face. "But you couldn't save her. You healed her enough to let her have children, but yet you couldn't cure her of the disease that killed her."
Suddenly, the hopelessness and grief the girl felt from her father turned into complete hatred.
The pistol was pointed at her now, the pretty gold pieces still shining as her father looked down the barrel at her.
"I blame you. You didn't save her. You're the reason she got that disease in the first place. You're the reason she died. I'm going to make that right."
There was a sound, so loud that the girl tried to cover her ears, but then she saw the blood. It was dripping from her shoulder, covering her chest then stomach and arm. She looked up, the pain not yet registering, her shock and adrenaline keeping her body alert. Her father was in the middle of reloading the pistol, tears glistening down his face.
"I'm sorry I couldn't hit you in the chest. I was aiming to kill you quickly. But I only have one more bullet. I'm afraid you're going to bleed out."
Then he turned the pistol under his chin and the girl watched as he pulled the trigger.
Sigyn's scream echoed through her cell, bouncing back at her as she sat up and started panting. Tears were running down her face, fear dominating expression. Her eyes flicked around her room, searching for something that wasn't there. Everything was as silent as it had ever been in that cell. Nothing out of place, everything exactly as it should be.
But still, her nerves wouldn't settle. She stood, pacing the length of the room, her hands grasping at each other again and again. She realized sometime later that her walls were completely down and was surprised to find a couple of people within her range. They were rather close to her actually, just outside the door.
She looked at the little window, seeing nothing, but she could still feel them there. Her mind was a confusing mess, and she wasn't able to distinguish what emotions were hers, and what ones were theirs. That only made her pace faster, her bare feet pounding almost painfully against the floor.
That dream, she knew it was a memory, had opened doors in her mind that had been locked for decades. Over the last few weeks, small pieces and memories had come back, scattered throughout the entire scope of her life, nothing making complete sense.
She knew she had to have had parents, and she had gained a feeling that she had siblings before the memory of the family dinner had appeared in her dreams. She didn't know their faces or names then, but she had known they existed.
But the two largest memories that had come to her had been the worst she had experienced so far. She had never completely lost her memories of her torture, of the time she had spent at the team of doctors mercy, but experiencing her mother's life slipping away, at her father pointing the gun at her and then at himself… Nothing could be worse than that. All the worst parts had been locked away to keep her protected, to help her cope. And now that she was being fed, her subconscious felt safer and unlocked the memories.
The people outside her door remained there as she continued to pace. She didn't know why they were there, she didn't care, but she needed to build her walls up, there were too many emotions wreaking havoc in her head. She needed to be completely in her own mind to calm down and sort out her memories enough to cope with what she had just experienced.
The wall she put in place was shaky, not at all stable, but it was enough to block out all the extra emotions. Finally, she was able to get her own emotions stable before should could deal with their's. She sat down, her legs crossed, her back against the mattress, and her hands on her thighs. She took dozens of deep breaths, trying to calm herself as her walls buckled and her emotions fluxed.
It took some time for her to sort out her thoughts, to calm her emotions, to build her walls up stronger. But, when she finally opened her eyes again, she was calm. Calm was not something she was familiar with, but she liked it. There was still some underlying fear about the future and what would happen to her, but there was also something that told her she needed to be here. This place, at this time, exactly where she was sitting, was the right place.
There was a beep, the one that signaled food had been placed in her compartment, and she stood slowly, opening the compartment to find breakfast. She ate rather quickly, needing to focus on something that wasn't herself. Food, the taste of it, was enough for her mind to dwell on.
As soon as she was done, and had placed the tray back in the compartment, the door to the other room opened. She turned to look at it, approaching cautiously, checking to make sure that there was nothing to hurt her there.
She sat in her chair once she determined it was safe to be in the room, and waited for the door to open. She could already feel the cube, energy still depleted, but gaining power from the air around it by the second. There would be no visions, no transfer of energy this day, but Sigyn could tell the cube still had things it wanted to teach her. So when the door opened, she stared at the cube, lowering her walls until her mind was able to reach out and brush against that odd consciousness within the clear glass. It immediately soothed her mind, giving her reassurance that, despite the terrible dreams that had awakened her, there was a plan, one that would take some time.
They were both as valuable as the other. The cube had power, power that had been used for evil in her lifetime, though she couldn't remember it ever showing up in the news, and she had power too. They were different types of power. The cube's power was raw, infinite when used correctly, something that was hard to control and dangerous. Sigyn's power was softer, and it had limits, but it also had advantages. There was a way for her to tell things about a person, their past, their feelings, even their most intimate thoughts if interpreted correctly. She had a way with people, or she used to before she had been thrown in the prison, and the cube told her it would become important in the years to come. They just needed to make it through the next few months. It wouldn't be easy, and once the cube and Sigyn were released from their prison, it would only become harder.
But the cube told her, in its odd way of emotional communication, that they would take each step one problem at a time. It would take energy, time, and a lot of intelligence, but when everything came together, there wouldn't be many people in the world that could stop them.
She sat in that chair for hours, and she knew the people watching her were waiting for something to happen. But it didn't and it wouldn't today. Or tomorrow. Sigyn knew that the two of them had to recover, that the first connection they shared would be the hardest on them both. But the link was there now, the bond would be easier each time, growing stronger with each connection they shared. Moments like this, her mind brushing against whatever being was inside, would help as well. Sigyn knew that eventually, she wouldn't even need to be in the same room to feel the cube. And after that, she wouldn't even need to be in the same building to know where it was.
The power in the cube scared her, not because of how easily it could destroy the world, but because of how easily it could help build it. Evil would always exist, and there would always be people to fight it, just as the soldier who had given his life to protect the world from this very cube.
There was no vision, yet she had the memory of the man. She had never seen him with her own eyes, but she could see him as clearly as she saw the cube in front of her. A soldier, obvious from the way he stood and dressed in a patriotic suit in the American colors, stood before her. He had a shield, a star in the center, surrounded by blue and red and white.
He was different, she could tell that. He was stronger than a normal person, much more durable, not unlike she was. Exactly like she was. He was the same as her, whatever they were. He didn't seem to age, didn't seem to be wounded, only bone-weary after fighting battle after battle and saving lives. Was she like him?
She blinked out of the memory that wasn't hers, but that had been implanted in her head with no effort from the cube or herself. Her connection with the cube must have been much stronger than she realized. There was an almost seamless transition between Sigyn's mind and the cube.
And that led her to believe that the place the cube had taken her the day before, with the man in the cell, definitely wasn't a memory from herself or the cube, and it wasn't a dream. She had thought that there was a possibility that she had made the man up, or that the cube had shown her a memory. Somehow the cube had taken her to a completely different place, a place her powers hadn't existed, a place where she could be seen, and also a place she was still locked in a cell.
But, each step is necessary, she thought as the cube slowly withdrew from their connection. Each little plan, each thing that seemed pointless would come together. And when they did, she would make those who hurt her, who dissected her while she was still alive, still awake, understand what they put her through. Those who had kept her in a cell, a cage that had no bars, only walls, would know what it was like to spend fifty years alone.
She wouldn't let them get away with what they had done to her.