Sirius chuckles but helps her to stand delicately. "Well you seem to have me at a disadvantage, you know my name, but I don't know yours." Sirius says as with a grin to try and keep her calm.

Again, the girl looks around the room at everyone staring at her before her eyes settle on Sirius' eyes, eyes identical to hers. "It's River… River Tam."

Chapter 2: In another World…the beginning is the end is the beginning

All River ever wanted was to learn and to dance. It had been the most exclusive program, the most promising, and she craved the challenge The Academy would bring her and she would continue to dance. She signed her name on that dotted line. She had always been different, "strange and unusual" to the kids in every school she attended. Because she always knew things… things she shouldn't, things she couldn't, things that scared them. So two weeks after her signature was on that paper she packed up her things, said goodbye to her parents and Simon, and she hadn't looked back.

Oh how she wished she would have looked back. But what twelve year old would expect that would be the last time you would see your family? She wished she had a better memory of their faces burned into her brain… burned deep down where they couldn't touch. That's all they did, touch, and take, and leave broken pieces behind. It hadn't started that way though, no, because that is what they do, slowly… they come at you sideways, sidle up next to you… and smile.

It was exciting at first, this brand new world of hers. She was eager, the class was incredibly small, seven other students. Everyone was assigned their own space, their own room, their own instructors. That was what made everything so captivating. Everything was personalized, customized, and geared towards their natural strengths. Even their food, their supplements, their vitamins, everything was customized for optimal performance.

It made sense there was little cross over between their studies… that's what she tried to tell reason with herself. Logically, they were such a small group, of course there would be little overlap. It made sense they would want to help them achieve their best.

1 week after she arrived at the Academy…

After that first week of getting into their new routine, it was time for "the tests." Tests upon tests. They didn't make sense at first. Questions that had nothing to do with maths, science, or anything like what she expected.

"What will the capital of the next planet to be terra-fromed look like 3 weeks from now?"

"Who will win the next Nobel Prize in Literature in a month's time?"

"Why will someone purchase a plane ticket one week from now?"

"What does love look like to someone else in this room?"

"Write a poem about how the sky will look next week."

She questioned the purpose at first, and all they told her was that it was to set a baseline. She knew they were lying, that little voice in the back of her brain that had always told her what others wouldn't, that they were hiding the truth, they didn't want her to see. But she was so eager, so eager to prove that she belonged somewhere, she ignored it. She threw herself into every test they handed her, and at the end of them they would tell her what a good job she did and she would be dismissed to her room.

When she wasn't in her tests, they had her doing hours of literature, languages, every dance class imaginable, maths and sciences. Each night her mind swam with all that she had absorbed that day. Each day she woke up eager to prove herself more, she hadn't even noticed that there were two fewer students passing her in the halls.

8 months after she started the Academy…

It happened so gradually, the changes, she didn't even notice they were occurring at first. Classes were shortened, but another was added, then another. Computer coding, advanced physics, quantum mechanics, psychology, human behavior focused solely on profiling, and self defense classes. Her days were a never ending blur of regimented time. Time that no longer seemed constant; time that slipped through her fingers like sand.

She elected not to go home to her family, she couldn't imagine leaving and falling behind. There were so many classes she would surely miss something. She wrote to her family and let them know she would be continuing with her studies over the summer. She received a short reply back that they understood. She never received any other letters from her parents, and Simon was in Medical School. He also didn't have the time to fall behind. He didn't have the time to notice.

River blinked. One moment she was in class, and the next… she wasn't sure. Days? Weeks? How long had she been gone? The edges of her memory blurred, slipping away the more she tried to grasp them. There were whispers all around her. She caught them glancing at her in the halls. They tested her weekly, but sometimes she didn't even remember what they had asked.

"How did Dr Mathias feel last week in your class with him?"

"When you really trust someone, do you follow their advice even if it feels risky?"

"How do you feel when someone criticizes your choices?"

Their questions were introspective, challenging, and she didn't want to disappoint them, not when there were only three other students left. She asked where they had gone, but she hadn't bothered to learn their names, since they only passed each other in the halls, so no one knew who she was talking about. When she pressed more, she was brushed off and told they had failed.

Dr Mathias came to her shortly after that, asking her about her questions, and subtly alluding to more questions could lead her to fail as well. "You don't want that to happen, do you, River?" He asked with a serpentine smile.

The voice, once loud and fierce in her head, had dulled to barely a whisper of words since River had come to the Academy. "No, no, sir." She replied quickly, shaking her head.

River wanted to believe them. She wanted to trust Dr. Mathias and the others. But each day, the doubt grew stronger. There were questions she couldn't answer, faces she no longer saw in the halls. And yet, the fear of failure kept her silent.

Shortly after that meeting with Dr Mathias, new supplements were introduced to her regime.

"To help your focus and concentration." They had explained.

5 years after she was taken from home…

Everything changed in a single breath. She was summoned to Dr Mathias. He congratulated her. She had exceeded expectations, and was the last remaining student. But what would have caused great joy before, left her feeling dread in the pit of her stomach.

She should have run when that little voice called to her again after it had buried itself away. She should have found a way. There was no one left. There was no one left. She was the last one, and now the "true tests," as Dr Mathias said, could begin.

Some jabbed her arm with an injection and suddenly her senses were overwhelmed before going numb and drowsy. There were too many people in the room, where had they all come from? She felt her body being carried, but her head swam as she tried to stay awake. The last thing she recognized before her eyes fall shut with sleep is seeing an operating table in front of her.

2,012 days, 3 hours, and 10,800 seconds seconds that the girl had been trapped here…

There were no more classes. River feels as if she is always in a daze, never sure if she is dreaming or in a nightmare. It didn't matter, they are the same.

"Played with... too much. They took too much. Can't sleep. There's voices."

That's what they like to do, they like to meddle. She isn't sure how or why, she just knows it is worse than anything she could imagine.

Send a heartbeat to
The void that cries through you

Time is an endless loop. She counts minutes and seconds, each bleeding into the next… each feeling, emotion… voice… bleeding into the next. She hears them, she sees them… taste them crawling all around. If she had known, Buddha how she wished she had known.

The last of a line of lasts
The pale princess of a palace cracked

"Hands of blue, two by two."

She can't keep them out, they never let her rest. But they had their ways. Ways to make her sleep. She hates when she wakes up and can't remember where she was before. Was she here, there, she could have sworn there was something else… someone else just a moment ago. But the voices continued to blur and shout, and all she could do was hold her hands to her ears to try and muffle their voices.

"They aren't mine."

River doesn't remember them taking her here, doesn't remember the operating room. But when she opens her eyes she isn't sure if she is still dreaming. Everyone around the room lays convulsing on the ground, their eyes rolling back into their heads, silent screams forming contorted faces.

Slowly, River sits up, her body starts to shake as her brain catches up to what it sees and feels. Needles… dozens of needles… in her arms, legs. She feels them everywhere. Each needle she pulls out sends a sharp jolt of pain through her body, but River forces herself to keep going. Her hands tremble as blood trickles down her arms, but she has no choice. She has to get out. She has to escape before they came back. As her trembling hands touch the cold metal of what she feels encasing her head, she lets out a cry of pain. Another half a dozen needles penetrate the frontal lobe and prefrontal cortex areas of her skull. And as she takes out each needle, she feels she may pass out from the shock of pain.

Once that is done, River moves too quickly and skids off the table onto the floor. Everyone is still unconscious, no longer silently screaming. She grabs the nearest keycard she sees tacked on to the body by the door. She tries it and is relieved to hear the click of the lock opening.

She needs to run, to get out of here, to put as much distance between her and that room. It wouldn't be long till someone discovered them. She had no idea how long she would have. She needs to make the most of it.

Thankfully, she manages to slip out into the corridor she had opened the door into and down the hall before she heard footsteps and voices approaching. River uses the keycard she still grasped in her trembling hands and quickly moved inside. There were no voices or whispers through the door, so she knew it would be safe.

As the voices pass on the other side of the door, she turns and examines the room she is in. It's a lab, with hundreds of vials, beakers, and chemicals. If she was going to make it any further out of here, she would need a distraction.

Fe2O3(s)2Al(s)2Fe(l)Al2O3(s)...

River loses time. She doesn't remember where she found the chemicals, she doesn't remember anything up until the resulting bang and smoke seeping under the door to the lab she had just exited. She looks down at her hands and sees white sleeves covering her arms. When had she put on a lab coat? As the resulting fire and smoke creep into the hall, she uses her distraction and the resulting chaos to move with the crowd swarming the halls. But that's when she hears them. Not just the voices and words or panic and worry, but the ones searching for her.

"Find her! NOW!"

In and out of rooms, in and out of corridors. She can hear them all around her and she works to keep her panic from rising like bile in her throat. She isn't sure where she is, where to go, she needs to keep moving, keep listening to the voices drifting through the air like notes of a song.

But as she moves into another room, the air around her grows cold. She turns and sees another lab behind her, but… different. While the others had chemicals, scans, organs, test results, computers, and more, this one has a containment chamber, with a glass window separating it from… an archway? At first glance it looks like one, that doesn't describe what she feels. This feels like a void, like silence… like death.

But even through the five inches of glass and the bolted metal door. She hears it, hears the voices calling to her.

"The lost are found…" one voice hisses, sharp and brittle like dry leaves.

"Time twists in the shadows" another whispers, low and soft, almost like a lullaby.

"... the girl who knows." they all chant in unison, their voices rising in a crescendo.

"I can hear you." River says as she moves to the metal door and spins the lock to slip inside.

She cracks it open before slamming it shut behind her, the locking mechanism hissing back into place. Her footsteps don't even make a whisper on the metal beneath her feet as she inches closer.

The chorus echoes in her mind. "but not all can return… we all dance… unseen."

"Who are you?" River asks into the Veil. The Veil fluttered softly, as if it were breathing. River's heartbeat quickened as she stepped closer, her fingers brushing the cool, silky fabric.

"You shouldn't be there." A new voice breaks through the others, a more calming voice. It sounds more human than the others; like a compass to direct her.

"We can feel your mind…" They chant again. "So loud... so lost."

It whispers to her, its voice a chorus of echoes, pulling her in. She feels a tug deep inside her chest, something ancient and familiar. Could this be her way out? "Can you help me get out of here?"

"The dead can speak" they all chant in unison again. "What power are you seeking?"

"Can you reach through?" her gentle compass asks.

River's fingertips brush against the veil. "What's on the other side?" There's a hum in her ears, a whirring of something coming to life. She can feel it settling underneath the surface, something almost like her blood calling out to the other side.

Is it bright where you are
Now the people changed?

"If you step through, there's no coming back." They warn her.

River doesn't hesitate, her lithe fingers brush the material, reach through, and grab hold to the unknown.

Strange
Strange
Strange

AN: Posting this a day early. For clarification, River has not seen the Miranda memory, been in front of parliament yet, or written her coded messages to Simon. We won't be seeing any other characters from the Firefly verse, but there will be easter eggs in later chapters ;) Hope you all enjoyed it!