The Chronicles of Sorataki: Lucid Wish

Chapter 20: In wake of cycles

Clare

Beeping sounds echoed just out of sync with her heartbeat. Slow and steady like the echo of her thoughts. They felt so sluggish and weak. Her heart and mind both had been battered lately, how long has it been? It felt like her body was constantly on the brink of collapsing. It started when they injected her with something red, 'just blood' they said. At first, they gave her little doses at a time. Being sure to give her at least a day before repeating.

She felt a chill in her chest at first, as if a cold foreign liquid ran through her veins. It made her woozy, the stump of her left shoulder throbbed and burned as if a caged rodent trying to break out her flesh, she fell unconscious due to the consistent pain. Having nightmares of those ally rats chewing through the flesh of her stumped arm and bursting out of the hole in their thousands. A sea of them come gushing out in an endless rattling squeak that then rushes over her body in a scamping stampede and drowned her screams of terror Clare woke up screaming and drenched in a cold sweat. The beeping noise increased as the thumping in her ears rose into a crash.

She was dying, she could feel that coldness within her veins overtaking her heart and mind. Transforming her, rinsing clean the girl that was Clare from existence, despite this Clare gripped onto her self-awareness, clutching onto it like the hull of a rocking boat in a great storm. Her will to be strong was the only thing that kept her from being erased completely.

She had to be strong like them, she had to! As but as she held on and gained more, A piece of her she could not hold onto had been pulled away.

The sounds of beeping echoed rhythmically in the distance. She was able to retain herself through the freezing tempest that clawed through her but... The beeping was her heartbeat being monitored she knew but something about its sound made it feel more interment somehow as if it rattled off her body like a drum. Opening her eyes she sees the world in a tint of see-through yellow. Her movement met resistance making her feel lethargic. She was in a tank full of liquid.

What happened, when was she brung here?

Panicked, Clare fought and struck the glass until one of the men in the room's voice came on a speaker right above her. Telling her that this liquid was to help her intake more air and to try and not panic she slowly complied despite everything.

The questions on her health came soon after, besides the slight coldness in her chest and the odd tingling feeling down her left shoulder she basically gave a nod for 'ok' to all the questions asked. With that, they told her to try and see if everything was functional by moving all her limbs Clare began with her finger and toes until to her shock something brushed her exposed hip on her left side. Looking down in horror she sees a hand, her hand resting there to its side.

Not only that she could feel her toes, feel the sensation of glass under her feet as she slowly fell to the bottom of the tank. It sent a wave of sensations up her spine. Was she meant to intimately feel something this far away from her body? To Clare, it felt like a strange attachment that has latched onto her several feet underground. It was baffling, it was strange... and yet a bud of hope enveloped her heart when she came to accept what she was looking at was in fact not a dream.

People around her seemed to be taking notes and recorded her reaction with abstract words and objective eyes. Yet even then she could see a slither of optimism on their faces she-

Something cold began to spread from the center of her chest. Like growing stalagmites within her veins, it clawed through her chest threatening to burst out. So shocked by the pain was Clare that she did not even react to it instantly, just stood there dumbfounded at what was happening within. Something within her was invading, breaking, something alien was wiping clean her presence of self, molding it to their liking and pulling her out.