The Last Flameling of Solnis

Tried

     In the water is where my venture into darkness starts. I can feel myself floating. I can't find a place to get my footing. I sputter my eyes open surprised they don't sting. I try to adjust them to the murky, green water I drift in. I look around as my vision returns and find that I'm in a large cylindrical glass tank.

     Where am I? I inquire within. My body is bare save for tight, white compression shorts. My mouth and nose are subdued by a rigid, metal device. I reach up and feel the intricate steel attached to my face. Realizing it must be some sort of breathing apparatus, I leave it alone.

     I swim to the front of the chamber and clear the glass of the algae residue. A soldier is pacing the length of the tank. He looks heavily armored, as if he's part of a SWAT team. He holds a tactical SMG in his hands like a guitarist ready to perform. Ready to take me out.

     A sense of panic and fear sets and I attempt to bang the glass. I try to make my movements swift and hard while underwater, but it isn't as easy as I thought it would be. It's as if the water weakens me. And I guess, given my nature, I shouldn't be surprised.

    It feels like that retro curse my mom broke. It feels like being trapped in her womb. Being separated from the warmth inside me.

I have to find another way to get the guard's attention so I clear more of the foggy residue from the glass. Once enough is cleared I wave my hands and pat the glass as best as I can.

     "Fuck off!" He orders as he walks up to the tank and taps it with his nightstick. Or at least that's what I think he says. I can't be too sure with the water in my ears. He pushes a button on a small panel right in front of the tank that I hadn't noticed before. Within moments, all of the water that fills the tank disperses leaving behind a trail of greenish brown muck along the edges of the tank.

     The floor digs into my feet as land atop a drainage grate. My skin is covered in twinkling droplets of water, but underneath that I see a layer of that obsidian Matias told me my body forms like the scabs of a human. It's like I've been poked and prodded, violated, while I was out.

I walk forward moving around the drain toward the glass. I remove the device from my mouth and nose.

     "Let me out of here!" I bark at the guard, fear of what's since happened to me crawling up my back.

     "Sorry. I've got strict orders to keep you here." There's no sympathy or joy in his familiar voice even though his mouth twists up into a crooked copper-lipped grin.

Where is here anyway? It must be the SIA, but how long have I been here? I start to contemplate those answers but my mind can only remember up to that night in the hospital. At least Drew kept his word about fixing my memories. I think he did anyway.

      I search my mind for the truth of the last time I saw Keon. I know I didn't hurt his mother. I didn't hurt him. I went there to save him. I was just too ineffective. Too late. And my reality was enchanted by Drew Sr. and his child.

"Where am I?" I demand out of anger. I can feel the tank grow humid as my hands glow red with fire. And then I remember what I am. I remember that they can't hold me.

     "Pipe down kid!" The guard waves me off, naivety in the turning of his back. He has this air of superiority about him. He acts as if I'm unimportant and that only angers me further.

     I focus my eyes outside the tank. I can make out a lengthy hall full of tanks just like mine. And the tiles lining the floor begin to glow orange like they have whenever I've needed to escape.

     I make myself light as smoke as I escape the tank and face them. "Maybe I wasn't clear the first time. Where the hell am I?" I yell, but the guard just laughs as he trains his gun, his only measure of safety, on me.