Darryll

Chapter 1: Diane

Diane woke up again. She often had these bouts of consciousness where the world would become clear at random for only a second at a time. Diane would realise she did not fully understand where she was or what she was doing, but knew that she was always beside a tall, broad man with white hair and blue glasses. She then would begin to black out, as her thoughts became hazy, like tv static, and her body would move on its own, and soon, the world became...

Diane woke up again. She saw the tall, broad man wave her away, and she moved involuntarily into some kind of cell, as if out of instinct. Her perception then began to fade again, and she almost let herself go back to sleep. Maybe forever.

But she wondered. What if she held onto her thoughts. What if she stayed awake long enough to learn where she was. What if she left her cell. And then Diane didn't fall back asleep. She remained awake, and began to notice things. For example, Diane felt that beneath her jacket and shirt she was moist and uncomfortable. She lifted her jacket and shirt to find she was covered from the neck down in an oozing shiny, opaque liquid that felt cold and unnatural. She bought her liquid covered fingers to her nose, and found it was odourless. She didn't risk putting it to her mouth. It was at this point that Diane took in her surroundings for the first time, and discovered that behind her, hanging off of the wall were six metal coils, segmented to give them flexibility, rowed into three pairs. However, each coil was not tipped with any kind of nozzle, for they were all melting slowly, into an oozing, opaque, shiny liquid. Diane reached her hands under her shirt to her bare back and found six outlets, all secreting what was left of the electronics planted within her. Horrified, Diane quickly focused on other matters. She needed to escape her cell. The walls to her sides were solid steel, but to her front was a large psne of dark glass. With enough force, maybe she could smash through? Or maybe use some kind of sharp objects to shatter the pane? Diane moved toward the glass, and inspected it closely. It appeared to be around five inches thick, which made any attempt to break it out of the question. Not easily defeated, Diane checked the corners of the glass pane. however, they were too secure to dislodge. Maybe the metal walls to her sides had some kind of structural weakness? Diane moved over to the metal walls and placed her head sideways along them, and began to tap, slowly, listening for any signs of hollow gaps in the structure. Tap. Tap. Nothing. Tap. Tap. The wall seemed about as thick as as the glass had before. Tap. Tap. Tap. Maybe Diane was truly trapped forever. Tap. Tap. Tap. Squelch-
Diane reeled suddenly at the unfamiliar sensation of feeling for metal and touching chunky, uneven liquid instead. She watched as right before her eyes, despite the moderate temperature within her cell, the steel wall slowly melted away from the point of her touch. Diane began to put two and two together within her head, and realised that she melted the metal coils within herself, and that she somehow had the ability to melt metal with her touch. As she waited for the wall ahead of her to melt wide enough to let her through, Diane pondered what else she did not know about herself. She knew that her name was Diane. She also knew that... that... that she knew nothing else.

Coming out of her thoughts, Diane saw that most of the wall had now melted away, and so she proceeded to peer inside, and imediatly reeled back at what she saw. Within that room was a boy, no older than 15, stood with his shoulders slumped and his head down, eyes obscured by his long ginger hair. He was frail, with pale skin and skinny limbs. But most notably was that he had six mechanical limbs, all made of the same segmented metal that the coils in Diane's room were made of, all attached to his back and pumping, like some kind of living organism leeching of off his youth. Diane grew pale, and felt like she might vomit, but pulled herself together for the sake of this small child. She made haste through the hole in the wall, and reached for the tubes of steel protruding from the poor boy. Before long, they were reduced to liquid, and the boy began to stir. He twitched a few times as though he were being electrocuted, before suddenly falling to his knees. He grunted in his youthful voice, and Diane rushed to help him up. She asked, "are you alright?"
The boy turned toward his saviour, "I think I've felt better, but I can't remember." He had some kind of foreign accent, and his face, though clearly young, bore a pair of eyes that seemed to have experienced a world and a half of suffering. Diane wondered if this was due to the metal coils. She wondered if she looked like that. She replied, "Well, that makes two of us, because I have no idea how I got here. Or why I can melt walls by touching them. Can you do that?"
"I don't know."
"why don't you try?"
The boy placed his hand upon another wall that was still standing, and after a couple seconds, removed his hand.
"I can't melt walls with my hands."
Diane sighed, "Bummer." She then piped back up and asked the boy, "So, what's your name?"
"Kurou" He spoke with the wistfulness of a lamenting old man, as if that were not his name and rather a title he hated very much. "and yours?"
"Diane. Anyway, I'm just gonna melt this glass and get us out, ok?" She gestured to the thick pane of glass separating the cell from what could be freedom. The boy stared at the pane for a second, and replied, "There's a man behind the pane of glass."
A sudden fear washed over Diane. Was that tall man in the white suit back again to place Diane back to sleep? she didn't want to go to sleep! She turned to the glass pane violently and raised her hands to her face in fists, ready to defend herself.