We'll Meet Again (Original Book)

|26| Breaking Down

Pain. It was all that she remembered. Being tied down and cut open without any anaesthetics. Made to bleed and scream and writhe and try to break free but unable to do so.

"You're taking it so well, my darling niece. So strong. Just like your mother."

Tears ran down her cheeks and she jumped up off the bed with a scream. Cold sweat ran down her temple to her cheek and her hair clung to her face. Her eyes were blown wide, and her heart was thrumming madly beneath her chest. She couldn't catch her breath. It almost felt like she was being choked to death. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't speak. She couldn't call out for help. She couldn't do anything.

Nathalie buried her face in her shaky hands, and she pushed her hair back, wiping her tears. Her fingers clenched in her hair, trying to stop the shaky movement but failing terribly. She remembered them opening up her fingers, her stomach, her head. She remembered every bit of it. How did they manage to do all of that in just three days? What did they turn her into?

Nathalie wasn't doing any progress in calming down. She stood up and dragged herself to her bathroom. She turned the light on, and she looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were flickering between red and blue, and her hair were completely black now. Her body felt heavy. Nathalie threw her arms on the sink, trying to keep herself standing. She could feel something burning hot, rushing through her veins. It felt exactly as it had felt when she was in that lab. It was that red liquid that Malcolm had been feeding into her. It was still inside her body.

Nathalie never liked what she was seeing in the mirror. Never. Not even once in her life did she look at her reflection and felt proud of it. She would aways see a short, ugly, ridiculously thin, and weak woman who had no idea what she wanted from life. A purposeless woman who had tried so hard to be perfect. She had worked so hard to get all those degrees and get all of that useless knowledge into her head.

She had tried so hard to specialise on her field and become the perfect Burgess, but not once did she do it because she wanted it. She never did something she wanted. And no matter how much she loathed the woman in the mirror, she never tried to shape herself into something that she would deem perfect. She told herself she didn't have time for that. She had to focus on training her mind. She had to focus on becoming the perfect Burgess, not the perfect Nathalie, because no one cared about the perfect Nathalie.

She had done all of it hoping that her parents would show up one day. She would do it all, all over again if it meant they would come back. She knew now that they hadn't left her because she wasn't good enough, but she had spent too much of her life believing that to stop now.

She looked at the mirror, only to realise that once again she didn't like what she was seeing. She still wasn't the perfect Nathalie. She had been forced to be someone else's aspiration for the second time. Not even once had she been given the chance to be someone she wanted.

She was crying now. She was weeping and she hated how that looked like. She hated to watch herself cry. She hated the reflection of that weak monster that a sick scientist created. Malcolm had put so much effort into making her strong and unyielding. He had put so much effort in turning her into the perfect soldier.

The perfect soldier was supposed to feel nothing and be brave to risk everything at any given moment. The perfect soldier was smart and logical and would never look so fucking weak. Malcolm had failed to turn her into one. Was it because of his incompetence, or her own? Was it because she was defective, even as a test subject?

Her uncle's aspiration sucked after all. How dare he even think of using her of all people as a test subject? Nathalie thought the Burgesses were smart. They were the perfect human beings after all. The peak of evolution. Malcolm should have known that she was good for nothing. Even being his test subject, she had done it wrong.