INGLORIOUS

[0] Elena

"Let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle,
but let me first do some great thing that shall
be told among men hereafter."

― Homer, The Iliad

P R O L O G U E

E L E N A

[Unedited 7.8.15]

I remember my leg being sawed from my body.

Spread before me was a room so white it blinded me. Panic settled in my heart. Men and women on either side of me began poking syringe needles into my skin. I knew what that cerulean liquid was: numbing medication. If my wrists were not already bound to the table in advance, you can bet that I would have fought with my life to keep that leg. Slowly, I lost all feeling below my waist.

"Still, now, Morigan," ordered a doctor, draping a curtain over my waist. I lifted my dizzy head to catch a glimpse of the ghastly infection upon my knee. My knee cap was barren of any skin.

That was when I realized that this body was not mine to move or to feel. This body simply belonged to someone else.

It was Elena's.

I could do nothing. Elena's vision clouded with tears as the medics brought a humming machine behind the curtain and positioned her leg within it. I had seen these work before -- Skanners. They were manufactured with the idea that they could sever a limb and promptly clean up the blood, no mess involved. My sister's emotions overwhelmed me. I couldn't even remember where I was. All I knew was that she had brought my consciousness across the stars for a reason, and this was it. She was terrified.

"Lori," she whimpered. "Lori, I'm so scared."

"You're gonna make it, Lena." I willed her to hear me. My lungs contracted. She couldn't breathe.

"What if the infection isn't gone?" she cried. "What if I die, Gloria? What if I die?"

"I swear to God I won't allow that to happen." I meant it.

The curtain was brushed aside. What awaited our sight was a stump below Elena's waist. She couldn't stop herself from weeping hopelessly. I expected over the course of the next hour that her health would become better without the virus running through her veins, but it never happened. Her health only declined. I felt her slipping from me.

"I'm coming home, Elena. Home to you and Mom." She didn't answer me. "Lena?"

She blacked out. I found myself back in my dormitory, threw myself upon the side of my bed, and wept. I wasn't supposed to cry. None of us were. We weren't human, after all. Crying may release tension but it does nothing to one's confidence and fortitude. I am a soldier. I cannot afford to let my vulnerabilities be known to the world.

Now, I welcome my pain. It reminds me that though I may be considered extraordinary and a freak of nature to humans, there is still a part of me -- even if it is a single block of DNA -- that is human. Day by day, I feel myself drifting from Argosan tradition. This extra vertebra in my back might be a sign of my separation from humans, but it absolutely does not define me. I am Gloria. I am a hacker and a soldier. I am an orphan. I am a sister. I am me and that is all I will ever be.

What I still don't understand, however, is why I was so promptly given a second chance at life, when neither my mother nor my sister were as well. I cannot imagine that I was any stronger than them. As long as my heart still beats, like the drums of war, I will always wonder.

This universe is sick. And if it has "makers" or "gods" after all, then they're no better than their own creation. They need a cure. Elena needs a cure. And I fully intend to find one for her.