This Alien Soul

Part 2 Chapter 2

Amber

Beep...beep...beep...

I wasn't sure when I had changed my alarm to this annoyingly persistent beeping but I was too tired to be worried about finding my phone to turn it off. Besides, the sound was oddly muffled, making it easy enough to ignore and continue floating in this peaceful state between sleep and alertness. 

I turned to my side, sinking into the cloud of hair that was floating around me. My hand snaked down to reach for a blanket to pull over my head. Instead of the warm comfort of my thick down comforter by fingers floated around, finding nothing to cover myself with but getting tangled in what felt like tubing before hitting a hard surface. 

Wait...floating? Was my body floating? 

My eyes snapped open, stinging even as the water that filled them attempted to sooth the ache. My vision was blurry, preventing me from clearly taking in my surroundings. What I could make out was not comforting. 

Tubes snaked around my body which was clothed in some kind of skin tight wet suit. The tube endings disappeared into small openings in the suit and I assumed were either connected or inserted into my body in multiple places. Some of the tubes clearly had liquids running through them, while others were more wire like. 

While the tubes alone were enough to freak me out, they had nothing on my other discovery. I was surrounded on all sides by glass walls that held in the water I was floating in. They boxed me in just enough to contain my body. I tried sitting up, hitting my head against the  glass above me.

I pushed against the glass top with all my might but it refused to budge. I was in a coffin of glass and water. My lungs spasmed, wanting air. In desperation I pushed myself up to the top of the box searching for an air bubble that wasn't there. 

No, no, no... 

What was happening? Where was I? 

For just a second I closed my eyes and a tunnel of blinding white light filled my vision. Then the memories hit me. Falling, bones breaking, the fire that was eating me up from the inside. Alek...

I gasped and water filled my mouth. My body fought to clear my lungs. My limbs flailed, hitting against the glass, fighting to escape. 

Had I survived the treatments effects on my body just to die like this? Or was I already dead? Was this some kind of hell? 

No, I couldn't be dead. I felt solid and real. And I wasn't going to die by drowning. I could survive this. 

Slowly my panicked thoughts started to retreat. I felt myself becoming more centered and I forced myself to relax each muscle. Calmly I started running my hands over the glass top feeling for a way out. A way to air...

But wait... A memory hit me of when Alek and I had been swimming the lakes depths. His deep voice teased me about being part mermaid because of the way I had responded to water and didn't seem to need air. How I was like a Zionian... 

No, I wasn't going to die trapped in this water, because I wasn't 'like a Zionian' I was one. Like Alek I didn't have the need to breathe. 

I relaxed fully and let my body stretch out in the comforting liquid surrounding me. They must have put me in here as a way of treating me. Didn't Alek say that water was restorative for Zionians. Hadn't it always made me feel better after a treatment. It must be helping to remove the 'treatments' from my system. 

I sealed my lips closed, because though I knew the water entering my lungs couldn't hurt me, it still felt unnatural. 

My hands shook as I held them in front of my face. They too were covered by the suit gloves so I couldn't see my skin to see if the Zionian markings had returned. Due to the fact that I was still alive and I had been sealed into a tub of water with no air I figured it was safe to assume that the treatments keeping my Zionian traits dormant had cleared my system. So it was safe to assume that the markings too had returned, this time to stay.