Remembrance

Prologue

A lot of stories start with "Once upon a time," or "A long, long time ago," but this story does not take place on this timeline. It plays out in an alternate timeline, in a dimension other than our own. You see between this world and the next there is half-made places that start with a choice. Every day we make choices and decisions and every single one of them affect our futures. And these half-worlds are results of you making a different choice (turning left instead of right, skipping the gym, going to a new bar instead of your regular one). And in the particular place where this story takes place, impossible things are commonplace, and the world is still a mystery to man. This story starts deep in the core of a forest, past the trails and the roads people like to hike along, is a building, a very, very large building. A building so tall that it seems to defy all laws of gravity and nature. This grey, dreary building had to be the most evil looking building to ever exist, even start hikers avoided it completely. Green vines crawl up along the sides of it, almost as if this building was a predator camouflaged between the trees, ready to catch unsuspecting prey.

The people who work in this building live there as well, and the only people who ever leave are the guards who periodically rotate the grounds. The inside of the building is neat and clean, and everything inside fits together perfectly like the gears of an old world pocket watch. Although the floors above ground were uncountable, for some even defied the laws of physics and led to different dimensions altogether, the underground floors were, however, quite countable. There were six of them altogether and they were all prison cells, some strong enough to hold monsters and men alike. The deeper down you go the more dangerous the people inside of those cells, and the stronger the cells.

In one of the smaller, duller of the rooms on a sub-floor, a young woman lies, dressed in a grey prison jumper that matches the walls of her cell, perfectly. She lounges on her bed, arms folded behind her head staring stubbornly at the ceiling. Her body says leisure but her face screamed otherwise. Her hair is cut short, barely at her ears and a tattoo of a snake winds down the whole of her arm. This woman does not even twitch as the door to her cell bangs opens and two orderlies, in matching, dull scrubs enter, and forcibly remove her from the cell. She doesn't fight when they take her, she knows doing so would be helpless. These two men would make better soldiers than medical staff, with bulging muscles from head to toe, their muscles had muscles. They cuff her and walk her to the elevator, the woman looks straight ahead as they pass the jail cells, she already knows she won't find what she wants in them. The trio descended one floor, no one speaking and no one moving during the elevator ride. The anger and hate was palpably in the air. The doors open with a strangely melodious ding and the woman remains still. The men push her out and down a long hallway that seems to go on forever, as she starts struggling her fear pushes through her faux, strong persona. They reach their destination as the bigger of the two pulls out a small piece of plastic shaped like a credit card and swipes it over a small black lock next to the door. A tiny light bulb on the light tints green, revealing that they have been allowed access.

There is a man facing the wall in the room, obviously waiting for them, he turns around as the door opens. His face is aged with worry and time, and his features suggest experience. His expression is a delicate mix of regret and content. His black hair is peppered with grey and slicked back against his head. A pair of bifocals rest precariously on the very edge of his nose. His three-piece, pinstripe suit looks professionally tailored, expensive, and reminiscent of a time period that never happened.

When the woman sees the older man she whispers under her breath "Father..." Her father smiles in a sad sort of way and tilts his head "My child...I am sorry it had to come to this, but you left me no other choice. You've been so very disobedient these past years. I thought I taught you better...," The orderlies remove her cuffs and began strapping her down on the elevated bed nailed to the floor in the middle of the room. They hook her up to the machine by it, much to her displeasure. She screams like a woman being tortured and writhed around like she was trying not to be. The two orderlies strapping her down, were having more difficulties than they seemed to think her capable of. She clawed at the larger of the two, drawing out blood.
The grabbed at her arms, trying to strap her in, but she refused to be easily subdued.

"Let me go! LET ME GO!", She screams. "YOU CAN NOT DO THIS TO ME! I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU FOR THIS! HOW COULD YOU?! " Her last cry being cut off when an orderly punched her straight across the face, with a sickening crack. Her head jerked back against the bed, her eyes rolled into her head and blood dribbled down her nose.

"You idiot!" The man in the suit hissed to the orderly, and slapped him across the face. He slithered across the room like a beaten dog. "She has to be alive for the process to take place," He took her pulse. "She's alive. No thanks to you idiots."

The second orderly, or Simmons, as his name tag revealed, finishes strapping her in as the man in the suit starts sticking wires into her bloodstream. He unbuttons her jumpsuit to stick the wires into her wrists, ankles, neck and chest.

"Start the procedure," The man in the suit whispered to the second orderly. The second, Marks, slinked back from the corner to start up the machine. The machine was a square shaped box, about the size of a computer, and like all things on that floor, it was grey. The box hissed ominously and beeped in tune of her heartbeat. A screen covers the face of it, showing foreign data and information. The longer the machine was on, the louder the hissing grew. The three men waited around her, they were apprehensive for what they knew was about to happen. After about ten minutes of monotonous beeping and hissing, the young woman's chest bucked up into an arc, the straps preventing her from falling onto the floor. The beeping stopped for a frightening moment, and the men held their breaths. Her body slumps back onto the bed, limply. She has no heartbeat this time, no pulse and no visible signs of life.

"You can do this. You've always been strong...BREATHE!" The man in the suit shouts, and she draws in a long, loud breath at the sound of her father's voice. Her eyes jerk open wildly and she murmurs out quickly incomprehensibly sentences, and she just as quickly feints back onto her bed, this time with a pulse.

"Take her up to floor 17 for genetic modification, keep her handcuffs on at all times! Have the doctors give her a sedative when you get there, and for God's sake, get that damned ring off of her hand," The man in the suit called over his shoulder as he left the room. Simmons removes the gold band from her ring finger on her left hand and quietly slips it into his pocket when his companion isn't looking. When the man in the pinstripe suit leaves, he sags against the door, his eyes brim with unshed tears. He speaks to himself, afraid to let anyone know his thoughts and afraid to keep them inside.

"If only she understood...I did it out of love. She will never understand...it's a father's duty to take care of his child...how can I do that when she runs around like a heathen...? I must take care of her. It is my duty as a father!"