Chapter One
I am flying.
The midnight sky is lit up by stars, like thousands of beads of dew, each shining with its own light. The wind is cool against my cheek as I swoop down and brush the treetops with the tips of my plumed wings. I pass over a lake that reflects the stars on its still surface and in the reflection, I can see myself. I see my long black hair framing my pale white face and streaming out behind me. I am too far away to see any detail in my features, but I know what I would see if I could: my milk-white face, ice-blue eyes, the jagged scar running from my left temple to my jaw line, and the dark circles around my sockets from lack of sleep. The placid lake reflects not only my outer appearance, but how I feel. Underneath the outer layer of my being, underneath the calm, composed expression of a sulky seventeen-year-old lies all the roiling, exploding emotions trapped like prisoners in my jail of a body. While under the placid surface of the lake, thousands of animals and creatures roam, unable to emerge from the surface.
I edge closer to the lake surface and lower my hand to scoop up the cold water. The moonlight makes the waves appear as if they have been frozen in this moment, the moonlight glinting off their peaks and throwing the draws into shadow. As my fingers glance across the glassy water, a sudden jolt of pain like lightning bolts up my arm and into my consciousness.
"Ah!"
My dream vanished like thin fog in the morning and I am left with only the ruined feeling of peace marred by my sudden pain. My fingers ache and tingle and I can’t seem to move the tips, but the numbness is familiar. I move my digits before my face to make sure they're all there before rolling over, cupping my injured hand to my chest bare.
I lifted my head from my lumpy mattress on the straw-strewn floor of my cell and looked into the eyes of a masked man. He was covered from head to foot in thick leather and padded armor scuffed from years of disuse. Tears and gouges in the material leaked balls of cotton and fluffy down that littered the floor like dirty snow as the man shuffled from side to side on his chubby legs. His beady piggy eyes watched me like a frightened animal and he shook a long metal pole in my direction, even though he was standing at the other end of the cell. I decided to ignore him; he was of no threat to me over there.
I laid back on my mattress and rolled onto my side, facing the scared back wall and giving the man my back. I heaved a deep sigh and looked up at the window placed at least twice my height in the stone wall. The sweet gentle trilling of songbirds reached my delicate ears and I smiled. It was early spring now, which meant the cold wind that wafted into my cell at night wouldn't be bringing any more snow.
"H-hey!" the piggy man shouted, trying to sound fearsome, no doubt, but the quiver in his voice gave him away. "Get moving!"
I shook my manacles above my head so he could see that I couldn't actually move, hoping he would be foolish enough to loose me. The other guards had been and they paid with their lives by the Dictator's hand, after of course they had been mauled by me.
"I'm not stupid," Piggy said disgustedly and my meager escape plan was forgotten. "Now get up!"
I must have delayed a second too long because without warning, the long metal rod was slammed into my lower back, releasing a current of electricity that paralyzed me and sent waves of pain up and down my body. The rod was pulled away and my muscles went limp. I lay gasping on the floor after such a strong volt for a few seconds before struggling to my hands and knees.
"All the way," Mr. Piggy yelled. The noise of his course voice was like nails on a chalkboard to my too-sensitive ears as it bounced and reverberated around the small stone room. I obediently scrambled to my feet and faced the man with my hands at my sides before he could say anything else or use the rod again. He looked at me smugly before slowly retreating to the heavy iron door on the other side of my cell. It swung outward with a loud groan, crashing against the outside wall with a reverberating boom.
"He's up, sir," Piggy bellowed into the corridor.
"He?" a new voice said softly as a tall man in a long white coat glided into the room. His black hair was sleeked back from his long forehead, the ends of the mane brushing his broad shoulders. His poison-green eyes were bright with cold mirth and a hostile grin contorted his handsome features. "The creature is hardly human anymore, Mr. Softshank." The tall vulture of a man turned his cruel eyes on my guard and I could feel the man's terror billowing off him in waves.
"I know that, Mr. Bogdonavich" Mr. Softshank said, his voice quavering again.
Mstislav Bogdonavich held Piggy's gaze for a moment longer and I could clearly see a tremor coursing through poor Piggy’s body. The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees and nothing moved until finally Mstislav Bognoavich released Mr. Softshank with a contemptuous sneer of his long nose.
“Go,” he said, calmly releasing Mr. Softshank who all but scrambled out of the room to escape. I only wished that I could do the same.
“So,” Bogdonavich said in his deep liquid voice as he turned his venomous eyes on me, “Shall we begin?”
I fought the urge to shake in fear under his penetrating gaze and tried to stand up taller, but I knew I wasn’t fooling anyone, let alone him; I was more afraid than a mouse in a cat’s paws. And believe me, I know exactly what that feels like. We stared at each other for what felt like ages, neither one of us looking away. He was fighting for dominance and I was fighting for, quite literally, my sanity. This went on almost every morning, the same routine, but I could never quite prepare myself for this stand off. I knew that if he looked away first, he would retreat out of the cell and his men would punish me with buckets of scalding water that made my skin boil and left me raw for days. But that wasn’t even nearly as bad as what would happen if I looked away. I trembled with the thought and steeled myself with my determination. Not today, Dictator.
“Just look away,” Bogdonavich’s languid voice echoed calmly across the walls. “You know you can’t beat me, thing; all you can do is to delay the torment, and I assure you it will be worse next time.”
True terror sliced through my body like a icy knife and I reluctantly looked away. Nothing was worse than what he could do to me, but I knew he could find a way to up the mind-wracking pain he subjected me to every day.
“Good,” he whispered once my eyes were trained on the floor at my feet like an obedient dog. He waited a few more agonizing seconds just to be certain I wouldn’t look up again and then walked away a few feet to the other side of the cell.
“You may come in, now,” Bogdonavich said smugly through the open cell door. No sooner had he spoken than twelve heavily armed men came barreling into my small cell. I was grabbed by four sets of rough hands and slammed up against the far wall under the window. I didn’t resist, even though my head was throbbing from the collision with the bricks. I merely stared calmly, if not dejectedly, at the ground a foot beneath my feet.
“Very good,” Bogdonavich hummed. I raised my eyes to see him calmly observing me. “You didn’t struggle at all this time.”
I knew better than to resond.
The men in lab coats came next. About five of them total, not including Bogdonavich. They were dressed identically, right down to their plain grey shoes, with white button-down shirts, black slacks, and boring grey ties. They were all the same height and had the same look of grudging admiration on their faces.
"Is the patient ready?" asked the talles one, a balding man with pepper-grey hair and wide-rimmed glasses. He spoke to Bogdonavich but his eyes never left mine. His couldn't seem to keep his hands still, wringing them like a crazy scientist--which i am more than certain he was--and continually fiddling with the clip on his tie.
"Yes, Mr. Sleeze," Bogdonavich replied, "you can begin immediately."
Cruel grins crept up the five men's faces like their faces were melting upside down as they seemed to study me. An unvoluntary shiver raced down my spine and i balled my hands into fists.
"Bring in the formula," Mr. Sleeze cackled and two more men dressed similar to the first five rounded the bend into the cell with a cart being wheeled in between them. Tubes of toxic green liquids and poisonous purple needles lay in organized rows along the metal surface. I could name each one and explain to you what they would do to my brain in great detail. I was suddenly terrified beyond reason. I struggled against my captors with renewed vigor
