They strap her into a chair, and equipment is firmly affixed to her head. They try to give her something to put in her mouth, but she growls and refuses, to a shrug. Metal clamps descend on her arms. She's cold--
Then, a horrifying pain sears through her skull. It feels like she's being struck by lightning over and over and over and over and over and over again, without end or respite.
The pain is incredible, horrible, but that's not what makes Anne scream until her throat is hoarse. It's what the pain is doing to her head.
She can feel it. Each second she spends in that pain is killing her memories. She can feel them dying, exploding, vaporizing in her mind. Her mind, her personality, her dreams and hopes and fear and everything that ever made her Anne is being destroyed, bit by bit by bit by agonizing bit.
Is this what they did to Melinda Jo?
"No, no, no...no--please--" she tries to choke out over the pain and noise, but it's no use. Already, she's lost the name of her first dog, her favorite food.
Ambitions, favorite classes, most hated clothes, her age, her favorite book. They crackle and vaporize, and Anne chokes on screams and sobs because she feels herself slipping away beyond the point of no return, and she doesn't think she will ever come back.
This might be how it all ends.
Birthday, favorite color, cousins, parents, how it feels to run through piles of leaves in autumn. What Steve's smile looked like. The color of her eyes. Each one slips through Anne's fingers, and as she tries to turn her attention to one thing, to hang on to it, ten more disappear.
It's like trying to stop water from falling through of a bucket that's been punched full of holes.
Her home. Her favorite song. Her name. Her best friend.
The girl--what was her name?--cries out and grabs on to one memory-- a blonde and a brunette sitting together on a balcony as the sun went down.
"Hey, Melinda Jo?"
"Hm?"
"You know I'll always be there for you, right?"
"Yeah, I know."
Then, the blonde girl with the blue eyes goes too, and the brunette girl without a name loses everything.
And then she doesn't exist anymore.
"Soldier. Sit up."
"Ready to comply."
YOU ARE READING
Don't Follow Your Heart-- Anne
Fanfiction.:Marvel Fanfiction:. Once, there was a brunette and a blonde. Little girls, young women, soldiers, victims of brainwashing, or time-displaced heroes-- It didn't matter who they were, or what they were supposed to do. Nothing would ever come between...
