Your Heart

Chapter One: Phoenix's Past

I will always remember the look on the faces of those I loved. They cared for me until the very end. Too bad they all died. As a child, I was never changed by the death or harm of those close to me. My parents always worried. You have to act more alive, Phoenix! they would cry as they took me kicking and screaming to the doctors. They would do tests on me until they finally found what was wrong.

It took two years of a hospital stay to finally figure it out.

Schizotypal Personality Disorder, they called it. Apparently, that's why I act so 'strangely'. They decided the only way to make me sane was put me under the light stupor only induced for surgeries. They put a medicine in my bloodstream that would give me emotions... until the medicine inevitably would run out, that is. I remember waking up and seeing my parents as a new world of strange feeling and emotions bounded over me like a tidal wave my heart wasn't ready for.

They watched in horror as I laughed, I cried and I tried to rip my arms apart just to feel those emotions over and over again. They thought the doctors made a mistake, no, they hurt their little baby girl!

"No... I love it this way, Mommy!" I used to cry as I would tear into my flesh. She turned her back on me until the day I left the hospital. I felt numb, but with more of a purpose. As soon as we got home, they bombarded me with a fusillade questions. I felt so overwhelmed I would cry in a corner, but it would make me feel not so numb so I would step out to be shot once more, just to feel that melancholy again.

But that problem was the least of my mounting scenarios. I remember so vaguely standing at the bright, cheery square my town had made so long ago the stones were cracked like each one told a different beautiful story. I would dash up and down the sidewalk, shouting hello to whatever merchant stay standing in my wake excitedly as they tried to scuttle out of my way.

That day, though, the sky changed from its bright azure to a dark, sinister black like smog was covering the ends of the universe. I stared up at it, and somehow like I should move, but my eyes were fixated on the sky. Then, some of our Motherland ships plummeted down to the ground. A shrieking noise erupted from the sky as large beasts I could not recognize barreled down at the square and tore into the beautiful stories, unearthing the horror below. There were corpses under the beautiful stones... They tainted them with sappy dried flakes that could no longer be considered blood.

I ran... I ran to my home until I was being embraced by the comforting arms of my parents. I broke down until they let me go and wiped my eyes. My dad picked me up and we trudged to the rooftop of our small home. At the roof was one of the smaller Motherland ships, and he opened the door, softly placing my feet down so I could hesitantly walk inside. Tears drifted down my cheeks as I banged on the glass, screaming to my parents to let me go. I didn't stop until my planet as just a spec in a large space of darkness...

Ten years later

I spent most of my time in space floating around, using the command control system to learn important technologic advances like hacking systems or rewiring circuits. I learned so much I forgot to eat most of the time. My supplies were supposed to last me two years, but I was spared to save enough. That didn't stop me from losing most of the weight I gained, though.

After five years of learning, it felt like there was too much in my brain at that point, so I took a break, every last bite of food in the ship eaten. I was extremely thin so I looked to float around like I was my own little planet, rolling through space.