Switched

Chapter Thirty: Realities

Isabell didn't know what had happened. Piece by piece, her mind had been replaced - and she had been buried beneath it, hardly able to remember who she was. Watching as someone else made decisions for her. It had been blissful silence, buried beneath layers of another person. Unable to see, unable to hear unless she really tried.

Suddenly, there'd been a crack - something had snapped. It had woken her consciousness back up, and suddenly she was aware. Realized that someone else now piloted her body. Still unable to see, hear, use her senses - but aware of feelings. Suddenly, there were four sets of feelings in her head.

Two sets were distant, faraway. One of them had felt a sharp pang of fear, then soft relaxation and peace. At the same time, the other one had been screeching in fear, clawing its way to tear the one holding it in place apart. But the body they shared - the real consciousness and the one that mimicked Isabell's which had taken it over - was dead, and then both of them were silenced forever.

The other two sets of feelings were closer, louder. A different pitch, a different tone. One of them was angry, so angry, furious, determined. With a killing instinct honed by years of pain and revenge. But there was something else underneath it - there was a reason for the hate and the rage. It was care.

It was love.

The consciousness layered over her own felt love and loyalty, and she fought so that others might live.

The final set of feelings, she recognized, were her own. It was calm and peace, happiness to simply sit here. She couldn't remember anything - the memory banks of this mind didn't belong to her at the moment. But that was okay. It didn't matter.

She felt... nothing, really. Indifference. Carelessness. Let what happens, happen.

After the two distant voices had been silenced, that was when the cord snapped. Isabell heard it - an audible click in her mind as the only tether the layered consciousness had to its old body. It wouldn't be long, she knew, before the mind layered over her own locked itself into place and left her here forever.

But that was okay. She didn't need control, didn't need a body. What did the outside world have but pain and suffering?

Without the white noise that had kept her so submissive, she carefully tapped into one of her senses. She couldn't remember its name. But she wanted to listen to music again - music as calm and peaceful as her mind.

Instead, the roars of battle and cries of pain and fear poured in.

Isabell tried to shut it off. It was loud, and most definitely not the peace and tranquility that she had asked for. But it was... mesmerizing. There were sounds that made some part of her prick its ears, sounds that made some part of her waken, just a little bit. Voices that some tiny piece of her still remembered. Determined voices, hollering voices-- 

A voice she recognized, but there was something wrong with it. It didn't belong. She knew it didn't belong. It should be gone, it shouldn't be there - it shouldn't be in the outside world. The voice should be gone for good. Silenced forever.

And it was in this voice that she heard what had made her so mesmerized. It was determination - it was love and pride. Pure, raw pride. A sense of belonging. This person, this voice, believed that it belonged. Believed in the voices around it. Belief.

The consciousness above her clamped down, as if realizing that she had tapped into the hearing, and sealed her off. She didn't mind - but her curiosity was piqued. She tapped on the consciousness above her mentally, wanting to hear again. Or see, or feel, or even smell.

The layered consciousness gained a feeling of furious desperation and shoved her back into the corner of the mind.

Another lock slid into place, holding the layered consciousness in place. There was only two more locks left, and then it would be there forever. Sealed into the mind, welded like steel.