Nothing within Lilac's mind seemed to give any answer to the strange fragmented memories eating away at the edges of her thoughts. There was a long silence as if her consciousness was partially veiled by a thin, obscuring curtain.
Her hands shook as the strong memory of suffocation flashed through the metal curtain. The girl reached for her throat before throwing her hands back onto the bed.
She should rest.
Lilac closed her eyes and pulled the covers up to her neck.
...
Screams resonated through the cackling of flames. Lilac looked around, only to see mounds of flaming trash surrounding her. A thin, familiar voice called out from within the heat and the chaos.
"Lilac!"
The girl turned around, watching as a bloodied Chickadee stumbled her way down a trash heap. Lilac could see the words whispered from her lips as the frail child reached out to her.
"Help me."
Lilac stuck her hand into the flames, reaching for her sister. Lights flashed, and Chickadee slowly turned to ash. The small girl gave her an accusing glare.
"Lilac!"
The ash spread to her torso.
"Lilac!"
Her face began disintegrating.
"Lila-"
The last scream was cut off by Chickadee's complete disintegration. Lilac was all alone, slowly burning and soaking in the cries of others.
"Lilac!"
Lilac jolted. She blinked as the annoyed face of Maria greeted her vision.
"I told you to rest, not sleep!"
Lilac sat up and nodded. "I'm sorry."
Maria sighed. She smiled and held up a small rectangular piece of mirror. "What do you think?"
The girl blinked at the sudden mood change before staring at the mirror. She frowned. Other than the absence of certain scars, there was no difference between her previous and current appearance.
"Tilt your head."
Lilac tilted her head to the right. Light seemed to ripple from the shine of her hair. An incandescent sheen coated the brown.
Maria set down the mirror and grinned. "You have more internal modifications. Even though you technically couldn't get sick, you still had a bunch of parasites that we had to flush out of your system. So, after that, we replaced your bones with reinforced ones, and you have new skin now! Oh, and that shine of your hair was done to fool the system into thinking you're related to the Mavericks. What do you think? Isn't it fascinating?"
Lilac hunched her shoulders at Maria's unnerving cheer. Bones replaced? New skin? Something about the whole modification process felt very wrong.
Maria paused after seeing Lilac's horrified expression. She waved to the air and conjured a chair. "I'm sorry, I keep forgetting that you were Trash. Poor you, never being able to understand the brilliance of modifications."
Lilac's mind returned to the terrifying room where pain and surprise seemed to be the only constant. She nodded hesitantly.
Maria smiled. "I suppose you have questions." She motioned to the air, watching calmly as the walls rippled.
Lilac blinked, watching, staring at the bed that slowly morphed into a cushioned white chair. She looked back at Maria's smug expression.
"If there's one thing you should always adhere to, ignorance is salvation."
YOU ARE READING
Indisposable Trash
Science FictionTime, though seemingly linear, is far from being so. Lilac Mellows thinks she knows all about the time she's spent alive. She knows most of it was spent as Trash Class, the lowest of the low. The only thing stopping her from falling to the depths o...
