The Memory File

As she goes about her now semi-normal life in the Guardian City, Mariam is constantly assaulted by grim flashbacks to the time she spent as a prisoner of Stellius. After her fourth "attack" she decided to keep a "Memory File" where she can save every one of these gruesome flashbacks for later use - so that if the time comes, she can keep the Guardian City from descending to the level of Stellius.

My eyes open to a harsh white light, one that stuns me, leaving spots of color in my vision even as I close my eyes and curl in on myself upon the shiny table where I have just been laid. My bare skin aches wherever it touches the reflective surface - it is much to cold when compared to my blazing hot skin.

"Why have you removed the subject from her tank?" A voice asks, his volume makes me want to put my hands over my ears. It is at this moment that I realize my hands and feet are bound tightly. "Who knows what she is capable of! Don't you remember what happened the la-" His voice raises and raises, making my curl in on myself further, this sudden assault on my senses being absolute agony, until finally, a voice that causes no pain cuts in sharply.

"She is six years old. We will never know if our little "experiment" is a success unless we begin studying her in a non-vegitative state." The second voice is smooth and obviously that of a female.

I begin shaking, fine bumps rising up on my bare skin. Something about the tone of which they were speaking seemed to intensify the cold. Part of me longed for the Darkness again, to just be able to dream about the pretty things I was Shown, to replay the beautiful sounds They would Show me. And yet, I was curious, who is talking, and what are they talking about. 'Why had they taken me out of the comfortable Darkness and thrust me into this world of pain, cold, and an emotion that made me feel as if my very life is in danger? But then again, maybe this is just another thing that I am being Shown. Perhaps the next thing They Show me will be those strange four legged creatures They call 'Horses'. I like those.'

My arms are burning, the fire in the limbs cannot be quenched by the sweat driffing off of them or evaporating into the hot Stellian air. "One more rep. and you can go into the R.E.S.T. tank, R 13," My tormentor calls, jotting more notes onto his clipboard of evil. A near-quiet groan escapes my lips - this is an intense reaction when compared to my normal stoic demeanor. Despite the fierce pain that rockets through my limbs, turning the dull burning into a white-hot scorching, I lean down and grip the punch blocks. Each 'block' is actually a thick steel cuff that fits around my arm up to the elbow and has a bar across the lower opening for me to grip with my hand - each cuff weighs forty-five pounds.

Focusing on the twenty cycles I have to do, and not the ripping feeling that had just rocketed through my right bicep, I take my stance. Right, Left, Hook, Block. Repeat. I continue this cycle until my 'instructor' blows his whistle, at which point I fall to my knees, gasping for air. A scratching sound reaches my ears a moment before he begins speaking. "You are doing very well. Your actually at the top of your 'class'." I could almost hear his voice make quotation marks around the word. "Next week, you will be signed up for your first pit match." I look over my shoulder to shoot a murderous glare at him.

My instructor is slightly taller than most humans with waves of urine colored hair, eyes the color of the feces I scrape off my feet before finding a place to sleep in the "Pen", and a physical build that makes me think that even though he is the "top combat instuctor", the only action he has ever seen is when fighting for the last bag of munchies in the vending machine. A smirk claims my lips as I imagine shoving his head through the reinforced glass window of the Snack O'Matic. He misinterprets the look of merriment on my face completely. "Yes. Being a combatant is thoroughly a great honor. Not only will you be taken from the Pen and given your own accomidations, but if you live, you will also get another HALF SERVING of food at each meal," He smiles at me with teeth so perfect they have to be fakes.

I give him my best "Oh I'm so thrilled." look before rising to my feet, keeping my face blank except for the small tick in my left cheek, the most I will show how in pain I am. With feet that drag the ground, I make my way across the training yard, ignoring the many glares I recieve from the other experiments, and duck through the grimy flap into the Pen.

The Pen is actually an atrium about fifty feet tall and twice as many feet in diameter. Only twenty-seven out of the hundred and twenty experiments have survived so far. Out of those, six will be sent to the Arena, fourteen will be sold as luxury pets/slaves, five are going to be selected for further testing, and the last two - a male and female - will be chosen as subjects to be placed in cryo-hybernation tanks; if a war ever breaks out between Stellius and Guardian, these two will be used to clone hundreds of soldiers.

Other than me, there are four other humans with cybernetic parts graffed to their basic structure. There used to be five but one of the experiments, a boy programmed with the ability to control man-made lights, escaped as soon as he was taught was his gift was - by using it to turn out all the lights and escape under the cover of darkness - he had been one of the only hybrids I trusted. Other than the four of us, there are two human-Crotalus adamanteus hybrids - crossed with the Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake, they are able to contort themselves into fabulous positions, can sense heat, taste the air with their forked tounges, and their saliva is poisonous(these two are the ones to be sent into hybernation when they reach maturity)-, ten human-canis lupus hybrids - crossed with wolves for their 'pack-hunting' skills as well as their ferocity-, four Human-Panthera tigris - beneath their striped skin, lean muscle ripples, within their fierce maw, long fangs gleam, this has made them into the bosses of the Pen -, six human-Equus caballus hybrids - their spit greatly outmatches their wit -, and one human-Pan troglodyte hybrid - out of all of us, she looks the most human.

With a sigh, I begin to drag my abused body into the highest fork of a great weeping willow, ready to sleep off the pain.