Spiraling Through Time, Ch. I

2007

'Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

So, what did it matter that she could only scream on the inside?' she thought to herself, as she stood in the hovering spacecraft she’s now called home for 5 years - according to the peas that she’s collected and stashed under her mattress. They’re not supposed to remember how long they’ve been there, but she’s kept a pea under her tongue and brought it back after every dinner, every day, since the day of the collection.

They all knew it would happen, all the kids who were there. They all had the same memory of thinking that maybe one day a spaceship would come and pick them up, and some of them had actually felt excited. But none of them really knew what that would entail...until there they were, months later, realizing that they missed seeing the color green, the color blue, the smell of rain, the feeling of soft fuzzy blankets. Creature comforts. Things a kid would normally take for granted. They sure didn’t. Cause they didn’t have any of that. And the weekly mental wiping made a lot of them forget what was important…more like, reprogramming of their minds to think that other things mattered more. Like helping Dr. Octonogram with his studies. Most kids would forget what those simple joys in life had been after the wiping, but not her. She always remembered, in a way. Maybe not the words, or how it worked, but she’d remember how it looked, vaguely, and how it felt, and that helped her never forget that something here was missing. Something big. Something important.

Sometimes they’d bring the team back to planet B12i but it was always to very strange places, and they never knew where on the planet they were. They were told it was important for their psychic development to not be influenced by the dangers of materialism or B12i densities. Most of the kids didn’t even get what that meant. But they all had a reverence for their leaders, and some would believe anything they were told.

3049

“Our imagination grows thin trying to grasp the totality of existence, even though impermanence is the only thing that's certain.”

In a dark, cold, concrete, abandoned building, she sits hidden on the fifth floor, hiding out. Thanks to their blue laser taser guns they all have a way of defending themselves, for the most part. The psychic attacks are where it gets tricky. She’s covered in burns on all the points of contact from the other sides' LTGs. She’s running through rooms and hallways trying to dodge the laser tasers but gets hit multiple times. There are red welts on her bare feet from the burns.

She trips and rolls down the stairwell, but gracefully and with ease. She’s been separated from her people and in the fall loses her weapon. Now she’s been spotted and has to run. Another woman, maybe one of the otherside group leaders, begins to chase her. She escapes the building and runs toward the river. It’s pretty large and there’s a dock with small boats and some jet skis that are obviously not the most current technology. She looks around at the scene - mostly gray and cement, a polluted environment. She gets on a jet ski, but doesn’t know exactly how to operate it. She quickly figures it out (you know, adrenaline). There’s a long lever that connects to some sort of pedal that’s a gear and there are large black rectangular buttons that are lined up on the front panel. Panicking, she presses them to get it to start up somehow, and has to press down on a big button at the top to accelerate. The harder she presses the faster it goes.

She hears her assailant call to the rest that she’s going after her in her jet ski. The chase begins and the other woman is gaining on her.