BETH

Beth wanted to survive this nightmare, but escape had consequences. Her family had to be left behind, their torture continued. Beth was uniquely equipped to break the mental chains. Could she return afterwards? Probably not. Mom wouldn’t object to the plan since at least parts of the family escaped harm. She decided to survive.

A boulder towered over her. Beth closed her eyes. The taste of sweetness flooded her mouth and her muscles itched with anticipation. Fingers pressed together to form a fist. What determined the power of a punch? Acceleration and mass. If the punch sped up through the entirety of her arm’s movement the impact should be improved. She felt no pain when her bare knuckles connected with the boulder. Jagged pieces of rock flew around the indoor training field. She rubbed her elbow. To land the punch with a straight arm felt awkward. What if she instead let it impact a moment before full extension? She stretched, muscles creaked and the strength dissipated. But the sweetness lingered. Who would expect a short woman with arms thin as twigs to shatter a boulder with her bare knuckles?

“Good work, Elizabeth!” Saif said.

Saif stood by the side line judging with dark rings under his eyes. His pale skin contrasted against the interior’s blue color scheme. How could he be around the same age as her? Beth was twenty-four, but Saif looked at least forty. Exhaustion did that to you. Could she move fast enough to reach him? To get her hands around his throat. An unsurveilled moment and his neck would snap. Mental chains clasped around her mind and the thoughts of murder fizzled.

“None of that, thanks. Let’s head back to your cell,” Saif said and her body followed him without her consent. He corrected a loose strand of blonde hair, the supposed ruffle of his hair being the latest fashion for men. Beth rubbed her shaved head, she remembered her own hair.

Aside from Saif and herself the training field was empty of people. Saif assumed control over her. Was this her opportunity? The door slid to the side and revealed a long corridor with a light strip running along its ceiling. A clinical smell. Beth closed her eyes and the growing tension clenched her hands into fists. Her body anticipated the sweetness with additional saliva. Muscles itched with urgency. The mental chains clasped around her mind and her concentration almost slipped away. But not entirely. She grasped a sliver of thoughts and pulled. Her intentions sharpened as thoughts slowly escaped their bondage.

Saif turned around. “Stop that. Stop that right now.” 

His voice strained and his face hesitant. Was he scared? Hopefully. Saif’s chains tightened, but she grasped harder and continued to pull. Cracks appeared and grew in the mental metal. Saif held a palm raised out towards her. Sweat ran along his face and his brow was set in concentration. Game over.

“STOP. You do as I say,” Saif instructed with a winded voice. His eyes were half shut and his mouth stiff.

Beth smiled. 

The chains shattered. 

Her knuckles connected with his chest just before her arm reached full extension. Saif grunted and was launched backwards, he crashed and bounced off the cracked wall before landing heavy on the high-density foam floor. The booming klaxon alarms roared to life and lit everything in its red light. She would not make it if she rushed for the gates through the corridors. Back to the cells was not an option either. Her family was doomed. She summoned her strength again and her kick brought down a section of concrete wall. Shortest possible route for escape. White dust dried her throat. An empty office space stood on the other side of the collapsed wall. She sprinted through it. Underneath the blasting klaxons heavy footfalls chased her. Metallic feet. She leaned into her shoulder and shattered the next wall while barely losing any momentum. A lab filled with people in white coats and frightened faces. Beth ignored their shouts and powered herself through the next wall and room. Several projectiles rattled behind her, but never connected with their target. As she strode longer and faster her muscles complained but she ignored the fatigue. Gunfire moved closer and closer as she continued her rampage through the facility. For every wall that fell to her might exhaustion closed in.

As she slammed through another wall she crashed into a guard and the guard’s combat suit’s metal cracked on impact. An ambush. Two guards in combat suits, but one of them was already down on the floor from her entrance. At least some luck. She rolled, grabbed and repurposed the downed guard’s body as a shield. The second guard fired a laser beam, but it only glanced off the combat suit’s surface. She launched the repurposed guard in one heavy motion. Both of the guards fell back into a pile. No reason to stay still, no reason to give them a chance to recover. Luck could not be trusted, she would need to escape on her own devices. She kicked and rushed through another wall.

Into a cell, just like the one they used to keep her in. A scrawny boy of maybe twelve sat in one corner. He glared at her. His head was also shaved.

“You wanna leave with me?” Beth asked. Unnecessarily dangerous, she did not know what the boy could do and this wasted time. But he looked so helpless. Like her.

The boy shook his head and pointed down on his feet. Saif might have left some movement hindering thoughts in his mind and the boy did not have the mental strength to break free.

Seconds ticked away. Beth decided. It would be too dangerous to carry the boy, she did not know if he had manifested a power yet or if it would endanger her escape.

“I will come back,” Beth lied to the innocent boy.

Sweetness increased and she shouldered into the next wall. A guard in a combat suit crashed into her, knocking her back into the boy’s cell. Breaths came frantic. Fingers slipped on the guard’s bulky, smooth armor. She tried to punch instead, but before knuckles connected the guard flew sideways slamming into the wall with a crunching sound. Dust spread around the room. Her fist hovered, she had not hit the guard. She looked at the boy who held a raised open palm. He moved things with his mind! Then he could protect himself! She grabbed the boy who weighed little even without her strength. Next wall crashed easily as she shouldered it with the boy in her arms.

“What is your name?” Beth asked underneath her breathing as she continued through the facility.

The boy coughed. “Tom.”

A new, occupied cell. The ice appeared from nowhere. Beth slipped and fell, lost grip on the boy who slid away from her. A woman with wild eyes kneeled in the middle of the cell with hands touching the floor. Her face in a snarl and head trembling. She oozed madness.

Heavy footfalls of guards closing in. They had to move! The boy was on the other end of the ice covered cell, Beth tried to move along the shiny floor but it was too slippery. The woman laughed with a mad voice. Liquid ice discharged from the woman’s open palms and Beth tried to shield herself. Cold grew, movements became difficult and breathing painful.

Beth looked at Tom. No way.

“Stop her!” Beth yelled, shielding her face with bare hands.

Tom flailed in the air with his hands but his power did nothing. He did not have Beth’s level of control.

Beth decided. Before turning into a popsicle she backed off and dug into a different wall. She left the mad icy woman behind, but also Tom. Hands shook from the terrible cold. If the guards could not subdue that woman Tom would die, Beth could not save him. Beth tried to shove the feeling away. But they nagged at the back of her head. If she had just left him in his own cell he would be safe. Now it was too late.

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The facility’s artificial light and cool temperature were exchanged for scorching heat and blinding sun when she powered through the last wall. Her grey jumpsuit didn’t shield against the harsh environment. Sun rays stung against her shaved scalp. Warm sand grasped her naked feet. Sand dunes rose on the horizon and tears trickled as hope burned. It made some sense to have the facility here; the isolation and to hinder escape. A desert! She could not escape into that. A crippling headache bloomed. New chains clung intensely around her thoughts.

Saif yelled. “STOP! Elizabeth, stop right there!” 

Before Beth turned all the way round to face him the chains froze motor control. Saif was held in the arms of a combat suited guard. Blood trickled down from a cut on Saif’s forehead and a white trauma box was attached to his chest. How much damage had she done to him? Could he not walk any longer?

“You are not leaving,” Saif said. Guards in combat suits caught up and lined up besides Saif. “Not a chance in hell.”

“F….Fu… you,” Beth squeezed out under the chains’ power.

“Tranquilize!” Saif yelled.

The guards trained rifles on her. Beth closed her eyes. Rifles roared. Sweetness flooded. The tranquilizer darts bounced off her now shiny, metallic skin. Beth looked down on her hands. Nice.

Saif smiled. “Defiant until the end. Just like your dead father.”

“Ah!” Beth grunted, jaw clenched and heart raced. Images of her father flashed through her mind’s eyes. The terribly cold look on his face when blood pumped out from his slit throat, his hands desperately trying to slow the blood flow and his body convulsing until going limp.

Saif smiled. “You are tired. You feel tired.”

The chains empowered the already present fatigue. Sweetness retreated. Eyelids fluttered. Muscles relaxed. Knees buckled and she fell. Sand stuck to her drooling mouth as the world turned foggy. A dark, blurred figure stood over her.

“Sleep,” Saif commanded and everything vanished into nothingness.

-

Beth awakened surrounded by silence and barren white walls. They had thrown her back into the same room. No, no! More like a box with a toilet in one of the four corners. Light emitted from the box’s surface somehow, but the effect made shadows impossible. Unsettling. She tucked her scraped knees close and hugged tightly. Hugging helped to recall better times. Her shaved scalp itched so she gave it a quick rub and longed for her soft, black hair.  The strong odor of disinfectant brought back unwanted memories. Needles puncturing skin and bleeding scars. Doctors and nurses at work. And Saif’s happy smile with her on the operating table.

Last time Beth had woken up the count stood at three hundred and five. She was certain. This might be day three hundred and six or it might not be, but at least she knew that it was her three hundred and six time awakening in this place. Some reassurance. 

A small section of wall opened and a metal plate of food slid in. Food did not describe this substance accurately. The lone bowl contained an island of brown goo floating sadly on white protein milk. And don’t forget the crystalline sprinkles of vitamins and minerals. Meals arrived three times each day before the box’s lights were turned off, signaling night time. What time standard the cycles were modelled after she could not tell.

Why had she waited to attempt escape for so many days? An earlier attempt would have given her the same information, but earlier. She didn’t know that her power of strength could manifest mentally too. It had taken her three hundred and four days to even think about trying it. And she was supposed to be a PhD student at the pristine Callisto University on the moon with the same name. If dad had known he would have been disappointed. Beth smiled at the memory of him, missing his presence.

Starvation could be a method of escape. The continued experiments performed on her implied further interest in her powers. Suicide would deny them the opportunity for further study. But this argument relied on the fact that she was unique. The facility was huge, there could be others like her. Chains clasped onto her thoughts and tightened. Beth’s stomach growled in hunger and a relentless need to eat. Armed with a spoon Beth devoured the bowl’s content without hesitation.

A man leaned in as a doorway opened in the wall. “Saif, let the little one decide for herself.”

The spoon fell from Beth’s hand because of the sweet relief of being in control again. She kicked the plate away. The bowl tumbled over and spilled its remaining content over the man’s army boots.

The man frowned, scratching at a scar crossing his jawline. “This food is some real sad shit.”

“And you are?” Beth asked and stood up. Her face could not even reach his shoulders.

“General Jacob Meyer,” Jacob said. “General Meyer for you.”

Jacob stood with a straight back, surely filled with pride for the medals decorating his uniform. Why would the General keep that scar across his jawline? Medical technicians would be able to heal the tissue properly. As a badge of honor, maybe? Like he wore his medals; a sign of bravery in combat or distinction of some kind. General Meyer looked just a few years older than herself, strange that he had already accumulated this many honors.

“I am the newly appointed chief for this research endeavor. Things around here will change. I promise,” Jacob said.

“Why should I trust you?” Beth asked. The man seemed nicer than the other personnel.

Jacob laughed. “You will see. I will start by getting you some decent food. This shit is practical, but the taste is horrible.”

“Better food will not make me trust you,” Beth replied. “Instead, let me and my family go.”

“No, that will not happen. But I can do other things. Based on what we have done to you I can see why it is difficult for you to believe me. That will change now. My actions will speak to themselves, like this,” Jacob said.

Jacob pointed to a wall and turned his eyes to the ceiling. A camera perhaps? The wall he pointed at turned transparent. Beth’s mother sat and leaned against the same wall, but on the other side.

Beth jumped at the wall. She banged and yelled. “Mom! Mom! Do you hear me? Please!”

Mom turned around and upon making eye contact her face relaxed and tears trickled down. Relief of knowing. Mom’s black hair had not been cut, but hung straight and ordered. Beth felt an overwhelming need to hug her.

“Sweetheart! There you are. I feared for the worst,” Mom said.

Beth said, voice trembling. “I am alive, mom. And so are you.”

Beth leaned and pressed against the see-through barrier separating them. Nothing could beat the feeling of safety and warmth of a mom’s hug. Nothing.

“I will leave you two alone for a moment,” Jacob said and left the box.

“It looks awful, what happened to your hair?” Mom asked, staring at her head.

Beth rubbed her shaved scalp. “Well. They did things to my brain, I guess. I have changed, mom.”

“Not in my eyes, sweetheart. You are still my little bunny. But you should eat more, you are looking a little thin,” Mom said smiling.

Rays of hope amidst darkness could make anything possible to endure. Beth stared with wet eyes and wanted the moment to last the rest of her life, however long.

“Do you know what happened to Jonathan?” Beth asked.

Tears ran down mom’s face. “I don’t… I don’t know. I only remember how Gregor struggled against those men. Dear, Gregor,” Mom said. “I held onto Jonathan. But then everything went dark and I ended up in this box. Now I know that you are alive. I am not alone.”

“Mom,” Beth said, tearing up.

Could Beth break this wall? Probably. But she and mom would certainly get punished. Sweetness crawled slowly onto her tongue. An escape attempt would not be worth it. Where would they go? Into the desert? No. The chains would tighten until she forgot her intentions or worse. Under the correct circumstances Beth could break the mental chains, but what about mom? Beth could not break her chains. The taste of strength retreated.

General Jacob Meyer entered again. “Jonathan is dead; your son, your little brother is dead. Time’s up. Say goodbye.”

“Dead?” Beth said. “No. Why would you murder him?”

Mom looked confused. “No.”

“Babies are fragile creatures. Nothing could be done,” Jacob said.

“I do not believe you!” Beth yelled.

General Meyer sighed. “Fine by me. Say goodbye now.”

Mom struggled against the tears, her body shaking. “Is Jonathan dead? My little boy. No! NO!”

These people. These deranged people. They were going to pay. All of them. Beth snarled at General Meyer.

“Alright,” Jacob said.

The wall turned opaque and mom’s voice silenced, the General left her alone. Beth lingered, pressed against the wall. Family Shepherd’s quiet life before the kidnapping was a distant, happy memory. Mom’s hugs, dad’s grilled steaks and brother’s squealing when tickled. Jonathan was dead. Dad was dead. She had to solve this, she wanted to live. And strike down these people that had shattered her family and life.