Vessa woke up. She just laid on the bed, then she lifted her arm in the air, moving it around for what seemed forever before finally realizing she wasn’t in a hospital gown anymore. A magenta sleeve covered her arm. Had they put her back in her messenger uniform? Why? What purpose did that serve?

Vessa kept moving her arm in circles, but now her eyes focused on the sleeve and cuff.

“There’s no brown,” Vessa said out loud and then with her other hand felt at the collar. Her thumb and pointer traced the stitching.

“A key on the right, same as the last uniform they gave me.” She said, her voice weird to her ears, as Vessa moved her fingers to the left. She felt at it for a while before sitting up and looking down as she pulled the fabric out. An eye in bold black stitching, Vessa felt at it again the eye was now obvious.

“I probably should have gotten that already,” Vessa said before pulling the shirt off to an undershirt in black with an eye and key in bold magenta print.

Vessa looked over the long sleeve shirt as thoughts tried to pile into her mind, voices of the crowd, and the mother and the father, and the little girl.

Vessa pulled at the over shirt and then rubbed it between her fingers. Sturdy material, but not scratchy, almost soft and smooth. A giant eye and key was stitched on the back with thick black thread.

It calmed something within her.

She was never put in separate clothing at the base before being dragged down the halls and into the Learning Center. None of the people at the Pantry were in uniforms, just raggedy old clothing. It didn’t mean they wouldn’t torture her, but it still made her feel that way. Which was dangerous, she supposed, but Vessa couldn’t make herself care.

Soon, too soon, Vessa had examined all of her clothing with an intensity she didn’t think she looked at anything before. Still, Vessa had done that, and now? Now her mind wandered.

Angry bodyguards searching the crowd as it stampeded away. The father standing on the stage, looking down at all of them.

Vessa shook herself and looked around. The room was all white except for the bed, which was black with green and magenta bedding.

She got up and paced. It only took three strides to get from one wall to the other. Vessa paced it for a while. The walls were smooth. The ceiling was smooth. The floor was the only thing with texture.

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She paced some more, counting the steps and then her breaths before she turned around and around.

“Where’s the door?” Vessa asked, only noticing now that the room didn’t have one. All the walls were smooth. Nothing to indicate that there was a door on any of them.

Vessa peaked at the numbers. They felt raw and rubbed her the wrong way, but they gave her the answer. The wall opposite from the bed.

There are numbers in my head.

“Shut up!” Vessa said as she practically pounced on the wall. Her hands felt all over, as numbers poured into her mind.

My head, it hurts.

“I said shut up.” Vessa said as she pressed her head against the wall. She couldn’t find the door, despite knowing the door was somewhere. Numbers moved past the wall she was pressed to at a regular frequency. The other two walls only had one number each. The last wall had no numbers at all.

The numbers are counting down.

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” Vessa said as she covered her ears. The words weren’t being said aloud. They were in her head. There was no running away from them. Same as the numbers.

Vessa leaned her head against the wall. Fingers in her ears. Same as when she was a child, back at the homes, trying to run away from the numbers in her head. Or hide or somehow make them stop. And like the numbers, Vessa couldn’t get away from that moment.

It played over and over in her head. The feeling of capturing her prey after killing its protectors and defeating every obstacle. The screaming crowd and angry guards holding the limp dead body of a little girl. The mother’s scream, then she was braiding her dead daughter’s hair. The father taking the body from the guards, and holding his daughter.

“Make it stop! Make it stop.” Vessa said with her voice, as she heard her younger voice saying it. Samilla’s footsteps running down the hall to get an adult. Back when they helped. When they didn’t send her to kill children.

Vessa paused, panting hard. Her chest squeezed. She began rocking back and forth.

“I can’t kill another. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t,” Vessa said as her voice ran ragged.

The numbers swarmed all around her and this time. Vessa. The adult; threw herself at them. Devouring them as they took her attention. They made the voices stop. The world disappeared. Her feelings leaving as the only thing that mattered were the numbers.

She got up and moved as they moved. Breathed as they breathed.

Bumping and turning as need be. They were all contained. Same as her. Trapped within a certain area, past which there were no numbers. Just an empty nothingness. So much empty nothingness. That, as Vessa continued to push her mind, it just kept reaching, but continued to find no numbers, no nothing.

Then, so many, many numbers. They were endless. Her mind burned with the stretch. How far had she come? The morass of numbers was just at her fingertips and as Vessa pushed to grasp them, she felt pain. The pain of expanding her reach when she was young. It had been so long since she’d felt this feeling. She burned with the pain of stretching and her mind entered the endless numbers.

Vessa let her mind be consumed. Now she could hide. Now the numbers helped.