CHAPTER 8: DISCOVERY

I wasn’t sure how long it had been since I began my SOS. Four days? Maybe seven days? 

Previously I had managed to keep track of the days by tracking the routine I called days and marking them on the wall, but that system had broken down. I was now sleeping irregularly and instead of meal times, I just picked at the cold trays of food when I was hungry. My waking hours were filled with mind numbing hours repeating my SOS, interspersed with periods of introspection and malaise. 

Had my SOS reached anyone?

My routine had grown hazy, no it had ceased to exist and Ok, I had also neglected keeping track of any other means of taking time. Cut me some slack, girls might have a reputation for multitasking, but I was new at it, my hope of rescue shattered, my friend and lifeline gone and I was making a last ditch attempt at calling for help and if that failed, I was going to be making a break for it and if they want to stop my escape they would have to kill me.

I hadn’t been interrogated in days, which gave me more time to focus on my plans, but I can honestly say I missed the sadistic fucker. 

Unbelievable right?

At least during his rants, I could catch a glimpse of what was happening in the outside world, through whatever has earned his ire and was the subject of his anger. The radio silence also worried me, I remembered all of his subtle comments about being useful and I wondered if this silence meant I was no longer useful. 

What would happen if I was no longer useful? Would they just forget about me down here, leave me here forever or eventually stop feeding me? Would they kill me and perform autopsies on my corpse for science? 

I wasn’t sure I wanted to be useful either, look where that got Kelly. They hurt her over and over for who knows what purpose and eventually took her away to study.

And then there was Jakob, I couldn’t believe how readily they seemed to have teamed up with him. He was a neonazi! He killed a cop! But they were perfectly happy to negotiate with him, offer him rewards to work for them. 

The system was rotten.

I’d grown up intimate with that truth, police always protected my foster parents ilk and cracked down on those who showed up to protest them. I should have expected pigs to cosy up to bigoted fash.

I remembered watching Charlottesville on social media back in 2017, when they held that far right rally. They turned up with guns, knives and cudgels, they assaulted multiple people, one even drove a car into a bunch of counter protestors killing one, all while the pigs protected them. It happened over and over, despite the growing body count due to extremists like my so-called guardian’s friends, police always protected them and targeted counter protestors for arrests.

I guess the Emergence really had changed nothing… Well maybe escalated things.

I had been expecting them to loose Jakob on me again, since I had begun to heal from all the burns and other injuries he had inflicted on me. My heart had even stopped skipping beats. I actually hadn’t seen him since the visit where he accidentally stopped my heart. 

I’ll be honest, I didn’t miss the torture. What? I’m not that desperate for human contact.

That said, his torture had one twisted benefit. His lightning seemed to have charged me, overcharged me actually. It was a unique sensation, I felt energetic, but also likeI was full after eating. It felt as if I only had to reach out and every bit of that power he’d thrown at me, would be at my fingertips. When I wasn’t SOSing, I was experimenting with this feeling.

The first thing I tried was summoning and holding the energy I’d used to blast the hole between Kelly and I’s cells.  This time I wasn’t fatigued. This time instead of it shooting off and exploding on contact, it sat tamely in the palm of my pale hand. 

A perfect ball of writhing shadows. It was as if someone had taken the sun, miniaturised it, dyed it pitch black and placed it in my hand. It was beautiful. Mesmerizing actually, as i watched corona of shadow flare out before arcing back towards the almost liquid surface. Coooool...

Wait… Fuck! What am I meant to do with this? I can’t throw it, the guards might hear it. 

I had to EAT IT! No, not that way! I meant reabsorb it!

I stared at the petulant weaponised darkness in my hand and willed it to back into me. I ended up closing my eyes and focusing on the mental image of it shrinking as the energy returned to me. I couldn’t feel anything happening.

Hesitantly, I peeked with one eye… Yes! My hand was one hundred fucking percent empty! Trumphiant,  I leapt and gamboled about around the cell. 

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So recap. I could seemingly absorb energy such as heat, light, electricity, as well as umm biochemical or bioelectric or... Ok well I wasn’t sure what I was taking when I drew from people. I just know I did when I overloaded on the night of the first Emergence, knocking a number of people unconscious. Now it seemed I could hold a limited amount of energy, like a battery almost but going by my first night, if I overcharged too far, I risked losing control and draining everything around me till I explosively release it.

Releasing it seemed easy now, I could manifest it as a form of shadow energy, I think? It seemed like energy, I had never seen a mass of shadows act like that ball and the previous time it had blasted through solid concrete. Shadow energy, yup. What else?..

I had almost forgotten! My arm turned to shadow back on the first night, how the fuck did that work?

Ok I need to test this before I go on. Where do I even start? Imagining the ball shrinking seemed to work… 

I closed my eyes again and imagined an arm of shadows in place of my right arm. Who am I kidding? This is totally not going to work…

Again I found myself peeking to see if my visualisations had done anything, my arm from fingers to shoulder was a thick black mist of shadows.

FUCK YES! I knew I could do it, am I talented or what? I victoriously waved my arm in front of me and did a fist pump. Through one of the cell’s bars… Oh...

Well that one seems useful, not sure how yet. Maybe when I work out how to do more than an arm, not like being able to turn an arm somewhat intagiable will get me out of here if the rest of me can’t follow. I’ll think of something when the time comes. Hopefully… Yeah maybe not.

Spooky ghost arm ooooooooo. Maybe I’ll scare the guards to death.

The explosive blasts of shadow won’t be enough, unless I am seriously set on a ‘glorious last stand’. How many blasts could I get off before I get that fatigued feeling again? Four? Six? Ten? Twenty? Many many more before I can’t do anymore, or will I just keep going till I keel over dead?

Yeah… I’m desperate, but not desperate enough to put my faith, in breaking out of here, on an ability I can’t predict. I need a new trick. Something cheap, I can keep using without overexerting myself. Like a club or a sword. Or! Or! Or an energy sword! That would be sooo cool, Kelly would be so jealous. A sword made of shadows!

Ok Robin, focus! Closing my eyes once again I pictured a sword in my solid left hand made of the same shadows as the explosive balls. ‘Use the force Robin’, picture it, picture it. Picture. It.

My focus slipped, as a giggle escaped me and I was thrown against the cold hard wall with a painful thud, as it blew up in my face. 

Pulling myself up from where I lay in a heap on the floor, I checked myself over for injuries. Aside from a bruised back and jarred arm, I seem alright, I must have consumed most of the blast that hit me. Ok so far my ability to absorb energy seems to be my most useful skill. If I could also absorb bullets I’d be golden, but that is one thing I am not going to test!

* * *

A few tries later and take four was a success. In my left hand was sword of shadows, but not what I had initially been imagining, I gave up on that after it exploded on me the second time. I ended up modeling the sword after my spikes.

 I wasn’t even sure I could call it a sword, the blade was roughly sword shaped, but it had no hilt and the blade was about two feet of jagged glassy black material like my spikes and wreathed in a corona of violent shadows.

Hehehehehe… The most powerful sword that is so fragile it can only be wielded by the delicate touch of a l-. Wait? Am I?

Umm ok, different topic. Armor! Could I make armor out of this stuff?

No sooner had my thoughts turned to how cool it would be to make armor out of this stuff, than the intercom went off with a static screech, again sending me jumping into the air. The sword left my grasp, shattering midair and returned to the shadows it was made from.

“How is my caged favorite freak today? I’ve been a little preoccupied, you missed me?”  Ok I take back ever insinuating I missed this asshole.

“Missed you? I was more wondering if your pet dog Jakob had bitten you. Is that why he stopped visiting? You sent him back to the pound?” It was probably not a wise move aggravating the interrogator, but at this point what was the worst that could happen.

Distorted laughter came across the intercom as the interrogator chuckled.

“Where’s Jakob? Didn’t I tell you? I guess not… He proved himself cooperative and useful, so now he is off doing work for people who could use a freak of his talents.”

I could feel myself shaking. They let the fucking Nazi go!? Give him a job and sent him on his way? While I am still here as an accessory for the crime he commited!?  You’d think I’d be used to the injustice of this place.

“We’re going to have to make some changes around here, as you might know space in a prison like this is a valuable commodity and with the second night of the Emergence and more freaks like you out there we are going to need to make use of your floor. Which means we are going to have to decide what to do with you…” My tormentor let the words trail off into silence. The sick fuck was probably savoring the suspense.

“Easiest thing to do would be to hand you over to someone who can make use of you, find out what makes you tick. They don’t necessarily need you in one piece or alive to find some utility out of your miserable existence.”

“Like what you did with Kelly!?”

“Sure, but I could however keep you from such a fate. You would of course have to let us collar you, I’m thinking a remote activated collar or vest with a repurposed claymore mine and a tracker, so we can be sure you will remain a good little freak. Then you would have to make yourself useful, cooperate with testing, let them take a few samples, then you’d best follow Jakobs example and keep me happy.”

Those were my choices? Either a dissection table or an attack dog on an explosive leash?

Before I could even think of a response, the muffled and barely audible sound of gunfire came across the intercom.

“What is God’s name is that racket? Think on what I said while I deal with this.”

The intercom and it’s circuit abruptly went silent leaving me to wait and listen as the sounds of alarms, explosions, gunfire and shouting grew from a whisper as whatever was causing the mayhem above ground grew closer.