“W-what?” I uttered, holding onto my crystal.

“What’s that?” Delta asked, eyeing Battie with a suspicious look.

“A crystal battery,” I said, feeling like a gladiator in a cage armed with a sharp sword facing another.

Both of us fell silent, each examining the other.

“You know, I thought you were a mere child,” she said finally. “But it seems that you and I are exceptionally alike. I wouldn't have opened my mouth... if you didn't just speak an entire sentence and return with that crystal after two hours of being absent."

“Likewise,” I murmured. “How is it that you know Russian?”

“Long before I was even born… I was dreaming of three others,” she said.

“Oh?”

“Vladislav Alexandrovich Kerenski,” Delta said. “Leemy. Kopusha Megara Tricameron.”

The three names stuck me like a freight train. I knew, suspected that this was the case but actually hearing her say them was… harsh. In a way, I was responsible for what she was now.

“A Soviet Virologist. A dryad. An Alanian Acolyte,” Delta clarified, bending her little fingers. “Do you perhaps… dream of them too?”

I nodded.

The words of the Tricameron Animancy Instructor swam in my head once again. “An integration of a small soul-fragment into the soul produces a small degree of split personality. Partial soul-decay occurs as the original soul absorbs and rejects various bits of the new soul-fragment.”

Delta said. “I’ve been ever so lonely. Waiting. Dreaming. Watching. Listening. Learning... Wanting to talk with… someone who understands…”

I felt bad for Delta. The thread of Omniscience that bound our souls together had almost completely obliterated her as a person, stole her future from her, replaced whatever she was meant to become with parts of me, Leemy and Kopusha. What was done was done, however, and there was no point in crying over spilled milk.

“I understand,” I nodded, trying to remain calm and collected. “I... understand what you’re going through, Destiny.”

“I’m Delta,” she replied sharply.

“Delta?” I repeated, tilting my head. “Not Destiny?”

“Delta Alana Skyisle,” she repeated. “I named myself. Δ, the Greek letter. Or, Д in Russian. Uncertainty, in a physical variable as seen in Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.”

I nodded.

“I often feel… wrong. Neither dead nor alive. I suppose you can call me Schrodinger's kitten.” Delta’s face twitched as if she wasn’t sure whether to smile or be sad about her predicament.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Delta? Kitten? She’s in a state of quantum superposition? Dead or alive until observed?” I thought.

“I’m simply a big fan of the Uncertainty principle,” she explained. “I am uncertain if I am still dreaming… this place… it’s all wrong, broken. I don't really know what year it is or where I really am.”

“You’re in Skyisle,” I said. “The year is 8049, according to our parents. It is the end of Spring.”

“Skyisle… looks wrong,” Delta sighed. “It’s nothing like I remember it.”

I nodded.

“Like Kopusha remembers it?” I asked.

Delta nodded.

“I am afraid,” she said. “I’ve been hiding for a year now. Watching… waiting. I don’t know whether I can even trust you, brother.”

“Why?” I inquired as rays of moonlight danced on her silver hair, her expression grim.

“If this is not a dream, then Skyisle is being run by the Gods,” she said with a shudder. “And I am their… experiment.”

I frowned. “How do you figure that?” I asked.

“According to my Soul-Song, I am a one year old child,” Delta said. “A one year old newborn with the memories of a Soviet Academic from another world, a dryad and an Alanian Agromancer. That is not normal.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” I said. “I’m in the same boat. Which of the three do you most associate your personality with?”

“Lady Kopusha Megara,” Delta said, switching to Alanian. “Her memories are the sharpest of the three, plus I am a girl.”

“I’m mostly Slava,” I said. “But feel free to call me Dante, because that is my local name.”

“Slava,” Delta repeated, cold, silver-blue eyes dancing over me. “We are in grave danger.”

“I am aware,” I nodded.

“If this is an experiment and we are its subjects,” she added. “Then we are being monitored by the gold threads that bind us together.”

“Why do you think that?” I asked.

“Do you remember the case of the Krivoshlyapova sisters, Slava?” Delta asked.

I gulped.

Maria and Daria Krivoshlyapova were born in 1950 as conjoined twins. The conjoined girls were removed from their mother's custody at birth by Soviet physiologists. Unknowingly, their mother was told that her daughters had died soon after their birth. The Institute of Experimental Medicine in Moscow studied and experimented on the twins under laboratory conditions. Looking back at it from my perspective in 1992, I considered the case of the Krivoshlyapova sisters a prolonged case of medical torture, a dark stain on the history of Soviet science.

The case of the Krivoshlyapova sisters is what often made me question the lengths we were willing to go in the pursuit of knowledge. The ethical boundaries we crossed, the lives we affected, and the ocean of dark secrets we kept hidden from the public eye.

“I remember,” I said slowly. “Physiologist Pyotr Anokhin was studying the separate roles of the nervous system and the blood system on the body's ability to adjust to… various conditions. Conjoined twins who shared a blood system but had separate nervous systems were ideal objects for his research. Pyotr ran a multitude of… experiments on the Krivoshlyapova sisters.”

“Yes,” Delta said darkly. “The researchers brought the temperature of one twin down to near-fatal levels while observing temperature changes in the other twin, burning them, starving them, depriving them of sleep, and electrocuting them in time with a metronome to test their reflexes. Their blood, stomach, lung, heart and brain activity was constantly monitored with pneumograms, electrocardiograms and encephalograms.”

I sighed.

“The girls eventually developed very different personalities, with Masha being dominant, tomboyish and cheeky, and Dasha submissive, thoughtful and quiet,” Delta added. “This Skyisle… it’s broken, wrong… and so are we.”

“I am aware. I intend to fix it,” I said.

“You want to stand up to the Gods?” Delta raised a silver eyebrow. “You want to break the gold chain that binds us and our parents?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “I do.”

“Count me in,” she smiled, extending her little hand.