In the white room, Aurora leaned her back against the wall. She stared at her own hands, still murmuring to herself about what she had become.
When she closed her eyes, the memories returned. She opened them, closed them, and everything came back. The brilliant child who was sidelined by the teachers. The child the other children ganged up on to hurt. The child whose hair the girls pulled. The child the boys pointed at and kicked.
Her shoulders trembled. Dark tears streamed down her face to the floor. She slapped the floor with her hands, wondering if this was her final fate. Trapped and abandoned. She wouldn't accept it, even if it meant taking extreme measures.
She stood up, paced back and forth. One hand slowly brushed the walls, the other hovering over her face, wiping away the dark stains. For a few moments, nothing came of it, just an ordinary wall...
Suddenly, she felt her finger sink in. She stopped, facing the wall. She touched it again, sank... but nothing.
She looked around, at the ceiling: nothing. On the floor: nothing. To the sides: nothing.
A curse naturally escaped her lips, insulting the mother of the woman who had imprisoned her.
With a trembling wrist, she pulled at her own skin, the muscles stretching and the flesh exposed beneath the fabric. She wrinkled her nose. It had been two days since she had been abandoned there. Was she losing track of time so early? Had she been unconscious for so long?
She pressed a few buttons, demanding access to the base. She needed a password and permission from the Prime Minister. She remained silent, but her mind continued to race...
And a dark tear rolled down her cheek.
For a moment, she remembered her studies. Entire nights without sleep, her body and mind begging for rest. A child sat in a cold room, writing, typing, writing, typing...
And when she lay down, as quickly as her mind switched off, it would awaken with cold commands, and when she remained in her bed, screams came, calling her, insulting her.
Most of the time, her body reacted faster than her consciousness.
But when she didn't respond a second time...
There were no screams. Only, after that repeated routine, did she look at her arm, her face, her body covered in bruises.
Crying was no use.
Everything would repeat itself.
Again and again.
Until her death.
...
A beeping sound made her shake her head. The walls molded into smooth, cubic, spiky, liquid shapes... but, in a few moments, a hole opened.
Dark.
Only one light was on.
She walked slowly, each bare step against the icy floor. Gradually, as she walked down the corridor, lights appeared little by little. One, two, three... five... ten... until another hole.
As she passed through, the space covered in darkness widened with a low, soft sound. Then, a single light appeared, making her cover her eyes for a moment.
Four weapons.
In the middle, one was missing. Below, a name: Morgana Guinever.
On the left side, there was a belt composed of several glowing grenades and a pistol whose electric light shone from its barrel.
On the right side, armor from which red liquids flowed in cubes connected to Renkata and a small device whose description summarized it as The Shaper.
And, between two female names on the left, the two male names seemed strangely familiar:
Vargante Guinever...
...And Skyler Fogue.