Memory Is But A Vision... (Pt. 2)

Still Five Years Ago...

The next time she awoke, there was no memory aside from the pain she had endured. She could not recall a single thing - not her name, not a day of her life.

Nothing.

Loreen Karterson no longer existed.

The room she was in resembled one of those cheap offices in most buildings, but when she touched the wall it was cold and metal. If she knocked there was barely a sound, as if something thick were beyond it. The room itself was cold, causing her to shiver, despite the blanket.

For some reason she had no clothes on and wondered why, but that would soon be answered. At the moment, she tried to take everything in. She was on a rather uncomfortable bed with an even more uncomfortable pillow. The blanket was no more than a thin sheet and a tiny table for…whatever this room was for.

A moment later the door across from her bed opened and in walked a man she did not know. He was tall, dark haired with cruel eyes the color of the molten sunlight. Something deep within told her she should run - but where to? How? He was in the way.

“Ah, you’re awake,” He said calmly with an emotionless thin lipped smile. “I was starting to think you’d fallen into a coma. What a shame that would have been.” There was a hint of condescension in his tone as he stepped over to her and grabbed her chin with strong fingers. Forcing her to look up at him, he gazed into her grass green eyes as if searching for something. She wasn’t clear on what the glint in his eyes meant, but she wanted to run even more now.

Releasing her jaw, he waved a hand toward the door and two men in armor walked through the door. They walked right to her and began to grab her arms.

“What are you doing?!” She blurted in a panic and tried to pull away, but the men were surprisingly strong and dragged her from the bed. They took her from the room, the amber eyed man leading the way down the hall to an elevator where he pressed his hand to a panel. The doors opened and she was dragged inside, where the two armored men held her in place.

Neither of them looked at her, which was perplexing. They were covered from head to toe in armor, too, grip painfully tight. What were these guys?

The elevator carried them down multiple floors and when it stopped, the doors opened to reveal a strange lab. She felt that uneasy coldness swell down in the pit of her stomach again. What were they going to do to her?!

Before she knew it, Loreen was strapped down to a cold metal table and an IV was started in her left arm. “W-what are you doing? Who are you?!” She whimpered, struggling against her restraints, but her body began to grow unresponsive after a few minutes. Whatever was being pumped into her through the IV was stopping her from moving - some kind of paralyzing agent.

And that was when he stepped up next to the table. “My name is Thrane and I’m here to run tests on you.” He said simply while pulling on some gloves. While they had strapped her down to the table and started the IV, he had changed into more appropriate clothing for surgical procedures.

“W-what?” She asked, confused.

He picked up a scalpel and lowered it toward her chest, where he made the first cut…