INSANE

Chapter One.

I felt the air rush out of my lungs and I jerked myself up and out of the isolation chamber. The salty water I'd rested in turning my fingers pruny and making my toes itch. I'd had another dream again, the dream about the girl. She was already dead, that girl should be forgotten but how could you forget a piece of yourself. She was as much me as I was her and I still had to try to save her. To save myself, to allow myself the air I needed in my lungs, before they killed another one. Before they killed me.

We were connected in the worst kind of way, the way that left me feeling powerful and powerless all at once. It was all their fault, and they were still baiting me. Looking, seeking, searching, hoping they'd find me, the original me. The one they wanted, their first result.

Water pooled around my toes on the cold cement floor. The isolation chamber wouldn't be enough anymore, I could still hear their screams in my mind, and feel their pain in my bones. The connection I couldn't control.

I picked up the towel from the chair a foot away to my left and wrapped it around my body. The air was chilly enough to give me goosebumps, but I might've had them either way. It was starting again, their next game. They wanted to win, but I had to win. If I lost it would be tantamount to death. To give them free reign, allow the system to take everything it desired without restraint. I was the restraint that stopped its progress.

I was not just a little girl anymore, they knew that. They tried to create me, to replicate me, to control another me by controlling my DNA. To use me against myself. So far it had been a failure, I'd seen to that and this would end the same way. My other faces haunted me and I felt unclean.

I took even strides down the hall into the washroom, it was a small hole in the wall. No tub, just a small stand up shower, sink and toilet. It was all I'd needed, all I'd need.

I turned the nozzle, and a light spray of water shot out of it's head at the glass seperating the shower from the rest of the room. I placed my towel on the edge of the sink and stepped inside. The water that touched my skin was immediately cold, but I knew that if I waited it would almost boil my skin with it's heat. I loved the feeling of a hot shower, it tingled in a way I wouldn't think anyone else could understand, but I've always known I was oh so very different.

Taking the simple bar of soap, I lathered up and rinsed myself off. This one, this one had good eyes. She could be different if she lived, our link was stronger than most. Stronger than the isolation chamber and I couldn't help but wonder how they'd accomplished that. I'd destroyed their research, hadn't I?

My thoughts were becoming scattered again and I put down the bar of soap. Taking my soapless hand in my mouth, I bit down. Not hard enough to draw blood, but just hard enough to cause pain. Pain kept me aware, sharp, in control. If I didn't use it, I would be lost like the others. Maybe I could help this one, just this once. Maybe she wouldn't betray me like the rest.

The others always betrayed me, the others all had to die.