Unfettered (Loki x Reader)

Chapter 49 - The Prodigal

You've lost hope. 

If you were going to be rescued, it would have happened by now. 

Days have passed. Maybe even weeks. How many, you can't say. You try to keep track by counting the drips like Nine taught you. But you keep losing count somewhere after 800. Over and over and over again. You can feel your mind beginning to fray. Beginning to fracture. Phil's meditative silencing technique no longer keeps you collected between trials. For hours upon hours you're dragged into the Trial Room and forced to link with both the living and the dead. 

In some ways, it feels like no time has passed at all. Your time with the Avengers, a dream. 

You start to fear that may be true. Had you simply imagined your time away from this prison? Your rescue, your training, your friends - had it all been a day dream? One so elaborately constructed by your own mind that you had completely dissociated from the pain of being here, in this place? 

That has to be the case. 

In your fantasy, you were rescued. The Doctor killed, along with all the other patients and scientists. Yet here you are. Sitting in an identical chamber. Being put through the same excruciating trials by none other than the Doctor himself. 

Perhaps it was more than a dream. Had you gotten lost in a genetic link? Had you been plunged into the memory of another? Were all those moments someone else's?

You gasp as an uncomfortable, scratchy itch tickles the back of your neck. 

Loki's ribbon. 

You let out a quiet, tired laugh as that gentle tickle is enough to pull yourself back from the brink of insanity. From the edge of not being able to remember which memories are your own, and which are from the hundreds, no, thousands of others that you have been forced to link with.

The small girl in the pink tutu at the ballet lessons. Was that you? No, it had been a girl with freckles on her hand. But what about the kid who had been bullied at school? No, no, that had been a young man.

You feel your mind beginning to fracture. Beginning to split into those shard-like fragments of memories. A part of you wants to let go. To simply slip into the peaceful, numb abyss of mindlessness. 

But that tickle on your neck tells you to fight. 

You promised you'd be okay. 

Suddenly, a shrill alarm catches your attention, and your head jerks up. Another recall? 

No, no this alarm is different, yet familiar. You dive deeply into your own scattered and mixed up thoughts to try and place the sound when finally, a pair of onyx eyes floats to the surface.

Agent May.

This alarm is identical to the one that went off when you were discovered trying to rescue her. 

Intruders. There are intruders in the compound.

Your heartbeat quickens. Strapped to the metal chair as usual, you yank at the metal cuffs around your wrist and feel your flesh begin to tear. You pull until you feel as if you might rip your fingers from your hand until you feel a *pop*, and let out a small, painful cry. 

Slipping your hand from the metal cuff, you dislocate your thumb on your other hand, crying out once more as you manage to get both hands free. You take a deep breath, and hit your right hand hard against the metal chair, snapping your thumb back into place before fixing your left. Your hands now ache, throbbing, but your adrenaline keeps most of the pain at bay.

Reaching up to the leather strap fastened around your neck, you undo the clasp, then move on to the strap around your chest. Now free besides your ankles, you lean around the chair, peering into the hallway as the alarms blare above your head. Occasionally, you see a white-coated scientist run past the window to your cell, but no one stops to spare you a look.