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Chapter 20

For years, animators hid the ability to express pictures. They were afraid to become even more outcasts than they already were. Ironically, the skill actually endeared them to non-animators. It turns out, avatars like a good story, whether in words or pictures.

Her mother.

Sanya stumbled in a haze as Daydri carried Kimoe out of the abandoned building and laid her in the back of the car. She kept seeing flashes of Kimoe's face. Her wild purple-gray hair bouncing as she walked. The familiar way she bit her lip when she was thinking. The warm tone of her voice.

Daydri's mother.

They didn't talk as Daydri zoomed through the city, weaving between transports like a mad woman. Sanya could barely keep her eyes open, anyway. Her whole body ached like she had been straining every muscle for hours. The minutes flew by, and soon Daydri pulled up to a garage door. It started opening the moment her transport stopped, but she didn't wait for it to raise all the way. Daydri accelerated under the door as soon as it was high enough to let the transport through.

She pulled up next to a mag lift and got out. Sanya followed her into the lift. It took them up 43 floors in mere seconds. Once the doors opened, Daydri hustled down the hall as fast as she could with Kimoe in her arms. At a plain white door near the end of the hall, she looked over at Sanya.

"Can you open it, please?" Her voice was tight, barely controlled.

Sanya opened the door and stood back to let her go first. Inside, an entry hall opened quickly into a living area with a full kitchen and reading room. White couches sat around a table, and a glass door led onto a balcony. Daydri rushed through the room and into an adjacent one, shutting the door behind her. Sanya stood for a moment, looking around the clean apartment, marveling at the clean walls and pristine gray carpet. Her eyes landed on a soft looking sofa, and every ache in her body intensified. Without thinking, she stumbled to the sofa and nearly fell onto it. She didn't even have time to wonder at how comfortable she felt before she fell asleep.

She was in a sea of noise. Voices, hundreds of them, hundreds of half remembered moments assaulted her, drummed on her mind like thousands of tiny fists. When she opened her mouth to scream at them to be quiet, her own voice caught in her throat. She clutched her throat in the perfect darkness and coughed, coughed until her lungs felt as though they would rip themselves apart. Thoughts collided in her mind and broke apart like glass, shattering and stabbing into her soul. Finally, she screamed and thrashed, still clutching her throat.

Sanya...

She heard someone calling a name, her name, calling to her like she was underwater. Someone tugged at her arms, and, as she reached out to push them away, something got shoved into her hands. It was smooth and slightly flexible. Her fingers warmed as they touched it. The voice came again, closer this time.

"Sanya, you have to express! Your mind is breaking!"

She remembered again, another voice telling her to express. She tried, but it only made the pain in her head worse. A whimper escaped her lips.

"You must calm your mind. Focus on the essence of who you are and what you most need or want. As you concentrate, your mind instinctively sorts through the information it has stored. It holds on to anything it needs, all that is you and information you need to know, and expels the rest."

Sanya shook her head; it hurt too much.

"All one needs is a focus on their core self... the self is the soul."

Who am I? She didn't have a core self. She had lost that along with everything else. She had lost that with her Lifebook.

Cool hands gripped her wrists, holding her steady. Focusing on the touch, she felt it, felt a sense of grounding so strong that she couldn't have resisted if she had tried. She was here. She was home. She was safe.