Gauntlet

Part 1: Chapter 5

The next couple weeks blended together. I thought I knew what boredom was, but they proved me wrong. The only part of each day that didn't feel the same was the injection. It was always the sole reason I didn't give up after just a couple attempts.

I pushed through multiple hours of practice each day, not out of determination, but out of the dread of having to end the day with a needle.

I had become more cautious of Corru than scared, cherry-picking my words and actions in hopes that I'll avoid one of her longwinded retorts delivered in her uniquely disinterested tone. It didn't always work. I also noticed her nails. They were painted black, but above that, her left hand nails curved inward at the end. Her right hand nails curved normally.

It looked almost as if she could connect them like a puzzle. I had no idea if this had any practical meaning, or if it was just a stylistic decision, but it was peculiar nonetheless.

Something happened about two weeks into the training that broke the monotony. Corru barged in at the end of the day while I was convincing myself to stick the needle in, carrying a bowl. She marched to the centre of the room and placed it down.

"This is food," she started, "Real food." I had eaten my cube of unidentifiable nutrition a couple minutes ago, so I was full and a little confused.

"I already ate today, so I'm pretty full thanks."

"I'm aware. However, those cubes don't actually have any nutrition in them. They're only there to give you the illusion of fullness."

"What?" I asked simply.

"Eat," she replied simply, "the food." And so I did. It wasn't pleasant. Cold soup was the best way I could describe it. I ate it slowly because my body kept telling me how stupid I was for eating a bowl of soup when I was this full.

She picked it back up when I was done and left. I decided, as I thought best considering where I was, not to question it, and continued to fight my right arm with my left to inject myself again.

On different occasions I had asked her for things like soap, a razor, a shower, a change of clothes, or any other thing that would fix my current issues. As I expected, the answer to all of these requests were a simple and direct "No."

Many days I spent crawling around the small shed, or whatever you wanted to call it, seeing if there was anything I could reach on the floor. Eventually when I felt comfortable enough to stand, I did so at the further desks. I didn't dare go for the arm just in case Corru barged in at that moment again.

I found a bunch of fun little machines I didn't even remotely understand the purpose of which I fidgeted with, having no regard for the potential risks. And when I did, I glanced over at the main workbench, deciding that even if I didn't touch the arm, I'd still stare at it.

What always caught my attention and what I could never understand about the thing was the distinct lack of palm. The fingers were attached directly to the wrist, all a little shorter than fingers generally were. They all stuck directly up, including the thumb.

The arm itself was a dark enough grey that it took a second to realize it wasn't black. It had a slit along the top of the arm, and a little stub I assumed to be a connector sticking out the back of it. My connector theory was further supported by it looking like it would fit perfectly into what I now thought of as a connection port on the plate over the end of my organic arm.

I looked at the door out of the shed many a time wondering what was outside, but I never tried to exit. If what Corru said was true, I decided I'd rather live more than five minutes than give in to my curiosity.

After about a month, I could stand for a couple hours, and I could walk comfortably, if not very far. And, to my great excitement almost overpowering my exhaustion, Corru ended the last day by telling me that from tomorrow I would start learning how to use the arm she finally gave a name to. It was called the Gauntlet.

Tomorrow came. I woke up at around the same unknown time that I always did. All I knew about the time of day was the color of the glow leaking out of the cracks between the planks making up the shack's walls.

Corru was standing in front of me, as she also always did. Seeing that I was awake, she marched over to the workbench and picked up the object of much wonder and suspense, at least to me.

"As you may have been able to figure out, " she began, "you're going to go outside eventually. What you may not, however, been aware of is precisely what I intend for you to do there." It was a fair point. All the time I was training, I was too excited to see what's outside the shed to consider why I'd be going outside to begin with. "The Gauntlet, which was constructed at great cost and time on my part, has the bare capabilities needed to gather materials and defend yourself."

"Uhh," I responded a little hurriedly, "defend myself from what exactly?"

"You ask that question as if a creature hadn't forcefully relieved you of your arm right outside this treehouse." I decided to ignore the rest of the answer, and fixated on her referring to the shed as a treehouse. I hadn't even considered the possibility.

"Moving on," she tried, "You will learn the limited tools you have at your disposal in here. That's all you're required to know at present."

"What if I wanna know more?"

"Then I'd apologize, even if I wasn't particularly sorry." And with that she grabbed my upper arm and lifted it a little. It confused me, but was too much of a surprise for me to react in any meaningful way.

She lined up the Gauntlet in less than a second and continued to – quite aggressively I might add – shove it into the end of my arm. I winced, and probably screamed too, but it didn't hurt.

Apparently my strangely reasoned disappointment showed on my face, because Corru had something to say again.

"Well, of course it wouldn't hurt," she said, somehow sounding less interested than usual. Quite an impressive feat if you ask me. "I'm not a particularly cruel person."

Debatable.

"Regardless," She went back to her normal amount of inflection, that being very little, but no longer none. "I have business to attend to, so I shall leave you to get over whatever unnecessary excitement this will surely cause."

Before leaving, she twisted the Gauntlet clockwise, and it moved just slightly. Suddenly the fingers shot further out, each segment splitting from each other, and the thumb shifting to where you'd expect a thumb to be. They left a space in the middle where a dark green energy flowed from the end of the wrist to fill that space and form a palm.

The energy shot five thin strands through each finger, connecting the segments like a thread that no one bothered pulling tight. Before the palm started forming, a glow the same color as the energy emanated from the slit across the top of the Gauntlet.

There's a strange sort of laugh people sometimes let out that sounds very similar to the breaths someone lets out when they get the news that someone they knew very well had passed. A sort of half-hearted wheeze on every exhale, being broken by the same empty syllable between the first and second 'uh' in the word 'uh-uh'.

This was the laugh I was laughing from when the palm started forming, and for many minutes afterwards.

I got the same feeling of nostalgia and ecstasy as when I felt my leg muscles contract once again, except that this time I didn't feel any muscle contractions. The difference was that I could immediately wriggle my fingers, turn my hand over, rotate my wrist, and any other things one is generally able to do with their hands.

When I turned my hand over, I noticed some writing at the bottom of it. It was an engraving, and this is what it said:

The Gauntlet
Manufactured by:
Corru
Inspired by ideas proposed by:
K. Lynn