Gears (NaNoWriMo 2017) (#1 Below the Machines)

Chapter 1

        A flash. Sparks. A young girl with long flowing hair playing. A young girl in her mother's arms. A young girl going to school, having an education. A girl getting older. A girl who was innocent.

A girl who died.

Everything went dark.

But in that darkness, there was a strand of light. It was like a spider's web — fragile and thin, reaching, stretching out to me. Like a train rushing at me from a distance. It came closer and closer, and my hand reached out to reach it.

I shouldn't have.

It felt like a tidal wave, like that one time at the beach when you meet an extremely aggressive wave while you're swimming. It crashes into you, and slams you into the sand, knocking the breath out of you. But when you try to take a breath, there is nothing but water.

There was anger, there was sadness. There was joy, envy, passion, lust, kindness, loyalty, pride, mercy, jealousy and fear. Fear consumed my body prominently. There was the feeling of impending turmoil.

There was torment.

It ran through my veins like currents of torture, reaching out to every part of my body.

It was like nothing you could ever imagine. So much agony, burning burning burning. Like living tongues of flame struck me, the heat killing all senses and yet, fulfilling all senses.

Then,

It stopped.

It was blank again, and a feeling of emptiness now reigned, filling up the blank space. When I felt for that feeling absence, it slipped away. I couldn't grasp it anymore, and it was strong — the feeling of loss.

But... what was that loss?

That was when the colours started to flood into my mind-scape. Then the world around me dimmed.

And then there was darkness again.

⚙ ⚙ ⚙

A flash of blinding light. A sound of mechanisms ticking. A sudden weight in my body. The scent of crisp hospital bedsheets.

My eyelids felt heavy and unfamiliar as I blinked them open. My head throbbed in time to my heart, the pain pulsing whenever I attempted to shift my sore neck. My short, chin-length hair now lay in a messy halo around my pillow, and the heart monitor beside me beeped with even beats. My eyes were caked with a sticky substance, now dry and irritating on my skin.

At first, all I could see was white. This struck an odd thought in my head — the fact that I couldn't see anything else set an emotion running around in my head, giving me a strong shake of vertigo. Panic. That was it. But then the lights came into view, my eyes adjusted of their own will, and the faint sound of whirring accompanied it. My sight focused on the lines that connected light to light on this massive expanse of ceiling. The panic faded, and I sighed, taking in a large breath of relief.

I slowly let my eyes close again, moving aside that one moment to take rest and let the drowsiness consume me. As I lay there, my ears slowly tuned into the low mutters and clamours around me, amplifying the ones that were closest. Two voices, two females. The information spilled into my brain, jolting me back awake. The sounds were too much.

"She's awake." The doctor said. A face covered in a surgery mask leaned over me. Clean and crisp, brown hair combed back into a bun until it shone, tucked underneath a fabric cap. How I knew she was specifically a doctor, I did not know. Perhaps it was how she was dressed, or perhaps it was because even though they had taken something from me, I still remembered the people in those specific uniforms.