Son of Lazarus

Chapter 18: Enter the Mind

   The sleep finally faded out of his ears, which picked up the faint footsteps of someone approaching from the right. He could hear them shout to one of the other soldiers, probably Solider Six. He wasn't their only problem Soldier from what he could hear whenever the Fentanyl wore off enough for him to listen. The footsteps continued until they stopped right outside of his cell. He heard the door open, the sound of approaching footsteps telling him someone had entered. "Remember, Rubin, we don't want his mind too fogged during this. The Boss wants to see just how strong the new Telepath is."
   "So what's this thing?" Zack heard the shifting of metal in the young man's hands.

   "That," the older began, "is how we're going to transfer his mind. Once it's in place, it'll wake him mentally. That will allow us to manipulate his power so we can properly test Patient Six's mind." He could hear his bag getting switched out and groaned groggily. He could feel the medicine slipping into his veins. However, it didn't feel like what they usually use to keep him under. This was a numbing tickle, unlike the usual bite of sleep. What were they giving him? "Go ahead and put it in place." He felt something metal touch his forehead and slip over his eyes. The metal was cool to the touch, a welcomed change to the humidity in his cell. He shifted slightly, earning fear from both of the minds with him.

   "Okay, it's in place." Rubin said. Zack could sense him turn towards the other. "C-Can we go now?"
   "Is he hooked up properly?" Silence. Then the sound of a hand hitting a face lightly. "He's got to be hooked up properly or the transfer of power won't work." The metal on his head shifted as it was readjusted. He heard the soft whirr of the object they had on his head and over his eyes as it turned on. "Okay. Now just some tweaking here..." More hand movements on his head. Zack groaned groggily again, sensing these two men jump in their own skin.
   "C-C-Can we go?"
   "Just got to flip one more switch that'll connect him to the control panel...and...there." The hands pulled away and he could feel his mind shift uneasily as it was practically filtered through this machine.

   "Okay. Now we can go." Zack heard the younger breathe a sigh of relief, as though he was a dangerous man. He felt hurt. He wasn't dangerous. He simply didn't want to be here. They had forced him to come here a while ago now. And now they were using him to test someone with the same power as him? Who was it? Zack lay there, listening as the footsteps retreated and the heavy iron door to his cell shut. In darkness again, as he always was. He began to think, the Fentanyl's potent bite being replaced with the numbing sting. He was waking up, but he was still too groggy to fight or to sit up. Zack knew he had to escape. Somehow, someway, no matter the cost.

   He sat in silence, trying to come up with a plan. Then, all at once, he felt his mind being tugged towards something. He didn't feel right, as though he were being suspended in air. He was being pulled into the machine that was on his head before he was thrust into a white room. He stumbled forward and looked around. He was confused at first, until he saw another opposite him. He squinted as the person came closer. Immediately, he recognized it as a young lady, no older than seventeen or eighteen. She had a confused look on her face, matching the confusion he himself felt. Where were they? Zack straightened and looked around. There was nothing except white on all sides. It didn't feel like a room at all. Instead, it felt full of thought, like it was a mind of its own.

   But how could that be? It only amplified his own confusion. Zack turned his attention back on the girl. Now that she was closer, he could study her in full detail. She was wearing skin tight pants that were white, almost platinum in color. Her shirt was that of a white tank top to match the pants with a number sown onto the left breast. It was the number ten, colored the same dark crimson color of his own number. It was as though that was her soldier number. His eyes continued to travel up to her face. Her face....it was circular, framed beautifully by long black hair and her eyes...Zack froze. Her eyes...were the same sapphire blue color that his father's had been. After a moment of study, he finally spoke up, his voice echoing softly. "What's your name?" He watched as she pushed a strand of hair behind her dainty ear.

   "Lily." Her own voice had an echo to it. "My name is Lily." Zack looked down at his own white pants for a moment, his black hair falling into his emerald eyes.
   "I'm Zack." He managed to say, raising his head to meet her blue gaze with his own. For a moment, neither of them spoke. They simply sat in each other's presence, as though unsure of themselves. He was trying to find words to speak and he could sense her doing the same. His mind soon wandered away from their confrontation and to better days, to the days he was just a child. He closed his eyes, oblivious to the cracking sound behind him. He only looked up when he heard Lily gasp in amazement and shock.

   Zack's eyes followed Lily's gaze and he himself felt breathless at what he saw. There was, indeed, a crack in the floor behind him and above that crack was displayed a...a memory? He could see himself at age five, his eyes big in wonder as he stared up at his father. The voices inside of this memory were echoed, a reminder that this was just a replay of the past. "Are you ready, Zack?"
   "Mhmm." Little Zack said with a nod and a smile across his face.
   "Okay. Watch the feather." Zack watched as his child self turned his green gaze down towards a light brown feather striped with dark brown stripes. He remembered that the feather had belonged to an owl they had nursed back to health.

   "Now," the man said, "give it a little blow." Little Zack did just that and when he did, the feather went spiraling into the air while the man's head lifted, his eyes never leaving the feather. Zack watched himself laugh before he heard a woman's voice.
   "Don't encourage him, Mike." Zack recognized that voice and lifted his head as the memory played on. His mother.
   "Oh come now, Helen." The man said, his hand coming down onto little Zack's head, earning a childish laugh. "He's got to learn."
   "No he doesn't." Helen turned towards the pair of them from the background. Zack could still feel her judgmental gaze upon him. "He's a normal little boy with no connection to that, that...telepathic bull that you do."

   "You don't know that, Helen. Besides, he likes it when I make the feather dance." It had been true. Whenever his father levitated that owl feather, he had gotten so giddy over it and wanted to do the same thing like his dad. His heart sank as the memory returned to the crack, the floor resealing itself. He missed those days. The days where his mind was still developing. The days before he'd been forced here. He could sense something wrong with Lily and turned to look at her. She was now staring at him as though peering at a ghost. He could see tears beginning to form in her eyes and gave his own a squint, his eyebrows coming down in a questioning manner. His confusion only heightened at her next words.
   "Was that...my father?"