EXTERRUPT: Remorse
Chapter 71 - Act IV - INGRESSION
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Chapter 71 - EXTERRUPT: Remorse
Paysha
Consciousness returns courtesy of a throbbing headache. I’m back in my room. Pins and needles infest my body, but I can move. I rise groggily from the bed and stumble towards the door on deadweight limbs. It’s locked. I cling to the handle and fall to my knees, the enormity of circumstance hitting me again. But this pain is worse, more visceral than mental, a hot lance through my gut.
I lift up the blue tunic I’m now wearing and stare in blurred bewilderment at the three taped stitches dotting my abdomen. I’ve been punctured by surgical instruments; interfered with. What has that bitch poked around with now? With my back to the door, I sink to the floor and curl into a ball; cradling my head in my hands, a helpless foetus curled around another.
I can’t escape this invisible jail or the new life growing inside me. My choices have gone, my liberties taken. I’m no longer an individual. The isoCommune’s collective has absorbed me, removing my freedoms until I’m a prisoner in all but name. No matter the denials – either real or conjured – I’m an experimental brood-mare, in a far worse predicament than my brother.
Waves of despair from teenage memories and a lost childhood cascade through me, merging with my current predicament. I stagger back to the bed, unable to stem the tide; desperate to hide from it all. The room fills with incoherent babbling, then howls of anguish, dissolving unheard into tears and snot which soak my pillow.
<There is a way out, Paysha.>
I sniff coarsely and swallow. Where the fuck have you been while I’ve been pegged out to dry by mad Madam?
<We’ve been struggling with several aspects of your, er, mental landscape. Happily, the monitored parameters have stabilised and—>
So I’m your experiment as well, am I? Bloody marvellous.
<Not at all. You’re very important to us. So important that—>
<If we ranked your bath time ability to—>
Shut it, Imp. I’m not in the mood for your juvenile idiocy.
<Yes, m’lady.>
<So important, Paysha, that we very much don’t want to make another mistake. Believe me, we’ve made plenty both before and after you dragged us out of that sunken wreck.>
“I don’t want to be sucked into a warped little world of yours or Madam’s making.”
Listen to me very carefully, Tweedledumb and Dumber. I will say this only—
<I know we don’t have any, but please believe me when I say we’re all ears.>
For the first time in my life I thought things were going well. I might soon be cured, giving me years – even decades – more life. And I…I think I’ve found a kindred spirit in Xiao-Mai. So, despite what’s inside me and all it entails, I don’t want to be sucked into a warped little world of yours or Madam’s making. One where I’m a pawn in whatever ulterior games you’re playing.
<Sorry to be a party-pooper, but we need to rebalance your newfound yin with some realistic yang.>
<A bright future might appear to beckon as a blooming mother with a new lover, but worse times likely lie ahead, with consequences yet to be felt.>
Really? Why haven’t Xiao-Mai or her mother told me this? Doesn’t Madam call the shots around here?
<No, she doesn’t. And, as things currently stand, we can’t tell you either. You asked us to make sure you were kept away from the more painful stuff. But you can’t have it both ways, little Miss Snowflake. Either you face up to facts and confront some difficult choices, or you swan blissfully around in an ignorant state. Until you cease to exist in any normal sense.>
I don’t understand what you mean. I just want to be healthy and remain sane. That means no more blubbing every day from all the negativity and confrontation and—
<Paysha, you must try to understand. There is nothing to gain from looking after your mental health if your body prematurely gives up its ghost, involuntarily or not. Life will remain a constant challenge. If it didn’t, then we wouldn’t exist.>
<To make your options crystal clear: either live a sanguine, naïve life and die young, happy and in love, or open your eyes, jump into the thigh-high shit around you and attempt to prolong your survival. That’s your real choice, as it has been since before you found us, right up until you stepped through the Panoptik’s gates and into your sapphic fairy tale.>
What wonderful, watertight logic you both weave. So my life choices are to have no choice at all. All-knowingness must be such a drag for you guys.
<At this point in time, indeed it is. But that will change.>
Really? How?
<It’s more a case of ‘how much’.>
I feel like a punchbag hit with every bifurcated choice this universe has to offer.
<You have no idea.>
I'm a huge fan of Mazzy Star, btw