A Brief Feel Of Home

They were running tests again. Tests were boring. Persephone was tired of tests. But she was told to sit and do nothing while the people in white coats took some readings from the electrodes stuck to her head now. So she sat still during the testing, and let her mind wander, answering the simple questions they asked without dedicating much thought to it.

~

Typically, she fell asleep during the more silent portions of the test. It was funny, she could never recall exactly when she would go from waking to dreaming, but she knew when she was. Or at least it was funny to her.

"Talia! Look!" a familiar voice came from behind her. The voice was that of a child's, a boy she decided. She turned and looked down, the logical thing to do when expecting to see a small child. Instead, she found herself looking at the ankles of a boy that was somehow taller than herself.

"You can see the Earth! It's so pretty!!" the voice continue.

For her part, Persephone didn't notice it. Instead, she stared at her own hands. The short, pudgy fingers were not hers. Yet they were just as familiar as though they were. Strange.

"Mom and Dad said they'd send us both to go to school there. I can't wait to go!"

She was a child? This was odd. She was a child again. Her memories of her childhood were blurry, like a camera out of focus. But this was her child body. How old was she at this point? Four? Five?

"Don't you remember any of us, Natalia?"

This voice was not that of a child's. This was a man's voice, and did not ring with any familiarity but a vague hint of nostalgia. She looked up to see a gaunt man with long black hair, and for a brief second she remembered everything.

"Alek."

~

"GOD DAMMIT, GET MORE PEOPLE IN THERE TO RESTRAIN HER!!" the head of the Newtype Korps detachment shouted furiously. Orderlies and nurses tried desperately to wrangle the wildly thrashing Newtype.

There had been a brief but massive spike in activity, then it flatlined. And then the subject began to scream and rip the electrodes and other medical devices off. The girl had taken one of the scientists completely off guard, probably broke the poor man's nose. The other two in the room didn't offer much resistance as the girl flung herself at one and kicked as the other tried to pry her off. It had taken two of the bases guards as well as three orderlies just to keep the girl pinned. It was going to take more to hold her still enough to sedate her.

Pity, they'd been so close to a breakthrough. She'd said something before she berserked, as well. Perhaps "Alex" or whatever she said had some sort of significance.

~

"She's been like this ever since she was brought here," an elderly woman spoke softly. The two men behind her were obviously not the typical adoption types, but this girl was not going to attract the kind of people who wished for a happy child to bring into their family.

"She just sits here, most of the time. She can eat and take herself to the bathroom, she's not an invalid. But she just sits the rest of the time. Never talks to anyone, but some of the nurses have said they've thought they heard her speaking when nobody else is around. She wakes up sometimes and will look confused, she always says the same thing when she does, too. "Alek", we think it's a friend or family member."

"It says here she was brought here after her parents died in a shuttle accident. How soon after?" one of the men asked.

"Oh, the poor thing. She was there to see them off... something ignited all the fuel. A frayed wire or something, I think they said. They say she started screaming and hollering almost before the flames died. Probably just didn't want to see her parents leave, but the woman that brought her in says she was quiet as a mouse up to that point."

The two men shared a pointed look.

"We'll take the girl, ma'am." the first said, the second producing a large sum of bills. "And we'd also like to make a generous donation to this orphanage if it will keep this transaction off the books."

The woman's eyes went wide. Sure, this was every kind of wrong and shady. But the donations had been few and far between lately. The men seemed to notice her hesitance.

"And we'll give ten times that if you erase any records this girl was ever here at all."

The two men left the building hurriedly, wheeling the young girl out in a wheelchair to an awaiting van. At that point, Natalia ceased to exist. The day she was recovered from the orphanage was her token birthday, the birth of Persephone.

~

Persephone awoke in a room, but it was not her room. Her room was back in Granada. This room was typical of the military barracks she'd been spending most of her time in later. An officer's quarters, small and spartan. Her muscles felt sore, and she had bruises she couldn't recall having done anything to cause.

Dinner was sitting on the nearby desk, and instructions awaited next to them. Persephone ignored the food, she wasn't really hungry anyway. Instead, she picked up the sheet of paper that usually held her orders. She'd only just barely arrived here, hopefully they weren't already sending her somewhere else.

The instructions were simple, though.

Report to Lord Garma's party. Dress appropriately.