]|)). //-\\. ]R. ]|<. ]|\|. ]|E. S. S

.:P R E V A I L:.

.:Chapter One:.

   "All I can do is wait inside my little cell," she said while twirling her fingers in her long hair, "wishing for someone to come and take me away."

   She sat on the floor and hugged her knees, staring blankly at the wall.

   She waited for a burst of emotion, but none came. She knew she had felt it; she had felt that tiny burst of anger once. It had felt wonderful. Emotion rarely ever came to her.

   Then she remembered again. "I have no feelings. They were taken from me."

   The word “feelings” meant nothing to her really. "I despise them for taking my feelings, don't I? But they never ask me. Do I hate it?" she stopped the finger twirling, as if in thought, then after hesitation added in a quiet whisper, "...yes." Not even blinking, she folded her hands in her lap.

   "But do I really hate it? No... I don't hate. I don't do anything. Emotion was raped from my mind."

   She was doing it again. She was trying to make herself feel angry, so that she could feel her emotion...feel that raw power she had briefly felt, but then lost as they injected her with that mind-numbing drug. Every three days they would inject her with this mysterious thing that she liked to think as poison. They did this to steal her emotion. It made her slow and weak. She never got happy (not that she would anyway in her situation). She wasn't even ever angry, because if she found out...well it could mean the death of many people.

   "I exist, but I feel no emotion. I’m here, and yet there is nothing inside of me that really feels alive. I simply feel nothing."

   She heard the sound of something hit the floor in the seemingly endless hallway. It echoed from her far left. She crawled on the damp concrete floor toward the bars of her cell.

   She focused her attention on the origin of the noise. She knew something was about to happen, but was unafraid. She reached weakly for the rusty bars with both hands and squeezed her face in between. When she had first arrived in the place, her face could barely squeeze through. Her intelligent eyes and dimpled face had withered and disintegrated into a hollow-cheeked skull. The effect it gave when she stuck her bony neck through the bars would remind one of a droopy dandelion in a sidewalk crack. No longer the black, frost-dipped rose, but a dying dandelion, limp and sticky from too much handling.

   Besides the dim light bulb hanging from the high ceilings of her cell, the hall was completely black. It was a cloudy darkness, and one can see nothing that could have made any sound, only the familiar outline of her shadow against the opposite cinder block wall. Her thin outline, from lack of food and sleep, quivered slightly, possibly from a cool draft. "I want to see my face. I don’t even know what I look like, or who I am, or even where I came from."

    She waited about a minute, until her red hands could no longer grasp the partly rusted bars, and her neck began to chafe. She carefully removed her face and winced when she scratched it on rusted metal.

   She touched her fingertips to her cheek and felt hot blood. She withdrew her hand and saw red stained fingers, wiping her hand on her grayish-brown gown. White at one point, it had slowly faded and stained after months of constant wear. The fabric had especially been worn and stained in some places, such as the area around her knees and shins from sitting on the floor.

   She grabbed an end of the gown and wiped the blood from her face. A red smear sunk into the fabric. There were many more like it, so it didn't stand out much. She curled up in the corner of the cell where a tangled mess of hay lied. It was a bit damp from the cold cement floor, but it was the best thing she had for bedding and a place to sit.

   She grabbed a few pieces and started braiding them together out of boredom.

   Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack…

   She leaned toward the bars of her cell to see where the footsteps were coming from. It sounded like a woman’s footsteps, perhaps high-heeled shoes. She recognized the rattling sound of the shackles before she even saw them, then the jingle of keys as the woman took them out of her white doctors’ coat pocket.

   The woman stepped into the light and fumbled to find the right key on the ring. After she found the correct one she placed it in the heavy metal lock. She turned the key, but the rusty door was stuck. Giving it a powerful tug, the door finally opened with a loud squeak. Walking inside, she held her breath from the pungent odor, and tried not to look too disgusted.

   The prisoner instinctively held up her hands as the woman clamped the cold iron shackles around them, her wrists already rubbed red and raw from frequent use of them.

   She struggled to stand up, but finally did so with her legs shaking. Being in there for who knows how long, made her become weak and unhealthy. The woman put a warm hand on the prisoner's shoulder and led her out of the cell, turning around briefly to secure it. The woman started walking down the hallway leading to the right instead of the usual left, but stopped when she realized the weak shackled monster wasn't following her. She grabbed her by the chain linking her hands together.

   The prisoner yelped in pain and stumbled forward like a cow being prodded with hot iron. She began following the woman like a lost sheep, groping through the dark as she was lead by the shackle's chain.

   Any healthier person would be able to see much better than the poor shackled creature of a girl in that dark hallway, but because she suffered from lack of nutrition and the necessary vitamins, her eyes were weak, and unaccustomed to the lack of dim light. The light bulb hanging from her ceiling was always on, and out of reach so she couldn’t turn it off, making her eyes only accustomed to the dimmer light of her cell.

   The woman stopped her in front of a rectangular outline of light. The girl realized it was the outline of a closed door.

   The woman turned to the prisoner and said in a loud whisper, "You are going before the ‘Top-Notch’ doctors, professors, and scientists of Light Labs. If you don't make yourself appear to be healthy and presentable, then I will personally see to it that the rest of your miserable life here will be even worse than it is now!"

   And with that she opened the door and pushed her into the room, slamming it behind her.

   There was a very bright light in the room, and she put her shackled hands in front of her eyes to help see better.

   She had never been in this room before, only the rooms in the halls on the left. Those were the surgical rooms and science labs for research and experimentation. There was also a locked door where they kept all the medication behind. There were a few offices, and a bathroom, but that was all she knew. She was certain even though she had only seen a few halls and rooms; it was a much larger place.

   As her eyes slowly adjusted, she saw she was standing in a neatly furnished room. There was a long table in the center where six men in suits and doctors’ coats sat. They were all staring at her. She trembled with weakness, (not to mention she was nervous), and leaned against the door for support. By the look on some of their faces she must have looked terrible. She smiled meekly, unsure if she was doing it correctly.

   “My dear God, Lumus! Look at her! She’s naught but skin and bones, she is! I can’t believe I let you go this far…” said a man in doctors’ apparel, a look of shock on his hairy freckled face.

   The man she assumed to be Lumus stood up abruptly.

   “Nonsense, O’ Connor! You know as well as I do that her condition can be reversed in some way or another, so don’t get that red beard of yours all up in a knot.”

   The Irishman, O’ Connor stood up, almost knocking over the table and the chair behind him.

   “I’ve gone along with this far enough!” said O’ Conner, shaking his big fist. “You’ve got t' stop this madness before somethin’ terrible happens! If she finds out some how, what all this is, and what she can do, it’ll be the death of all this terrible business!” He grabbed his papers and started to leave the room when Lumus snapped his fingers.

   Instantly three huge men were in front of him, one crossed his arms, and the other two put up their hands to stop him. O’ Connor backed into the table, and put up his own fists. He was also a very big man, but they outnumbered him 3 to 1.

   “Ye’ll not be gettin’ me so easily!” he said, punching the first man in the face. He then grabbed the other two and clashed their heads together. They fell to the floor while the other man stood holding his broken nose. O’ Connor dashed over to her and grabbed her by the arm.

   As the other five men at the table started to get up, he opened the door and shoved her out. She fell on her hands and tried to get up, but she was too slow and weak. He ran out after slamming the door behind him and quickly helped her up, pulling her down the hall by the wrist. It hurt a lot, but she didn’t scream.

   The were halfway down the hall in the direction of the cell when the sound of the door bursting open behind them shot down the hallway, and the men along with the one guard who was still holding his nose, started rushing down the hall after them. O’ Connor knew she was slowing them down, but he never let go. He continued to drag her through the dark hall.

   His free hands reached into his pocket, and she heard the jingling of more keys. He tried to find the right one, and swore in the darkness when he dropped the key ring. He quickly picked it up with the other men about ten yards behind, and desperately tried to unlock the Laboratory 7-B door.

   Just when they were about to grab them she was pulled inside the pitch-black lab and the door slammed behind her.

    A switch was flipped, and the florescent light flickered on. The doctor, O’ Connor, was standing against the door while he clutched his sides, panting like mad. He turned around and started locking all the extra latches on the door to make sure they couldn’t get in.

   “…ya all righ’?” he said, still panting.

   She nodded. She didn't always talk much to others, and to tell the truth, she didn’t like to. She only talked when she was alone. Whenever she said something she was usually told to shut up or get smacked.

   She looked around the Laboratory, and felt the familiar tile beneath her bare feet, and the sterile smell of metal tools and chemicals. A sort of table sat in the center of the room. There were leather straps on it to hold someone down. Scattered around the table were various little instruments and electric tools laid out neatly on metal trays.  Her eyes glanced at a surgical drill. She remembered that drill, and shivered. Along a few of the walls were desks and counters with sinks. Larger pieces of machinery were placed about the room, such as an X-ray machine, a machine that showed DNA, and so forth.

   “Go through there, and that should tell ya everything you need to know,” he said with a wave of his hand at the opposite side of the lab.

   She obeyed and walked around the stools, chairs, and odds and ends until she reached the door.

   She stepped in and peered around. There were various pieces of broken equipment and other objects in the closet-like back room, but she focused her attention to the glowing blue circles of light sitting in the glass case. They looked somewhat like frosty blue halos, except with little metal seams in the back. She knew it well. It was her collar. It was the source of much pain. They would hurt her with it just to see her reaction, but it was mainly for the use of control. At least that’s what they said.

   "But what were they trying to control?" she whispered to herself.

   She continued to the back of the room, where a small door stood behind some wooden crates of glass test tubes full of clear green liquid. She recognized it as the stuff she was injected with every 3 days. It was the poison.

   She walked behind the crates and reached for the handle of the door. It swung open with ease. As soon as she walked in, a trail of blue lights on the floor light a pathway for her. She looked around and saw she was in a large room filled with rows and rows of file cabinets. Around the perimeter and in rings around the upper walls were more file cabinets with stairs leading up to higher levels. She carefully stepped down the stairs, holding the railing for support.

   At the bottom she stepped up to a file cabinet and opened the drawer. Hundreds of files with the same topic were inside.

   Her heart skipped a beat.

   ]|)). //-\\. ]R. ]|<. ]|\|. ]|E. S. S

.:P R E V A I L:.

.:Chapter Two:.

"...What...what is this?" the prisoner whispered. "Who would do this to people..." She glanced at the name of the topic: Barton, Quinn

   She let the name slip off her tongue, before turning over the paper covered in horrible pictures. The next page was a log of some sort. It described the process in which Quinn Barton was exposed to chemical after chemical, and the effects afterward. There were pages and pages of mathematical equations on how to create the chemical substances they used, as well as ones that didn’t work.

   She closed the folder and slid it back into the drawer, then pulled out another one. This one was also about Quinn Barton. This one only consisted of photos though.

   The first photo was a picture of a young girl, looking to be about 8 or 9 years old. Her bright blue eyes had a look of curiosity in them.

   The second photo showed what they had done after one of their experiments. Quinn Barton’s skin was red and covered in burns. Her eyes were swollen, and her lips were dry and cracked.

   She replaced the folder and closed the drawer. She shakily walked down the aisle to see the next subject, but when she opened the drawer it was the same girl. That time, though, she found a log entry. It read:

Day 257

    Quinn continues to deteriorate. She does not react well to any emotion, which is a great success for our Non-Emotion Serum, but as far as any special abilities, she shows little progress. Scans with laboratory equipment show it is possible for her, but she has not yet discovered her new abilities. We believe that in a matter of time…

   She stopped reading and tried to absorb all of it.

   “What was O’ Connor trying to tell me? Am I Quinn?” She felt her face and put her fingers through her hair. She didn’t have a mirror, and didn’t exactly know what she looked like, but she could tell that she was not Quinn. Then she stopped. “Is there some kind of connection?”

   She ran though the isles of file cabinets, until she came upon a subject that was different from Quinn’s. She opened the folder, carefully reading the name, letting it burn into her memory. Artemis, James. This time it was a man. He didn’t seem to have been there for long, since there was only one cabinet devoted to him.

   The first picture in the file showed him before his arrival at Light Labs. His reddish-brown hair and beard complemented his hazel eyes. Hazel eyes that shone with a confident and dangerous quality she had long forgotten she had herself; a mouth with soft pink lips that looked as though they had whispered and cradled millions of beautiful words between them; and a strong but slender neck that helped define his strong jaw line which curled up under his attentive ears. She felt that she knew this man in some way, but indeed she had never remembered him from anywhere.

   He appeared to be in his late teens or early twenties, but she didn’t check to see how old exactly.

   Slowly, she slid the folder into the drawer, not wanting to see him in a state such as herself and Quinn.

   Somewhat mystified by this man, she shook herself out of her trance before opening the next subject. From the moment she touched the creamy-colored folder and read the name she knew what it was. She opened the folder, a drop of sweat falling free from her chin to the picture on the inside. Her eyes seemed to quiver in their sockets.

   She didn’t even have to feel her face this time.

   She knew.

   She didn’t even realize when the papers inside flopped to the floor.

   She knew.

   She was just like Quinn.

   “That used to be me…” she whispered, her voice suddenly straining.  “I used to look like that… before my memory was taken away and I forgot who I was. I’m just like her…”

   She started to fall forward, as if dizzy or losing her balance.

   All of a sudden a rush of pain surged through her brain. She closed her eyes and grimaced at the feeling running through her. Images flashed though her mind.

*    *    *

   A girl in a white hospital gown sat in a chair in an empty room…

   Surgeons started drilling holes in the girl’s skull as they attempted to change the way her brain worked…

   Scientists watched as the girl floated in a large tank of bubbling green liquid. All kinds of tubes and wires were connected to her body…

   Screams started flying down the hallway, bursting through ears of the weak-minded.

*    *    *

   She opened her eyes and saw her own fingernails digging into her face. She heard her own screams wailing and echoing in the vast room. She pulled her shaking hands away from her head and stared at them in disbelief.

   “I don’t feel as weak right now…I feel kind of…funny.”

   There were bits of skin and blood under her nails. Her face started burning.

   Tears mixed with the blood ran down her cheeks and started to drip onto the gown and the fallen papers.

   Then she realized…

   “ I’m crying… I haven’t cried for so long, and… it isn’t even possible… is it?” she said through sniffles.

   “It’s not possible!” She screamed up at the ceiling, clenching her fists and falling to her knees.

   “It’s not even humane! How could this happen? How could they do this to me? To us? How dare they!” She raged with newfound strength.

   She burned with white-hot anger, her fists shaking. She got up off the floor and put her hands on her head. Her head was throbbing, and the room was spinning.

   “What am I doing here? Why does this have to happen to me? I hate the world! I hate them all for doing this to me and James and Quinn!”

   Her heart was racing and her head started pounding now. She screamed through the vast room. It echoed and made the floor tremble. She kept screaming. Her eyes were closed and her face was wet with blood, sweat and tears. Her hands were squeezing her skull.  All around her was filled with hatred and despair.

   “I hate them! I hate them all!”

   The room seemed to explode. All around her she felt fire and destruction. The ground didn’t merely tremble; it shook violently.

   Her anger turned into sobbing, and she slowly open her eyes. All around was debris. Some of the ceiling tiles had fallen, and there was an immense crack forming a circle around her in the tile floor. The file cabinets were knocked over and dented. Burned papers and pictures fluttered to the floor covered in scorch marks around her. The vast room now looked as if it had just been hit with a bomb, but she was fine.

   She stared at her own shaking hands, and then peered between her fingers at the destruction.

   “…I did this. I was the destructive force behind this catastrophic disaster. It was me…” she whispered as a tear rolled down her face. “They’ve made me a monster…”

   She slowly sank to her knees. All her emotion had finally come free.

   She felt so much stronger now. Not strong enough as she used to be, but stronger. The scratches on her face had somehow disappeared, and her face seemed to be fuller. Her eye sockets and temples didn’t feel so hollow, her lips softer. She felt so much better.

   “I can feel the anger and the sadness. The despair and the realization of what I have done. The only thing that I lack is happiness, but it will never come…”

   She brushed some soot off her shoulders and started to get up.

   “…Not if I stay here,” she said with her eyes narrowing, almost taking on an inhuman glow.

  ]|)). //-\\. ]R. ]|<. ]|\|. ]|E. S. S

.:P R E V A I L:.

.:Chapter Three:.

   James opened his eyes.

   The darkness rolled and roared down the hall as the power surged and the ground trembled. A drop of sweat rolled down his temple until it stuck to the coarse red hairs of his beard. The elastic wet surface of that one drop of sweat, reflecting the world through his vision.

   His chest heaving with adrenaline and fear, he sat up on his elbows, his dangerous eyes now flecked with question.

   “What the hell is going on?” he half-yelled.

   An explosion sounded from above and to the right, as if the building had been violently shaken by the shoulders.

   He tried to stand up, but the combination of his drowsiness and the trembling of the floor and walls made him hit his head on his cell bars, causing his forehead to bleed.

   People started shouting and running through the halls, colliding with each other, not knowing which direction was which, and here was James, standing in his cell in the middle of the hall, gripping the bars with his strong hands and demanding to be let out. No one seemed to hear him, and as everyone stampeded toward the exits at the end of the hallways, someone managed to drop a ring of keys.

   His eyes glanced with yearning toward the grimy keys. They darted about in their sockets seeing if anyone was left in the dead silence. This was his chance.

   The air had a stale quality to it. It was slow, unmoving, but damp. Two or three lights flickered in the blackness, including his own cell’s light bulb. The only sounds were his heavy panting and the sound of ceiling tiles crumbling and falling to the floor, followed by a stream of dust.

   He stretched out his arm through the iron shafts of the cell, his elegant, but strong fingers groping the floor for the keys. His own light was failing, and he couldn’t see the keys without it. He shifted his weight, adding and inch or two to his reach and felt the cold metal of the keys. Scratching at the end of one of the keys with his nail, he managed to edge the ring a little closer to him, and then pulled the keys over to his cell.

   After watching them open his door every day, he remembered which key it was, planning this day for the few weeks he had been here. His fingertips touched the cut on his cheekbone stretching down to his partially swollen lip and his eyes winced a little, collecting the memory of how his first attempt at escape had caused one of the female doctors to cut his face with the scalpel she had at hand.

   They had brought him upstairs to the Laboratory 7-B and tried to strap him to the cold surgical steel table. He had pretended to be weak and went along with it, until they laid him on the table. Just as they picked up the strap buckles he jerked up into a sitting position and tried to jump off the table, but the doctor nearest him made a grab for him, missing his arm and cutting his face with the scalpel. She cut deep, but not deep enough to do any real damage.

   But this time he might make it. This time he had the keys. No one seemed to be around to stop him, at least not now. His lips spread in a wide grin at the thought of it.

   His body glistening in the dim light, beaded with sweat, he took a deep breath, letting the beads roll down his neck when he swallowed. Closing his eyes he could see the way out. Emerging from the hot hell of Light Labs to the bluish-black moonlit sky, fresh cool air filling his lungs, opening his hazel eyes to the reflection of the stars.

   Opening his eyes he saw he was still in hell.

   Wrenching the key into the hole, he threw open the rusty door and stepped out, the only thing on him being the keys and a pair of hospital pants. Barefoot, he padded down the hall, dust collecting on the bottoms of his feet.

*    *    *

After managing to climb up the mangled steps, she pushed open the door to the lab, finding it hanging on one hinge. She twisted and stepped around the tangled machinery and broken glass until she reached the lab entrance. Nearby, under a huge, fallen tank was Dr. O’ Connor, his arms sticking out with the keys held tightly in his death grip. Blood soaked into the white sleeve of his coat and left a red crusty residue on the key. She even thought she saw a little chip of skull bone float through the blood, but she tried to ignore the imagery. She skirted around the edge of the tank and most of the blood pool, and stooped to take the keys.

   Still being a little weak it was difficult to break his fingers away from the brass ring. She grabbed a scalpel from the floor and tried to cut his fingers off with it, but her hands were dumb and slow, not able to cut through the bone the right way, but in the end she managed to snap off his fingers with a sickening cracking and crunching. Snatching the keys from his fingerless hand, she splashed through the blood, only wanting to get out. She reached the door and, fumbling, managed to open all the locks and swung open the door.

   Because she used too much force, the door swung open too wide until it slammed into the wall with a bang, causing crumbs of dusty ceiling to settle to the floor, but the noise did not scare her. Already her mind and strength were returning to her. The fear of O’ Connor’s dead body surprised her, not having felt fear in so long, but now she was filled with courage, if not a drop of foolishness.

   She walked at a hurried pace down the hall to the left; her bloody footprints being the only evidence she was ever there.

*    *    *

   James had made his was up several flights of stairs until he heard the door bang against the wall. He stopped dead in his tracks, chest heaving, if not silently heaving, in the shadows of the stairwell. He watched the girl look down both halls, then start to run toward him. He noticed her hospital gown and realized that she was trying to escape like he was. His heart softened, and he knew they should try to get away together.

*    *    *

She ran toward the dark doorway to the stairwell, not knowing if she should go up or down. She had never seen any windows in the building, but she could still have been above ground.

   Only when she was about a foot from the door did she see the tall dark figure looming above her, face hidden in shadow, yet the eyes glinted at her. She gasped when he grabbed her arm and pulled her close.

   It was at that moment that the light flickered on for only a few seconds. She took him in, recognizing him as James Artemis. His intelligent hazel eyes, entwined with a wild and dangerous quality, yet so soft and loving. Her eyes slid down his strong-boned nose to his lips, which were opened slightly, showing his tongue sitting on the edge of his teeth. His reddish-brown hair somewhat slicked back as if he had just run his fingers through it, although some hairs had escaped the movement of his elegant hand and stuck out at odd angles. Even out of place, they seemed to have been placed there strategically, each hair a symbol of his rebellion to being captured.

   She swallowed.

   He opened his mouth to speak when the lights flickered back out.

   “If you want to escape you’ll have to come with me. I’m not sure but I think I know a way out…I know you probably don’t trust me but if you want to get out of here the odds are more in your favor if you go with me,” he said in a quiet whisper, trying not to scare her.

   She stared at him for a long time, not really knowing what to say.

   “Do you trust me?”

   Even though she couldn’t really see them, she knew his eyes were softening, becoming warmer, harder to pull away from. She couldn’t see her own hands in front of her face, but she could see him so clearly. His own hands softened their grip on her arm.

   “I…I trust you,” she managed to say.

   “Good,” he said, immediately pulling her after him up the stairs.

 ]|)). //-\\. ]R. ]|<. ]|\|. ]|E. S. S

.:P R E V A I L:.

.:Chapter Four:.

   Rose stepped toward the cell. The creature inside quivered with fright, its faerie wings twitching with fear. She reached her hand out to touch it, but it screamed so horribly that she pulled it back.

   Feeling a hand on her shoulder she turned to James.

   “Now you know better than that,” he said to her, taking the white coat off her shoulders, exposing her own faerie wings.

   “Look what you made it do,” he said with pity, pointing to the faerie, which had now turned into a human girl, twirling her fingers in her long hair, then stopping to press her face through the bars and stretch out her arms to grab her.

   James pulled her away from the cell and turned her toward him. Rose stared into his eyes, which were so clear and warm, they almost radiated. Slowly closing them, he opened his mouth and pulled her toward him, connecting his tongue to hers.

   She didn’t even understand why, but everything just made so much sense. Everything around them disappeared and was forgotten. Slowly they swirled into the earth, into a new place, filled with a hollow despair.

   Even though it was dark, she could still see him.

   Even though it was so incredibly hot, she could still feel his sweating body against hers, even hotter.

   Slowly, as he kissed her, her own wings disappeared. He put her ears between the thumb and forefingers of his hands as he licked her lips, then plunged deeper into her mouth with his tongue, his movements becoming slightly faster, as if desperately needing something, his hands sliding down her neck, until they dropped to her waist.  He started to pull her hips closer to his own when…

   “Rose! Rose, wake up. Hey, are you alright?”

   She slowly pulled apart her eyelids, trying to bring everything into focus. She was confused and drowsy, having no idea where she was, or what was going on.

   And then she saw his eyes.

   They looked at her with a worried glaze over them; the great hazel eyes, round and wet like drops of liquid nature. They darted all over her face, his brows creasing together with concern.

   “Huh…where am I? What happened? We were just k-” she managed to say before she stopped herself.

   It was just a dream.

   “You scared me! One minute you’re sleeping peacefully, the next you started moaning and crying. I was a little worried…” he said.

   She realized his hands were on her shoulders, and glanced out of the corner of her eyes. She looked at him like a child looks at their parents after hiding the lamp they accidentally knocked over.

   “I’m sorry… I’m fine…really,” she said with all sincerity, turning on her side to rest on her elbow. It had been so long since she had slept on something other than concrete floor.  James had somehow managed to find some sheets and a room used as a Nurse’s office. There was only one cot, but he insisted that she have it, taking the carpeted floor and a sheet. Rose felt somewhat guilty, but nothing she said could persuade him otherwise.

   “My name may be Rose, but that doesn’t mean I’m some pansy flower-girl,” she said, remembering she had discovered in the file room that her name was indeed Rose, and she had told him so after the meeting at the stairs. She finally had a name again, instead of being a prisoner with a number.

   “Hey, why is it that you still know who you are, but I don’t? I mean I know that I’ve been here longer than you, but you still remember everything,” she asked, suddenly wondering why she hadn’t realized it before.

   He hesitated, and then took a sighing breath. “For now that’s none of your concern. But please try and get some rest?” he said as he tucked the sheets under her more.

   “But-,” she tried to say before he put a finger to her lips.

   “I’ll tell you tomorrow,” he said as he pulled away from her cot. He flipped the light switch, making the room dark except for the blue glow of a still-working computer screen, and laid himself down on the floor, curling the sheet up over his shoulder, but not covering his neck.

   From the corner of the room where she lay, Rose thought he couldn’t see her, since the computer’s glow didn’t reach quite that far, but she could see him clearly. She watched him fall asleep, his breathing becoming slower and deeper. Every few seconds he would open his eyes and try to see hers, to see if she was truly sleeping, but if he could see, she didn’t know. She just lay there quietly listening to him breathing.

   She was awake for quite some time, trying to figure out what had happened in her dream. It had seemed somewhat wonderful, but the more she thought about it, the more detail she forgot, and soon she barely understood any of it. She didn’t understand what the caged faerie was supposed to be, or the fact that she had wings, and especially why he had kissed her…

   But whatever the reason, she set it aside and tried not to think too much on it, still keeping her eyes on his. His eyes, which held a tiny speck of blue glow reflected from the computer. She watched them open and close, slowly they opened less and less. His brow creased in a sort of worrisome sleep, but slowly became relaxed and peaceful.

   Her own eyes eventually stopped opening, seeming to almost recede further back into her head every time she closed them. It got more and more difficult to open them, and she eventually gave in to a peaceful, dreamless sleep.