Women And the Demons Who Love Them

Imperium-2

Crywolf- Quantum Immortality (Away Remix)

    The sound of several beeping noises all angered me. They echo in my ears loudly. I bet it's Axe and the endless notifying bings of his ratings. He had gotten so used to the sound of his phone going off that it didn't even bother him anymore. I would love that sound if I were getting paid to listen to it too but I'm not. I tried to lift my arm in the air only to find that it was too heavy. What's wrong with me?  

    "Lady Finley," the sound of that voice is familiar. 

    No one called me that but I think someone had. Someone had called me that before. Lady Finley. The sound of it made me want to laugh. No one on our planet is that formal anymore. Formalities were left for the visiting nobilities from other planets or the Empress here. I tried to open my eyes to no avail. I must have fallen asleep after reading because my eyes are sore...Wait, what was I reading? I tried again only to see electrifying blue lasers stream over me like currents. 

    Blue. Something blue had appeared. Something hot. It hurt me. Everything hurts. Screaming. Who's screaming? Was it me who was screaming? I tried to open my eyes again. Blurs of orange and yellow danced along with the blue lasers. 

    "Tell me more about earth," her voice bounced around in my skull. "This is my little sister Cubby," 

    It all hit me at once. Liona Rush and her sister Cubby. The Avion, the pod had been struck by an electric current coming from the space storm. The smell of burning flesh had not come from me. The pilot had put the passengers on auto-sleep so they wouldn't feel a thing. They had all died. I had been electrocuted. I can feel the memory of the electricity burning my body. Sharp pains were hurting me in different areas of my arms starting at my palms. Sharp stinging sensations. The screaming. The screams hadn't been mine. They were hers. The little eight-year-old girl who had been calling out to me. 

    "Cubby," I cried out as I sat up trying to shake the memory of the pain. 

    "Lady Finley," I looked up to see Liona looking back at me. No. She isn't Liona. Liona had burned on the seat next to me. 

    "Cubby?" I asked trying to take deep breaths. She shook her head. "Where is she?" 

The girl came over to me and sat down taking my hand. 

    "My name is Leanne Rush. Cubby Rush was my grandmother," 

    I looked around to find myself in a white room, machines attached to my arms, oxygen linked to my nose. I started to pull everything off. Grandmother? She said Cubby was her grandmother. That's not right. She was eight years old. A group of women rushed into the room all of them trying to stop me from taking these wires off of me. I had never liked needles. There were so many now. So many inside my arms and they're hurting me.

    "Stop, they hurt me," I tried to pull away. "Please, please. They hurt me," 

    "Miss Finley calm down. You're okay, just calm down," a woman pleaded. Her voice is so similar to Hinge's. I stopped searching for her. My eyes were met with brilliant teal eyes but they aren't hers. There was still a sense of comfort to see them look at me the way they did. "It's okay, sweetie. You're okay. Calm down," 

    "Okay," I said taking deep breaths. I was able to calm down enough for the others to let me go.

    "We have to put the I.V.s back," someone stated.

    "No," I said moving closer to the woman. "They hurt me. I can feel them," 

    "Okay, okay. No more needles," she waved them off. She pulled me into her arms cradling me against her. "Shhh, it's okay. Sweetie. You're okay," 

    "What happened? Where am I?" I asked. 

    She pushed my hair away from my face. It's long. It draped over my shoulders and pooled along my thighs. I grabbed two hands full lifting it up closer to my eyes in disbelief. I had never grown my hair past my shoulders. I looked up at the woman.     

    "You must be very confused I imagine," she whispered gently, taking the hair out my hands. 

    "What's going on what is this?" I asked. The blue lasers. There were four of them in here. All of them coming from the center of each present person's chest. I reached for one only to find that I couldn't grab it. 

    "You've been asleep," she said. "For a very long time," 

    "Like months?" I asked looking at the others. "Where is Cubby? Did she survive?" 

    "Yes, Cubby did survive thanks to you. You wrapped her in a leather jacket. It kept the electricity from killing her," I sighed in relief. 

    "Were there any others?" she shook her head. 

    "No, you two were the only survivors," she said tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. 

    "How? How did I survive? I remember it burning. I felt it burning me," I said my eyes filling with tears. She reached for me but jumped back when her skin sparked against mine. "I'm sorry. Did I do that?" 

    "Calm down let me explain," she urged. I nodded sitting in the center of the bed. "You are a phenomenon, Trinity Finley," 

    "What do you mean?" I asked confused. 

    "When you were found on the transfer pod, your body was cocooned in the rays of electricity. Here let me show you," she waved her hand in front of me. The blinds along the windows closed on their own and a hologram was projected between the two of us. 

    A video started. The pod I had gotten on the day I left for school appeared on the screen. She fast-forwarded the video. The clouds I had seen the night of the accident were past the pod. They must have waited for the pod to come out of the storm. The lights inside were flickering. Voices all began to shout numbers and names along with instructions. 

    Then the images changed. There was a lot of smoke and sparks. As the images moved through pod towards the pilot quarters towards the front of the pod. More tears fell from eyes. They were all dead. Burned corpses were all that was left. When the door that leads to the first-class suite was opened a blue light illuminated most of the room. The sound of her faint crying made me get up and kneel on my knees in front of the projection. They found her. One of the officers picked Cubby up and scanned her. She kept trying to tell them something through her hysteric cries and pointed in the direction of the blue light. 

    On the floor in the center of the suite, a dome of brilliant blue light covered something. As the man got closer he shouted. There's a woman in there. They brought a small box and handed it to the man. He lifted it pressing something on it and threw it into the dome. The small box released a loud echoing sound and the dome was broken apart. A controlled electromagnetic pulse.

    It was me in the center of the dome. Nothing had happened to me. Most of my clothes had been damaged but my skin remained as it was. My hair was at shoulder length. Everything looks the same as it does now. I looked down at my body to see that it was still the same. I looked at the woman. 

    "What?" I asked not knowing what else to say. 

    "We can't explain it," she shrugged. The look in her eyes told me she wishes she could. "After all this time, we've tried to explain what happened to you. What is happening to you and we have made little process. No, federation knows what happened. None of us have been able to explain the phenomena that you are," 

    "What do you mean?" I asked whipping my face. My wet tears reacted to my touch blue flashes of electricity moved about my skin until my tears dried. She sat down in front of me with a sad look on her face. 

    "Trinity it's been a very long time since you were rescued, sweetie," 

    "How long?" I asked desperately. "Where is my dad? My family. Do they know what happened to me? Are they coming? Where am I?" 

    "Trinity, you're on earth," she said. That lifted a weight off my shoulders. I wouldn't have to wait very long to see my family. "Your family came to see you often," 

    "They came to see me often? What does that mean? They don't come anymore?" 

    "There is no easy way to say this, sweetie. It's been a hundred and sixteen years since you were rescued from The Avion. The little girl that was rescued with you grew up, married, had children of her own, they had children of their own. Hinge and Axe, your neighbors. The had a daughter. They named her after you. Their grandsons are here waiting outside for you," 

    My lip began to quiver and I knew there was nothing that was going to stop the tears now. I let out a cry looking around trying to find something anything that told me this was just a nightmare. The four others in the room backed away from me as the machines around us flickered on and off as I let out another cry. 

    "No," I shouted looking down at the pillow I had just been laying on. "No, please. Tell me that's not true. Tell me Axe made this up. It's a prank. Tell me the truth, this is a prank right?" 

    I asked looking over at the woman. She shook her head covering her mouth, tears streaming down her face. 

    "I am so sorry, sweetie," she said softly. 

    I curled into myself letting the pain resonate inside of me. They're gone. All of them are gone. I'll never get to see them again. I never get to hear my family's voices. Everything I once was is gone. I don't know how long she sat there with me listening to my ugly hysterical crying. The others had left. After a while, my body stopped leaking electricity. She sat on the bed and let me lay my head on her lap. I was tried when I stopped. Exhausted and achey. 

    "Are you hungry?" she asked me after a while. I nodded. 

    She disappeared leaving me alone for a little while and returned with chicken tenders and fries. I sat up grabbing the pillow behind me. She set a plate on my lap. The other one was for her. We ate in silence. She looks so much like Hinge. 

    "She was my great-great-aunt," she said after a while. "My grandma was her little sister. My name is Ridge," 

    "Of course it is," I said finishing my fries. She handed me a juice box. 

    "I am the second generation to attend to you. We didn't know if you would ever wake up," 

    "Attend to me?" 

    "I'm a doctor and a scientist. You started your own field of science. We call it the Trinity Theorem. There have been lots of scientific breakthroughs because of you. The cure for lots of diseases. Like Alzheimers and Parkinsons. Some forms of Cancer. Weaponry advancement as well. Some things just happened accidentally in our quest to try and wake you," 

    "Wow, you did all that from my body?" I asked. She nodded. 

    "As well as the electromagnetic field locked away in your brain. The electricity that cocooned you during the accident never left your body. It's just there. We don't know how or why. It just is. Not even those who can manipulate electric pulses here on earth or in the Andromeda Federation know what this is," 

    "So this is keeping me alive?" 

She nodded. 

    "And young apparently," she said reaching for my face. 

    "Am I stuck like this?" I asked. 

    "Yes. Since you've been brought in you haven't aged a day. Everything seems to work the same way. Our intel shows you can live a semi-normal life. You can even have children. Everything is the way it's supposed to. You're just..." 

    "Stuck like this forever," I finished. 

    "There are many things that are already raising a question. You just got out of a hundred and sixteen-year-long coma and you're able to move as if you're just waking up from a nap. You vitals everything seem to be stable. You just ate and are drinking juice. Nothing is out of place," 

    "Except, I am out of place, aren't I?" I asked. "This isn't my time. I'm just going to be stuck being eighteen forever. What am I supposed to do? I was supposed to travel the Federations. Learn languages and cultures. I wanted to do so many things. I wanted to fall in love and grow old with my love at first sight. Have a bunch of dogs and kids and grandkids. What now?" 

    "You can still travel. You can still learn and then teach. So many would love to learn from someone who was there. I mean, I know it's not how you saw your life unfold. What happened to you, it's tragic. I'm not big on fantasy, I'm a Taurean but my great-great-uncle believed in magic and if there was a person who denied it. They were wrong because why would you call this anything other than what it is," she put what looks like a piece of thick tinted glass on my lap. 

    "What's this?" 

    "He sent you every book he could find on miracles. Beautiful stories. He said he knew you'd wake up someday. His last and final masterpiece was a trilogy called Trinity: A soul lost through time. I've uploaded all the files he sent. There is an email on there. One your father set up for you. He'd write to you every day. They video logged all the important events you missed. Everything they could think of is in there for you to imprint in your mind as a memory," She took my hand and put it on the glass a bunch of apps appeared on it. Tears dripped onto my hand. She reached up to clean them up. I didn't hurt her this time. 

    "Where am I supposed to go now?" she smiled. 

    "Everything is set for you. We figured since you gave us so much we'd give back to you. You'll never have to worry about trivial things like money again," she raised my arm. In the center of my forearm is a barcode. "Twenty-five years ago, we stopped physical currency on every planet to reduce crime. It worked. Everything is handled through the barcode. Money, medical records, anything you can think of is all there," 

    "I'm alone now," she shook her head and made me look up at her. 

    "No, sweetie. I'm here. You are my life. From the moment I first saw you, I knew I wanted to do everything in my power to protect you whether it was while you slept or when you woke up," 

    "Why?" I asked. She smiled reaching into her shirt. She pulled out an amulet. 

    "My mom was diagnosed with cerebral cancer when I was twelve. Fourteen years ago, they gave her months. With your blood and an EMP, you were able to cure her by accident. She had taken a vile of your blood to examine it. She wanted to at least see you open your eyes before she died. In order to view the sample properly, we have to run it under an electromagnetic pulse so it doesn't fry our equipment. 

    "We don't know why but the sample burst right before the EMP went off. Your blood hit my mom on her face as the EMP started. It knocked her out for a few minutes. When they ran tests on her again, it was gone. The sickness in her was gone. You gave me twelve more years with my mom." 

    "My blood cured her? Did they take more out to help others?" 

    "One more sample. My mom replicated the cells and tissues in your blood and created a new treatment. It's has a seventy-three percent chance of success. The majority of those who have been treated had been cured," 

    "Why not just use my blood?" I asked. 

    "What if we took too much and you lost the magic?  You deserve to live. Even if it isn't what you had planned for yourself, you deserve to live for yourself and for those who have waited for you to wake up all these years," 

    The more she talked the more it seemed like I was an accessory. Everything that had been created while I was asleep just proved all of it. They had used me because I wasn't able to say no. I'm happy to hear that I was able to help. Yet a big part of me felt violated to know that my body had been kept alive all this time because it had been useful to them. They had taken without permission and just because they're giving me whatever I want they think that all of this is okay. 

    In the days to come, my mind just grew darker. Tests after tests were run on me. Crowds gathered outside the hospital with banners and chanted the nickname I was given. The Phenomena Trinity. Most day, I left the blinds shut. I didn't want to see anything outside of these bland hospital walls. I couldn't bring myself to read the books or watch the videos my family had left for me. 

    Why didn't they stop this? Why didn't the just take me from these people? Why didn't they just pull the plug? Why the hell did this happen to me? How could the universe be so cruel? 

    Catching up on a hundred and sixteen years was all I focused on. The timelines, the government, literature, space progression. Instead of six federations, there are now forty-nine. Technically there are fifty but the last one is left unaccounted for. Eternium. The part of the universe no one is allowed to go to. Their constellations are all heavily guarded. Nothing went in and nothing came out.

    What caught my attention was the pictures of the areas just outside their constellations. During certain hours there were gas clouds. Like the ones, I had seen that night. Maybe they kept people out because they were afraid to have a repeat of what happened that night. I wasn't excited to go out there and face all those people but I am excited to get back out there. 

    The basis of each world were all accommodated for each species as their utopian societies. Every single world promised paradise. In my eyes, not much had changed. No matter how much you paint over and gloss the trash it's still just that. Trash. Poverty still exists. Rich people are still rich. We might not be killing one another in a war anymore but the body counts are still growing. We can't steal each other's money anymore but we can still pull a gun out and end those who have more or less. We still discriminate against one another. So many species and we're all still so primal.

    If I can't have everything I wished for then, I want to at least have a little piece of it. I'm going to go to Imperium. I'm going to study whatever the hell I want and I'm going to see everything I can. My body may be frozen in this state but it doesn't mean it'll never end. Now that I'm awake my body might just burn out this stuff inside of me. Either way, if I am really immortal like they say I am, I'm going to live the life I want to live. Forty-nine worlds, one of them has to have a place for me.