Nameless II

She lost count of the days by the 29th with the unending torture she went through.

The routine repeated over and over and over again. Drowning, breaking, peeling, lashing, electrocuting, piercing, then left alone in that world of white where she couldn't hear a thing, smell a thing or see a thing, just white. The same questions were asked, and she responded with the same silence.

The days she wondered why she let herself go through all the pain increased, becoming hours, becoming minutes. There was not a moment in the day she didn't ask herself what she was waiting for. What was worth in her life to keep enduring?

One day, she stopped asking herself, and just gave up.

She reckoned there was nothing to live for.

With her survival instincts gone, she let the water she was being drown in enter her lungs. And it worked. She was beginning to fall into darkness, to never wake up again and be reunited with her parents, when she was jerked awake by the same people who were turning her life into hell. They were not going to let her go.

She wanted to cry out of despair.

She just wanted it all to finish.

And they wouldn't let her!

She wanted to leave this rotten world, play her cello for eternity. Be free!

She could hear it. Her cello. Her chords of death. They were receiving her. They understood her desire.

Then, there was something else. A light. Was that the light of death? No, it was a dim light, a dimly illuminated room and a piano. The chords of a piano. The chords of life. She looked down at her cello and rubbed it lovingly. After listening to that soothing and warm piano, she started playing with a smile on her face.

She was at peace.

She felt home again.

The warmth she had been missing for ten years, the sanity she had given up in that crooked world she was living in, the life she was seeking for her dead body, the feeling of being complete without knowing she was empty, her reason to live. They were returning to her.

She reconstructed her broken self piece by piece the longer the melody played. She didn't want to let the melody go. The light that surrounded her, fed by the piano. She didn't want to let that light go. The peace and happiness, the warmth and delicate touch of this opus. She didn't want to let go of its creator.

This person should be the only one...

A broken sound.

Her palm burned, and her eyes immediately opened. The surreal state inside her mind dissipated like fog. The coldness returned.

A loose string. A burning palm. A drop of blood. A clattering sound. Footsteps. And then, sparkling eyes on her.

They were like stars in a clear night looking right down at her. She felt unworthy of them, unworthy of the light radiating from them. She knew it. They were totally different. She was darkness and he was light. She was death and he was life. Total opposites that weren't supposed to be together.

She desired to disappear, and she did.

She heard voices, distant and muffled. She tried to open her eyes, but she couldn't or more like, she didn't want to. She just lied there, not doing anything, just listening. The voices became clearer and clearer.

"Your people really are heartless." A somewhat familiar voice said, but the language was wrong. It was English.

"It is something we have to do whenever we see something that might cause problems." She knew that voice. Eddie.

"At least she passed the test. She's much better than her parents. They didn't even last one week of the regime. She, on the other hand, lasted a month. I kind of respect and pity her at the same time. She preferred death than leaking anything out of the organization, or working for any other one. She didn't even care about that boy. She is perfect." A hammering headache was messing with her thoughts.

"Well, it is a surprise she survived the surgery, too. You got too excited. Her face was unrecognizable, and the internal hemorrhage was so bad she almost died. Good thing her recovery is going smoothly. It only took her a month. We will just wait for her to wake up, and then she'll be going back to work."

She heard footsteps moving away. A door opening and closing. Then, another set of footsteps that got closer to her.

"They really expect a lot from you, dear Rei Lee." The man, she recognized as the Russian, gently brushed her hair and then left. She had no will to think, too tired to process what she just heard, and let unconsciousness claim her once again.

Next time she opened her eyes, she was blinded by the natural light from the sun. Too used to the darkness by the end of her days in torture, she took some time to adjust. When she could finally see her surroundings, she saw a light blue room with a white ceiling.

There was a nagging beeping by the side. She touched her face and the tubes in her nose made her feel uncomfortable, almost unable to properly breath, so she pulled them. She drew a deep breath, and only then she calmed down. She looked right and left, realizing she was in a hospital bed.

Though, she knew it wasn't a hospital but the clinic wing from the organization. Her head pounded, and the words from that conversation filled her mind.

It wasn't a dream. She knew it.

She had been groomed, played, tricked, tortured, and she accepted death just for the sake of an organization that killed her parents just to test the loyalty as agents. She felt totally stupid, more than stupid. Everything was bullshit! Complete and utter bullshit! Just what had she been doing with her life for ten years?

Yes, she had accepted working for them. Because she thought that was her only path! Because she was conditioned to think Shadow was all she had left! Because she believed living in darkness was better than not living at all! And even that had been taken away from her as she was tortured.

She was taken away her will to live.

Shadow had taken everything from her.

She could have continued her dream of being a renown cellist, and she was about to become one. That dream was taken away from her by them! By Shadow and by her parents for being fucking agents in some assassin organization. Agents who failed a fucking test that screwed her future!

And she believed them! She believed her parents were betrayers of the world! For the sake of the world she became an assassin. What a pool of bullshit! She was sick. She let them played her life. No. What was she saying? It wasn't her life, it was theirs, because she didn't even own herself. Everything had been an utter lie.

She sighed.

What could she do? She had depended on them for ten years and knew nothing of the normal world. She just knew what they painted for her. She knew nothing and nobody...

Wrong.

She knew someone. His face flashed in her mind.

Her mind reminded her of that piano sound, and those star-like eyes. It reminded her why she was still there. Why she was still alive.

It was actually him who had given her a new life.

She… she actually had another path.