Taken Under Wings

* * *

She felt so cold.

No.

Freezing. She was freezing.

Where was she?

“W-whe…?”

Samus tried to speak, but found much difficulty. Her own mind seemed to disagree with her body. She wanted to talk, but it was as though her body didn’t quite understand how, or why. Her brain couldn’t make the sounds it wanted. It was like her body wasn’t her own. Her body felt different. New, somehow.

She gave herself a few seconds. Her vision was blurry, and the lights all around her were so bright.

So blinding.

So relentless.

Relentless?

The word was familiar to her, but she couldn’t remember learning it, ever. Her entire head felt heavy, crowded. Thoughts, words—so many of them were new to her. And loud. Everything was screaming. Her breathing was labored, and she couldn’t focus any part of herself on any one thing.

She tried speaking again. This time, her brain allowed it. It would've been fine if it didn't hurt so much to speak.

“Where…where am I?”

Even her own voice was barely recognizable to her. It was more developed, deeper somehow. Still familiar, but grown-up sounding. How was this possible? It was as though she’d matured under her very nose.

“Rrr-r-r-r-r-rrrrrr…”

The same purring as before. She thought back to that day. The day everything changed. The day she first met them. Where was it coming from? She couldn’t see the source, but she heard it. She felt it. It vibrated through the air, into her ears, slithering into her brain and forming more thoughts, more words. But they weren’t hers. Thoughts that communicated with her own, allowing her to understand.

But no, not hers.

“The mind’s physical location is never fixed. One wonders, and in conjunction, the mind wanders. Among the stars. Amidst the elements. Past, present, future. In this continuum, still. Your present mind is not where your body is. Two units, now disjointed.”

Aimless rhetoric. They were trying to confuse her.

Aimless rhetoric…?

“My body…where…where am I now? Where am I now? Where am I now?”

Over and over, the question repeated itself in her mind. She heard her voice, but was it in her head or was she speaking aloud? She could barely tell anymore, it was so very confusing. She wasn’t even sure she was actually speaking. Her voice rang, echoing noisily in her ears as she spoke. She could feel her heart beating—pounding—in her ears. The same feeling as being winded and exhausted from continuous overexertion.

Overexertion…?

More big words. How were they getting in? Something didn’t feel natural, didn’t feel right. They just kept appearing in her mind’s eye, one after the other. A stream of information flooding into her head. Words, thoughts, being force-fed to her.

Her muscles ached. She needed to breathe, but it was hard. Each time she tried, she could barely draw a single breath. Her vision cleared and she looked down. The same bright lights surrounded her—all around her, coming from every direction. Then, she noticed her body. She looked down, and there it was: her six year-old body.

It didn’t make sense. Her adult voice, her child body. They didn’t agree.

No match. Not the same.

Moving was impossible. Her limbs were bound to something, some kind of chair with restraints. There weren’t any shackles in sight, though. Was she just that tired? That was it; she was just too exhausted to struggle. Maybe something in the room could offer an explanation. Large and illuminated, white tiles lined every stretch of the room she was in. White tiles separated by thin, barely visible borders. She couldn’t see anybody. Nobody. Nobody there.

Where was she?

“Hello?”

Her voice. Familiar, again. Grown-up. Almost like her mother.

Her mother.

…Mommy.

She looked down again, this time at her hands. They weren’t a child’s hands anymore. They were an adult’s hands—a woman’s hands. Not a girl’s. Different, changed. What was going on?

Her clothes were gone. Save for a thin, nondescript garment, she was completely bare.

“Hello? Hello? Hello?”

More echoes, inside and out. More repeating. No responses came for what seemed like hours, but she had no way of knowing how much time was actually passing. She couldn’t focus. Could’ve been seconds, maybe minutes. Possibly hours.

She was getting frustrated.

“Your mind is astonishing, child. Your species, so remarkably adaptive. And resilient.”

A new voice, different. It was in her head, like the one before it. How many of them were there?

“What have you done to me? Where am I?”

“Rrr-r-r-r-r-rrrrrr…”

More purring. Purring, but also crowing. Deep, crowing-humming-purring. She heard it coming from…somewhere. Whatever it was, it was animal-like. But more dignified. And for some reason, it calmed her down. Made her feel safe.

The birds.

“You are safe. Your body is preserved in a haven, and your mind is preserved in your body. Suspended, we communicate with one another.”

Samus understood, but she didn’t understand why or how she understood. She felt as though her mind had been keeping a secret from her her entire life, and was jumping out from behind a wall to surprise her. Or scare her.

“Why do I…?”

“…Why is the current mental projection of your physical self manifesting itself in the form of an adult?”

That was one way of putting it.

“…Yeah. That.”

Her head was killing her, emanating a metal sound that just wouldn’t stop. Gaps, gaps, gaps. Everywhere her mind roamed, there were gaps. They didn’t make sense. Her head couldn’t deal with all the gaps. Too many things missing. But at least she could breathe now.

“I surmise this registers with no absence of confusion or alarm,” another voice spoke as it vibrated in her ears and brain. Each one carried a different color, a different heat. A fingerprint, a signature. For voices. Different from her own. It was strange not seeing or knowing who was talking to her. Words, thoughts, and images appeared in her mind, yet she knew they weren’t her own. They were coming from someone else. It—they—spoke slowly, sending more echoes and spirals throughout her head. “Rest assured, little time has transpired since our initial meeting, during which we discovered you.”

It was almost brief enough to miss, but discovered had a different color than the rest of the words she heard. Slightly different. There were gaps surrounding the word. Gaps she couldn’t quite understand or fill in by herself. Gaps in her head.

“I want to go home.”

No response. She felt cold.

“I want to go home now,” she repeated. She felt more in control of her thoughts now.

A stretch of silence, painfully long.

Then, a sudden shift in color, and another voice entered her head.

“Our latest transmission verifies that the planet designated ‘K-2L,’ has been completely destroyed. The planet has suffered an irreversible core explosion, resulting from an artificially induced energy overload. No survivors of your species have been detected, and the planet’s current condition indicates a severely ruptured atmosphere, which continues to vent itself into the vacuums of space.”

A thousand different images flashed in front of Samus’s mind in an instant. The gaps were lessening now. Her mother, her father—Mommy, Daddy—her house. The other houses. The miners. The fields. The towns. The guns. The fires. The shaking. The monsters. The blue mist. The bright lights. The birds.

“What happened? What happened?”

Again, no response. Instead, the images became more vivid. She didn’t understand, the images too confusing. Something was still missing in her head. The images were familiar, but she couldn’t string them together. There was something about them she couldn’t accept. Something she couldn’t come to terms with. Inside and outside of her head, everything was confusing. Nothing made sense.

“Tell me what’s going on or you’ll be sorry,” she said, her anger surprising her. Something felt wrong. She tasted blood on her tongue. And her head ached tremendously.

Tremendous. It means, ‘Larger than large.’

As soon as her voice spoke the words, the vibrations in her brain became louder, a bit more abrasive, as though they were displeased with something. The colors grew a bit darker, sharper somehow.

“Extrapolations based on the current neural pathways lacing the various layers of your cerebral cortex were calculated using technology far beyond your species’ current level of understanding. Suffice it to say, we introduced an artificial, reversible aging complex into your brain in order to properly debrief you.”

…We?

“No. No. No.”

Inside, she felt her mind snap. A spike of energy, and everything came crashing together from a thousand different directions, all beating down on her poor head. She gritted her teeth as she tensed the rest of the muscles in her body.

Everything. She remembered everything. Too much. She couldn’t. No more. Not possible.

“Terminate simulation. Neuronal extrapolation unstable. Priming session for subject designated ‘Aran, Samus’ has failed to sufficiently meet expectations. Prolonged hiatus recommended until next scheduled session.”

The last thing she saw was a bright, blinding flash, growing brighter as it completely overtook her field of vision.

But before that, one last, dying color of light. A different voice, swimming deep inside her head. So brief, but familiar. Colored a swirly, pinkish orange. Like a sunset.

She felt warm. But maybe those were the tears trickling down her lightly freckled skin.

“…My deepest apologies, little one…”

Little by little, the memories started to play.

* * *