Prologue
In the corner of the hospital room, a hunched figure sobs her woes into the palms of her hands. Comforting her is her husband, who is rubbing her back just to tell her that he’s in this with her. While ensuring his wife that she’s not alone in this decision, he looks over at the hospital bed, where it’s supporting a vegetable attached to a heart rate monitor and a breathing tube, as the vegetable is unable to breathe on her own due to her collapsed lungs.
The vegetable, or known as a child with her own persona, stares at the ceiling with a blank expression. She can’t feel her legs or her arms, her shoulders or her hips. She’s been paralysed over a drunk man’s doing and he’s serving time with her being a living proof of his stupidity. Nonetheless, she has to pay the price.
Without looking, she can certainly tell that there’s someone in her room that she doesn’t recognise. A doctor in a white coat holds a clipboard and a pen in both hands before proceeding to offer something to her parents. Her father looks with hope, however, the mother seems hesitant to listen to the doctor’s suggestion. Somehow, in the little girl’s guts, she senses that it isn’t a doctor but someone of higher authority.
‘Mum…?’ The little exhales a thought, yet to be heard of. Due to her paralysis, her whole body is unable to respond to her needs, and before she can call out for her precious mother again, a shadowy figure blocks light from her eyesight. ‘What’s… happening?’ She asks herself, hoping that someone can hear her question.
“Honey…” Her father, with tears of joy in his eyes, holds her hand but she can’t feel the feeling. “We… we have good news for you!” He’s about to sob the good news, cupping his mouth with such a bearing weight on his shoulders. “We’re going to fix you… fix…” Her father’s tears shed and he runs his finger against her hair, pushing it to the side.
Her father disappears to the side, and she can hear a triplet whispering something incoherent to her. She tries her hardest to move but nothing in her body has the will to do so, and she tears up. Suddenly, multiple people overwhelm her vision as they remove the heart rate monitor’s attachment from her and allows her to continue breathing by bringing the mechanism with them as the people, who suddenly entered the room, whisks her away. Her mother cries, saying it’s going to be okay.
She panics inside her mind, wondering where is she going to be brought to as the lights of the ceiling begin to fade for each time she passes them. After a trip that takes a while, she finally hears voices behind masks and people in suits, and someone carries her onto a table that she can’t feel if it’s cold or not. Roughly, they manoeuvre her onto her side, while someone applies something wet against her skin — something she, still, can’t feel. They pull out a scalpel and make an incision on her thigh, before grabbing an object that looks like a corkscrew (only, it’s ten times bigger than the small one) and begins to jab the pointy end deeper through her muscles, and twists and twists, until they manage to pull out a part of her tissue.
Meanwhile, the little girl is on her side, unsure of what is happening as the people, who had pulled something from her, places the tissue onto a petri dish and injects it with an unknown substance before placing it under a microscope.
The room falls silent.
“Prepare her,” One of the doctors, that is involved in this procedure, tells.
Once more, she’s carried into a pair of arms and instead of a table, she’s been passed on into a cylindrical chamber that has multiple needles built into the machinery. No matter how many needles there are, it’s as if the chamber was built for her as she’s able to fit to scale. The nurse shuts the door of the chamber and dim blue light emits. “Alright, Finn, this is a test, okay? You’re paralysed, so you won’t be able to feel this, so don’t panic,” Someone says through a speaker.
Finn scurries for an exit yet she’s unable to move. The needles exhale pressured air before it grows long and pierces her skin, something she can’t feel. Blue liquid oozes through the needle before it digs deeper into her muscle, releasing the same liquid at the same dosage and then, it pierces through her bones. That’s when she can feel the burn — the pain. As if everything that had angered her has been bottled up in her system, she shouts for help. Her skin burns, her insides are melting, and she sobs.
After what felt like an hour (to her), the door to the chamber opens, slowly. She shivers from the aftermath of whatever they had injected her with, and the doctors and nurses peek at her with curiosity.
The little girl opens her eyes, sweating terribly. She lifts her arms and tries to climb out of the chamber, struggling to be on her feet. However, instead of feeling happy from the gained rehabilitation of the power of her body, she feels angry. Everything built up in her chest and mind, and she shouts until her lungs can give up.
Finn wakes up in cold sweat, feeling her heart race as she places a hand against her chest. Her ribcage, not broken, is protecting her heart and lungs, and she feels defeated and worn out from the nightmare. She groans softly, her upper body falling back to bed. She continues to stare at the ceiling as if she’s been defeated. Expecting for her alarm to wake her up is nothing like receiving a random call at an ungodly hour, where she grabs her phone and answers it without looking at the caller ID.
“Herring,” She introduces herself.
“It’s Hotchner,” Her supervisor greets himself. “It’s time for you to come back,”
“I’m still under psychiatric assessment, remember?” She sighs, rubbing her tired eyes.
“Dr Payne has returned his thoughts. You are ready for the field,” Hotchner says with a stern voice. “Pack up. I’ve sent some agents. I’ll see you at the airport,”
