Reflecting on captivity.

Who: Svetlana
Where: In prison
When: After her "arrest"

Papa had played board games with her when she was a tiny girl. She remembered the one with the little red and green houses but couldn't recall the name. Go directly to jail. Do not pass go. She remembered that - that one flip of a card made you practically lose the game. All your turns skipped over until you rolled the correct number. She hated how everything was left up to chance.

Apart from that though, it had been a good game.

This was different. There was no amounts of scheming or planning that seemed to make things go her way. She lolled back onto the cool stone of the floor and held her tiny wrists above her head. Shackled and trapped by the big black man. He'd hit her and she'd bled, and he'd carried her here, and he'd bound her hands. She didn't like him one bit and he was jsut outside the door guarding her. But something about what had happened this morning had made Svetlana's brain...click, somehow. When she had been in that room, everything had seem so cold and calculated. Everything the scientists had designed to hurt her or fuck with her mind had been built especially for her. The baby crying and the doppleganger hanging herself. In that room she had been rebuilt and reborn as this new version and it was all by the design of the scientists. Here? This village? This was different. This was desperation and anything could happen here. The people here were not scientists - it was obvious from the panic in their eyes and how they had discussed what to do with her in such hushed, uncertain tones. They were scared of her because she was a new danger, a new uncertainty. She hated them for not being able to organise themselves, but she hated the scientists even more for creating all these perfect little monsters, acting on terror and impulse.

She curled onto her side, her cuffed hands still in front of her. She was cold and so tired and she needed to get out of this. She needed food and security. She felt a strange twinge in her heart - regret? Did she feel bad for how she had acted? She had believed it was self defense but she had been clumsy, she hadn't evaluated the situation properly, and now she was trapped with a head wound and no paths in front of her. Staring blankly at the wall, she felt catatonia flicker in her peripheral vision - or maybe that was concussion. She didn't know. She did know that she didn't like or care about the people in this village...but they were all she had now. These ogres and waifs were her future and her fucking community. The enemy of my enemy is my friend? Perhaps not. But she wouldn't play the scientists game. They had released her on these people like a wolf and she had played along like a fool with her knife and her terror. Not any more. She'd have to find a different plan of attack. A new way to survive.