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Voices.

Lian Hui turned her head. Lying on the thin facility-issued mattress with one knee propped up and an arm thrown carelessly beneath the plates of her skull, she could hear speaking, introductions. A visitor had come to see the sideshows, to ogle at them from behind one-way mirrors. Interest quickly sublimated, she turned her head, feeling her bony wrist pressing into a pressure point. It was uncomfortable, but the prickly discomfort kept her mind minimally occupied. A heavy sigh escaped her lips, like a breath of tobacco smoke that rose and curled overhead in the spine of a question mark. Given another month, Lian Hui would be a spirit, deceased of boredom. 

Beneath her bed where she lay were stashed the few possessions she had been permitted to keep. But she had quickly lost interest in her hoarded items. Only test-tubes which remained crystal clear since Lian Hui had no use for them in her cell. Not when she had no chemicals, no plants that could reduce a man to a writhing contortionist with just a touch. Nothing stimulating to play with. Even the mandarins she received in February during the Chinese New Year – always given in threes, even though they were supposed to come in even numbers – were genetically-modified to be seedless, crusty and crunchy. But if she had seeds, the cell would be quickly overrun with vines and branches. Maintenance and security would be dearly compromised. Lian Hui knew that, as much as her captors.

Lian Hui’s ears twitched at the mention of her name, but otherwise remained unresponsive as knuckles rapped concisely on the door to her cell. The story of her own life was given a muffled blurb, succinct and meant to suffice. Only, the man had glazed over the first chapters, as though Lian Hui had only sprung into existence as Aconitum. As though all of them had only started living when crime became their backdrops, their careers.

[i]Sonder[/i]. The word sprang to mind, a bittersweet thing that rolled breathily off her tongue.

Two doors away, there was a crunch, and the weary sentence, [i][b]“And...he's like that."[/b][/i] And then, something was dialed and the door to Lian Hui’s cell flung open.

Lian Hui’s breath came out in a gust of wind. Slowly, she pushed herself upright, legs swinging to hang off the edge of the bed, toes brushing the cold floor. She could hear one of the prisoners – Cortez – lewdly appraising the second visitor – female – but her heart was beating in her ears as she contemplated the open door before her.

But the moment disappeared quickly, before the taste of freedom close could overwhelm her. It became just another shade of colour on a spectrum of vividity that was admittedly brilliant, but which she - impervious to colour and all its nuances - had no capability of appreciating. Lian Hui forced herself to stand. Otherwise, she would simply be locked into place where she sat, under the shackles of impassivity, locking her limbs and staunching any flow of care.

It was why she hadn’t resisted being taken into captivity years before when [i]the jig was up[/i], and why she had to remind herself to walk into freedom rather than remain unmoved.

But they were not liberated, Lian Hui reminded herself as she heard the name [i]Elizabeth Dalton[/i] tossed into the air. Not truly. Free folk did not have supervisors to watch their every move and breath, did not have threats implanted beneath the skin, ready to implode at the first sign of insubordination. Lian Hui perched herself at the doorway, neither inside nor out of her cell. At the threshold between trapped and free, Lian Hui stood, peering up and down the corridor, spying at first glance a man who looked distinctly uncomfortable, another dark-skinned male with a defined jawline, and a tall slender woman at one end of the hallway.