Lemons

Amygdala Circuit

The door was slammed open, and the sound made her open her eye. It was open. Thank god it was open.

“Quinn, what’s going on? What are you afraid of?”

She opened her mouth, and for a moment, nothing came out, could come out. It was still in the air around her. It was still there.

"You—you don't—you don't smell it?" Her teeth were chattering again. "L—like...like bitter m—metal and acid?" It was hard for her to breathe, the smell hung so thickly around her. "It's—" She closed her eye again. "It's—" She didn't want to get out of bed, but the room was too small, too small too small and it smelled like—"Like how water tastes at home," she finished with a gasp.

She was getting lightheaded now. Disoriented. More disoriented than she already was. "It's gray there." She didn't know if she meant the water or life. "Mom and—"

She paused. She didn't want to say it. It felt wrong. She was so afraid. So afraid. It felt shameful to feel like this. She didn't know why she was so afraid. Her head was spinning and she went totally slack, opening her eye and staring unseeing at the ceiling. Why was she so afraid? They loved her, didn't they? They loved her, and—and she—she lo—she—she lov—loved—she—she lllll—

Then all at once, it exploded out with a final rush of emotion.

"Mom and Dad said I couldn't go outside because it was dangerous," she bawled, a runaway train now that could only pick up speed, "So I didn't, I stayed inside where they said it was safe, I stayed in my room where nobody could hurt me, but I snuck out and then I met youandImetBescaandthey'regoingtobesomadatme! Don'tsendmebackdon'tsendmebaaaaaaack!!!" By the end of it her words were garbled again as she bent backwards, her sense of time and place completely shattered. She dug her fingernails into her forehead and let tears run out from beneath her palms.

"I'msorrryyy I shouldn't have left I shouldn't have left I'm—"

And then the last of her words melted away, all the energy she had left faded, and she collapsed. She didn't even have enough left to sob. She couldn't do anything but let the tears run.

Amygdala Circuit

Just like before, Dahlia's voice cut through the panic in Quinn's head. As Dahlia gripped Quinn's hands, she let them be pulled away from her head, and the words that punched through her weeping ebbed, then died.

They stayed like that for some time before Quinn finally felt safe to start uncurling from her blanket, shifting back closer to Dahlia. The cloying smell of the water from home still clung to her and she twitched. Her voice was barely there when she spoke. An exhausted mumble that would already be hard to hear, filtered through the horror and the crying.

"It smells like water," she forced out, arms clenching tight under Dahlia's hands as she struggled to keep control. "Not—not clear water. It smells like—like—"

Her shuddering breaths came more slowly as she focused on Dahlia instead of the wet stain on the wall. Her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. "It smells the water from home." She turned away so she didn't see the stain and the shards, and then a sudden pathetic mewling sound crawled from her mouth.

The door was closed.

Her breathing started to accelerate again and she couldn't breathe deep like Besca had showed her, she couldn't she couldn't—she couldn't calm down. Closed in with the water and the smell and—

She wrenched her arms back, hugging herself tight as her eye crushed closed. Her voice went from a hoarse whisper to a hoarse shout, ragged and desperate:

"Open the door! Open the door, oh god, please, open it, open the door!"

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn blinked slowly, letting Dahlia's words filter through to her. Tears were still running down her face, but her sobs had quieted to only one or two hiccups.

“Try to drink something. That helped me my first few times.”

Drink something? Drink what? What was she going to drink? Her head was swimming and she forced her eye to move, to see what had just been plunked down on the nightstand. A glass of water.

Water.

Water.

Her entire body went rigid and her eye sprang open. Water. Water. The smell lingered in her nose. Water. Water. Bitter, bitter, bitter. The smell was burning. Her vision swam. Was it clear? Was it dark? She couldn't tell, she couldn't tell, but it smelled dark and—and—

NO.

NO.

NO. NO. NO NO NO NO "NO!"

The desperate shriek burst from her without warning and she lashed out, sending the glass hurtling violently into the wall. It smashed into shards, sending water exploding around the room. She shrank away from it with a high whimper like a hurt animal's, wrapping the blanket around her and huddling into the corner where the bed met the walls.

Her eye flew across the room, back and forth and back and forth between the shards of glass and the wet stain on the wall, and she covered her head with her arms. Her chest heaved, faster and faster and faster, until finally—inevitably—the scream came. It was a shrill, piercing, terrified thing that lasted for what felt like centuries. The water still ran down the wall. The smell was still there, all around her, just like at home. It was all still there. Still there. Still there.

Hands still held above her head like someone was about to hit her, she eventually trailed off into a fragmented, senseless gibbering, which in turn gave way to words squeezed through renewed sobs:

"No, no, no, I'm sorry, please, I'm sorry, please don't make me drink it, I don't want it, it hurts it hurts it hurts, pleeeeaaaaaaaseeeeee no no NO NO!"

Amygdala Circuit

"—My voice. Listen to my voice."

And then the threads of Quinn's mind snapped back together.

She pulled in a chestful of air, so fast that this strange body lurched. Her arms slowly, slowly loosened from where they'd bit into themselves, and she brought the hands out in front of her. The claws were covered in that horrible thick black stuff, and they curled in on themselves as she closed her eyes. "Take my hand. Pretend for me."

There she was. Her. Not whatever this...thing was. Her. Her. Quinn as she knew herself; pale, short, long braid, one eye. The world was so much easier from only one after all. She kept listening to Dahlia, and she let herself follow along.

Then it was suddenly all white in her head. Four walls. A door. With no knob. Closed. Her ho—no. It wasn't her home. It wasn't her room. The room that she was in. The room where she'd grown up. The light flicked off. Black black black, as dark as the ichor on the hangar floor and her panic started to grow.

Then there was a bright flash of light. The door opened. And Dahlia was standing there in that brilliance, holding out her hand, smiling the smile she'd smiled on the boat.

Especially in the dark.

She took the hand.

"Almost done." She was almost done. The noise was all gone. She could—could think again. She could think, could hear herself think. The hate the HATE was gone, and she didn't feel so good or powerful. She just felt...normal. Like herself.

Then the thrumming came back. Or...part of it. She still felt...she felt like herself. She felt okay. She felt okay. But her whole body—no, not her body, something else in her, not her body and not her mind but something between them—was buzzing.

She waited until she heard Doctor Follen say in her ear that she was done. She wasn't sure exactly what he said—darling? Wonderful? She though he said those, but she was still disoriented, and trying to hold herself—but she knew she was done. Besca was talking too. She sounded upset. But it was fine. She could disconnect. She was done. She was done.

She wanted to cry. But as she felt herself shifting, quaking...she was afraid. She remembered the sounds that these things had made back in Hovvi. She didn't know what it would sound like. And she didn't want to hear herself sound like that. She didn't want Besca or Deelie to hear her sound like that.

She was done. She could disconnect.

She didn't know how, at first. But just like connecting, when she thought about it—there she was. Back in the dark and the cold. Everything was suddenly quiet. So quiet. Like there had been a sound she'd been hearing, and now it was suddenly gone.

Peeling herself from the chair, feeling the plugs snap from it, she closed her eyes—EYE—and slowly, agonizingly—Dahlia still lingered in her mind—she pushed open the door. The light was searing to her eye. But she was tired. So tired. Rode the lift down again, staring off into space. So, so, so tired. The bitter smell of water was everywhere, oozing around her body in a thick miasma. She plodded around the front.

Her brow was slick with sweat. Just like before, even beneath the heat suit, she felt dizzy and cold and clammy and pale. The smell felt like it was leaching through the suit and coating her skin. She felt like she wanted to puke whenever she smelled it and didn't know why. Her legs hurt. Her feet hurt. Everything still hurt. But she still walked up to Besca and Deelie. She draped herself around the other girl. She didn't have the energy for anything else. She was just so...so...tiiiireeeed...

Linking her hands around Dahlia's neck, she let the rest fall limp. Her mumbling voice was indistinct, vague, blurry...slurring.

"Did I...did I do good...?"

Then she let herself cry.

She cried for a long time.

Amygdala Circuit

The Savior spasmed and jerked head to malformed toe, the clawed fingers ever-so-slowly dragging themselves on a terrible course downwards and shredding gashes where they went. The jagged tears bubbled and seeped, leaking streams of ichor that ran down the ridged scutes on her arms to her elbows, where they dribbled into viscous seething puddles on the floor.

The communications were working without a hitch. They could hear Quinn perfectly, no malfunction of any kind was stopping that. But all they heard from her—in the terrible crystalline clarity that came with the neural link—were torn, strangled gasps, and unsteady aborted half-breaths that sounded like someone choking.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHshewasshewasHATEHATEHATEitshewasitwasfallingapartapartfallingapart
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHnonononononononono
AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHshewasgoingtobreakshewasgoingtoHATEshewascomingHATE THEMundoneshewascomingundoneshewascomingHATETHEMQUINNLASHIT'SWHATTHEYDESERVEshewasbreakingbreakingbrokenbreakingfrayingfrayingFRAYINGfallingcomingapfallingcomapartpullingawayshecouldn'ttellwheresheendedandIstaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH—

Amygdala Circuit

Something was wrong.

Something was really, really, really wrong.

She could feel it. She could feel it because she couldn't feel it. She felt so strong. She hadn't felt this strong, ever. It felt—it felt—it felt good. It felt good, and that's how she knew it was bad. This wasn't supposed to feel good.

But it did.

She did.

And something else. Something else. She felt something creeping up on her. Creeping through her, through her mind. She swallowed, but it felt—so—good—so—right.

"Something's—something feels—I feel strange." Her own voice felt strange in her ears, and when Doctor Follen spoke, she could barely understand him. Like he was talking through cotton, through the static in her head. The static that she'd heard in her head in Hovvi, like words murmuring around the corner of her mind that she couldn't quite make out. She felt so strong. So free. So big.

Why was it all so small? One room. One room. Sixteen years. One room. Why, why, why, why, why?

"Is this what it feels like to————"

Why don't you hate this, Quinnlash?

Her voice cracked, then broke entirely with a sound like the very start of a scream. A high-pitched whine filled her ears. If anybody was talking to her she couldn't hear them anymore. Anybody except the voice. Why don't you hate it?

She—why didn't she hate it? She couldn't remember why it had felt so wrong. But—but the voice—it was so—

Why didn't she hate it?

And then she did.

She hated it.

She hated it.

EVERYTHING FELT WRONG.

She was too big. The world was too small, too bright, too open around her. The strength that coursed through her felt suddenly revolting and she shrank away from it. Again, she clutched her nails to her arms, then gasped deep in her throat as they cut into her but she kept them there because she couldn't pull them away. Her mind was racing, racing, racing racingracingracing everything felt so right and so wrong and so jumbled and the voice she was afraid of it she was afraid of it but it was right in Hovvi it had saved her it was RIGHT she HATED this she hated it HATED IT HATED IT HATED IT.

One room. One room one room she was in one room a tiny cold room she wasn't strong she wasn'tshewasn'tshewasn't but she STILL FELT STRONG SHE FELT GOOD she felt good and she was so strong and she hated hated hated how good she felt she shouldn'tshouldn'tfeelgood noneofthisshould feelgood she was forcedtobe here and shedidn'twanttobutitstillfelt it felt so right likeshewasPARTOFSOMETHING something that she didn'twanttobepartofbutshewantedtobepartofitshewantedtobepartofsomething NO IT WASN'TWASN'TRIGHTITDIDN'TFEELRIGHTEVENTHOUGHITFELTSOGOOD

Hate this, Quinnlash. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it. She couldn't tell if it was stillspeaking or just echo echo echo echo echoing in her her nothernotherheadherhead she needed to do it she neededtoloveitsheneededtoHATEIT it was all so jumbled her fingersclawsfingersthefingersnotherfingerstoredownwardandshefeltsomethingleakoutsomethingshedidntknowshedidntgetitandCONFUSEDandITHURTANDshedidntknowwhatwasgoingonbutitfeltggggggghhhhhhhhhhhAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Amygdala Circuit

It...wasn't as bad as she thought it would be.

It was disorienting for sure. So disorienting. Everything was so much all of a sudden, she could see all the way to the right, and she didn't know if she liked it. She was huge, and the people below her were just pinpricks against the faraway floor.

Then Besca's voice came to her. Just came to her. She was doing great. She was passing the test. So far. Then Doctor Follen. Move her hands, stretch her arms, stretch her legs. Having them there lessened the off feeling a little bit. She felt a little bit more grounded.

So she obliged the doctor, looking down at both her hands—both of them evenly—as they lifted up into her line of sight. Opening and closing them, she trembled inside, though it didn't quite make it to the surface, she didn't think. where there should have been skin there was blackness and metal. At the tips were long claws that she saw dig into Safie's neck and rip her head from her body no. no no no stop she needed to stay calm, she could feel her breaths starting to surge into her suddenly enormous torso. In. Out. Three deep breaths.

She closed her eye—eyes—to the tiny world, lifting up one arm, bending it, rolling her shoulders, rolling her wrist. One leg bent and then straightened, then the other right afterwards. With her eye HER EYES closed, it felt almost like she was getting out of bed that morning. It was more comfortable too. The world was too wide and open.

"This...this isn't so bad." Then, "Having two eyes feels weird." She felt guilty as she said it. Besca was missing an eye too, and she probably wished she wasn't. She'd love to have it back. It just felt...so much. Maybe she would get used to it eventually. She opened them again, doing her best not to look at herself.

She hadn't heard the voice yet. That was good. Maybe it—maybe it wouldn't come at all.

"So now I just wait?"

A moment. Eyes open now, she noticed something missing and frowned, though it felt strange and stretched on her face. "Where's Deelie?"

Amygdala Circuit

_{"Quinn. Quinn, darling."}

She stared, eye slightly crossed, at Doctor Follen. His image was hazy, she was dizzy, and her face felt like ice, as though all the blood had drained out of it.

"I know, Quinn, but if you don't do this, they will send you home. Right back to your mother and father. Don't let them do that to Besca. Don't let them do that to you.."

She clenched her teeth together, blinked her eye to focus, forced the chattering to stop. She glanced to the side, to Besca, looking at her with such worry on her face. She needed to do this. Doctor Follen was right. It was the only way she could stay here instead of—of—she didn't want to think about it.

"Okay," she rasped out. The back of her head hurt where she'd hit it into the wall. Then, every step harder, she slowly walked towards the behemoth in front of her. Her hands were clenched into tight fists by her sides to stop them from shaking. She could feel eyes on her. So many eyes. Everyone was looking at her. They were all looking to see if she did it right. She needed to do it right. She just had to.

After all, she was going to be a pilot.

She was...she was going to pilot that thing.

So she needed to do it right.

A uniformed woman with close-cropped hair showed her to a small platform of corrugated metal around the back of it. She was close enough to touch the thing now, and being so near it brought her such a feeling of unease that her stomach was hurting. And for some reason, that just made it all worse. She stepped on, concentrating on the gentle clang of her new boots, and looked up. It was so, so high.

Then the floor dropped away along with her stomach, and she was shooting skyward. Her whole body tensed up. If she hadn't been wearing gloves, her nails would have been digging into her palms hard enough to draw blood now. If she hadn't been wound up so tight, she would probably have yelped. But Doctor Follen called her brave and strong. And what was it Deelie had said?

It’s okay to be scared. Being strong doesn’t mean you’re never afraid of anything, sometimes it means being afraid of something and doing it anyway.

She hadn't seen her down there, but she'd been distracted. She'd said she was coming, so she would be there. She was cheering her on, right? She and Besca and Doctor Follen were all cheering her on. She needed to—could do this. She could. She swore she could. Otherwise she—

The thought was cut off but the platform coming to a sudden stop at the head of the back of the head, into which was embedded a—

A—

A door.

Again, she nearly screamed right there. Opening it wouldn't be too hard here. But then she would need to close it behind herself.

She unclenched her right hand, and though it immediately started shaking again, she reached out and took hold of the door. It was heavy. So heavy, and the trembling didn't help.

After nearly half a minute of fruitless effort as she strained against the door, it finally slid open and a waft of freezing air s seeped out. She gasped as it blew over her face. Now she understood why the suit was heated. It wasn't to be nice. It was to stop her freezing to death.

She stopped. The only light in there came from the hangar lights that leaked through the door in front of her, illuminating a long, recumbent chair. For just a moment she forgot herself and clawed at her upper arms, eye wide. She knew that as soon as she closed it, it would be pitch black with no light.

The cockpit was tiny, so the question wasn't whether she'd be able to find the chair. It was whether or not she'd be able to get into it before she broke down.

Another moment of hesitation. She was scared. She was so, so scared.

It’s okay to be scared.

She dove in, and before she could think, she slammed the door behind her and was plunged into utter blackness.

It was even worse than she'd thought, and her breath immediately began to heave. She didn't have time. She needed to needed to go now NOW NOW.

Fumbling around in the dark, she found the chair and lay down in it as fast as she could. It was contoured enough that she could find where to position herself, and she let out a shrill squeak as little nodes slid into her plugs. They she lay there hyperventilating. Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. Nobody told her what to do now. She closed her eyes. Please work. Please, please, please work.

Then she fell into a dark that was darker than black.

Amygdala Circuit

It was quiet without Besca, and the prickling feeling in her gut roared back. She stared at the suits in the locker. She'd never worn anything like it. What was it—? Never mind. She needed to do it. She had to.

As she pulled the thinner suit up, she felt something rattling across her back. Forgetting herself for a moment, she wondered what it was. Then it clicked into the plugs on her back and she let out an involuntary hiss. It sounded wrong, and it felt wrong. But...it was soft, at least. If she needed to wear it, it was nice that it was soft. No matter how tight fitting it was, though, it couldn't quite stop her skin from crawling beneath it.

The heavier suit went on and she gasped. This time a different gasp than usual. A good gasp. It was warm. It was like walking around wrapped up in a big cozy blanket, but still being able to walk. See? It wasn't all bad!

The gloves and boots went on. She'd never worn gloves, and flexed her hands in fascination momentarily before she shook her head and gently the—her!—clothes into the locker, closed it (leaving it slightly open) and walked out.

Besca said she'd be in the hangar, right? She followed the signs, walking down a long hallway faster than was entirely comfortable. It hurt a little, but she was glad she could walk right again, and was anxious to be back with Besca. And Deelie'd said she was coming, right?

As much as she tried to reassure herself, she was still boiling inside. She didn't want to hear the voice again. She heard it in her sleep, she didn't want to hear it awake again too. She stopped in her tracks, wiped the sleeve of the baggy suit across her eye, then walked the last little bit into the hangar.

It was cavernous. She didn't know exactly how high up the ceiling hung, but it was really, really high for sure. Besca was standing right in front of her, and Doctor Follen was there too. It was only going to take fifteen minutes, right? That's what Besca said. Fifteen minutes, and then they could go back and watch a movie and—apparently she could eat whatever she wanted? That seemed odd. It didn't seem right to have a say in what you ate. But it seemed nice too.

She was just starting over to them when she saw Besca looking...not well. She looked scared. She couldn't imagine anything scaring her, she thought as she looked over to Besca was looking, so what—

She choked on her breath. No.

She staggered backwards, crashing into the wall with a thud, barely even noticing as her head cracked into it. No, no, no.

The red eyes in Hovvi. The red eyes in the lake. The sun that looked at her. Safie's Savior—its—its chest, and its head, and—

Her lips moved, but no air came out. No, no, no, no, no, she mouthed, pupil narrowed to a tiny pinprick. Suddenly everything was too hot, and too cold. Her teeth started to chatter. She thought maybe she was suffocating.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no...

Amygdala Circuit

She'd dropped her hands at some point, and her eye stared off into nowhere. She knew Besca was there, shaking her shoulders, voice urgent, but she didn't know if she was there, or if she was back in the misty hallway staring at a dead white deer so glorious and terrifying, or back in the black lake with eyes beneath her sinking sinking sinking, or back in the burning shell of the town with gnashing liquid shadows swarming around her. Her mind was at the bottom of the lake and everything else felt so far away...

"Quinn, listen to me. Breathe."

Besca. Besca. Her voice echoed down through the depths, saying to breathe. She kicked just like Safie had said, swimming closer. She surfaced. She breathed. Just like Besca had said. Just like Besca was saying now. In. Out. Three times. Her heartbeat in her ears slowed from its breakneck pace. The blank elsewhere slipped away as her eye focused again and registered where she was. She was at the table, a half-eaten strip of bacon left on the plate in front of her. Besca was shaking her by the shoulders

She gulped in another deep breath, tried to steady herself. Besca was there. She was safe. Besca would keep her safe.

Her voice was barely more than a halting whisper. "Okay."

She shut her eye, like she was hiding from the world. But it was still there. She still saw it. She still heard it. It still lingered, around her, inside her. She was stained. Dyed.

"I..." I don't want to take the test. But she couldn't say that. She needed to take it. Deelie said it didn't hurt. She would be okay. She needed to be strong and brave or else they would take her away and send her home. "...never mind. I'm...I'm okay."

She didn't feel okay.