The Story of a Weapon: Part One

     At last... Victory! Joy overcame her and caused her to forget of the never-ending mass of boxes surrounding and engulfing her. Usually claustrophobic, she had been feeling as though she was being swallowed by her basement, yet, now, it was all gone.

     Finally! She was able to read this book... It seemed that every time she tried she was distracted from it. She wasn't even supposed to be going through the items randomly strewn in her basement. Her mother had said, "Those things are down there for a reason, they were meant to be forgotten." It was three years ago that she had first laid eyes upon it, and curiosity had overcome her. She didn't remember ever seeing the book before - like it had randomly appeared in her basement.

     She opened the cover, and on the inside of the cover was written in a neat, elegant stroke:

     A history of events as they happened. Not one detail is changed or altered. This is as I remember it, and it is not some sick joke.

     Hearing a sound, she turned, and saw only her green warf bounding toward her. She was filled with curiosity; what could have happened to this person to make them fear that anyone who read this journal would think them to be lying?

     Turning the page, she saw the first thing written...

     "I opened my eyes for the first time today, as well as taking my first breath. It's strange to awaken to a mind that's just... chaotic with knowledge. Everything spins around, I can't keep my thoughts straight. I have... this intense desire to make sense of something. But I can't make sense of anything if I can't make sense of myself. And at this moment, that's very challenging to do. I try to ask the people milling around some questions, but they won't answer me. They just look up from their notepads, and then scribble down some more notes. I finally managed to get them to give me my own notepad. They're just trying to observe me as I write; I know it's all being watched, but this helps me, this... organizes something for me."

          ~~~~~~~~~

     The Draik peered through her room... Why were these people watching her? Why wouldn't they leave her alone? Why was she even there? Where was her mother... Did she even have a mother?

     She didn't understand why they wanted to study her so carefully, but she knew that they weren't about to leave. At first she had studied them, but she soon realized that they were quite boring. All they did was study her and refuse to say anything to her. Didn't they realize that she needed answers? Why couldn't they just provide her with one detail. Just one?

     She couldn't explain how she knew their language, or how to write, but she did not dare to ask them. Not like they'd answer anyway... But, if they did, she was afraid of the answer they'd give. She simply reveled in the power, and wrote to keep her mind off of what happened around her.

     They brought her food when they felt it was necessary to do so. They didn't feed her multiple times a day; they fed her once, if that, at random times. It was almost like they were trying to make her a ravenous beast. They seemed to almost forget about her primal needs. All they cared about was studying her behavior. She couldn't help but wish these people would just nurture her. Sometimes it seemed like they were conditioning her to be something... trying to make her... No! She refused to think it...

     She knew she wasn't alone, but she felt like she was in the middle of a sea with no one around for billions of miles. They were always so impersonal. They didn't treat her as an equal, even though her intellect was obviously equal to if not greater than theirs, and they didn't give her any time to simply relax. They were always there. Never leaving. Staying. Watching.

     At first it was torment. She couldn't believe that people treated each other like this. Was the entire world so impersonal, so uncaring... so... thoughtless? After time, she began to get used to it. The people constantly watching; perpetually scratching notes in their notebooks, refusing to accept that she could actually be normal. She just sighed and sat in her corner, thinking of how things could be different...

     ~~~~~~~

     "They've started to talk to me now, in hushed tones, as if they were afraid I'd do something horrid to them if they dared speak aloud. I try to call them by name, but it frightens them. So I stop reading their lovely little nametags, and go back to merely nodding to whomever I'm trying to direct my speech to. But it makes me think, their strange fear of being called by name. I wonder why their names hold such power over them, and then... I wonder why I don't know my own. I ask, but receive no answers."

     ~~~~~~~

     "Come here." The voice sounded strangely large in the muted silence.

     She glanced up. "Why?"

     The person who spoke seemed to grimace. "Because I have told you to do so. In time, you will learn that our orders are better off obeyed."

     She observed him. He was the leader of them. He had always been the coldest towards her. She stood up from her spot and walked over.

     "Tell me my name," she demanded. She didn't ask, she ordered. She watched them write down more things in their notebooks and they never answered.

     "Sarah..." She didn't know how she knew the woman's name... She simply did. Like it had been in her mind this entire time...

     A young blonde woman looked up, frightened. "Please don't say my name..." she pleaded.

     The Draik didn't understand the fear. "But why, I don't see why we have to exist like this..."

     The woman would have consoled the pitiful creature, if she hadn't been so terrified of His reaction. He had told them to never converse with the creature, to never touch the creature, to never show compassion to the creature, because it could, at any moment, lash out and destroy them all. She thought it was obvious, this draconic being didn't understand what was going on. She just wanted to live. She wanted to be normal. Sarah could see it, why couldn't he?

     He thought to himself, she seems to be completely disregarding the codes we set into her mind. The closest to being a weapon she has become is when she defied his orders. She showed no aggression - ever. It made him worry. Would this one be another failure?

     Days passed. She wanted out - NOW! This was the first time that there hadn't been people in her room. This was the first time that there wasn't anyone in there... She couldn't stand the stuffiness of the room. She couldn't live with being alone...

     Staring at the bars, she realized something: she could break them. Excited by the thought of freedom, she thrust out her claws and broke them. She walked out. People everywhere started shrieking and fleeing... Was she that terrifying? She glanced around... On the outside of the room where she had been kept, there was a sign.

     WEAPON (23)

     Authorized Personnel Only

     Hazardous to All

     She was shocked... How could she possibly be "hazardous"? The worst thing she had done was break the bars, and that sign couldn't have appeared there after she did that.

     They were coming... She could feel it. They weren't even close enough for her to smell or hear them... But they were coming nonetheless. When they arrived, he scolded her and told her that she was not allowed out of her room.

     "All I wanted was to be out of that room for a while... I wanted freedom..."

     "You have to earn your freedom..."

     They took her to a new room. She understood. She was a prisoner, and she had always been a prisoner. She was not to leave, she was not to speak, she was to act the obedient pup that she wasn't.

     She began to think about her name. What kind of a name was Weapon23? Were they so uncaring that they couldn't give her a decent name... Weapon... 23...

     Contemplating, she began to think the words separately... Weapon, Twenty-three. Weapon. Twenty-three. Please let it just be a lie. She pleaded to herself. But she knew better. She was a prisoner because she was a test. She was simply the result of their toying with DNA and cells and creating a weapon. She wasn't the first though. She was the twenty-third attempt, the only one to survive...

     The terror that the knowledge brought was obvious in her eyes, but, in time, the shock eased, and she became cold and placid. For once she did what had been ingrained into her since before her cells had formed an organism; she exercised her patience, and would wait for the perfect time to act...

To be continued...

Author's Note: Thanks to Bluepen for giving me inspiration and letting me write this.