Prose by Sarah Lampsa, Writer
As I walk into the room, the scene changes around me. I see the remnants of its last tenant leaving, the traces of their own story, their own mind chasing itself out into the world. I see their own reflection in the walls, the soccer ball flashing just in front of me as it aims towards the disappearing cleat of its holder.
And then it’s all gone, and I see only grey in my surroundings.
The walls move, suddenly, from the colorful blues and greens to the dark, murky shades of my own memory. The storm of my mind whirls around my own body in this space, its powerful winds whipping my hair around my face and hiding its shame, its loss. Good. The cameras don’t need to see the pain in my own silver irises. In this room, it’s a game of hide and seek. The weak ones show all. The strong manage to hold themselves together, with only shards of their broken brains splashing onto the walls. Survival of the fittest is the only real game here.
Shifting the walls with only the power of my mind, I see the technology spark. The fiery chords can only hold so much memory. This brain cannot be handled by a simple machine, an invention created by the one thing it desperately wants to control. I will not be chained. Refusal is the only thing keeping me sane, and, with that oblivious insanity, alive. This room can only control a simple mind, like that of my sister, of my colleagues. May their own lives rest in that, with their darkness unleashed, and their minds sedated. The ones in charge know only more; they have no limits. It’s no wonder we lost so many to their “cure”.
The sparks grow larger, and the machines light up further. Their veins are overflowing with the poison in me, their mighty systems overriding with my thumping heart. I’ll let it all loose. All of the pain I’ve seen, all of the loss they’ve given me. I’ll hand it right back, throw these mighty feelings into the palms of those who killed her. The only one I had left. The only one who could hold me back. How dare they take her away. These regrets, this anger fuels me. It fills my soul and the body of the machine in front of me, overflowing it’s “perfect” battery with such force that it explodes, an atomic to be talked of for centuries. The only traces of my emotion are thrown everywhere, the twitching screens being shot for thousands of miles. These rules won’t hold me. This regret will not stand. The revolution has begun. My storm has finally been released.