Your Life For Your Thoughts (An Excerpt from Sixteen Seconds)

This was not an act of courage. C put that thought to bed before it could injure her. It was a stupid thought. This could never be considered a gallant choice. She was aware of that when she locked the door and the deadbolt in the hotel room. Could something really be selfish if you had no one left to call you out? Too long. She pushed her allotment. She'd given up the debate. She turned the tub spout, wondering if the water would come on. Stand alone systems would occasionally surprise, giving up the last store of a decrepit water heater. The old tank creaked and groaned, spurting rust colored filth from the faucet. She didn't flinch. She didn't question why it mattered where. Some lingering inkling for attention bent her decisions beyond her conscious grasp. Tearing the pocket off her worn sweatshirt, she stuffed it in the drain of the tub. The liquid gathered in the bottom, slowly filling to rise up the sides. C stared into the water, waiting for an urge to stop, wishing something would change her mind. That's what hurt the worst. There wasn't a single goddamned reason not to.

Pulling a disposable razor from her green canvas bag, she tossed it to the tile floor and smashed it with a boot heel, the pink plastic cracking and setting free her prize. The blade glinted in the sunlight creeping through the tiny rectangular window above her. It would be sharp enough. C slipped her boots off, almost wondering too long on why it even mattered, or what possessed her. She wouldn't be putting them back on. She stopped herself, right around seven seconds. Maybe that's what she should do, zap herself while she was at it. Then it would be certain, a devastating triangle to assure fate of her conclusion. The water was warm and slimy, endeavoring to tug her socks low on her ankles as she swung her feet into the murk that begged to drag her further down into the reddish sludge.

She held the blade against her pale skin below the cuff of her weary leather jacket. She imagined her blood recoiling, drawing back from the vein the razor threatened. If this was the end, where was the flash of life she was supposed to see? Where were all those faces and people and places and time? Tears burned behind closed lids, seeping through lashes and down her cheeks. That was enough. That was everything. She'd been robbed of even the last moment of memories. They weren't allowed anymore. There was no white light. There would be no open arms. There was absolutely nothing left. The sharpened metal blade drew a thin red line from left to right over a shaking wrist, and then from right to left across the other before falling from her hand and disappearing into the discolored liquid below. Blood and rust. Rust and blood. She leaned back, never opening her eyes. The sunlight felt warm and yielding on her eyelids. Trees danced outside the window, their shadows playing over her face, concerned onlookers too distant from the situation to intervene. Even with her last breath, C wished her mind would change, that it even could.

**Now**

Something hot and wet pressed against her hand. C looked down. Lyrique stared up at her, crooked head and deep brown eyes inquisitive as always. C ran her fingers along Lyrique's velvet nose. Roland sat on the makeshift hospital bed with Penny at his side. Over an hour passed, tests she wanted to do and questions she had to ask. C wasn't fond of witnessing the procedure. It dragged old memories out of locked boxes and rubbed them in her face. So much time had passed since then, and it simply didn't matter. She couldn't let that go. She'd disappointed herself and still refused to accept her own apology. She'd spend as much time making up for it as she could, but she would never step into Doc's shoes again.

"Hey, Doc, I'm taking Lyrique out for a while. You guys all right?"

"C, you know you don't have to be here." Penny smiled sincerely.

C shrugged, trying not to let her nerves get the best of her. "I'll be back in a bit." She couldn't bring herself to look at Roland, to say any sort of farewell. It was too final. She didn't want to think about it.

It had been ten years since the first strike was made against the government of what was once the United States. A decade rotted in the ditch between what was and what is, fouling up the air of memory. Sometimes C would sit and think, a privilege she would never take for granted again. Her mother and father ghosted childhood recollections, their faces blurred like old photos, their voices faint like whispered secrets not meant for her ears. She tried to summon up every detail she could about how things were before. It wasn't just that she wanted to remember, but that she had to. If it slipped away, if she forgot where she came from, she was accepting that it would always be like this, that things could never be good again. In her mind, the future depended on the past. There had to be an answer. There had to be a way to fix this. The numbers of those able to think without restraint were growing, but it wasn't enough. The only solution was too risky, and it didn't matter anyway. A population that can't reproduce is doomed to extinction. They existed as long as the last survivor. After that, the human species would be bone in layers of rock, the new dinosaurs.

When the government took complete control, C was one of the few still working. Her father was a politician and they were some of the lucky ones, at first. She worked for him doing secretarial and clerical duties. Her mother maintained the house and pretended nothing was wrong, depleting a healthy stash of valium, regularly. One day, the general decided they no longer needed politicians. It was no longer necessary to convince the public of anything. They would be told what to do, and they would obey or rebel. C's position became an innocent bystander, one of the many jobs eradicated in the crossfire. Of course, her father could not afford the family home without employment. A new tax was implemented on all privately owned properties, and most were confiscated shortly after, including C's. They were evicted, on the street within a day. C was naïve, nineteen and sheltered, never expecting in her life to be digging through wealthy people's trash cans in hopes they'd tossed something edible, even a scrap. She'd never imagined just how cold a winter night could be, huddled in a concrete corner with her family rattling against her and the wind raking bitter, icy nails over every bit of her exposed skin. Her father died two weeks later, arms frigidly wrapped around them when they woke in the morning, eyes frozen shut in permanent sleep.

Casey Wright lost both parents that day. Her father went with the unrelenting night and her mother left her mind with the rose on his shallow grave. The only thing worse than being alone is being alone in the company of another. C would be the first to tell you that her mother was never "all there". She'd always swayed towards prescription pills, alcohol a fall back when she couldn't readily find the other. Most of C's childhood, her mother was asleep on the couch and her father was at work. They fought, all the time. Her father was a good man, a devout Catholic to his regrettable fate, and would not end the marriage. Yet her mother had given up while her father spent his last energy trying to keep them warm. Despite her growing resentment towards this woman who brought her to life, yet would not assist in maintaining it, C fought to find them food and struggled to keep them in shelter. Minutes slinked by like guilty cats, stealing scraps from the table of time. There were things she would never discuss, the dignity she'd sacrificed for food or water, the only thing she had left to trade.

One morning, she woke up alone. They'd been hiding in an old elementary school library, burning books and tables to stay warm. C opened tired eyes to find the room empty, except for her and the stack of literature she couldn't bring herself to utilize in the fire. Her mother was gone. C searched the streets for her, checking all the usual spots they'd scavenge food, even going back to the house she'd grown up in. There was no trace of occupancy. Someone had broken all the photos on the walls and thrown them into a pile in the middle of the living room. C stared down at smiling faces behind splintered glass. It was really over, and she was truly alone. She hit the floor, her body shaking with sobs until there were no tears left, until the sound of soldiers could be heard outside. C quickly snatched up a photo of her parents from the shards of broken civility and snuck out the back door. She had no destination, no purpose. She wandered, and that was all.

Six months passed, akin to the slow drip of an IV burning through her veins like saline. She'd join others, working odd jobs at refugee camps for food. Her clothes no longer fit, fifteen pounds slipping away from her already thin frame. In the unfortunate event that she passed a reflective surface, the gaunt face of a pale skeleton stared back at her. The image gave her chills, so she stopped looking. She let herself fall to the desolation that beckoned, hair matting into dreadlocks and fingernails caked with dirt. There was no such things as the future. She would wander until her time came. Then she could be free. That would be too much to ask though, as she would soon find out.

General Styph came into unrestricted power during the upheaval. It was simple. A man without a conscience had no boundaries, no restrictions. He took what he wanted and anyone begging to differ was executed. After the rebel strike against the supply houses publicly humiliated his command, after his search for any person carrying information about the perpetrators, came his brilliant new plot.

The NIDs were developed and implemented. C would hear talk in the camps of this new device that could control your mind. They'd lost everything already. Now they would take their thoughts? Camps emptied, scores of broken citizens fled to the forests hoping to avoid capture. The general offered everyone a choice: Commit willingly or be executed. C didn't understand. Why were they doing this? What had the rebels done that frightened a man with such power and stature? The question was something to occupy her passing time, other than grief, a goal to distract from sorrow.

The task of rounding up entire city populations wasn't easy, but with the volume of military personnel, they made fast work of it. Door to door, they dragged people from their homes. Those who fought back or resisted were shot in front of their kin. Their head down and heels dragging the street, body after body filed into vans and busses heading to the hospitals. C hid, watching the process, praying someone would stop this. No one came to the rescue. Superheroes weren't real. The broken will of a population had no power against the tyranny of a corrupt government. The busses and vans returned, dumping off the hordes of "corrected citizens", as they called them. Husbands held their wives close and mothers tried to pacify screaming children as they made their way home to the only semblance of security that remained. C decided it was time to go. It didn't matter why this was happening. She didn't want it to happen to her. Taking what miniscule food she'd stored and her old down comforter rolled and tied to a backpack, she set out in the middle of the night towards the rumors of the rebel camp, praying she'd make it out before they found her, somehow knowing she'd waited too long.