Suggested Background Music: Moonlight Sonata Mvmt. 1, Ludwig van Beethoven (right click, open in new tab)

            There were voices.

            You can't win...

            Whispers, maybe.

            Just surrender. Surrender it all.

            Or maybe they were memories.

            Voluntas tuum meum est.

            Your will is mine.

                 Where was this place?

            You don't belong to yourself.

            You're nobody at all.

            They were ghosts and smoke, like mist evaporating, dancing above a frozen pond in the Spring, just beginning to thaw. Her captive mind was now walking out of its dark chambers and into the warm, gently pulsating light, free. The glow from somewhere engulfed her, swam across the fields of her being, and she inhaled it like a newborn tasting life's first breath. She thought she heard music, a hauntingly beautiful melody playing across the plains of her mindscape, lilting in and out of a hazy dream, sounding like a tragedy.

            Calm.

            Everything is calm.

            I...am calm.

            “Taeyeon!”

            A flash.

            And then came a rush of rapidly swirling colors and blinding lights, distorted echoes and artificial screams.

            Beep! Beep! Bee—

            She sees white.

            Seven months ago…

            “Product 7989, is it? Is this her?”

            “Yeah, that’s your Doll. Came of age a week ago.”

            A girl, clothed in a white gown, stood nervously next to a large contraption, looking between the two lab-coated men who seemed to be talking about her. She rubbed her bare feet against her shins, the cold of the zinc-plated floor spiraling into her body from her soles. She looked around cautiously, feeling oddly displaced, as the two men continued to converse.

            “…finished her seventh year of training. One of the shortest training periods, since they discovered her late.”

            “Is that right?”

            “She’s part of SM’s new group. Nine members and she’s the leader. First one to undergo The Wipe. The others couldn’t make her cooperate in the procedure and it’s been a full week now. The Council members are getting restless. Make sure you don’t screw this one up; you know how wonky the machine gets with female minds. And you don’t want to get the Council angry.”

            “Yeah, yeah, bugger off now. You know I don’t want the Council on my any more than you do. I’ll do my job just fine, rest assured.”

            “I’m just reminding you, Changmin.”

            “Like I said, Yunho, rest assured. Did you forget that I’m actually good at this ?”

            Yunho shook his head and gave Changmin a supportive smile and pat on the back before exiting. Changmin waited until the older man had completely left the operation room before flicking a few switches on the control board in front of him. The rest of the lights in the room shut off, while a single light shuddered to life, casting an eerie glow onto the metal contraption. The half-forgotten girl winced at the sudden change in luminosity, her eyes darting around like a scared animal.

            Changmin frowned, observing the petite girl’s behavior. Nevertheless, he flipped the switch that would inform others of the ongoing operation and positioned the spongey head of what looked like a microphone closer to his mouth. He pressed and held down the green button for the intercom and cleared his voice, announcing loudly, “Operation for The Wipe all set to go. And get in here fast; the subject looks ready to flee at any moment and we can’t have her in a frenzied state. The procedure works best without chemical influence, remember.”

            Soon after, a small team of medical assistants entered, all dressed in uniform white and silver, a sheer fabric covering the bottom halves of their faces. Changmin pulled his own face mask on and walked toward the trembling girl.

            She didn’t know why, but her rusted instincts all screamed at her to run away. She shuffled hesitantly toward the door behind her, away from the oncoming figures, then broke out into a run. Changmin, being closest, quickly caught her arm however, and pulled her to the sleek metallic device, forcing her to sit down on its shock-resistant, rubber chair. He motioned for the others to bring over the cart containing the medical supplies for the procedure and prepared her shoulder for injection.

            “No choice, we’ll have to sedate her. She’s been trying to get out of this for a week now, I’m told. I know you don’t want The Council knocking down our door, so we’ll have to cut some minor corners here.”

            The others nodded in silence.

            “Good.” Changmin took a hold of a syringe containing clear liquid and injected the needle into the whimpering girl’s arm. “Sorry, honey. You’d have thought that someone would’ve invented a better system for getting fluid into the body by now, but this remains the most effective method.”

            He placed a small recovery patch over the minor wound and motioned toward the others to proceed onto the next step. Soon, the girl had an oxygen mask strapped on and was hooked to several wires that monitored her blood pressure, heart rate, and more. A translucent sphere attached to the contraption was lowered down over her head like an upside down fishbowl. Soon, brightly colored readings of her brain activity flashed to life on the surface of the plexiglas sphere.

            “Looks like she’s calming down quite a bit,” Changmin noticed, scrolling through the various colorful charts, graphs and numerals with swipes of his gloved hand. “We’ll still need a little dose of anesthesia; her mental state is not quite stable enough to proceed safely with The Wipe.” He nodded toward the figure that was standing on the side of the machine, working what appeared to be the controls. Changmin kept an eye on the readings of her brain activity and held up a hand, indicating a stop in the flow of anesthetic gas. The eyes of the girl drooped soon after and her head fell back against the headrest.

            “Right.” Changmin cracked his knuckles and stretched his limbs. “Let’s get the real show on the road.”

            The white-robed figures responded silently, nodding in robotic synchrony.

Author's Notes:

Yes, I said that it would be a long time before I updated, but guess what, my mind is a fickle scumbag troll! Any of my readers that have followed my stories for quite a while now probably already know this. Sigh. What to do, what to do. I still can't guarantee rapid updates, because my main focus will still be on "Five Shades of Grey," but you may get random ones out of the blue if I feel inspired enough to make me go crazy. As was the case here. Hope you enjoyed this very short, possibly confusing chapter. I'm off to finish writing chapter 7 of "Five Shades..." now!

Big thanks to everyone who subscribed and commented so far! Please continue to let me know how I'm doing and continue to support this story, as well as my other ones! Don't forget to vote in the poll if you haven't already. G-Tae has been the consistent majority so far, it seems. I wonder where all the votes are coming in from, though, since there have been much less subscribers than votes. Do people go through the polls and randomly vote? Hmm. Anyway, hope you enjoyed! There'll be more...later, whenever later may be ^^;