shiver (FEATURED) | ✓

o31

evanna

I swing the pistol casually from my index finger as we walk down the corridor, the door becoming smaller and smaller as we leave it behind. Julian, beside me, is tense- they reek of anxiety. It's not fear, though. It's something a little more acidic than that.

"Will you stop that?" They suddenly ask, as I turn a corner.

"Stop what?" I muse, as I turn my head at every open laboratory door, as if to check whether it's the right one. There's no true point to it: I know exactly where to go.

"That- you know what, never mind. Just give me that." Julian leans across and snatches the pistol from me. "One day, that's going to spontaneously go off and shoot you in the head."

I pull a face at them, but I'm not angry. "Ooh. Sounds painful," I mock, giving them a smile. "I really hope you've got decent aim, Julian." In answer, I get an elbow in the ribs.

***

The test tubes are exactly how I left them, shattered within the confines of their metal rack, their blue liquid spilled out and forming a gooey mess. Most of it has evaporated, but there are glass shared all around the rack.

And there lies the table. It feels like forever since I stepped out of this place, but I know it's only been a few weeks- not even. I let my hand slide over the smooth marble table, and I close my eyes, taking in a deep breath. I feel it, then.

The metal, cool, slick, detailed.

I open my eyes.

On the marble table, still coated in a tar-like, black substance, is the immaculately constructed metal tube that kept me wired to the entire system during my session of sleep. It is one of the few things that reminds me that the inside of me is not entirely human. "We need to take this back," I say, and I pick it up. It really does look like a... what was it? A socket. There. A socket. No, a plug. Yes, a plug.

"The hell is that?" Julian responds. They've lingered at the doorway, their back to the lab, eyes flitting up and down through the corridors, but they turn around as I speak, both hands still on the pistol.

"I'm not sure. Not quite, although I'm quite sure it acted like some sort of life-support for me..." I murmur, turning it around in my hands.

"Well, do you know what it's made of?"

I frown slightly and brush the pad of my thumb over the abrasions on the thing, then tracing the shape of the parts coated in the black, dried-out substance. "I think it's titanium. And... it's lined with some form of lead?"

"That's weird. Lead's a toxin to the body-"

"To the human body," I correct.

"To most living things, it is-"

I grin. "Not to all, obviously. That's probably why I'm better than you lot, you know. I'm toxin-resistant." Well, lead-resistant.

Julian responds with a short laugh. "Darling, no. You don't have to pretend that you're better when I'm around, I know you're fibbing," they say as a form of mockery. "You're not that much better, so shut up and concentrate."

"Next time we're out together, I swear I'll actually sew your lips together, Julian," I answer sourly, as I follow the apparently-titanium cord to its source which, inconveniently, disappears behind the wall. Whatever. If I can find a way to at least get the head of the plug off, it'll be a start. Or perhaps it's simply better to leave it as it is.

Julian pulls a face as they finally choose to take a wander around the lab. "So. This was your home for... what? Geez, how many years did you stay here?" They mutter, opening up the drawers of a filing cabinet, presumably searching for something either important or helpful.

"I don't know. I can't really remember."

"Really?" They say, their tone buzzing with mockery. Again. "Wow. Something that Evanna can't remember- yeah, now that's a first."

"Shut up."

The only sounds that follow are the shuffling of papers, the slamming of drawers of filing cabinets, the soft clinks of a fingernail being tapped against glass beakers and conical flasks- before Julian lets out a sound that sounds like something caught between a gasp and some form of an excited shriek. "No way," they mutter.

"What?" I say, a little grumpily, as I wander over to them.

"Is this you?"

The photograph that Julian hands me from the paper file they hold is glossy, but it's flecked, it's old, at least a decade old, and the image itself... It's confusing, and because of that, I don't like it.
A little girl with straw-blonde hair, tied up in two braids that hung over her shoulders, sits wedged between two adults, a man and a woman. The three of them are smiling. The woman has a nice smile, though it repulses me- the man has chestnut hair that shines in an unsaturated manner underneath the unflattering light of the sun.

"Give me that," I say, and snatch it from them, turning it over. "'A. Frior,'" I read off of it. "'E. Frior, 0097F. P. Frior.' That's... that's my test number," I begin to say, a little shocked. Is that me, as a child, forever preserved in this tiny scrap of ink and paper? I look so... innocent, so sweet, so trustworthy. "Does that mean... Are those my parents?" I ask, tracing my thumb over their faces. I swallow thickly, and soon I don't want to look at the picture anymore.

"I think they are," Julian says gently, as though I'm in need of some sort of consolation. But they're wrong.

"This- no," I say, walking back to the marble table, and I grab a lighter from one of the laboratory benches, flicking the flame to life with a swift movement of my thumb. "See this, Julian? This is sentiment. It's rubbish," I say coldly, as I touch the corner of the photograph to the flame. Julian looks appalled, but once the photo has caught fire, I drop it onto the marble and watch it curl up on itself as it tries to shrink from the flames.

That isn't me. That little girl. That isn't me, and even if it was, we are not the same person today. I don't need a reminder of my past.

So I stand there and watch the photograph as it turns to smoke and ashes, the last of my innocence disintegrating with it, lost, wandering, and dead.