Remember

Chapter Thirty-Three

"Colette." Madie's voice erupted behind Colette just as she was about to exit the room. "Please stay. There is something I've been needing to tell you - explain to you." Colette took another look out the door and to the otherwise empty room she was standing in and closed the door.

    "Yeah, sure, what is it?" Colette took a seat on a torn red pillow in front of Madie.

    "I'm sure you have a lot of questions about what is going on and why you're here." Colette nodded. "This thing inside you, well, it's not exactly a power."

    "Well then what is it?"

    "It's hard to explain. I think it's better you saw what I saw." Madie held out her hands to Colette. "Let me show you."

    Colette stared at Madie's worn hands for a moment before she placed hers on top of them. They were shaking again. The nerves eating her alive. Colette was about to get answers, the one thing she had wanted since she became aware, and now she didn't even know if she wanted them. She knew whatever Madie was going to show her wouldn't be anything good. That much was evident from the scared expression on her face and her sweating palms that felt awfully warm against Colette's ice cold ones.

    "Just close your eyes and concentrate on slowing your breathing. I need you to be relaxed or this won't work." Relaxed. As if she could relax right now. She did what Madie said nonetheless and tried to calm herself down.

    A tingling sensation started in her palms and made its way throughout her entire body, spreading all the way from the tips of her fingers to the soles of her feet. At first all she could see was blackness in her mind, then there were flashes of images, and finally it felt like she had been sucked into someone else's mind. A dream.

    "Who found it?" The voice wavered in and out along with the images of wherever Colette was standing. It felt like she was looking through someone else's eyes, like she was in someone else's body. She looked down at her hands, they were not petite like Madie's nor were they her own hands. They were those of a younger male and they were shaking with fear.

    The room finally came into focus. She was standing in a glass office, light streaming into the room through the ocean outside of the windows. Colette, or rather the man whose dream she had entered, must be in some underground building. Judging by the professional clothing of the people in the room, they were government employees and whoever the boy was

"I did Ma'am." Colette -- the boy-- stepped forward, towards the blonde woman. The voice of the boy almost seemed familiar.

"And you just let it escape?" The woman seemed furious.

"Governor Khoen, it came out of nowhere. I thought it was going to kill me. You should have felt the thing. It was so cold. I felt like my whole body had lit up into ice cold flames." Kaden. The voice belonged to Kaden.

"Well where did it go? We can't have that thing running amuck in Paradisium it'll destroy everything. It'll tell everyone our secrets. We will never be trusted again."

"This girl, I don't know her name. She had dark black hair, the color of the night sky. It touched her and she didn't even seem to feel it... and then it just disappeared."

"Bethla Garner!" Ms. Khoen yelled to a lady in the hallway who came running in. "Have you been working on controlling your power?" Nurse Garner nodded. "I want you to pose as a Nurse at the hospital. We will make sure this girl gets put under your care if you can handle it. Make sure she never becomes aware. Ask questions often. If you've practiced enough, you'll know when she's lying."

    "I won't let you down. She won't become aware I'll make sure of it."

    Suddenly the dream world faded around her and Colette opened her eyes with a gasp. "What the hell was that?" Colette looked at Madie, demanding an explanation.

    "That was how I started becoming aware. How I found Kaden. How I knew that you were the key to all of this." Madie looked down at her hands, wiping them against her already stained jeans that were ripped from too many wears.

    "Who... how... I don't understand."

    "Ever since I was little, I had these weird dreams. It felt like I was in someone else's body, watching the world from their eyes. One night I had a dream, it was Kaden. He was crouching behind a bush, watching the darkness -- tracking it. The darkness knew he was following him, it tried to kill him. At least that's what I had thought at first. It was trying to possess him I guess. Kaden was too aware of the simulation around him, he didn't know it at the time though. So when it failed to get to him it saw you and you were so oblivious to everything and it was able to get inside you, hitch a ride in your body until you were aware.

    "I had that nightmare for months, Kaden had that nightmare for months. I thought I could help you, save you, by going to the government but by doing that I exposed myself. The government found out I could slip into people's dreams and control them. So, they used me. They used me to get Kaden to confess what he knew so they could use him too."

    "What is this thing inside me? What does it want?"

    "It wants to be free. The government made some deal with it a long, long time ago. It wants revenge I guess. All I know is that the government is terrified of it."

    "What does that have to do with me? How do I just let it out, get rid of it?"

    "You can't. It's too dangerous. It wants revenge against all of us, the entire human race. You have to learn how to control it. You either learn how to control the darkness and help us fight against the government and right the world or you let the darkness control you and destroy everything. It needs a host to do whatever it's planning. It picked you as that host."

    So that was it. She was stuck with this thing inside her and she had no say or choice in it. Colette wasn't even a human anymore, she was a weapon of revenge. Her only choice was whether she was going to be a weapon against the government or the entire human race. At this point, she didn't see the difference.