Reversed

xv. fifteen

The rap of knuckles against stone woke Sophie up in the morning. She didn't know how long she had been asleep. She was partially thankful for the dark night sky walls of the room she was in because they provided a night-like illusion, but the other half of her brain kicked herself for sleeping for so long.

She didn't know why she had succumbed to exhaustion so easily. She has aced the sleep training the Neverseen had given her. She could stay awake for 60 hours straight, which had set a record among the Neverseen, and nobody had come close to staying awake for two and a half days.

Now that she thought about it, Sophie even couldn't remember anything after transmitting to Ruy when she tried to run away. She didn't recall how she had gotten back on the cot, or why she wasn't hungry anymore. She puzzled over it, but all she could come up with was I don't know.

After grogginess of just waking up left Sophie, she realized why she had been woken up and snapped her head towards the door. Livvy was standing in its frame.

Sophie slowly sat up, expecting to be help back by the tug of bonds being stretched to their limit. But... there were none. She was just laying on the cot, without any restraints.

Sophie sat up faster and examined her hands and legs better, making sure her eyes weren't playing tricks on her.

They weren't.

Livvy cleared her throat, and Sophie looked back over at her. "Why..." Was that her voice? It was so hoarse. Sophie cleared her throat. "Why didn't you tie me up?" she asked suspiciously.

Livvy closed the door behind her. "Keefe convinced us to not restrain you. I wouldn't suggest disappointing him."

Keefe? Had he been the person to bring her back after she tried to run away? Sophie combed through her recent memories, but still couldn't recall anything about how she got back.

The first thing Ruy had taught her was that she should regularly go through her recent memories to make sure that she didn't have any holes in them. He had drilled it into her brain so much that it had practically become a second nature for Sophie.

Ruy had told her, "The Black Swan, unfortunately, know your mind. They know how it works, they know how to get into it, and now that you're on our side, they will try to use anything and everything they can come up with to get back at you. We need to know immediately if you ever think that there are some holes in your memories."

"Besides the ones that are from when the Black Swan took a memory and never gave it back?" Sophie had asked. "The ones from before, I mean."

"Yes," Ruy had said. "Only recent missing memories."

Well, that was happening to Sophie right now. She had holes in her recent memories, and Ruy was nowhere near for her to tell.

Which meant Sophie had no idea what to do or what the missing memories meant.

"Sophie..." Livvy started again. "I stayed up all night improving the human medicine cure." Now that Sophie looked harder, she could see slightly dark circles under the physic's eyes.

Sophie snorted. "What do you expect from me? A sorry for your wasted night of rest?"

Livvy sighed. "No." She reached into her white lab cloak she had probably not taken off since experimenting with the human medicine and pulled out a vial.

"The human antidote, perfectly safe."

Sophie raised an eyebrow, and a smirk of amusement swam to the surface of her lips. "Perfectly safe? Have you tested it out?" she didn't even need an answer. The way Livvy pursed her lips was more than enough. "I didn't think so." Sophie scooted to the other end of the cot, away from Livvy. And the vial. She was getting sick of seeing vials.

Sophie thought that she just might finally give in and take whatever they wanted her to due to sheer exasperation towards being asked so many times to take it.

Livvy clutched the vial tighter and narrowed her eyes. "Well, the medicine worked last time, didn't it? There were only a few minor side effects, and we almost lost you. I've re-engineered it to be safer, more sufficient, and less painful, all in a single night. These old men had no idea what they were doing." She offered a small smirk that Sophie didn't return. 

She rubbed the scar she still had on her hand. "I'm not going to be your guinea pig."

Livvy sighed. "So you're telling me you don't want to at least see if you have any missing memories?"

Missing memories. Wasn't Sophie just thinking about that?

Sophie's brow creased. Wasn't she just thinking about holes in her memories?

... Right?

She remembered something about missing memories... but when?

Sophie concentrated and thought back to before she woke up, but she couldn't remember anything about how she had gotten here. All she remembered was waking up in the Black Swan's cave hideout and registering Dex's tech handcuffs.

What had happened after that?

The harder Sophie thought, the more times she came up empty. It was like reaching into a fish bowl, trying to catch a fish that you knew should be there, but when you pulled your hand up all you saw was slippery water dripping off it.

Missing memories. Sophie had missing memories.

How many were gone, how they had been taken, and who did it, she didn't know, but she wanted them back. What if the Black Swan had done something to her while she was asleep?

She'd have no way of knowing.

Was she going to keep losing her memories? Already the memory of waking up for the first time in the cave was fading slowly; it was growing hazy around the edges. Sophie tried to mentally grasp onto it, but she felt it keep fading.

Sophie's eyes darted around the room in panic. She had the sudden urge to write down everything she was thinking so there would be a record of it. Was the strand of thoughts she was thinking right now going to disappear soon?

The thought scared Sophie.

It scared her more than images of needles filled with untested, tampered human medicine sinking into her flesh, more than the thought of taking poisonous liquids the Black Swan had concocted and putting her life into their hands while she died. 

So that was why she choked out, "I'll think about it," to Livvy, and shot a half-hearted glare at her to cut off anything she was about to say and urge her to leave the room.

When Livvy closed the door behind her, Sophie sank back onto the bed and squeezed her eyes shut.

Sophie couldn't believe she was doing this.

This being thinking about taking the Black Swan's memory elixir.