The Cyborg's Daughter ( I'm close to 100K reads! Then Party)

Chapter 3/What if you don't give in? Darkness

Photo: impression of slave collar. Video Jess Thom. Tourette's hero and inspiration for Hunter.  Less than 1% of characters on television have a disability, lets be diffrent. 

shelter 81/Island 7/Atlantic near coast of region 01

316 days before the singularity

Emm's POV

Last night I had the nightmare about the grey lady. Due to the EP at night my mind turns to spaghetti  and I wake up with this dream as a kind of parting gift, like someone spitting in your hand to say goodbye. One day the dream will creep up on me at random points over the day. It will cover me like a cowl, a hood of darkness drawn over my mind and while my body will twitch the devils dance on the floor I will be a ghost and my body will be a demon's meat puppet. 

For now, the nightmare was almost always the same. I'm always someone else.  I am in some forgotten dusty room, I walk towards an old woman, her flesh is wrinkled and grey, she wears a black dress and sits in the middle of the room in a strange metal chair. Both the woman and the chair seem to be merging together, cables and tubes link one to the other. It's cold, she is asleep, I walk closer to her and can almost smell her grey flesh, she's got a small yellow bottle in her hand, then without warning her eyes open and she says "kill me". That's the point when I generally wake up feeling like a bull had driven a tank badly over me, wondering why I dream of witches.

When I wake up it takes me a few minutes to lock back into reality. I came to and realised my arm and wrist hurt. I was sleeping on the floor on a blanket rather than in my bunk. For a second I wondered what I was doing then I remembered the visit last night. I looked at the boy, it was no use trying to decide if he was cute or not. Most likely he would be collared up and gone within a week like many of the others. People who defrosted generally split into two camps, those that were completely demoralised and those who hadn't figured it out yet.

"You again" I said as he came to.

"What's wrong you don't like me? darkness" said Hunter.

"It's not that I don't like you, it's just I'm not thrilled by your existence" I said.

Hunter fixed me with a stare.

"If you were any more of what I think you are you would have puppies, darkness" he said.

Little Jenny came in.

"You stopped saying biscuit" she added as she came in.

"Yeh it changes darkness," he said blinking. "I hardly slept. Cats. Someone kept fidgeting all night, darkness on my knee"

Little Jenny laughed. Hunter smiled at her.

"That's because.." started little Jenny.

"Don't say" I said to little Jenny.

Little Jenny looked at me. "Can I show you my cart wheel?" said little Jenny getting ready.

"No gymnastics in the house" said Mum coming in with the porridge. Mum and Dad had what little food in the house locked firmly in a cupboard  their room. Dad had improvised a lock. Nothing caused six girls to fight more than lack of food, so none was left in  the kitchen overnight. 

"Let Hunter have my porridge. I'll scrounge an apple of Meredith, they still owe me" said Dad, pulling his coat on.

***

After a breakfast of having four girls bat their eyelids at Hunter and him winking uncontrollably back we left for school. While mom was distracted I went over and slipped my collar into my satchel.  I took Hunter along the perimeter route to School. Little Jenny and Xalishia came with us along with walking along the worn path along the edge.