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Dawn
Break: Voices on the Wind
Chapter One: Peccare
As the red haze abruptly cleared from her mind, three things immediately registered with Auri: one, her left arm hurt terribly; two, her mouth was full of something that, to her disgust, was probably hair; and three, she did not recognize her surroundings in the slightest.
“She’s stopped--check her pulse--” The voice came from a woman tightly grasping her right arm, the command directed at another gripping her left shoulder.
As hands felt for her wrist and jostled her bad arm, Auri yelped and jerked away, demanding, “Who are you?! Where am I?!” All attempts to restrain her ceased, and she stumbled backwards, eyes wide with pain and confusion.
The two women were dumbstruck, staring right back at her. Auri used the chance to take in her surroundings: a plain white room, a thick black braid severed and curling on the floor like a spider’s leg, an open white door leading to a white hall, a bed, padded walls...
She teetered, glancing down automatically, then blanched at the clothes she was wearing--or what was left of them. There were multiple tears in the smock she wore, though the pants in the same pale blue had escaped that fate. But why was she wearing something she’d never seen before?
“Where am I?” she repeated, searching the women’s faces with growing desperation. “Who are you? Why am I here?”
The two women were in uniforms--medical uniforms--were they nurses? Why were they staring at her?
“Where am I?” Her voice cracked stiffly, throat raw as if she’d been screaming for the first time in years. There was only stunned silence. “Where am I?!”
Her knees gave out, and she staggered; lightning pain ran up her left arm. Auri’s vision went gray.
She glanced up, saying automatically, “Auri.”
The woman smiled briefly over her clipboard and gestured for her to follow. “We’re ready for you.”
Auri got to her feet, stumbling a bit. Her body felt strange, too long and gangly. It made sense, though--if what they told her was true, she hadn’t consciously used it in two and a half years.
The woman led her down a very sterile hall and through a door, into a room only furnished with a metal table and two chairs. Gray light came from generic bulbs set deep in the ceiling. “Have a seat.” She did. The folder was dropped on the table. “Dr. Experg will be here momentarily.”
Once the door shut and the woman’s footsteps had faded, Auri quickly picked up the folder and examined its contents. Many of the sheets of paper were graphs and charts she didn’t bother with; she wanted words and explanations.
Finally she found a sheet that had been fastened to the inside of the folder’s front cover.
Peccare Mental Health Correction Facility Records
Name: Aurelia Rutila Eofax
Date of Birth: June 20th, 2658
Date of Admittance: October 26th, 2668
Sex: Female
Eyes: Black
Hair: Black
It went on to list her height, weight, fingerprints, all sorts of small identifying things, but they didn’t tell her what she needed to know. Eventually she found a box in the corner of the page.
Symptoms: violent fits, has nonsensical conversations with unseen others
Diagnosis: Schizophrenia, violent tendencies
Treatment: isolation, Nepenthamine
Nepenthamine? What was Nepenthamine?
She’d find out what it was soon. What worried her was that apparently she’d been talking to people no one else could see.
Another box caught Auri’s attention, labeled, ‘Circumstances of Discovery,’ but before she had a chance to read it, approaching footsteps made her hastily close the folder and throw it back onto the table. The door slid open with a rasp as the good doctor Experg entered, giving her another of those short smiles. Auri suspected all the medical staff here were required to take a class in comforting, short smiles to give the crazy people.
Dr. Experg sat in the chair opposite her, picking up the folder and giving it a cursory glance, though her attention lingered a moment or two on the sheet Auri herself had examined. “So, Aurelia--” Auri didn’t bother correcting her. “--what do you remember?”
Taken aback, she started rattling off anything that came to mind. “I was born on June 20th, my favorite color is yellow, I live in 3426 Ake Complex, East Tenebrae, I go to Sedes Basic School, I’m--I was ten--”
The doctor motioned for her to stop. “Not that, Aurelia. What is the last thing you remember before coming here?”
Auri fell into silence, a frown darkening her face. “I... was at school, I got a 78 on my math test, and I didn’t want to show my parents... I walked home with my best friend Davus, and I went in my house but I didn’t hear anyone, but their cars were in the driveway... I went looking for them--” And Auri stopped dead.
She remembered. Their home lab had been the most magical place she knew, where her parents made lightning come from nothing and different liquids bubbled and fizzed like molten jewels in their delicate glass containers. And she’d found it smeared in red, the tubes and beakers smashed, fragile equipment in a wreck on the floor, and no sign of her parents.
“I went in their lab.” Auri could barely choke out the words through the lump fear had built in her throat. “There was blood, and they were gone--” Panic had overwhelmed her at the sight, and then it felt like her ears had popped or something--
The first voice she had heard sounded like a boy’s voice, but she could hardly understand what he was saying. Then the murmuring floated in, confused as she was, almost half-awake.
She had screamed.
“I heard voices.”
The voices hadn’t made any sense. One was whispering about children, and where they had gone; another muttered mutinously, cursing a name she didn’t know. And some sounded as if they were talking in their sleep, shrieking of nightmares or calling out for something she couldn’t name. Auri had been overwhelmed.
“I tried to make it stop, and then the men came--and I panicked--” Everything after that was a foggy blur, until two days ago. “And then I woke up here.”
Dr. Experg nodded. “The authorities found you in the laboratory, and you attacked them. You were given an emergency sedative, and every time your dosage was lessened or the medication changed, you flew into a rage and screaming at things no one could see.” Auri nodded numbly. “Two days ago, some of our more... volatile patients caused a disruption that diverted virtually all attention to that area. You missed your dose of sedative, and by the time the nurses found you, you had already broken your arm and were trying to eat or tear off your hair.” Auri fingered the black strands falling around her ears absently. “They had to cut your hair away from you,” Dr. Experg explained. “While they were trying to subdue you, though, according to the nurses and the video record, you suddenly went still and made a complete return to normalcy.”
“Where are my parents?”
The doctor shook her head. “The only thing they left behind was the lab. Investigators found what may have been remains on the banks of the river, but they were unidentifiable.” Something odd flickered in her eyes, vanishing after a moment. “Your parents were highly acclaimed researchers, Aurelia. It is entirely possible they found something they shouldn’t have.”
The tightness of loss returned, constricting her throat and chest, and for a minute or so, all Auri could do was nod, staring through unshed tears at her good hand clenched in her lap. The doctor did not say anything, and Auri was grateful; pity would destroy any self-control she had left.
Once the pain had passed enough, she swiped at her eyes and looked up, making herself ask, “What happens now?”
Dr. Experg seemed happy to move on. “You’ll be thirteen in about seven months, so we ought to get you caught up on the education you’ve missed. While that is happening, there will be tests run to see if we can piece together what exactly has happened in your case.” She smiled wryly. “There are still many mysteries of the human mind that we have yet to fathom. We will also be searching for a foster home to place you in once you’re caught up.”
“What about my uncle?”
“He was convicted of federal crimes last year and is currently serving time in a correctional facility.”
“My grandfather?”
“The news of your parents’ disappearance gave him a heart attack; he never woke up from surgery and remains in a coma to this day.” The doctor’s face was somber. “I am very sorry, Aurelia, but unless he wakes up before you are released, our only legal option is to put you in a foster home.”
“I understand,” she whispered after a long moment.
Auri had been following the tutor’s history lesson in silence, but spoke up now, taking care to keep her voice relatively quiet. She and her tutor were allowed to use the library while she caught up with her education, but only providing they made little to no noise. “What sort of atrocities?”
The private tutor regarded her with somber eyes, tugging on his gray beard in thought. “Many soldiers refused to talk about their experiences, and even the records of those who did tell their tales are not perfect. Some say chemical warfare; some hint that entire legions were kidnapped and released on the battlefield under some sort of control and in a haze, then killed their former companions. Hostages were taken, weapons unleashed that never should have existed in the first place. After a hundred years of war, both planets agreed to a severance of all connections whatsoever. No trade, no diplomacy--no contact. Both planets had been utterly devastated, their populations reduced to few millions, centuries of technology lost. It was all Earth could do to recover, and now we are a civilized, organized society. And so it has been for the past three hundred years.”
“Why did they attack in the first place?”
“Again, the records are unclear, but they seem to imply a certain chemical present in the atmosphere of Mars. The chemical triggers an increase in the hormones responsible for paranoia and aggression.” The tutor frowned a bit. “It also is suggested that this chemical, or another present in the atmosphere, triggered a--sort of rapid mutation. Some children born on Mars were supposedly able to manipulate some sort of force, allowing them to move objects with their minds--”
“Psymancers?” Auri interrupted.
The tutor scowled at her. “Yes, psymancers. However, I and many other scholars hold to the belief that so-called ‘psymancers’ were a scare tactic achieved with smoke and mirrors, employed by Mars merely to intimidate Earth forces. And it apparently worked, as every child has got it into their heads that psymancers are invincible witches and wizards from Mars.”
“But why wouldn’t they be real?”
“If psymancers were real, we would be speaking Martian this very minute,” he said dryly. “They would easily have taken over Earth. However, fear is as powerful a weapon as any, and to spread rumors that magic soldiers were in their ranks would already cause superstition. A clever trap or two, and suddenly the army thinks they’re fighting angry psychics and wants to turn tail.”
“Oh.” Auri turned this over in her mind. “What is Mars like now?”
“No one knows, though rumor has it that the government has been tinkering with reconnaissance satellites lately. Some speculate that with the aggression chemical, they would merely turn on one another and actually reverse in civilization, and that now they are reduced to a tribe-like condition, hunting and gathering in nomadic groups. Others say their aggression would be fueled towards us, and one day the war will be taken up again. No one can know for certain.”
“That’s a happy thought.”
“Indeed it is. And on that happy thought, we’ll be continuing. Shortly after the war, a new government structure was voted into place...”
The woman appeared at the nurse’s side in a matter of seconds. “Yes, Nurse Gravis?”
Gravis tapped his finger on a screen, pulling up several scans. “We’re currently analyzing the recovered patient Aurelia Eofax,” he said briskly, “and there’s something... very odd.”
“Yes, boy, get to the point.”
One window dominated the screen, then morphed into a holographic diagram. “Those lights indicate brain activity, and right now we’re just looking at the auditory sections of hers. See this?” A gloved finger prodded a clump of glowing lights. “That’s the part of her mind that registers sound--or, more specifically, voices. But only the equipment makes any sound in there, and she was given earplugs in order to leave that out.”
“Are you saying she still hears voices?” Dr. Experg looked at Gravis with consternation on her face. “Miss Eofax has indicated otherwise.”
“Some part of her does--but look at this.” Another finger pointed to another section of the brain, this time with no activity. “She isn’t processing those voices. It’s as if someone took an audio recording of a crowd from a soundproof booth, and then never listened to it. I don’t think she even knows she can hear them.”
Dr. Experg could not think, at the moment, of a case stranger than this. A violent schizophrenic, suddenly lapsing into sanity, who continued to hear voices but not truly hear them--perhaps she had Dissociative Identity disorder, and had cut herself off from an alter that could hear the voices? But that wouldn’t make any sense--a very thorough investigation had been made of the circumstances surrounding the murder of the doctors Eofax, and everything pointed to a normal, healthy childhood for Auri. She’d had no reason or motive to create alter egos for herself, and while she had displayed symptoms of schizophrenia, there had been no signs that the voices in her head were becoming new personas within.
The doctor frowned, straightening. “There isn’t a medication we can give her to block voices she isn’t technically hearing,” she said slowly. “It’s not Dissociative Identity--it couldn’t be. I don’t know what exactly is going on with this girl, but as far as I can tell, it’s no danger to her or those around her. It’s almost as if her mind fixed itself.”
They could see where Auri lay amidst the muted machines, looking pale but totally alert. “Your orders, doctor?” asked Gravis.
“Keep an eye on her,” Dr. Experg said, eyes narrowed. “Let me know if anything changes--if she starts really hearing the voices, especially. Other than that, continue as normal.”
1. When were the first dragon eggs discovered?
In the early twenty-second century, frozen in a glacier. Due to the secrecy of the discovery and its sensitive nature, it remained unknown to the general public until they thought dragons were safe to be trusted around the population and were revealed in 2120.
2. How were the eggs hatched?
They were incubated for thirty-two months, during which their development was closely monitored by top biologists.
3. What happened upon hatching?
The dragon hatchlings began attacking the scientists and one another, leading to the sedation of the entire group of newborns. Without the sedative, they were violent and aggressive; given the unfavorable view painted by general mythology, it was concluded that they had been present in the ancient times and fairly antagonistic towards man. In humankind’s attempt to tame the beast, dragons have been sedated before birth and throughout life ever since.
4. What does a dragon look like?
A young dragon appears gray and its gender can be determined by its eye color, either pale blue in females or pale red in males. They are covered by a leathery baby skin which is shed for dull gray scales as they age. The scales are dark for the females and light for the males. They can grow up to a hundred feet long, tail included, and have a wingspan twice as wide as they are long.
5. Name at least three uses for dragons.
They are used to transport large objects, carry passengers, as an intimidating military transportation vehicle, and on occasion, paperweights.
Auri smirked at the last answer. It couldn’t be pleasant for her tutor to lecture in this prison-lice asylum, so she found it her duty to provide whatever quirks she could that weren’t rooted in a mental disease.
“Done,” she announced, grinning and waving the packet at him.
He looked apprehensive and muttered something into his beard, but took her test anyway.
“You promised a walk.”
“God help me, so I did,” the old man said as if he were reading his own funeral invitation. “Onwards, then...”
It had taken three and a half months to get her to the standard education level of other thirteen-year-olds. Her tutor had told her she learned fast, and she supposed it true, but considering her parents had ensured that she value education every bit as much as they did, it wasn’t too much of a surprise. She had been examined, poked, prodded, measured, x-rayed, and evaluated as in perfect health; mental tests had proved the same, though the eyes of Dr. Experg had been on her more often than not.
In three months, the harsh chop of a boyish haircut had grown out at least a little, and now strands of black hair dusted her nose more often than not, obscuring dark eyes. She had lost too much weight and was still on the road to regaining it, but for the moment her clothes were a little too loose on a body that was a little too gangly and thin. Auri privately retained the opinion that, what with her baggy clothes and unruly hair, she appeared at a distance to be a large and poorly-dressed paintbrush.
The woman leading the way continued to chatter on about her new home. “You’ll just love it,” she said sweetly, slowly, and distinctly, glancing over her shoulder to see if Auri understood what she was saying. “It’s a biiig farm, with lots of pretty fields.” Auri’s mind had started to wander again, her gaze trailing off, and at the woman’s hesitant silence, she realized this was probably not the best course of actions. The Social Integration Worker was looking at her as if she were a test tube baby gone horribly south, but nonetheless intelligent enough to recognize basic vocab. “Field,” she repeated, over annunciating. It sounded more like ‘Fee-yuhl-duh.’ “Faarrrm.”
Auri cocked an eyebrow. “What sort of farm is it? Does the owner raise more crops or livestock, or both equally? Is it more mass-production or family-farm-ish?”
Her companion was suitably taken aback. “It’s--a breeding farm,” she said, once again speaking slowly but from surprise this time. Auri could almost see the few and far between wheels in the woman’s head feebly attempting to recover from the well-placed wrench.
“A breeding farm,” Auri repeated. “Breeding what?”
“Dragons.” For a second Auri feared the woman would follow that with ‘duh-raaa-gons,’ but thankfully, she did no such thing. Instead, she glanced down at her clipboard. “Luxi Farms. The owner, Niritti Thasel, breeds and raises dragons. She has fostered many children over the years while we find them a permanent home, and right now there are four other orph--boys and girls there.”
“Where will I go to school?”
The woman frowned and rifled through the papers clamped to her clipboard, mumbling to herself. After a minute or two, she declared that the nearest school was Effingere Institution. “You’ll be just in time for the new quarter.”
“Great.” Even Auri wasn’t sure if that had been sarcastic.
There was a pause as the woman tried to dig up something to say, and Auri considered the notion of living on a farm with something very akin to dislike. Finally the silence was broken when, wearing her best ‘I deal with troubled children’ smile, the Social Integration Worker announced, “Well, the car’s here, so... we don’t want to keep them waiting, do we?”
“No, indeed.” That Auri knew was sarcastic. Being shipped off to Hicksville to go work on a dragon farm was far from appealing. In fact, ideally, she would have gone to live with a nice, intellectual city couple who would have spoiled her rotten for want of a child of their own.
No, not really. Ideally, my parents would still be alive.
Auri bit her lip and followed the woman through the halls of the Peccare Mental Health Correction Facility, all her clever comments and biting retorts quietly fading into the back of her mind.
