ɪ ᴀᴍ ᴛʜᴇ ɴᴏʀᴛʜ sᴛᴀʀ

10.48pm

A faint beeping wakes her up, pulls her out of the dreary sleep she’d fallen to. Was that her alarm? It gets louder the more she pulls herself into the waking world. It didn’t sound like it. Her eyes squint against the too-bright lights and she doesn’t understand why they hurt so much. She feels heavy, slow; something’s not right about this hangover. Nothing seems right. The beeping, the smell of cleanliness that’s too sterile, unfamiliar. The room feels cold and white, it’s not her bedroom, it’s not anywhere she knows and when she tries to move, something holds her down tight. Her mouth feels dry and when she tries to speak, raspy, strained noises instead of words falling out.

What is this?

She was trying to get home, she fell. Everything seems hazy, like someone smudged what happened with a bad eraser and couldn’t get the job done right. Pale faces flicker in her memory, her head hurts. She feels panic bubbling up in her chest, the beeping quickens. Is this a hospital? How did she get here?

“You’re awake.”

The voice is so familiar. Painfully so. She knows that voice and when she turns her head, blonde hair and a smirk blurs into view. Minoru. She shakes her head, trying to speak, but the words slur and she can’t move against what’s holding her down.

“I needed to flush your system from the alcohol and sedative I gave you. Couldn’t have it interfering.”

And then she remembers. Chicago. Rifts. Minoru. He told her it was dangerous, people kill Wanderers like her. He would get her somewhere safe. She trusts him. Then it all goes black. She pulls sharply, feel strong leather straps against her skin. Unbeknownst to her, her body flickers in and out of view. Cassie is afraid. She tries speaking, uttering fretful noises amongst the words. Please. Please. Let me go, please. Her breathing quickens, shaky, shallow breaths against the frightening sound of the heart monitor. She trusted him. A stranger in some unknown place. She trusted him. Is this how she dies? Isn’t it just a dream?

Please. Don’t kill me. I won’t tell. Please, please, please. Let me go.

“I don’t have any intention of killing you.”

He moves away, speaks to some unknown person. Or is it? No one else is there. He just speaks, as if talking to himself. She hears the word ‘Wanderer’ and the next thing she sees is him standing over her with a syringe filled with dark blue liquid. She can’t even flinch back at the sting as he injects it into her arm. Please. Please, don’t. Please. Let me go.

The pain hits her like a freight train. She screams, arching back, fighting against the restraints. She closes her eyes tight, but the pain crashes on, filling every inch of her. Minoru speaks, writes down something, speaks again. She can’t understand what he’s saying, everything blocked out by the pain. Please. Please, God. Please, I want to go home. He never answers her.

The cycle goes on for hours; the pain ebbs away and the new dose is added to her system. Sometimes she sees things, horrible awful things she can’t describe and she’s scared senseless, powerless to do nothing but scream. Sometimes it’s just pain, pain that makes her feel cold, pain that jolts through her like electricity. Sometimes she feels sick and all she can hear is her own screams and her blood thundering through her veins. She wants to die, she doesn’t want this, she just wants to die and to go home and she’ll never seen her parents, her brothers again. She screams out their names, cries for her mother: Mummy, mummy please. Make it stop. Let me go.

It feels like years have passed by the time she finally blacks out.

It’s too much. She forgets it all.

She wakes up fumbling on the streets in the cold and wet, her head reeling. A voice calls out to her and she sees the soft, red curls and kind face of a younger girl. “Hey, are you okay?” she feels her hand on her shoulder, concern in her eyes.

Elizabeth knows what to do.