herbrain

She always hated the sound of a keyboard. Nothing could be more cliché than sitting there in a dark room, the glow of her screen the brightest light, and silence save for the near-rhythmic clicking. She was glad the lights of the computer filling the room behind her were blinking, because at least they offered some respite from the “alone-in-a-room-with-only-a-computer-screen-for-a-light” thing. She sighed, leaning back in her chair to stretch her arms upwards, lacing her fingers together. She felt each muscle grow tighter. Her joints cracked, and she sighed, dropping the now-lax arms, fingers gently brushing the floor. Her eyes stayed fixed on the ceiling, the pain from the dull glow of her screen slowly growing. Her glasses sat on her bed, one side folded, under blankets she had thrown off while waking. Her eyes slowly fell shut, and the center of her forehead suddenly became hot. Small branches of what felt like electricity spread, shooting through her brain, down her spine, through every nerve. Slowly, but surely, she reversed it, pulling all the excess bio-electricity from her body and pushed it into that one point on her forehead, and it burned white-hot. The heat grew into needles, the needles into knives, the knives into a fiery railroad spike that slowly buried itself into her skull. Not a single muscle in her face moved, she had been doing this for years. Quick shocks of blinding lightning raced down into her arm, raising it inch by inch. Controlling the tremors was the hardest part. When her relaxed fingers were high enough, they snapped to attention, wrapping her glasses in thin white arcs. Rising from the rumpled blankets, the thick frames passed through door after door, and slowly hovered through hallways. Her fingers felt the familiar plastic, so she let go by releasing the breath she had been holding. Shakily sliding the glasses on, she mentally cataloged her experiment.

2024//30//09
Pain = Normal
Tremors = Controllable
Charge time = 1m02s34ms
Use Type = Kinetics
Target = Blackout_Shades
Target Travel Time = 0m20s15ms
Target Travel Distance = 50m
Development Index = 4%

‘Three years on the dot, and only four percent? Tedious. Get better, stop slacking off. I can’t believe I trusted you with the p-‘
She slammed her head into her desk, face contorted with fear. His voice had been etched into her head, but she thought she had erased it. Therapy, drugs, everything she could get her hands on. Still, it came, sending her mind flashes of abuse disguised as training. She slammed her head into the desk again, and once more for good measure. Her ears would always ring after his razor voice would play back, like a being alone at a concert that played endless feedback. She wanted to die, right now, knowing that his voice could come back again.