#clustertalia

The room, no doubt, looks frightening. There are long, bed-like pods, and with a hover of her hand, Bayonet activates a belt of lights at their bases. First, they glow red, then green. The soft sound of water filling a large tub is heard, and Bayonet tells you to keep nothing on but your undergarments. Blood is taken from each of you in a short, almost painless jab. In a manner reminiscent of nurses in the finest of hospital wards, each of you are led into a pod and asked to rest, with your nose just above the lukewarm water. 

As you can just faintly hear, you are asked not to think. Thinking is the most dangerous enemy of isolation. Believe yourself to be nothing more than a spirit, floating in a space where time doesn’t exist. 

At this point, the plastic and aluminum above your head closes, omitting the very last slivers of light from your view.  The water has finished filling. The only sounds you can now hear are those of your own, hopefully untormented, breathing. How long do you lie there, no more than a vessel? You could not say. Anywhere between a few minutes to a half hour. Just when you are at the very brink of sleep, there is a jolt of electricity. Not excruciating, but enough to lull you out of that semi-sleep.  Before you realise it, you are awake, and exposed to the artificial light again. 

Nothing has changed in you. Your hair is not longer, or your skin scarred. You are yourself. As you are fished out from your pods, Bayonet cracks her knuckles and seems to be stretching out her legs. “This is Level 1.” In an action remarkable for a woman of her stature, she drop kicks Kiku. He is soon a floundering pile on the ground. In fact, you all are. Each one of you felt the impact, lost your breath, and toppled. All of you are burning red, humiliated and resentful, even if nothing was ever done to you. 

“Now, you will feel each others’ pain. As time goes on,” says the mod. “This bond will become stronger and stronger till finally, you shall be able to control each other.”