Little bit of explanation. Remember how I mentioned Jandy/Dechlan weren't quite working for me? If not-- they weren't working for me. So I've spent the last two days trying to think up something different and I haven't come up with much, let's just say that much.
I mean, there is some groundwork. This drabble is of Jandy and a trial run of the new version of Shattered Cage, or whatever it'll be called. Dechlan, unfortunately, did not end up starring in this one. I'm not quite sure what role to cast him in. Maybe toss me some ideas after reading? I'm pondering either he's in a situation similar to Jandy or maybe he's sort of with the Dyad Program peoples, almost one of the bad guys, but then maybe they turn on him and... yeah. Work in progress.
Wow, I think my head hurts. I need to go to bed.
Drabble Challenge: Day 21 - sunset
Word Count: 1,304 Minimum Goal: 1,260
Cold air. Metal chair. Blackness pierced only by pieces of gray light above and below the tight blindfold over her eyes.
“Name.” A male voice as impersonal as the treatment she’d experienced.
Shivering, freezing, handcuffed, and blinded. “Jandy Sparks. I’ve been here before, haven’t I?”
Only the scratch of a pen and the shuff of a sleeve against paper in reply. A trickle of water made its way from her short hair, down her temple, before being soaked into the cloth obscuring her vision.
“Age.”
There wasn’t any use fighting. “Twenty-five. Why am I here?”
“Who are you, Jandelyn Elsie Sparks?” There was a scrape of chair feet accompanying the question, then footsteps, pacing a few moments before stopping almost directly behind her.
“Who’s asking?” She challenged with as much strength as could be mustered, even while she struggled to keep her teeth from chattering.
A long silence, then, “The man who ordered you dragged out of that stinking bar.”
Finally, an answer. Not revealing much, but Jandy would work with it. “You already know who I am. Why bother asking?”
“Because I want to know how much you remember.”
She tugged against the icy touch of the handcuffs, trying to follow the man’s voice as it travelled again. “Remember of what? I remember everything. I know who I am. Stop trying to play mind tricks on me.”
There was a snort, whether of amusement or something else she couldn’t make out. Jandy took in a breath to try and keep from trembling, but it was hard. The arctic temperatures of the water that she’d been thoroughly doused in lingered in her clothes and hair, lowering her body temperature.
“Now I know you’re the one with a false bravado, Miss Sparks. Because I was the one who ordered the wipe. I was the one who gave the order to make you forget so you cannot kid me into thinking that you have any idea of who you are. Not anymore.”
Twisting her wrists against the restraints binding them together, she laughed, but it was shaky. “Yeah, really. You’re not in my head. You can’t know what I know.”
“Except I was, once. Not recently, because we had to put you on a moratorium from the program after Jane—“
The name struck her hard and deep, like the jagged edge of a dagger buried in her heart being twisted. Jane was important. Jane was someone she knew. Or was Jane someone she had known?
Jandy forced herself to breathe deeply, to keep thinking. Her façade was beginning to slip, though, and her voice cracked. “I was never in any program. I’ve lived in the same sector of town my entire life.”
“Wrong. The Dyad Program found you in the underworld and gave you and Jane the chance for something better. Too bad she hadn’t been strong enough to handle it.”
The yank against the handcuffs that kept her hands behind her back was almost involuntary. A blind reaction to the way her tormentor talked about Jane. Jane, Jane, Jane.
“Tell me who she was.” The woman managed, feeling like she was going numb from the inside out. “Tell me what happened to her. Who is Jane.”
Another long, agonizing, torturous silence wherein the footsteps resumed, moving around behind her place on the cold, metal chair once, twice, then stopping again right before her. With the icy cold spreading across her skin, Jandy could feel the warmth radiating off this man when he leaned over her.
“Jane was your sister and she died a year ago last week.”
“You’re lying. I know you’re lying. I don’t have a sister—it’s always been just me. Just me.” Her breath caught in her throat and she couldn’t speak.
Smug and smooth. “If I’m lying, why are you crying, Jandy.”
//
//
“Come on, please? Just once? I have asked in months!”
An exasperated sigh, but with undercurrents of amusement. “Fine. But if we get caught where we shouldn’t be because you wanted to watch a sunset, I’m letting them haul you off to prison without me.”
Bright laughter, like the silver bells they heard when wandering the streets during the Christmas season. “Let’s go, Jandy! We’re going to miss it!”
“Slow down, baby sis. I’m not as young as I used to be.” Teasing, loving, adoring.
That giggle again. “You’re only half an hour older, Jandy. Stop acting like its years.”
“Sure feels like it.” Humorous grousing, but something subdued and heavier was there too. “Where were you thinking?”
“Roof of that old apartment four blocks over?”
“Alright—
“—Jane. Jane. Jane.” Pain tore through her chest like the words did from her throat when she jerked awake, the voice, the feelings, the memory fading back to where it’d been hidden. The dyed purple and pink hair, the familiar eyes, gone again, leaving nothing behind but cold and agony.
Struggling to draw in breath, Jandy lifted her head from where it’d been hanging when she’d drifted to sleep. She was still in the corner of her cell, the metal chair affixed to the floor only a handful of paces away and its handcuffs that had left bruises on her wrists settled on the floor beneath it.
Jandy buried her shaking fingers in her hair, finally dry after she’d been given a blanket and had used a corner to dry the excess water from it. Loose brown strands were falling into her eyes, signifying that she’d missed her monthly trim with the dull scissors over her kitchen sink.
Had Jane used to do that for her?
How had they gotten mixed up with these people? How could she have let her little sister—her twin sister—be hurt by these monsters? It just… didn’t make sense. It didn’t make sense.
She pulled her knees closer to her chest, wrapping both her arms and the scratchy wool blanket she’d been provided with around them, releasing her short, unkempt locks.
Things only came back when she slept and it was only bits and pieces of what must’ve been happier days. There was nothing in those dreams to indicate what she was experienced here.
Jandy wished for little more than answers—or, in the event that those did not become available, maybe just to be out of here so she could find a strong drink and forget what had happened to her. Again.
Some things did make sense now, though. Why her apartment felt so empty, even if it was a closet. She never had anyone over for any reason, so there was no other explanation besides that the small space had been missing an important piece. An important person, full of life and vitality.
How could I have forgotten? How could they make me forget her? If she was everything, why did I let her go so easily? And what else was there?
She would’ve gotten up to go bang on the door and scream for someone to come and explain what in the blasted world was going on, but she’d already tried that. Twice. And there’d been no forthcoming reply of any sort, so Jandy had given up on that route.
The concrete floor felt like it was being cooled It was so cold. If the chair didn’t have such a nightmarish feel to it, she might’ve opted to sit in it and let her low body heat start to warm it up. But it also meant she’d have to be square in the center of the room to face anyone who might come in, and that was the last thing she wanted.
Tugging the blanket tighter around herself, the woman leaned her head against the wall, staring at the opposing gray wall, and wished she could just drown everything else like she had been for the last year.
I don't do fluff very well, I'm afraid. Not when I'm stressed. So while I wouldn't say don't expect very much light-hearted, fluffy stuff, I wouldn't count too much on it.
Plus Jandy is just one of those characters. Any ideas for Dechlan, though? I, personally, like the idea of him being semi-on the bad guys' side, but then gets flopped to the good side or the subjugated side about when Jandy shows up. Still aiming to play with a mental link, but do you have any idea how hard it is to think up plausible reasons to link to people's brains together? Because it is haaaarrrd.
Anywho. I wrote. I'm decently pleased with it. And I need to be up in not very many hours for karate. Peace out.
Ad astra per aspera.
To the stars, through difficulty.
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