Graymere
An Experiment with an Unexpected Outcome

I was shaken awake suddenly by a young man in a doctor’s uniform. But he wasn’t a doctor.

“Luka?” I was about to ask, but he put his hand over my mouth.

“I’ll explain everything later. Right now we need to move.” He led me out of the room and down a long white hallway. Nurse Foxwell emerged from a room with a gurney and motioned that I should get on, so I did. A sheet was pulled over me and we continued to move swiftly through the building. Suddenly we stopped and I heard the ding on an elevator. A sharp needle stabbed my arm and I lost consciousness.

When I woke up, I was laying on a bed in a small room. Luka and Nurse Foxwell were sitting at a table with a pile of papers.

“What’s going on?” I groggily asked. “Luka, how did you-”

“Get here?” he interrupted. “I was summoned for Sapphire Graymere’s trial.”

“They’re giving her a trial?” I asked, surprised.

“On paper, yes. In reality they’ve already decided to kill her,” he said gloomily, “but I’m going to stop them. See, in the future—my past, her future—we’re quite close. So, in order for me to have a past, she has to have a future.”

“Wait,” I said, wanting to believe him that she was going to be okay. “How do you know her?”

“There’s a lot that I can’t tell you, unfortunately. It’s never good to know too much about your own future.”

“However,” interrupted Nurse Foxwell, “there are some things about your past that I can let you in on.”

Nurse Foxwell told me how he had known me when I was first brought to the agency. Although my father was still alive, he had finally been locked up in an asylum and I was pretty much an orphan. So, the agency doctors did what they were supposed to do with new recruits. They erased my memory. Doctor Swift was assigned to be my doctor and she monitored me closely before and after the mind erasure. Nurse Foxwell explained that I was never supposed to be sent on that mission alone, but Swift wanted to see how I would react when placed in an environment with madness similar to my father’s. She believed that the current technology left residual memories that could jeopardize a mission. She wanted to prove it so that the agency would finance her efforts to improve it. That’s what I was. An experiment.

“Are they having me removed from the agency?” I asked finally.

“There was going to be a vote on that at the trial,” Foxwell replied.

“Was?” I asked.

“I may have taken the liberty of removing you from their eye.”

“What does that mean exactly?” I asked.

“We faked your death,” clarified Luka cheerfully. “That was the easiest way to get you out of the hospital. Doctored the official records, injected you with some stuff to temporarily shut down your signs of life, and—BAM!—dead girl. ” Sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ ꜰindNʘvel.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

“Swift gets what she wants and the agency doesn’t have to deal with me,” I mused.

“Precisely. Rescuing Sapphire is going to prove to be more difficult though. Since her parents were able to cheat death, they will be monitoring her closely before the execution.”

“Wait,” I turned to Luka, “I thought you said you could help her win the trial with the whole time travel paradox thing.”

“No, that’s how I know everything will turn out fine.” Luka explained. “If I actually said that, I’d probably have my mind wiped like they wanted to do when I first got here.”

“Okay, so how much do we know about the current situation with Fire?” I asked.

“I believe you will recognize the piece of jeweler on her wrist,” Foxwell said, handing me a photograph.

Sapphire was dressed in the long sleeve white clothes of an asylum, sitting down on the floor with her knees up to her chest. Her arms were wrapped around her knees in such a way that I could clearly see the bracelet on her wrist with bright red numbers informing me that she had a little over 20 hours to live.

“Oh no,” I groaned.

Sᴇarch the FindNovel.net website on G𝘰𝘰gle to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.