~Natalie Shrike~

Fear, pain, anger, humiliation. All things I have been subjected to ever since I was a child when they discovered my psionic potential. I’d tested my boundaries then, plucking the control away from those with weak defenses and learning how to move them as I wished. That was when things were made clear. Humans, people, they saw only a resource to use, to control. When I did not listen, they subjected me to tests that left me screaming for hours after because of the pain.

‘Medical Instruments’ they called them ‘tools to improve you’ they had said. It had been a lie. It had all been to break me further and force me into a molding that fit their desires. To use me in a war that I wanted no part of. A war with the creatures known as the Zerg.

I’d been taken to a facility on Mar’Sara with multiple other children if we could still be called that after the horrors we had been subjected to. That was when the operations began. They had started simple, splice in a genetic strand of the Zerg DNA here, splice in a limb there. We were ‘chosen’ because of our powerful psionic potential. We were the ‘destined’ that would lift the Terrans free of our mortal coils. Of the four-thousand children, only I and two others had survived the tender mercies of those men and women with even a modest semblance of our Humanity still intact. The other two were shipped elsewhere; I was going to be sent shortly after while the...failed ones were purged.

I didn’t want that though, they still felt, they still screamed within my mind. They demanded justice, kindness, something to end their pain. So, when the facility guard was at their most lax, I had snuck out, unlocked the cages and opened the doors. I’d learned I could control them, to a degree, keep them from hurting me like the Humans had. One I had more control of than the others, it was an unsettling experience, but it felt like a wayward animal bonding to me. It was the one that fed me and helped keep the more savage survivors away.

We lived like that, the few I guided and the savage ones for four years, according to the systems that were still running. I had learned to no longer question what the food brought to me was. I knew I’d never be able to eat it if I found out.

For a short time, I was somewhat happy with this. Away from so much of the fear and pain brought on by my kind because of what I was.

Even that eventually came to a close though. The Humans found us again. Just a small group, I saw through the eyes of my most loyal companion as they went through the building and slaughtered the Savage ones with their metal machines of war and their guns. I had used the few I could guide to help dismantle the metal things that looked so much like cats. I had done it because they were frightening, the sounds they made reminded me of the labs so much I could barely move.

Even then, the Humans still made their way toward me, toward my home. They ignored the messages, slaughtered the other survivors that had been changed. I knew they would kill me as well. Even still, the one most loyal to me covered my weakened body and growled and hissed at them, demanding they leave us. I could glimpse the men and women in their armor. I saw the one in the most elaborate of the armors take a pistol from another in white armor and aim it at my companion. I reached out then, trying to take hold of his mind though I swore never to do so again. Instead of a mind ripe for the taking though I found a barrier that prevented me from taking control. The shock of it had me call out. ‘Stop, please...help us.’

I saw the man stop a moment, his head tilting to the side while another one in what looked like spandex walked up and whispered into his ear, or where it might have been in the helmet he wore.

The man nodded once, then finished moving his weapon toward my companion. I started thrashing underneath him then, screaming wordlessly while shouting at him to run and hide, to get away.

My companion only hissed and glared at the man in armor before a loud bang sounded and he fell limp on top of me, the echo of life in his mind, once strong and vibrant, now gone. I cried out in pain as the connection was cut. My throat, long used to making no sound, being made raw by my screaming. I’d lost my only friend, taken from me as quickly and coldly as any other human before had done to the few earlier ‘failures.’

I was restrained a moment later by a force that felt like a vice. It came from the man in spandex, and I railed against the mental bindings he was throwing around me. I heard him grunt in surprise and then he doubled his efforts. I couldn’t break through with brute force, I had no training, no real training, and he took advantage of it. I could hear them now, as two more men in heavy armor moved up and lifted me between them.

“Package secured, Sir. Are you sure you want to take it with us?” It, again I was labeled as something other, something to be used. I screamed at them, though no psionic power lashed out thanks to those bindings.

The man in the elaborate armor removed his helmet and looked at me with eyes that seemed both calm and pained. I hated them, those eyes. His voice was deep, scratchy sounding. “I’m sure. Keep her bound until we reach bastion, and another Ghost can take over. Have Fernando made aware as soon as we can make radio contact as well. Knock her out.”

I continued screaming right up until I felt something hard hit the back of my head, and then darkness.