Yan.

“When I am lost, oh darling, darling baby, when I have no sight of anyone I know, I turn around and I thank God almighty, who made the stars, who made the heaven above.”

-from “Find Me in the Water”, traditional song

Yan's entire body hurt. Her head felt fuzzy and hot, like the way that thoughts slid out of her brain when she had a fever, but somehow worse. Her mouth was painfully dry. She couldn't move. When she tried to speak, her thick tongue and dry throat permitted her only to make the hoarsest whisper, more of a cough than a word.

She couldn't see. There was something covering her head.

Her body lay on a cold floor. She could tell it was the floor because of gravity, or maybe she was accelerating? It was cold on her whole body, except for her head, which was trapped and too hot. Her arms were pulled up behind her, and she was on her stomach. She could barely even twitch her fingers, something was holding her wrists too tight.

She kicked her legs feebly and found that they, too, were restrained.

She couldn't breathe. Oh, God, she couldn't breathe. She thrashed as wildly as she could, struggling with her chin to remove whatever was covering her head and blocking access to the fresh air. She tried reaching for the power, but it slipped away from her in the panic and haze of her thoughts. She couldn't focus on anything but her basest instinct of trying to free her head. Her arms strained against their bindings enough to cut her, and she felt a trickle of blood or sweat drip sideways down her arm.

"Oh, fuck, she's awake." There was a voice, the same voice she had heard before, or maybe just something that she heard in a dream, and all of a sudden there was a weight on top of her, crushing the air out of her lungs, grabbing her arms, pinning her legs. There was a sharp pain in the side of her neck. In the darkness, her thoughts slipped away again, even as she struggled to breathe and free herself from whatever, whoever, was on top of her. She blacked out.

The next time she emerged ever so slightly into consciousness, she was no longer on the floor. She woke with the same jolt of panic, the same feeling of being unable to breathe, but her thoughts were just the tiniest bit cleaner. She tried to breathe, in, out, take stock of the situation.

She pried her dry eyes open. Her head was still trapped inside something. A bag, maybe. Light filtered down through the weave of the fabric. That helped calm her. Not being so completely in the dark, that was a positive thing.

Being able to think a little, that was a good thing too. The power still slid away from her thoughts, but maybe it would come back. It was as though she could only think with the shallowest part of her brain, anything that was instinct and observation and flashes of feeling, but the deeper concentration that the power required eluded her. It wasn't for lack of trying; Yan laid as still as she could and reached for it with every ounce of willpower that she possessed, but stars skittered across her vision and her brain hummed like a broken motor.

She gave up and turned her attention back to her immediate surroundings.

She was laying on a bed, maybe. Or some sort of fabric covered surface. It wasn't soft. She was on her back, rather than on her stomach like she had been before. She was very, very tied down. Straps crossed her body, and she could feel them pressing at her neck, arms, waist, legs- everywhere that she could try to move. It was probably that feeling of being strangled by the neck restraint that had woken her. Just to test the strength of her bonds, Yan tried to lift her head. It was impossible. She couldn't even scrape her chin against it to remove whatever was covering her eyes.

She wiggled her arms experimentally. There wasn't much leeway in the restraints, but there was an odd tug on her left arm, near her elbow. She was colder there. She wasn't as thirsty as she had been. Maybe they, whoever they were, were giving her fluids. There was no point in trying to rip it out; she couldn't move, and it would probably hurt her if she did yank on it somehow.

Yan realized abruptly that her legs were bare. A cold breeze passed across them. Her fingers could stretch just enough to feel that she was wearing some sort of underwear, at least. She suspected that she had been naked at some point, since her normal clothes were gone. She felt nauseous at the thought, but controlled her gagging after a few seconds. It would be bad if she vomited while basically unable to turn her head, trapped inside whatever bag she was covered in. She didn't have much in her stomach, which made it easier to swallow back down any bile that rose in her throat.

How much time had passed? Where was she?

A machine somewhere to her left beeped softly, whirred, and Yan felt something cold enter her arm. She shivered, goosebumps popping up all over her body. She tried to breathe. She tried to breathe. She tried-

There was something stuck in her nose. Her throat. She choked on it, coughing and snorting to try to get it out.

"Damn, again?" someone said.

"Just give her the next dose now."

Footsteps.

Something slimy dripped down the back of her throat, and someone pressed their hand on her forehead to keep her still. She continued to try to cough out whatever it was that was. She couldn't. It was stuck there. She breathed, rough, ragged breaths. Tears leaked out of her eyes, and snot dripped from her nose sideways onto her cheek.

She tried to fight back, tried to beg them to stop, but her mouth wasn’t working right.

At least she wasn't trapped inside the bag anymore. She was just blindfolded. Light snuck in where the blindfold met her forehead. Why were they keeping her like this?

"Anyway, do you think we'll have any updates from the mirror when we get in?" The hand dropped off her forehead.

"How am I supposed to know that?"

"I'm asking if you want to make a bet, dumbass."

"That's a shitty thing to bet on."

"I need something to think about to pass the time."

"Just read your book, it's good for you."

"Like you're any less bored."

Yan's stomach churned. The room fell silent save for the occasional shuffling movements of her captors. Her limbs felt like lead. She couldn't move, she couldn't breathe.

She was almost getting used to these hazy awakenings. This time she was being carried. Manhandled. Her limbs screamed in pain as someone grabbed her arms and legs, hoisting her like a sack of rice.

Still blindfolded, still lost. She tried not to fight back this time. She didn't want to let them know she was awake. If she could stay awake long enough, maybe whatever they were drugging her with would wear off, and she could use the power. If she had the power, she could escape.

The men were talking as they carried her. She stayed as limp as she could, even though she wanted to kick out. They were speaking Old Imperial. It had been a while since Yan had last used the language in conversation, but it was mutually intelligible with New Imperial, so she could follow it well enough, even if she was still half dead brain wise and in pain. It might save her life to listen, so she did, focusing her attention as much as the sparks that jolted through her brain would allow.

"I feel like she was easier to carry before," one of them complained.

"We're almost there. She doesn't even weigh anything."

"You only say that because your parents bred you to be the size of a shuttle. I wasn't so lucky."

"Save your breath for your puny little lungs then."

"Complaining gives me strength."

"God better give me strength to deal with your stupidity."

The apparently scrawny one laughed. "I can't wait to be done with this. The sooner the better."

"As soon as she's on the shuttle she's out of our hands."

"And thank God for that."

"Why?"

"The faster she's gone, the faster we can get back to somewhere I can spend my share."

"Are you going to spend it or are you going to use it like you did last time?"

"I learned my lesson. I've got big plans for when we get to Joulais."

There was a sound of a door opening, and Yan was folded up and jostled even more as the two men shuffled closer together. Her back dragged on the floor. It hurt, but she did her best to stay limp.

"You gonna tell me what those plans are?"

"Not on your life."

There was the feeling of lightening. They must be on a ship, in the little pod that transferred between the rotating and non rotating sections. The men still hung onto her wrists and ankles just as tightly, but now they could move her by simply pushing her through the air. Maybe that would hurt less. The door opened again and they shoved her out. The two men were careless as they traveled down the hallways of the ship, and Yan tried not to tense up every time she hit a corner. It was hard to remain floppy when she was being shoved around, blindfolded, and could hit a wall at any time.

They finally came to a bay. Yan could tell they were in one because suddenly the voices of her captors echoed in the larger space, and the air was colder and moved differently than in the hallways. Her captors feet slapped on the floor, the magnets in their shoes helping them stay on the ground. Identifying these sensations and matching them to a location on a ship came instinctually to Yan. She took some comfort in knowing where she was on a ship, even if she couldn't see, and even if it was a ship that was holding her hostage.

There was a third man in this bay.

"This is what you've got?" this new man asked.

"Yeah." That was big man, as Yan had taken to thinking of him. "Need us to strap her in?"

"Let me look her over first." The hands that had been holding Yan's arms and legs released her, and she drifted free in the bay. A breeze brushed across her as the new man drifted over. He put his hand on her bare stomach. Yan couldn't help herself, and she shuddered involuntarily, ruining the illusion that she had been keeping up. "Oh, she's awake. Sneaky girl."

Her plan discovered, Yan decided that she might as well do her best to break loose. She thrashed wildly against her bonds, but it was useless in the microgravity. There wasn't anything for her to push against, and she was so weak, she couldn't escape from the ties that bound her. And that damn hand stayed on her stomach the whole time, no matter how much she tried to bring her legs up to kick him, or her arms down to hit him, or roll away from his touch.

"Well, we don't need any of that," he said after a long moment of her ineffective thrashing. Yan's whole body seized up in a new and terrible way. Even though she couldn't access the power, even though that was locked away in the back corner of her mind, she could feel that this man was using his power on her. Her legs and arms straightened against her will. She was stiff and rigid as a board, held in place no matter how much she fought. She even tried to cry out, but found her jaw locked and her vocal cords frozen. She reached again for her own power, desperate for anything. It answered her a little, and she used it to slide the blindfold just a hair upward, enough that she could see the situation out of her left eye. Not being able to see made her less able to use the power, so she had to take care of the blindfold first.

"Definitely none of that," the man said. He was young, maybe a few years older than Yan, and had deep green eyes and a wan face. He took his hand off her stomach, but grabbed her arms instead, bringing them stiffly down in front of her. Yan couldn't move. He took one of her fingers, the middle one on her left hand. "If you try that again, I'll break your hand."

He squeezed her hand hard: hard enough that she didn't doubt his words. Gently, he pushed the blindfold back down over her eyes. Yan stayed still, but only because she couldn't move. She could barely breathe, the force of the man's power on her was so great.

"Sorry, we didn't know she was awake," scrawny man said.

"That much is clear. Do you have her next dose on you?" the powerful man asked. "Well, give it."

"We were told that too much is bad for the brain."

"I don't care. We'll be changing it up once we're on the ground, but I don't want any troubles on the shuttle ride."

The large man shuffled over. Yan could tell it was him based on the way his footsteps sounded on the magnetic floor. There was a pinprick in her upper arm. How many different ways had this drug been given to her? Yan could do nothing to fight the onrushing blackness. It must be a fast acting drug. Hands were on her again, dragging her into the waiting shuttle, sitting her upright, strapping her in. She passed out.

Yan came to her senses in a completely new place. She would have said a better place, but that wasn't a judgment call she was prepared to make. When she opened her eyes, she found she wasn't blindfolded. There was no tube in her nose or in her arms. She was laying on a bed. No sheets, no pillow, but it was a lumpy mattress and not a floor. She was still tied down, but less than she had been before. There was just a single heavy chain attached to her right ankle. Yan delighted in this new "freedom" of movement for a second, sitting up and stretching every muscle that she could. She was naked, once again.

God, she hated to think about it. It was shameful and disgusting, and the thought of people touching her unconscious body made her shudder. Especially that other man, the one at the shuttle. Was he around?

Yan tried again to reach for the power, and found it even more impossible than before. A searing pain shot through her head when she tried to focus on it- it was like being stuck with a hot piece of metal right between her eyes. It was so much different than the lack of focus that whatever she had been drugged with before had caused, but the effect was the same. Yan tried focusing on something else- not using the power, just staring hard at the chain on her ankle, trying to absorb every piece of information about it. There was a warning tingle in her brain, not quite as intense as that first pain, but noticeable.

Well, if it was only pain… Yan reached for the power again, this time knowing what to expect. Immediately, even before she could use the power for anything, she broke out in a sweat, gritting her teeth hard enough that her jaw popped. She tried to use the power to peel open the chain on her ankle. Every instant that she held the power, the pain grew worse and worse. She whimpered involuntarily. But she needed to continue, she had to continue. The pain swallowed her thoughts and she toppled backwards, her vision going black.

She was far, far too used to passing out at this point. But at least it was only for a moment. Her head hurt like someone had hit her with a sledgehammer. Yan looked at the chain around her ankle; it was completely undamaged. She tugged on it and discovered that it was exactly as solid as it looked.

She almost cried, but she was too dehydrated. Only now as the pain in her head began to subside a little, in swells with her heartbeat, did Yan realize how hungry and thirsty she was. She looked around the room again.

The walls and floor were all made of a grey stone. Not concrete, but neatly hewn stone blocks- obviously mined and assembled by machine. There was a toilet in one corner of the room, and a sink, opposite from the bed on which she sat, and there was a single door to her right. The door had a window in it: a small one, at about eye level. There was a table and a chair along the back wall, between the bed and the toilet. On the table were a folded set of clothes. There was an empty plastic garbage can next to the door. The whole room was lit by a single bare bulb on the ceiling.

Yan got up from the bed. Her whole body still hurt tremendously- stiff from disuse and bruised from rough handling. With difficulty, she walked to the table. It was hard to adjust to both the uncooperativeness of her limbs and the chain that prevented her from walking normally. She almost tripped over it several times, even in just the few steps between the bed and the table. It rattled unpleasantly on the ground. There was a shirt and a skirt sitting on the table. Not pants, but Yan wasn't that surprised. How would she get pants on with a chain around her ankle?

Yan pulled the black skirt down over her head- it was stretchy enough and long enough. The shirt went on in the normal fashion.

She washed her hands and face in the sink. She drank the sink water as well. There didn't seem to be any food, and she wasn't going to try to attract her captor's attention to get some. She could survive being hungry for a little while longer.

There was no mirror, but Yan checked herself over to see if she had been seriously hurt at all during her capture. There were bruises in various places across her body- some felt tender and fresh while some were old and healing. She had to wonder just how long she had been passed out for. The crook of her elbow was particularly nasty; people must have had difficulty getting the needles in and out of her. Distantly, she was glad she hadn't been awake to experience it. Her nose and throat still felt raw.

"Can I talk?" Yan asked aloud, checking to see if her voice worked. She remembered struggling to speak in those times when she had briefly woken, and she was glad to hear that her voice was working, even if it sounded and felt like sandpaper had been rubbing her throat.

She ran her hand over her neck, which ached the same as every other part of her body. Her hand stopped in its tracks when she felt a lump at the base of her skull. It was tender to the touch and slightly crusty. The lump was about the size of a marble. Yan looked at her fingers and saw that they were covered with dried blood and a bit of pus. She touched the lump again, as delicately as possible. She could feel stitches, now mostly healed. She poked the lump, trying to dislodge it. Whatever it was seemed to be firmly affixed to the base of her skull. It was solid and immovable, and poking it too hard served only to make the slightly inflamed region scream in pain.

Someone had operated on her and put something into her body. She didn't know when, and she didn't know why, but the thought was so horrible that she wanted to cry. She rubbed furiously at her eyes, but they were too dry for actual tears. She was still dehydrated.

Yan splashed cold water from the sink on her face. At least she had that and a toilet. At least she wasn't passed out. At least she could walk around a little. At least she could think. At least there was no one there right that moment with their hands on her.

She took comfort in those small things.

Her hand returned to the lump. She was compelled to pick at it, wanting to rid her body of this impurity, this foreign intruder. It hurt, and she didn't manage to do anything except make her neck ache more. She would have to find some way to get it out, but it seemed fused there to the top of her spine. She gave up on it for now.

Thinking that it was at least worth a shot, Yan examined the door to her little cell. It didn't even have a doorknob on the inside. She tried to pry her fingers inside the cracks between the door and the wall, to pull it and push it into opening. It didn't move. Even if it had opened, she wouldn't have been able to leave. The chain attached to her ankle wouldn't have let her go more than a step outside the door. She continued to try, though, until her fingers were so thoroughly worn that she couldn't keep going. Her nails were broken from getting caught in the cracks, and the effort it took to try to pry had strained her tendons.

Outside the window in the door, the hallway outside was either pitch black or the window was covered up. Yan honestly couldn't tell. The material of the door was so thick that when Yan knocked on it, she couldn't hear if it was muffled by a drape on the other side or not. It sounded just like knocking on the walls, which she also tried.

Her knocking, though she had been hesitant to do so at first, didn't seem to summon anyone. Though there had to be someone watching her, no one came to investigate her. Clearly they intended for her to be awake, given the clothes, the chain, and the toilet, but no one showed any signs of coming to talk to her.

For the first time, Yan had time to contemplate who had taken her and why. She suspected that she was on a planet. She didn't know for sure, but the way the walls were made of stone blocks rather than sheet metal or some other man made material was a big clue. The gravity also felt slightly more than she was used to on Emerri, but that might just have been because of her weakened state. She tried to check by dripping some water onto the floor and seeing how quickly the drops fell, but she didn't have a great sense of if they were falling faster than usual. It would take actual measurement to figure that out, and she didn't have any way to do that. Regardless of the feeling of gravity, it would be hugely energy inefficient to haul stone blocks into orbit just to construct a prison cell, so Yan thought she was on the ground.

Or perhaps even under it. Though there was little ventilation, and certainly no sounds of central air cooling and heating, Yan felt cold. The air was a little damp. Wiping her hand along the stone blocs came away with moisture. She licked the residue off her finger. It tasted slightly salty. Yan didn't know what to make of that.

Being on a planet made the possibility of escape both easier and harder. It would be easier because she didn't have to contend with the realities and dangers of being in space on a ship, and there might be sympathetic people somewhere on the planet who could help her. It would be harder because planets had a lot of variation where ships did not. For all Yan knew, she could be on an unterraformed mining colony with only a few hundred citizens. There would be no way to escape or hide, if there wasn't any atmosphere outside the buildings and domes that were prepared for people to live in. It was, in fact, likely that she was on such a low profile planet. It would be much easier for such places to build up relationships with pirate ships, rather than planets that had the full attention of the Empire. If she had been on a ship, there was always the chance that she could have broken free and taken it over. Yan could fly a ship. She could say that with confidence after her stint on the bridge of the Iron Dreams that last summer, which felt so long ago.

Thinking of her family made Yan choke up. She wondered if they knew she was gone. She wouldn't put it past Sandreas to cover up her absence. He always had his reasons for things.

It was strange that no one had come to talk to her. She had obviously been taken because she was an agent of the Imperial Government. If someone had just wanted to kidnap a sensitive, there were plenty of far easier targets out there. Maybe the attack had even been intended for Sandreas himself. After all, he was the one who was supposed to go to Anthus aboard the Tranquility. The only reason he hadn't was because of Vaneik's death.

Yan wondered who the new leader of the Guild was. She wondered what her uncle thought of that. Maybe he had thrown in his name. That would be funny, to have Uncle Maxes as head of the Trade Guild. Imagining this amusing scenario took her mind off her own problems for a moment. There was no way that he ever could have won election, though, even if he had run. Yan knew that her uncle had plenty of connections, but those weren't the types of connections that would turn into votes in front of the Guild Council. Besides, he seemed to be content with his council seat when she saw him last, even if it was mostly just an excuse to come see her every now and again.

Maybe Yan had been too hard on him. The last time she saw him she had been so awkward. She wished she could turn back time and tell him that she loved him, instead of doing her best to avoid him. Why had she been like that? Of course, being held prisoner somewhere really did put things into perspective.

She was remarkably calm. Maybe that was really just panic in disguise, keeping her from screaming and flailing around. Or maybe she was just too weak and hungry for screaming and flailing. Her stomach was growling uncomfortably now. She hoped that whoever was keeping her at least wasn't planning on starving her to death. That would be really counterproductive for them, whatever their plans for her were.

Were they going to get information out of her? It didn't seem likely since she really didn't have any. She was privy to a few secrets, but none that she felt were worth kidnapping her over. Maybe she was being held ransom by someone? In exchange for some policy change by the Empire? Or maybe she would be held in abeyance for some future policy negotiation, since Yan couldn't think of anything that had happened recently that would inflame anyone enough for kidnapping.

There were worse possibilities, though. If Sandreas himself had been the intended target, and she had gotten caught up in it by mistake, the whole thing could be a personal revenge on him. She didn't know enough about Sandreas's past to figure out what type of enemies he'd made, but he could hardly have gone through life without making a few. If this was meant to be a personal revenge, well, Yan didn't know how well that would turn out for her.

She could see that there were a few broad futures stretching out before her. In the worst future, she would be tortured and eventually killed. In the best future, she would either escape or be rescued. She didn't know how likely that was; there was no way to tell how much information Sandreas had on where she had been taken, though she could safely assume that people were looking for her. Yan was confident in that, at least. There would be an investigation, a thorough one. She couldn't wait for them to find her; she would try to escape as soon as she saw an opportunity, but it was a comfort to think that people would be looking.

There was comfort in a lot of smaller things. If they hadn't killed her yet, they probably wouldn't for a while. If they hadn't tortured her yet, they probably wouldn't for a while. If they had allowed her to wake back up, she would probably be allowed to stay awake for a while. All of these things were good.

Yan was pacing around the room, the chain dragging on the floor and making an unpleasant rattling sound. She was already getting used to it, having to pick her foot up more to move it, needing to make sure it didn't tangle when she turned. It was unpleasant, but to avoid panicking she was focusing on the positives. That was all she could do.

Yan's gaze happened upon the trash can. It was made of plastic. Breakable, thin plastic. It wasn't useful to her like this, but if she was lucky, maybe she could fashion it into something else. Having a knife would be useful.

She picked it up. It felt too solid to break with her bare hands, which was both a good thing and a bad thing. It was good because the sturdier the plastic, the more useful it would probably be. It was bad because she would need to figure out some new way of breaking it. Yan thought for a second, then carried it over to the bed. With difficulty, Yan lifted up the frame of the bed and wedged the can sideways underneath one of the legs. It took some working to stop it from immediately slipping away, but she managed it. She was overexerted by the time that she finished getting it into place. She hoped it was only due to not being fed enough and not being able to move around, and not because she had been asleep for weeks.

Yan inspected her construction, judged that it was the best that it was going to get, then threw her whole weight onto the corner of the bed where the can was wedged. Though she was light, the impact had enough force to crunch the bin a little bit. It made a cracking sound, then slipped out from underneath the leg of the bed and hit the wall. Yan's chin hit the bedframe, and she felt slightly rattled. After a moment of tense waiting to see if anyone would come to investigate the noise, Yan stood and went to see what damage she had caused.

The bin was cracked a little, but a little was all she needed. Yan sat down on the side of the bed and started prying pieces loose from it, wiggling them to separate them from the main part of the bin. She managed to pull off a few. One she kept out to use immediately, the others she tried to hide. She tucked one underneath her mattress and the other she tried to cram behind the toilet. There weren't very many hiding places in the room, and she was certain she was being watched anyway, but it was worth a try. After all, no one had stopped her thus far.

Once that task was complete, Yan sat down in the middle of the floor where her chain attached. She contemplated it for a few moments, trying to think of the best place to attack it. Her instinct was to pry it off right where it sat at her ankle, but that was where it was the thickest. It was an odd device. She didn't see any openings on it at all. Running her fingers over it, she thought she could feel a hairline crack where it must be able to open and close, but there was no way Yan was going to be able to use her piece of broken garbage can to pry that open. She focused instead on the chain itself, which seemed sturdy and well made, but thinner and easier to manipulate than the piece attached to her ankle.

Her piece of plastic was not very sharp, but it was all she had. She made the best of it, trying first to pry open any area that looked like it was cracked or weak. When that failed to yield results, she attempted to saw through it. Unfortunately, her dinky piece of plastic was no match for the chain. Her hand went again unconsciously to the back of her neck where the healing lump was. Since she didn’t feel drugged, or at least not as drugged as she had been, that must be what was preventing her from using the power. If she could get that out then she could use the power to free herself.

Yan examined the piece of plastic in her hand and thought about what she would have to do. It wasn't very sharp, so she tried scraping it on the stone floor to give it an edge. She tried to work quickly. There was no way of knowing if or when she would be interrupted. It was difficult to get it to sharpen. She tested her makeshift blade on her finger. If she pressed hard enough it would cut.

She tried grinding the edge on the stone floor a little more. The sharper she could get it, the better. The stone floor was rougher in some places than others, and Yan tried to use that to grind, then smooth.

Enough.

She got up and rinsed the shard of plastic off in the sink. She splashed water on the back of her neck, scrubbing it as clean as possible. There obviously wasn't any disinfectant available, so she would just have to hope that she didn't catch anything. She took one of the other pieces of plastic that she had broken off, and used it to rip a slit in the skirt she had been given, down at the bottom. She tore off a strip of fabric from the bottom of the skirt. Hopefully it would be enough to make a makeshift bandage.

Hopefully as soon as she got whatever it was out, she would be able to use the power again. That was the only theory she had to go on, so she was going to act assuming it was true. She didn't really have a choice. Either she did something or she sat around and accepted her fate. She didn’t know how much time she had before someone would come in to stop her. She felt like this might be her only chance, her first and best, to get out.

She cleaned her neck and her makeshift knife again, more and more nervous by the second. There were no other preparations she could make, given the circumstances. She sat down on the floor and tried to steady herself. Since there was no mirror of any sort, she would just have to do this by touch. She didn't even have the power to give her second sight.

She took a deep breath.

"God, do not let me be lost. You set the stars to split the night and guide us home. Lead me where I need to go."

It was the fastest prayer she could think of, and she whispered it between gritted teeth.

The piece of plastic wasn’t very sharp, and it hurt her hand to hold it. Yan cut from above, slicing the skin open on the back of her neck. It took a lot of force to get through that first layer of skin. She held the lump steady with her left hand, and pressed down with her right. It was incredibly painful. The old wound stretched, and the new wound covered her hands with hot, sticky blood. She couldn't see what she was doing, so she prodded the open wound with her left index finger, searching for anything that felt like a foreign body. She couldn't feel it yet. It was deeper.

Yan had taken a human anatomy class at the Academy. It had fit right in with her intended career path of xenobiology. After all, what good was a biologist who didn't first understand the workings of her own body?

Yan knew exactly what she was cutting through, or she did before all of that knowledge left her mind in the wave of pain. She had the determination to see this through, and the consequences would resolve themselves one way or another.

Her eyes were scrunched shut, and she grunted in pain as she sawed deeper, using her left hand to peel back the flesh. This was nothing like the dissections she had performed on dead animals in her classes. This was nothing like helping to prepare meat in the kitchens of the Iron Dreams. This was its own horror, a new kind, that she had never felt before. How had she been so calm before she started? Now that she was deep into it, how could she not continue until the task was done?

Whoever had operated on her before had done an admirable job of not destroying all the muscles in her neck. Yan sawed through them. It was a good thing her head was already tucked to her chest to give her better access to the site, or she would have been unable to hold it up.

She had never imagined that she would have the resolve to do this, but what Yan was finding was that over and over again, she had the resolve to do things that no one else did. She would do whatever it took. She gritted her teeth and grunted in pain as her fingers finally touched the smooth surface of the implant.

She tried pulling on it and found that it was stuck. It wasn't just going to come out. Somehow it had been attached to the bone. Some sort of epoxy, maybe. Exploring with the tips of her fingers, she didn't feel any screws holding it in place. She wedged the piece of plastic in between the implant and the bone and started sawing.

God, it hurt more than anything she had ever felt. Yan clung to consciousness. It might mean death if she passed out. She had to keep going. She didn't have a choice.

The implant broke free with a sickening, wet crack. Yan almost choked for joy as it came off in her hands. She dropped it to the floor, along with her plastic shank. Still with her eyes closed, now leaking tears, Yan wrapped the cut off skirt piece around her neck as tightly as she could. She tried to smooth the flap of skin and muscle that she had ripped through back down and fasten it in place.

Her neck hurt so badly.

Though the cloth was in place, Yan could feel that it was already wet with blood. She was dizzy, and she didn't know if that was from the pain or from blood loss. Carefully, blindly, Yan leaned forward until she was laying facedown on the ground, her cheek pressed into the cold stone floor. She had to use her hands to position her head, which felt like a useless lump. This position twisted her open wound, but it was better than toppling over.

Yan breathed heavily. Her sweat and blood dripped down. She could see the mess she had made when she opened her eyes a crack. She closed them again, and the pain rolled over her in waves. Her heartbeat was the lapping of the water on the shore. She struggled to clear her mind.

Yan reached for the power.

The same sledgehammer of pain crashed into her. Yan choked down a scream. No. She had taken out the implant. She should be able to use the power. She tried again, pushed through the pain, but the pain was everywhere, and it was overwhelming.

She passed out, again.