Page 88 of Star-Born Anomaly
“Wynn! Where are you?”
She spun in the other direction and watched him walk into her old room. There was a squeal of delight, like she’d been hiding on purpose. Wynn barely remembered this moment. How would she see it now?
Her feet moved to follow, to see what she looked like, how long ago it was, but the scene shifted and morphed. The ground beneath her remained solid, but she swayed while the images spun.
The swirl of gray changed into smudges of viridian and turquoise, then solidified into a green space. It took her a second to recognize it, an atrium in the middle of four levels of classrooms, the school she’d attended for her primary education.
The scene changed again, dragging fragments of her memories along with shards of locations she barely remembered: a friend’s house, a restaurant, a vacation destination.
Everything spun together, then slowed.
Singsong voices echoed. “Wynn. Wynn. She has no kin. Wynn. Wynn. Put her in the bin.”
She stood in a place she didn’t remember, a room in a station that gave an institutional feel—not quite a school. Something else. Something colder.
A small girl sat in the center of a group of children.So small.A baby, really. She was curled into a ball, arms around her shins, and head tucked into her knees. Short black hair crowned a hidden face.
The children around her, six of them, all older, skipped around, shouting the same line repeatedly. “Wynn. Wynn. She has no kin. Wynn. Wynn. Put her in the bin.”
That’s me.
But she was so young she had no memory of this.
Was it real?
With everything else she’d seen, she had to guess that it was. Except if she couldn’t remember it, how was this box reconstructing it?
She flexed her fingers against the wall.Not right. The gray, institutional carpet spread before her, but beneath her feet she felt the padded material of the box.
Nothing here was right.
Why would she be here? It felt like an orphanage, but she wasn’t adopted. Her parents had never told her that. She had baby pictures. They’d told her the story of her birth, how they’d almost had her in the shuttle because her mother’s labor had developed so quickly.
Had it been a lie?
Wynn reached up and swiped a stray tear from her cheek.
An adult, a woman wearing light pink civilian clothing, entered the room, breaking up the children and their taunts. They scattered, racing out into the corridor. The woman bent down, picked up the toddler and left through the same door as the rabid children.
Wynn stepped forward, intending to follow, when everything accelerated in reverse once more.
There was a ship she didn’t recognize, children she didn’t know. They were all squished together, holding each other. A feeling of fear swelled inside her, so poignant Wynn knew she must be reliving the experience. But she didn’t remember being here either. A boy looked at her, and his eyes glinted.
Wynn’s breath stalled in her throat. Who was he? She didn’t know. Though his eyes glinted, he didn’t look like Iax, or anyone else she’d ever met in her life.
Then the scene reversed again, so fast she could hardly catch it. An eerie blackness enveloped the cube, a hazy sort of image. She squinted to see better. Light emerged in a narrow sliver, amid sounds both muffled and loud. Pain. Fear. Confusion.Too bright.A piercing wail made her cover her ears with her hands.
A face emerged through the chaos. Eyes glinted. Wynn’s breath caught in her throat. She knew that face from the history banks. Briar Galloway. Leader of the Calypsons. Another familiar face filled her sight, then another. She was in a lab of some type, being passed from one emotionless face to the next. The wailing continued, and she realized she was the one doing it.
My birth?
Wynn’s skin went hot and cold at the same time.
No. No. No.
She wouldn’t believe it. This couldn’t be the place of her origin, even though it continued to play in front of her like she was part of a newsreel.
If the CORE didn’t kill her for this, then they would lock her up forever.
