Page 5 of The Blackened Blade

I look back at my arm and down to my fingers. They were completely free of any scars or calluses.

I flex my fingers, feeling no pain from the once broken and torn tissue there, now only feeling soft and young skin.

Was this a dream?

But I definitely died.

I’d been on the cusp of death many times, especially after their specialised ‘tests’, so I know that I took my final breath in that cell.

A small pang lances through my chest with the thought.

All those years of fighting and I’m done in by a fire, and trapped in that horrible fucking cell.

I guess the only relief would be that the Facility itself burned too.

Hopefully to ashes.

I slowly head back into the room, closing the door as I make my way toward the small bathroom, and its mirror.

My breath leaves me as I gaze at the reflection of a young girl.

A girl with familiar blue eyes stares back at me, her long rose gold hair falls down her slender shoulders in light waves. Her fair skin is bright and unblemished, with two parted full rosy lips. There's no scars coating her skin, no cuts or burns, only some light bruising here or there. Nothing like before.

This was a different me.

Ayoungerme.

One before the Facility.

What was the point of showing me this?

Of what I had been before? Of a younger and brighter me?

And of one who knew only the agony and taunts from kids her age, but who didn’t yet knowtruepain and horror.

I place my hands on the sink, tightly gripping the edge while staring into the narrowed eyes gazing back at me.

Why did this feel so real?

Why did everything feel as if it wasn’t a dream, as if it wasn't some illusion made up to make me suffer?

Why did every moment I stand here breathing and moving feel as if this wasactuallyreal?

My eyes catch on the corner of the mirror, the edge is broken and jagged.

Taking my finger, I slide it slowly over the sharp edge. A small ache instantly flares from the cut as a trickle of blood falls from the small wound.

I flicker my gaze between the cut and the mirror's reflection.

What kind of illusion, dream or nightmare felt this real?

And if it wasn’t one of those, then was all this somehow…real?

If it wasn’t some sort of hell or punishment, then was I supposed to believe that I was brought back from dying or being dead…and back to the past?

Time travel wasn't even possible.

There weren't anyBack to the Futurepossibilities. No supernatural had that ability, it would go against nature and its balance. And miracles…if they were real, I should have been saved years ago fromeverything.

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