Sorrowful Freedom

“Dimmed lights echo throughout these chambers…the view of endless lines of containment across that desolate room seared itself permenantly into what was left of my mind…cloaked in a hazy green of the fluid holding me. Perfectly preserved, if perfect was any word they could describe my torment as…there was nothing except feelings…pain…stinging pain…cold…silence…”

“It had been this way for…I had no idea how long…hours? Days? Months? Years? Decades? Centuries? Time eluded me, it's all encompassing gaze turning a blind eye to my existance. No such measure could ever exist in my presence now, as no empowering sun, sorrowful moon or hopeful stars could lend their embrace…”

“Sorrowful…Sorrow…that's the word…”

“The cheerful thoughts of a time long since gone haunted me, flickering in my mind as I wished to be back there…back home…warm…cozy…home…and yet…every time my mind leads me there…I find myself back…a literal dead end…cornered…forgotten…”

“Light…it must feel nice…I've almost forgotten that feeling…a bright gorgeous orb deep in the sky enveloping us from morning to eve…it's piercing rays casting everything into it's beauty…”

“Light…rays…R-Ray…Rayana…Roc…”

— —

If there was anyone to observe her, they would've seen her one uncovered eye begin to leak a hesitant light blue, unclear as it may be in the deep green abyss she was surrounded in…

— —

“W-Why…Why did this h-have to…I-I just want to…”

— —

Her thoughts echoed throughout her mind, never resting, never relenting, no matter how many times she tried to think another way, she always returned to the one, ever-lingering question...the question of “why”…

Broken thoughts from a broken mind, tortured and locked for eternity…

…Or at least it could’ve been this way…as on that fateful day…

VROOOOOOOSH

A loud humming echoed through the room. Despite the heavy duty chamber that held her, the noise still reached her ears, picking up the out of the ordinary sound. Her gaze lifted, still fogged up by the additional liquid in her eyes, and yet she couldn’t believe what she made out through the hazy glass…

— —

“I-It can't be…this isn't…”

— —

…The door…the one she'd gazed upon time after time…the very one she was dragged through and sealed away by…it was open…a dim ray of artificial light shone through the passage, illuminating a tiny creature, less than a foot tall, its blue translucent and glimmering body shifted slowly across the empty floor, looking side to side at all the chambers. It paused…a moment of shock as it looked upon so much, seeing an endless sea of subjects, preserved forever past their prime. The shock made the creature move back slightly as if it shifted back towards the entrance. The motion panicked the poor girl more, realising the one chance of her freedom was beginning to fall away from her…

— —

“Please…no…y-you must see me, right? I'm alive in here…p-please! D-Don't leave!”

— —

It seemed hopeless…as despite her desperate mind, unable to make a single sound, she watched the creature return closer and closer to the exit, preparing to leave. Out of sadness, her head drooped, bumping into the glass…hard…

CLINK

The noise shocked the little creature though, it once again paused to observe where it came from, noticing a bizarre subject within one of the chambers, and seeing something it didn't expect…movement…

— —

“H-Huh?”

— —

It approached slowly, observing her movements, her gazing look, and noticing her faint tears…and without much other consideration, it extended a long blue limb up to something on the side of her chamber…fiddling around with some kind of keypad…

A series of beeps and sounds were muffled within the chamber until at last…something happened…

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

A continous alarm began to play, droning in the ears of the poor girl, as the contents of the chamber were slowly emptied. The liquid that kept her in partial stasis slowly began to drain from the bottom of the tank, slowly lowering her gently with it until she found her feet and knees gently placed to the chamber's bottom, the top of her hair now no longer submerged. Her head ached from the constant sound as it continued, especially once her ears escaped the liquid. After about a minute, only a shallow pool remained at the bottom, where the girl now kneeled. The chamber glass slowly began to move aside, allowing her to escape, but she wasn’t ready quite yet. For the girl felt a feeling she hadn’t felt in quite some time…she was breathing in air again…not some liquid that kept her partially exhausted…genuine air…her breaths were deep and heavy for the first few moments as though she was gasping for it after a long dive, before she stabilised a little more calmly. After another slow and agonising minute, she finally spoke her first handful of words, in an unexpected way for her new form…

— —

Sorrow: Y-You…You saved me…t-thank you…

Although the creature slightly nodded to show it understood what she said, it didn't respond immediately, needing a few moments to think…after that short few seconds of leaving the girl in suspense, the small creature replied…not directly acknowledging her gratitude, but definitely speaking the same inkling language perfectly.

??: I was unaware there was a test subject that spoke in the inkling language…very intriguing…

Sorrow: W-What? W-What d-do you-?

Again, it seemed to ignore her questions slightly, deciding to instead continue the thoughts it had over the questions of the girl for now…

??: I thought discovering someone still alive in that storage would be the most intriguing part, but it seems I was mistaken…I believe I was never meant to discover this place…but-

The creature looked back again to the girl, seeing her still staring in tears. It had now realised that it had been ignoring what she tried to say…

Sorrow: H-Hey…P-Please…what is your name? I-It would m-mean a lot t-to know t-the one that saved m-me…

??: Oh. I apologise for not answering your previous questions, I was busy pondering the situation. I am CQ Cumber of the Deepsea Metro. Most just call me CQ, however, and I have no objections to you calling me that as well.

Sorrow: O-Oh…CQ…t-thank you…

Despite the slow lead up to that, she was happy her voice at least was slightly acknowledged, even a slight smile as some of the tears dried up. She finally even began to move, taking her first wobbly steps out from the tank she'd been contained within. Though as she now stood and things began to set in, the happiness was short lived, as her body began to shiver…badly…CQ moved to her to investigate her and try to see what was wrong, though he began to see even more tears flow down her face, even more rapidly than before, as the girl fell to her knees on the cold floor…

CQ: Are you okay, young lady?

Sorrow: N-No…it's…i-it's so cold…I…w-why am I s-so cold…?

Through her teary eyes, even though she couldn’t fully see the details quite yet, she did notice that more light clothing she was in. And by light…well, she only had tight clothing over the most important areas, namely her upper chest and her waist down to upper legs. This left massive portions of her skin exposed to all elements. She was about to chalk it up to that and ask something, until she heard a worried voice from CQ Cumber…

CQ: This isn’t good. As I suspected, despite sanitization you seemingly retained not only your memories and thoughts but your senses too…

It was that one word that sent even worse shivers all throughout the girl. She completely froze, her one visible eye widened in response…sanitization…did it relate to…? Things began to click into place in her mind…

Sorrow: …S-Sanitization?

CQ: Indeed. It's a process down here that was used to create many of the creatures used in the testing facility. Victims are generally robbed of sense, thought…and by those facts, life itself…but you seem rather different to…

CQ stopped himself, as he noticed the girl's visible response. She'd barely taken in what he'd been saying as she finally noticed much of what had felt wrong. She had been gazing down at her quivering hands, she noticed her now turquoise green skin for the first time, her fingertips also taking on a teal colour at their ends. And while she was stunned by this, she noticed the slightest tint of an unusual colour coming from her tentacle, the one always visible to her, the one always covering her right eye. Holding it in her hands, the end was far smaller and thinner, coming out to a point instead of a rounded end, and in that same ghostly teal hue that her fingers had. But the shape…it almost looked like…no, it couldn’t be…it couldn't…right?

Sorrow: I…T-This t-tentacle…I-It…It c-can't be…t-that's…t-that's not p-possible…

As she continued to realise and piece together more and more her, hearts were only beating faster. CQ swore he could hear them even from a distance. The girl struggled to her feet once more, returning close to the glass she'd only just been freed from. Only now, thanks to the slight clarity in her eyes and the light emanating from herself, she could see a reflection move parallel to her. And her fears were more than confirmed, as she brought a hand up to her face, the other touching against the reflection. She shuddered as she kept staring at herself in the makeshift mirror, barely able to formulate a coherent thought into speech at what she saw staring back…

Sorrow: Th-That's…that's n-not…t-that's n-not me…

She now saw things she couldn’t have even felt were different…her only visible eye glowed a cyan hue, illuminating her stare into her new self. She noticed how her eye mask had changed, taking on elements of both inkling and octoling. And the other main standout had been her unique tentacles. Despite remaining as a set of 6, they had morphed and twisted into a hybrid of primarily octoling traits, with suction cups on the top outside as well as some also appearing at the ends too as the last semblance of their origins. Out of the 6, only one stood out as inkling like anymore, the long, back left one. Turning and running a hand down her one remaining normal tentacle, the back left one, her tears intensified as the gravity of her situation hit her.

Sorrow: (Sniff)…W-What did t-they…w-what d-did they d-do to me?

CQ: I am unsure…by this judgement, I assume-

Sorrow: N-No…no…nonono…

CQ: Young lady, only I wish to ask-

Despite what CQ was trying to intervene with, he couldn’t stop it. She couldn't hear him anymore. The young cephalopod broke down completely, sliding to her knees down the side of the glass, and bawling her eyes out…CQ stayed by her side, attempting comfort as she kept on weeping…his own ability to extend long blue tendrils were surprisingly inept for this, along him to gently place one “hand” on her knee, the other gently tapping her shoulder. She was surprisingly not freaked out by his odd species-specific ability, instead the attempt at comfort did slowly help her to calm down…if slowly. Finally, after many minutes, CQ tried to speak again, having climbed onto her lap…

CQ: You seem the most different to any of the other sanitized I have encountered. I suspected you retained some level of memory what do you remember?

Sorrow: (Sobbing) I-I remember e-everything…e-everything t-that happened…w-who I used to b-be…

It was far worse than what CQ had initially thought…and it was far worse than even what he was thinking now. Considering he had only found her because she had remained conscious within that chamber too…there was so much this girl knew, CQ didn’t even know where to start with asking…

CQ: Oh dear…I can see how that must trouble you considerably. May I try to help you? It is my duty to help those around here. 

Sorrow: (Sobbing) Y-You can’t…I'm a m-monster, no one w-will want me anymore…n-not after w-what I have b-become…j-just…

She fell over into more of a sitting position than a kneeling one, CQ still managing to stay on her leg for the moment. She was still not doing okay, her confidence had plummeted almost completely…

Sorrow: E-Even if I g-got out of h-here…t-they probably w-wouldn't recognise m-me anyway…I-I'm not the s-same person…

All of a sudden however, something happened…as she'd been thinking more about the past, the teal hues of her tentacles slowly changed colour, beginning to glow a soft yellow hue. The colour was a bit dulled, but it was undeniably yellow. It was a strange phenomenon, even stranger once CQ began to ask…

CQ: This colour…I've never seen a sanitized with this hue before either…ma'am, was your natural colour…?

Before CQ could even finish the question he was looking for answers of, the girl spoke up…it was a different sort of voice to what she'd sounded like in a way. While her voice was usually shaky with stutters, this voice was far more pronounced and calm, not a single word mishandled…

Sorrow: It was yellow…like how…wait…w-what?

And just as quickly as it had occurred and right as she had noticed, the colour faded, giving way to her current teal again. The two sat in shock, both as confused as each other. 

Sorrow: W-What w-was that feeling? I-I…w-what…did I-I…?

CQ: You sounded very…confident?

Sorrow: I-I d-don't know…I-I don't k-know what I just did…

While she spent a few additional seconds confused with herself, CQ was thinking about something related to her directly…

CQ: I don't doubt that you are full of surprises then…in a good way…I'd like you to come with me.

Sorrow: C-Come with you? W-Why? A-And w-where? 

CQ: I believe there's a lot more to you than meets the eye. And well…I'm not letting you stay locked away in here. This room is restricted access only, and it took a lot for me to be able to open these areas of the facility. I believe you will be more comfortable in somewhere less locked down.

The tiny blue creature began to shuffle across the room, towards the exit, though looking back again when he noticed she hadn’t moved an inch, still crying in turmoil. His offer was taken well, but it was still taking a lot for her to process her thoughts. Seeing her hesitance at first as her being unfit to move, he began to return to her side once more, outstretching his scarily long blue “limb” to her wrist. Her body may have been ice cold, but he held on anyway as to comfort her a little more.

CQ: I apologise for my haste. Can you still stand?

Sorrow: (Sobbing lightly) I…I think…I-I t-think I can…b-but…

CQ: I am glad. And I realise I haven't asked for your name thus far. What is your name young lady?

She froze at the thought of even just this aspect of herself. Nothing matched anymore…was she even who her mind said she was? She wasn’t sure about this yet. Still overcome by the intense emotions…she didn’t want to say anything as a name…but then it hit her. A word she recalled from her time trapped…still nervous, she said it in a heartbeat…

Sorrow: …S-Sorrow…t-that can be m-my name…

Unfortunately for her, CQ looked to her with as much discontent as a tiny creature with no visible face could muster. She could tell it from how he proceeded to speak…

CQ: Sorrow…? That's not a very usual name…a very harsh thing to be calling yourself…

The creature looked to those eyes of hers. He definitely knew something wasn’t right with what the girl chose…but she wasn’t one he wanted to push for answers. Not now, at least..

CQ: I don't fully understand your reasoning…but I suppose a name is better than none…let's go, Sorrow. My duty will be to keep you safe, okay?

Sorrow: T-Thank you…t-thank you CQ…

After a moment more of looking back to the place she'd been kept, she finally crept out of the door, finally escaping her torturous hold. CQ followed a moment later, before the door slammed close once again, the light of the outside rooms being cut off once more…

(To be continued in Part 2…)