Page 1 of Alchemised
Prologue
HELENA WONDERED SOMETIMES IF SHE STILL HAD eyes. The darkness surrounding her never ended. She thought at first if she waited long enough, some glimmer of light would appear, or someone would come. Yet no matter how long she waited, there was nothing.
Just endless dark.
She had a body; she could feel it wrapped around her like a cage, but no amount of effort or determination could make it move. It floated inert and unresponsive except when jerking violently as the surges hit—jolts of electricity tearing through her, beginning at the base of her neck and making every muscle in her body seize violently. As suddenly as they came, they’d be gone. They were her only sense of time.
They were done to ensure her muscles couldn’t deteriorate altogether while she was in stasis. Helena remembered that detail. Remembered that she’d been placed there as a prisoner, kept preserved, but someday, someone would come for her.
At first, she’d counted the time in between surges to calculate their frequency. Second by second. Ten thousand, eight hundred. Every three hours without fail. Always the same. Then she’d counted the surges, but as the number grew and grew, she stopped, afraid to know.
She forced herself to focus on other things, not the wait. Not the endlessness. Not the dark. She had to wait, so she gave herself a routine to keep her mind fresh. Imagined walks. Cliffs and sky. Visited all the places she’d ever wandered. All the books she’d read.
She had to endure. To stay alert. That way she would be ready. She had to stay ready.
She would not let herself fade away.
CHAPTER 1
WHEN LIGHT CAME, IT NEARLY SPLIT HELENA’S brain open.
There was screaming.
“Fuck! How’s this one awake?” A voice broke through the sensory agony.
Light was stabbing her. A spike driven through her eyes, burrowing into her skull. Gods, her eyes.
She writhed. The brightness blurred, careening. The burn of fluid rushed down her throat. A roar in her ears.
Slick fingers dug into her arms, against bone, dragging her up. Air hit her lungs, sending them seizing as the fluid came back up.
“Fuck this stasis gel. Can’t get a decent grip. Make her shut up! She’s about to drown herself.”
Her head slammed into something as she was dropped. Rough stone tore her hands. She scrabbled blindly, trying to push herself up. Her eyes squeezed shut, but the light was still a knife in her skull. A hard object was ripped off the back of her neck, and something warm and wet ran across her skin.
“How the fuck is she awake? Someone must’ve fucked the dosage on this one. Don’t let her crawl off.”
Her arms were gripped again, and she was heaved up from the ground.
She tore herself free, forcing her eyes open. All she could make out was blinding white. She lunged towards it.
“You fucking bitch, you cut me!”
Pain exploded across the back of her head.
THERE WAS STILL LIGHT WHEN she regained consciousness.
It came slowly, as though she were underwater, swimming towards a surface that rippled just beyond reach, consciousness seeping back in. Her eyes were closed; the light was just beyond them. She could feel the pain of it already.
She was lying on something hard. A cold table, its metal inert beneath her fingers.
She could dimly make out voices, muffled but close.
“Well?” A woman’s voice. “Any others?”
“No.” A man’s voice. That first voice from earlier. “We’ve pulled the rest out. It was just this one stored wrong.”
“And she was conscious when you opened the tank?”
