Memoirs of Kitty Siam Ch. 49

Mostly Dead.

Now that I know what I'm without

You can't just leave me

Breathe into me and make me real

Bring me to life - Evanescence

I found myself in total darkness for what seemed like forever. I could not see, hear, or feel, but I knew that I was something. I knew that I was somewhere but what that something was I did not know. I had a feeling that something terrible had happened, but what I knew not. While I was deprived of my senses I could think, reason, and understand but the only thing that I could use my mental faculties on was the darkness that my mind had become.

I was alive, or maybe I was between being alive and being dead but I knew that I existed. I knew that I had a body, a mind, and I had my senses yet none of them were active externally. I tried to reach out with my mind as if I were telepathic but I could not read thoughts, could not sense feelings yet I continued to try until I heard in waves of thought the Music of the Spheres or "Musica Universalis" as it was called by the ancient Roman philosophers. Roman philosophers? How did I know this and who were they I began to think, and this brought me to the reality that I could indeed think and that I was now closer to life than I was to death.

Roman philosophers... Kalabarian philosophers... who were they and why was I thinking about them? Kalabara, a country on a small sub equatorial continent on my home world Annu. Again I reached out with my mind and now I could see the Roman philosophers and the Kalabarian philosophers together on a warm sandy beach, looking out over the ocean as two ships pass each other on the horizon. One ship flies the standard of Rome; the other flies the banner of the Kalabarian Conclave of Merchants. Both ships are powered by sails and oars pulled by many strong men. I watch as the ships begin to pass each other then merge into one, and as the ships join so do the philosophers. All reference of Rome has disappeared from view as the Kalabarian imagery took up dominance.

This meant something but what? As I pondered what I had just witnessed in my mind's eye the darkness came again, but I could still think, I could still reason. I turned my attention to what I had just witnessed and as I focused on the scene that had just vanished my mind I began to process massive amounts of raw data that was being poured in from an unrecognizable source. The flow was too fast to comprehend and decipher on the fly but now I could see it as I focused on the incoming stream. It was numbers, equations, and some sort of code that had meaning perhaps but not to me, at least not right now.

There was nothing to mark the passage of time as the data stream continued. My mind attempted to make sense of the seemingly random numbers and symbols that were being dumped into the empty bucket that was my brain. The stream of data seemed to go on forever and all I could do was watch just as a child would watch vehicles moving on a busy highway as she looked out her bedroom window. Wait, child and window, that means something too?

The data stream had stopped suddenly as I recall seeing myself as a child in a window, but I was never a child in a window. I was a child in a maturation chamber, but how did I know this?

I saw myself as a young girl sleeping in what looked like a stasis pod. There were tubes connected to my arms, and inserted into the various orifices of my body. I knew what this was but how was I seeing myself? Maturation chamber, it has to be. On the chamber is a symbol for a place called Osaka Eugenics... below that is the logo for a corporation named Drax.

My view changed from looking in upon myself to looking outward and seeing what looked like my twin moving toward a control panel mounted to the wall opposite the window where she was watching me. Her young hand moves and dances over a series of keys on a data terminal before the lights inside my maturation chamber go out. The flow of oxygen ceases and I begin to panic. I can no longer see the girl in the darkness; I can no longer think or process what is happening. Once again I am in darkness. For a short period I am once again deprived of my senses, including the capacity to think and reason. My thoughts are black and void once again.

When the light inside my mind comes back on I am aware that my brain is processing something. Much of my available mental power is diverted to doing something with the raw data that had just come in. I gave up on trying to understand what my brain was processing and instead tried to figure out what the meaning was behind the imagery that was being present to me. I thought long and hard of the girl and the darkness that surrounded her movements, then there was a flash forward, or was it backward?

Once again my mind's eye opened and I could see myself as an adult. I was looking at myself as if I were someone else. I circled around my naked self and the me that I was seeing stood perfectly still in the darkness. The void I was in was dark but yet I could see myself. As I examined myself in detail and I brushed my long black hair aside I could see the barcode on the back of my neck, which represented the numbers, "92123931" just below the base of my skull. I was seeing myself as the person known as Kitty, but how did I know this?

My gaze was transfixed on the Kitty representation that stood motionless before me. I was so caught up in trying to figure this out that I failed to notice another naked female moving toward the Kitty that I was examining. As the new entity entered the picture it stopped and stood motionless before Kitty. I had the feeling that I was supposed to know what this meant but my mind was unable to process what was happening. I moved from the Kitty representation to inspect the other entity.

I looked the new woman over and found her to be the twin of Kitty, but a soft voice whispering in my thoughts told me that this was Maew. Who is Maew I thought to myself. This name was foreign to me. I went back to my examination of the second girl, she was the same as the first but she was not the first. She was a duplicate of the first except with one difference. The barcode on the back of her neck was missing. The name, "Maew" echoed through my thoughts as if spoken in a soft whisper by a female voice.

Using my mind's eye I circled them both once again, then felt myself being drawn into the Kitty representation. My view brought me in behind Kitty and for what seemed like a few seconds I stood behind her, admiring her slender figure before I felt myself being pulled inside the body of the Kitty twin that I had just been admiring.

A bout of dizziness took a hold of my thoughts. When I was able to compose myself I found that I was staring at Maew from inside the Kitty representation. For all intents and purposes she was my twin, my exact double and as I admired her beauty... or my beauty as it seemed I could feel renewed life coursing through me. My lungs seemed to be processing oxygen, my heart was beating and worm oxygenated blood was coursing through my veins and arteries. I was alive?

Memories? I remember myself as a pre teen, fresh out of the maturation and basic education chambers. I could see my friends, my instructors, my owner, and the scientists that looked over me as I matured naturally. From there my thoughts advanced as if sped up by a temporal compression wave. I gained life experiences that were foreign to me but in everything that rapidly passed through my mind I knew that these were my life experiences. I knew that I had lived it all, but even through I had lived these experiences, I had not felt the experiences as though I had actually lived them. It was as if someone was reading a story to me about what I had done in the past.

I knew that I had lived my life, or a life that someone or some thing wanted me to live, and remember a life that had passed into history. In all that I had seen I had never witnessed my birth or my death, which was something that I was looking for as the data stream taught me about myself. I do not know how long this took but when it was finished I found myself still standing upright staring lovingly at Maew.

I suspected that Maew had undergone a similar process to what I had just experienced as her facial expression mirrored mine. I could see a glimmer in her eye and I took that to be the end of her learning process as well. What she had learned I could not even take a guess at. I tried to speak to her but the signals from my brain to my speech center and my lips were still disconnected. I tried to move my arms but nothing happened. Trying to move my legs was just as futile as trying to move my arms. That is until Maew took a step towards me.

She moved against me and I felt her arms wrapping around me. She hugged me tightly to her and as her bare breasts met mine I was able to move my arms and hug her back. We stood there for such a long time; well at least it felt like a long time. I needed her touch as much as she seemed to need mine. As our bodies were pressed against each other I could feel her heart beat, I could also feel her chest expanding and contracting with each breath she took.

To me our embrace felt as if the two of us became one, and it just seemed right and natural that we should be together. We rested our heads on each other's shoulders as we stood silently locked in each other's arms. We remained that way until Maew pulled back slowly and lowered her hands to my hips. We looked deep into each other's eyes I felt myself getting lost in her dark black eyes. I was feeling as if I were being hypnotized.

Next I felt her right hand leave my left hip, which caused me to break my visual lock on her eyes. When I looked down I saw a knife with a blade that was about a foot long. There was nothing I could do to stop her as her hand moved forward quickly causing the sharp point of the knife to pierce my belly. I wanted to scream out but once again I was frozen physically and all I could do was process the pain and the experience in my mind.

My eyes moved to hers again as the pain ripped through what would have been my physical body, but now I knew that this was not physical. This was mental but this meant something but I still did not know what. I tried to process what was happening but Maew distracted me when she leaned into me and pressed her lips to mine and kissed me softly. She moved her left hand behind me to hold me steady as she thrust the knife in deeper while thrusting upward. As the knife moved in slowly she forced her tongue into my mouth and even though I knew that she was killing me I could not help but kiss her back. I realized that if I was going to survive, I would have to become part of her, and my kissing her back was the first part of my surrender.

Maew thrust the knife in deeper and the tip moved through my intestines and sliced into my stomach. I could tell that she was becoming aroused by the intensity of our kiss. Her tongue became more forceful as it moved against mine. I could feel the blood running from the open wound she had created. At least I thought it was blood, but then it could have just been my mind reacting to what it perceived was happening. In either case the blood flow felt real, as did the pain of the knife inside me.

She broke our kiss momentarily and moved her lips to my ear and whispered, "do not fight me Kitty, we both know that this is how it is supposed to be." Her words echoed through my thoughts as I felt my legs give out. Maew held on tightly to me and kept me standing upright. For a brief second I felt her hairless mound press against mine as she adjusted her position to support me. Once she had me where she wanted me I felt the knife slide in deeper. The sharp point ripped through my liver and penetrated the lower chambers of my heart. Once my heart was pierced she gave the blade a sharp twist, which intensified the pain I was feeling and widened the gap the blade had made in my heart.

The blood flow from my open belly was tremendous and it was not long before I felt Maew lowering me gently to the ground. I felt myself growing cold as my lifeblood ran from me. She pulled the knife from my belly and tossed it aside. This was all too much for my mind to process, but I did begin to make some sense of what was happening. While I was focused on a reason for this, I felt Maew lay down beside me and pull me to her. My breathing was labored as the blood flow to my lungs and brain had stopped. The last thing I felt was her holding me tightly against her as the blackness came to my mind once again.

I recognized the darkness for what it was, and I knew that I was not dead, but was I alive? What was the next thing I would experience? Something was different now but I did not know what. The darkness was the same as before but somehow I was different. I searched my thoughts but now my thoughts were different somehow, and so were my memories. I was feeling as if there were now two sets of memories competing for the same storage space in my brain and one set was winning the competition for control.

When my mind next saw light I found myself in a dimly lit room. The lighting was natural, not artificial. The walls were made of stone and there was an iron door of sorts that that blocked the only exit from the room. The door was constructed of thick iron bars, spaced far enough to keep an adult human inside. My hands were bound behind my back by cold iron shackles and they were secured to the wall by a chain. I was not alone in the room; well actually it was a cell that I shared with my sister Neko. She too was bound to the wall on the opposite side of the cell. We were both dressed in simple white linen dresses similar to those that the peasants tending the crops in the fields would be seen wearing.

My mind formed the words that I wanted my mouth to say but my mouth would not cooperate with my thoughts. I needed to communicate with Neko to try to understand what was happening but my attempts to talk failed. Somehow I knew that we had both accepted our fate, but I did not know what that fate was. I looked about the cell and determined that the iron bars on the door were just wide enough for both Neko and I to slip through in feline form. I had to tell her but I could not do so.

We were staring at each other so I thought that if I could change to feline form and show her what I was thinking that she would follow as well. The chains that bound my hands, and the chains that bound me to the wall were loose enough to allow the transformation to occur without either of us sustaining an injury. My first attempt at the transformation failed, as did my second and third. Neko was looking at me with concern as she watched me, but the quizzical look on her face told me that she did not understand what I was trying to do. I tried to shout at her but my mouth would not form the words.

I was beginning to understand that what I was looking at was not an interactive adventure, but a memory that could not be altered. I searched my mind for a similar experience and the only thing that came to me was being in the inquisitor's dungeon on Galora, but somehow I knew that the Kreetin dungeon was not my memory, but it was a memory nonetheless.

The jingling of keys outside the cell door interrupted my musings. Our jailers had come for us. The first two to enter the cell were dressed in garb that looked as if they had been transported here from Earth's dark ages. They looked to be a bit too modern to have been from the country of Kreet on Galora. There were men out in the hallway but I could not tell how many, but the few that I could see were dressed in chainmail and were armed with swords, and sharp metal tipped halberds. Once the chain from the wall to my wrist manacles was removed, I thought of arming myself using my wardrobe device but when I tried to deploy my katana, nothing happened. Though my wrists were still bound I could still swing a sword with both hands, but unfortunately when I looked down at my wrist, the tattoo style wardrobe device was gone.

The two jailers worked in concert to remove my manacles before my arms were roughly twisted back behind me where the manacles were reattached to secure my arms and hands once again. I assumed that we were being taken somewhere when they did the same to Neko, but where that was I did not know. I knew somehow that this was a memory, but I was not going to be able to fully understand what this was about until everything had played out to its conclusion.

Before we left our cell a chain was attached that connected Neko's manacles to mine. Once we were secured to each other we were led forcefully out into the corridor were a detachment of twelve soldiers formed up on all sides of us. Their sergeant gave the command to march and the procession started. Our jailers pulled us along as the soldiers kept us secure between them. This all looked too formal to be a simple prisoner transfer, and I was worried about how this was all going to end.

Along the way from the dungeon, and through the corridors of the ancient prison I tried to divine where we were, what had happened and where we were going. I tried to converse with the soldiers but once again; my mouth would not obey the commands that my thoughts were sending. This was a done deal and it appeared that nothing was going to change the outcome.

We were led out of the prison and through the streets toward the center of town. Once we were out of the safety of the prison the town folks began to spread the word and a crowd began to form on either side of the street. None of them dared enter the street in front of our procession, but they sure did fall in behind to follow along. My universal translator (UT) was gone but I could understand what the people were yelling as we passed, but I could not identify their language. We were called murders, traitors, and many other vile names by the town folk. Some of the more boisterous civilians threw vegetables and such at us as we passed by.

In the town square before us on a raised platform was a set of gallows, complete with two black hooded executioners and two nooses made of a rough looking hemp rope. My heart skipped a beat when our procession turned and moved toward the gallows. Above the gallows on a parapet that jutted out from what appeared to be the residence or office of someone important like a mayor or perhaps a governor. These proceedings looked too detailed to have just been put together for a measly mayor or magistrate to officiate over.

On a parapet that over looked the gallows stood several people of important personage, but how important I could not tell until we ascended the wooden steps leading to the platform below the nooses that were gently swaying in the breeze. I was now able to see the faces of those assembled above us, and as I recognized them my thoughts went black and dizziness over took me.

In that moment of blackness and uncertainty I felt as if a portal had been opened in to my mind. I could see the faces above me then as suddenly as I had blacked out; names were put to the faces that I was looking at. Mother, Father, Brother, Royal Solicitor Adnon, General Confessor Birtick, Chief of Staff Montiin. There were many more assembled above the gallows that I recognized, but these were the leaders of the Annunaki Royal Court. As Kitty I should not have known these people but I did.

The blackness came and went and even though my ears could hear words being spoken nothing was registering until the data dump that was filling my brain stopped. I now recognized Barron Mordon, the governor of this province as he spoke to greet the Annunaki Royal Court and his subjects assembled in the town square to observe his justice being dispensed upon Neko and I. This man was the judge that presided over the trial that had found Neko and I guilty and had sentenced us to death.