mc: Rio }last name{

universe: idk

Rio was voluntold into an experiment at age five.  she was trained and fine-tuned into something like River Tam (Firefly series, Serenity) at a lab thing, similar to the place Eleven (Stranger Things) was raised.  At age fifteen, Rio is told to write a letter to herself, assemble a box full of personal things with meaning and sentimental weight and record a short video message.  Then the Caretakers induce full amnesia on her, removing all the skills and knowledge from the last ten years from her mind.  She wakes, knowing nothing but a vague felling that she is in danger.  She can't even remember her name.  The Caretakers show her the video and give her the letter and box of items.  Pre-amnesia Rio tells amnesiac Rio, through the video and letter, her name and some details about herself.  Rio still feels like there is something wrong.  There are clues left in the box and letter, leading Rio to believe something much more sinister is going on than an experiment to test what amnesiacs can recover with whatever stimuli.  

There are others-- eight in total.  they all have been trained and have amazing capabilities.  They all lose their memory at different times.  They are all varied in their abilities, but all have some similarities-- photographic memory, martial arts and combat skill, ect.  Some excel in other areas more than others; hacking, more advanced martial arts, reading people, etc.

 Her head felt like cotton soaked in dirty water.  But...

  The thoughts wouldn't form.  They wouldn't get in line, she couldn't control them, couldn't figure out why.  After several more minutes, seconds, hours, she opened her eyes.  

  The ceiling was flat, tiled, and light gray in color.  A can light in each corner provided the light-- a harsh light, dialed down to about 40% brightness.

  But how did she know what 40% brightness looked like?  How did she know that the lights were actually harsh and sharp when not dimmed?

  A feeling, like resignation or dread or deja vu or all three came over her.  The feeling said, 'no, not again...not again...'  Again?  She had no reason to feel like this had happened before.  It hadn't.  Nothing had happened.

  Now her head felt like a gaping, aching void barely contained by her skull.  Where was all the thoughts?  No, the *memories?*  

  *Where are you?*

  the void in her head didn't answer, only throbbed with her heartbeat.

 She groaned, lungs feeling sore.  Tried to clutch at her head, but her arms didn't respond as they should have.

  Her head had some limited mobility; she could lift her chin a little, and tuck it to her chest.  It moved stiffly, as if rusted, when she tried to turn it sideways, but complied. 

  She was in a small room, perfectly square.  Two doors stood at either side of the room; one had a small rectangular window at eye height, the other had no window.  the bed was lined up on a wall, the headboard on the same wall as the windowless door.  At the foot of the bed rested a wooden chest, the lid only just visible from her prone position on the bed.  Across the room, a cart with a small TV or monitor sat next to a full length mirror parallel with her head; her reflection stared back at her from the shiny surface.

  She had dark skin; not black like African, more like hispanic.  Wide-set green-blue eyes above broad cheeks and a plump, scowling mouth.  Her eyebrows lowered, then lifted as if in surprise. She didn't feel any of it, could barely move her eyes.  She stared at the face in the mirror.  It must have been her own face, but it didnt look familiar.  She couldn't place the features in her memory, the were completely new to her...or were they?  The dread in the pit of her stomach writhed at the sight of the mirror, telling her that *something was wrong.*

If she had no knowledge, how did she know how the mirror worked?  Why didn't she think it was a stranger looking at her, how did she know it was her own face in that pane of glass, gazing back into her own eyes with mounting horror?  

Her breath came in gasps, chest heaving.  *Stop that.  Panic wont get you anywhere.*  Automatically, she slowed her breaths down to controlled five-second intervals of inhaling and exhaling.  Where had that habit come from?  It was second nature, but why?  

As her breathing calmed down, the questions kept swirling.  But when the answer felt close, it flinched away, leaving a metallic taste in her mouth.  No, not metallic... *chemical.*  

The lights in the ceiling flashed brighter than they should be able to, blinding her, cutting into her skull.  Why were the lights so bright?  Why did they hurt so much?  In an instant, it went from painfully luminous to *excruciatingly searing sound*.  She clenched her jaw, trying to contain it, but a scream ripped her throat.  Her spine thrashed, as if trying to escape the agony tearing at her skin, but she was barely aware of it.  

A distant *bang*.  Hands, restraining her, pushing her down flat.  A prick in her neck.  It sharpened as her muscles contracted, then faded away.  Then everything faded away. 

At some point, she realized she was awake.  It took several moments, because the room was pitch dark.  The sheets under her were cool and smooth.  She took a deep breath, listening to the soft, barely audible rustling of her clothes and the sheets moving with her.  She blinked, testing if her eyes were closed without her realizing it; nope, the darkness stayed even when she stretched her eyelids as far as they could go.  But she could feel the motion now, when before her face had been numb.  

Numb... Sounds murmured at the back of her brain, but she couldn't quite hear them.  A rhythm...a melody?  She gritted her teeth.  

Her mind felt like it was...swaddled, all motion restricted.  Her thoughts moved slowly, unable to form coherent trains of thought that actually went anywhere.

In the pitch black, time passed without her.  She counted her breaths until she lost count.  Then she started picking a number and counting backward from it, then back up.  Eventually she lost count again.  A rhythm had crept into her head over the untold hours, pounding out of sync with her heartbeat.  Then words, patterns of them.  They swirled in meaningless loops, just out of sight.  Her jaw ached; she realized she'd been clenching it much too hard, so she forcibly unclenched it.  She stretched her mouth wide to work out to kinks in the muscles.  She hummed tunelessly into the pressing darkness, not bothering with rhythm.  

A sound reached her ears: footsteps.  She tensed her muscles.  The door clicked open -- the sound echoed in her skull -- and light flooded her vision through the doorway.  It was like a gash in the dark cloth she'd been shrouded in for half an eternity.  She squinted into the sudden brightness, wishing her eyes would adjust already.  A silhouette appeared through the gap in the darkness.