Good Day All,
Here’s my first honest and true Faith’s Friday Fiction of 2016. The last one was posted on Saturday. And the first Friday was designated to fact. Hopefully this is a good sign for things to come 🙂
Any – hoo! Today’s post is a continuation of Wordly Wise Wednesday’s short short Amalgamation. You can check it out here first, but even if you don’t this story should make sense on its own.
A special thanks to Al at hyperactivepandemonium. If it wasn’t for his suggested word, this story might never have been inspired 🙂
Before we jump into it, I’ll just say this: I might be a little silent on social media today and tomorrow because I’m trying to finish a few more chapters of edits to hit my January 31st deadline. I’ll try to respond to comments today, but I want to say now in case I don’t get the chance:
Thank you to everyone who responded to my search for beta-readers. Your generosity and support has overwhelmed me and I am just humbly grateful for your kindness and willingness to help me. I never expected to make such great friends through this blog, but I want you all to know that I consider you as friends, people I trust with my words. I hope you know how much your encouragement is appreciated. I hope you know that it is returned in kind 🙂
Okay, now to our story!
Enjoy 😀
ADAPTATION
Freya awoke to darkness and silence.
‘Open your eyes.’
She issued the command but nothing came of it. Confusion lasted for only a moment, then realization struck like a sharp slap upon a cheek. The Amalgamation had reached its completion and the person she had been would never live again.
‘Delphyra?’
She searched the dark recesses of the mind that she now inhabited for the dominant presence. It wasn’t a surprise that Delphyra’s body had been chosen as the host. She was far more beautiful, far more talented. There would be little training required here.
‘Delphyra?’
Freya prodded the darkness again, a cool anxiety sweeping through her essence.
‘I am here.’ The presence came with a burst of colour as Delphyra opened her eyes.
Freya could see the world beyond the space she occupied. It was not the place she had closed her eyes too, but a small bedroom. Delphyra’s body had been moved and her own…
‘Most likely destroyed already,’ Delphyra mused.
There was a brusqueness that accompanied the thought. Freya bristled at the sound of it.
‘You knew they were going to do it,’ Delphyra said and closed her eyes again, so darkness fell over them once more. ‘There is no more use for it.’
‘It was my body,’ Freya contended.
‘No more. This is your body now. Our body,’ Delphyra corrected.
Her presence weighed heavily over Freya, strong and dominant, but there was a different emotion there too: sympathy.
‘It is not the same.’
‘It was your choice, Freya. You made the decision to take the risk. It was not forced upon you.’
Irritation seeped into her response. ‘That is not the real truth.’ She did not know what they had offered Delphyra in exchange for her acceptance into the Amalgamation program. They had offered her family the medicine they needed to keep her baby brother alive. To have refused would have been to have condemned him to death.
‘Oden.’
Delphyra whispered the name, snatching it up from her memories.
Freya built up a wall in her mind, to keep the girl from those precious moments that were the last remnants of a life she could never return to.
‘You do not need to exhaust yourself with such measures. I will not pry,’ Delphyra assured her. In turn, she offered up a memory of her own, of an elderly woman, her face stained with the salt of falling tears. ‘My Nan. We were separated in the Departure. They promised to find her if I agreed to it. To reunite her with my family.’
‘At least you can go home to them.’ Freya’s bitterness was still present, but tempered in that moment by compassion.
‘They will not let either of us go anywhere yet.’
Delphyra was right. The Amalgamation might be done. But there was still the Adaptation to complete. Then would come the Assimilation. And last…
‘We don’t need to worry about that yet.’
Delphyra’s presence felt lighter than it had before, kinder and more considerate.
It would be difficult for both of them, to get used to sharing a body.
Freya lost any hostility towards the girl whose body would forever now be her essence’s residence. She had been forced to her body, had lost who she was; Delphyra had lost the same thing, forced to give up her unique self to share with another. They had both been changed. It would take some getting used to.
Six months of Adaptation. That’s what it would take.
‘We might as well start now.’
Delphyra exuded an accepting spirit. Freya could feel the smile that curved their lips, directed by Delphyra’s mood.
‘Open our eyes.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You have to try a little harder,’ Delphyra chastised.
Freya focused all her attention on doing the act. ‘Open. Open. Open.’
Darkness was rooted around them.
‘Less force. It’s a simple task.’ Delphyra’s essence pressed closer against hers, guided her. ‘They are your eyes too.’
Freya conceded to the notion, searching for a connection to the eyelids, to convince herself that she could sense them, the thin layer of skin drawn over steel blue eyes.
‘Open,’ she thought once more and they did.
FIN
Oh, almost forgot. I’ll be continuing this story next Friday 😉
May inspiration flow like ink upon your quill,
Faith 
© 2016. Faith Rivens.