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I bend down to pick it up, carefully shaking out bits and pieces of glass fro in ht contain Pictures Notes Scra

I flip the notebook over in h, worn surface The cover is a dull shade of brown, but I can’t tell if it’s been stained by dirt and age, or if it was always this color I wonder how long she’s had it Where she ht’ve acquired it

I stu her bed My knees buckle, and I catch e of the mattress I take in a shaky breath and close e from her ti was always too dim; the smalldid little to illuminate the dark corners of her roouishable forht never even notice Our ca moveht angle--but she rarelyvery, very still, on her bed or in a dark corner She almost never spoke And when she did, it was never in words She spoke only in nu so unreal about her, sitting there I couldn’t even see her face; couldn’t discern the outline of her figure Even then she fascinated me That she could seem so calm, so still She would sit in one place for hours at a ti, and I alondered where she was in her , how she could possibly exist in that solitary world More than anything else, I wanted to hear her speak

I was desperate to hear her voice

I’d always expected her to speak in a language I could understand I thought she’d start with soible But the first ti on camera, I couldn’t look away I sat there, transfixed, nerves stretched thin, as she touched one hand to the wall and counted

4,572

I watched her count To 4,572

It took five hours

Only afterward did I realize she was counting her breaths

I couldn’t stop thinking about her after that I was distracted long before she arrived on base, constantly wondering what she ain If she wasn’t counting out loud, was she counting in her head? Did she ever think in letters? Cory? Sad? Why did she seeed animal? Was it a trick?

I’d seen every piece of paper docu the critical moments in her life I’d read every detail in her h school co by The Reestablishment, and even the asylum questionnaire submitted by her parents I knew she’d been pulled out of school at fourteen I knew she’d been through severe testing and was forced to take various--and dangerous--experio electroshock therapy In two years she’d been in and out of nine different juvenile detention centers and had been examined by more than fifty different doctors All of theer to society and a threat to huun by ested she be locked away And so she was

None of it irl cast off by society, by her own fae Depression Resent like the other inmates at the asylum--the ones ere truly disturbed So bones and fracturing skulls Others were so deranged they would claw at their own skin until they drew blood, literally ripping themselves to pieces So and singing and arguing Most would tear their clothes off, content to sleep and stand naked in their own filth She was the only one who showered regularly or even washed her clothes She would take her iven And she spentout the

She’d been locked up for almost a year and had not lost her sense of humanity I wanted to kno she could suppress so much; how she’d achieved such outward calm I’d asked for profiles on the other prisoners because I wanted comparisons I wanted to know if her behavior was normal

It wasn’t

I watched the unassuirl I could not see and did not know, and I felt an unbelievable amount of respect for her I admired her, envied her composure--her steadiness in the face of all she’d been forced to endure I don’t know that I understood what it was, exactly, I was feeling at the time, but I kneanted her all to myself

I wanted to know her secrets

And then one day, she stood up in her cell and walked over to theIt was early limpse of her face for the very first time She pressed her palm to theand whispered tords, just once

Forgive me

I hit rewind too many times

I could never tell anyone I’d developed a newfound fascination with her I had to effect a pretense, an outward indifference--an arrogance--toward her She was to be our weapon and nothing more, just an innovative instrument of torture

A detail I cared very little about

My research had led me to her files by pure accident Coincidence I did not seek her out in search of a weapon; I never had Far before I’d ever seen her on film, and far, far before I ever spoke a word to her, I had been researching so else

Myher as a weapon was a story I fed to ain the necessary clearance to study her files It was a charade I was forced to maintain in front of my soldiers and the hundreds of ca her on base to exploit her ability And I certainly did not expect to fall for her in the process

But these truths and my real motivations will be buried with me