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ALEXA STOOD AT THE edge of a body of water that reminded her of Lake Superior, except the water was mirror-smooth. The air didn’t smell of sand or silt, and craggy rocks bit at the soles of her feet. Bright sunlight burned her eyes. The edges of the world continuously fell in and out of focus.
I am not ready to go.
A voice thundered through her mind but not her ears. A pillar of light ignited beside her.
“I want you to go.” Alexa flinched away from her brilliant companion, Una, the shining, glorious, dangerous Bright One who stood beside her
When you forget me, it will be as if I never existed. No one left to mourn poor lost Una. One of the last of my kind. That is what they wanted. For everyone to forget us. Complete and utter eradication of my people.
“Everything is so hard for me,” Alexa said, unable to bear looking at the small sun of a unicorn beside her. “I don’t want this. I want to be normal. I want to be boring again.”
You can never go back to before. Una tossed its head. Fire burst from its pink nostrils. Let them try to rip me from your brain. I refuse to disappear. I am a part of you now, Alexa.
“No, you’re not.” Even as Alexa said the words, she sensed Una’s quiet rage when the resplendent beast quivered, snorting and pawing the rocks. “This was all a horrible accident. The fact we ever met was one big accident.”
Or fate.
Alexa let out a hollow laugh. “I don’t believe in fate.”
A sudden wave crested and splashed at Alexa’s feet. A chill seeped into her toes and legs and crept up her body. Goosebumps pebbled her skin.
Una dimmed. They can try to cut me out of you. And they might succeed. You will miss me when I am gone, Alexa Baxter. I will leave a hole you cannot fill.
“I’m sorry, Una.” She wrapped her arms around her trembling shoulders. “It’s better this way. I wish every day that I had never met you.” The bone-deep chill threaded up her spine. “I should have left you in the bathroom. I don’t know why I thought I could save you.”
You nearly saved me. In the end, a lake got in the way.
“I’m not meant to know what I know. I don’t want to break any more mirrors.” The cold crystallized in Alexa’s lungs until breathing hurt. Ice clutched her heart and stiffened her joints. The dry air prompted a series of coughs. Her body tipped back onto the shore. Beneath her, the rock altered to sand then changed to a hard slab of ice. The lake receded into a rising fog.
Please, do not forget me. Your memories of me are all that are left.
Una’s star faded into the mist.
Reality shifted. The fog became smooth beige walls and a concrete floor. What room was this? No wonder she was cold. What happened to her clothes? Why was she covered in a thin sheet? Holy shit, did someone remove all the hair from her body? She peered closer. Yep. But why?
Alexa let out a low, deep groan and sat up, taking in every detail. She had been lying on a stainless steel examination table in what seemed to be but couldn’t be an examination room in a clinic.
That couldn’t be right. Where was she? What had the Inspectors done to her?
Tall, unadorned walls made up the windowless room. A large mirror covered the wall across from her, reflecting an image that didn’t match her surroundings. Mirror-Alexa was surrounded by polished, stainless-steel walls and hundreds of blinking digital screens.
“Oh, shit.” Alexa grasped the smooth plains of her now bald head. “And I was finally getting it to a length I liked.”
A voice boomed from a speaker in the corner of the room. “Alexa Baxter?”
“Yes?” Alexa pulled the stiff, thin blanket tight to her naked body. She must still be in the Inspection Unit, but she had no idea how much time had passed or what they had done to her.
“We surveyed your vitals while you were unconscious,” the voice continued. “As far as we can tell, everything is in order. Before we proceed, we want to tell you, first and foremost, we respect your right to exist. We intend to continue with this inspection without causing you any harm.”
“Respect my right to exist?” Alexa peered at her reflection surrounded by glaring surfaces and flashing lights. Were the “blinders” they used to modify her vision glitching? Someone or something the size of an elephant stood behind the other side of the dark mirror. Were the Inspectors really that big? “Oh God, I don’t like this. This is too much.”
“Do you require a sedative, Alexa Baxter? You appear distressed.”
“No, I’m fine. This is all just a lot,” Alexa said, covering her eyes and taking long, deep breaths. Her fingers brushed a small metal disk on each temple. Those must be the Blinders. “Happy thoughts, Alexa, happy thoughts.”
“However, we must warn you. We are not used to performing such procedures on such a nascent species. We must request complete compliance with every task we are about to execute. Otherwise, your health may be at risk.”
“Fucking awesome.” Alexa rubbed her eyes with one hand and clutched the sheet with the other. “You’re not going to kill me accidentally, are you?”
“Absolutely not. We have prepared for all outcomes.”
“So, what’s next?”
“We have already done the first phase by determining your base composition status,” the voice droned. “Next, we will perform a detailed scan of your neurological system. The scan should show us what went wrong when the Brume attempted to remove part of your memory. We intend to find what else may have been altered in the process.”
“Altered?”
“You have attempted to hide it from us, but we know your unforeseen telekinetic powers.”
She shuddered. “You saw that?”
“More times than you realize, Alexa Baxter.”
“Is it going to hurt?” She couldn’t tolerate sitting any longer in the sterile room. She wrapped the blanket against her shivering body and slipped off the slab, her bare feet padding across the cold concrete. The room smelled faintly of something similar to bleach. Her feet left prints on the otherwise polished floor. She nibbled on her bottom lip, hoping the Inspection would be as painless as a flu shot.
She stepped closer and closer to her reflection and pressed a hand to the glass. Her eyes appeared wide and frightened in the mirror. She looked genuinely bizarre without any eyebrows. Could the Inspectors grow them back after her procedure? Probably not the best questions to ask at the moment.
“We cannot anticipate,” the voice boomed. “However, there is no other option. We cannot let a human of Earth continue to maintain your current knowledge or abilities. It is against several MGA edicts.”
“So, just to be perfectly clear,” Alexa’s breath fogged the mirror, “you’re going to remove all my memories of the Bright One? Each and every one? And the Brume? Nothing about them either?”
“Affirmative.”
“And help me stop moving things with my mind?”
“Affirmative.”
“Best news ever.” Alexa drew a smiley face in the fog and shivered. “When can we get started?”
“Immediately, Alexa Baxter.”