| Subject: Hope (Untitled) - Chapter 1 |
Author:
Athena4
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Date Posted: 18:22:09 07/20/03 Sun
In reply to:
Athena4
's message, "Hope (Untitled)" on 18:20:25 07/20/03 Sun
When Madeline arrived on Soviet soil, a faint inkling of hope still remained.
It was an irrational hope, the same hope held by everyone when they first arrive at Five. A vague belief that their assignment would be short term, that within a few weeks, a month at the outside, Section would retrieve them, pull them from the Hell that was Five, and return them to the relative comfort of their lives at One.
Madeline, coming from a position at Adrian’s side, had more reason than most to believe she would receive a reprieve, and perhaps that’s why realisation, when it came, was so difficult to deal with. For many at Five, hope faded slowly, killing them as surely as any wound. But for Madeline, it was shattered early on, left wrecked and bleeding in the heavy snow by the sting of a bullet.
That injury, barely two weeks into her tenure, almost killed her. But it wasn’t the wound itself that devastated her, it was the reality. Her life at Five had begun and, like those there before her, and those who would come after – there was no escape.
No escape save death itself.
And yet, almost against her own will, she healed. And as the days turned to weeks, and the weeks to months, she found herself not merely surviving, but adapting to her new environment. Trials became routines. Injury became nothing more than inconvenience – recovery time quickened. And the day to day horrors that had stolen the hopes of so many others became commonplace.
Yet, after Madeline’s injury, things changed at Five. For everyone. Remarkably, the casualty rate dropped. It seemed that while hope was gone, and by all outward appearances remained gone, something still remained. A will to live, perhaps; a drive to survive, no matter what the cost. Somehow, they’d learned that exile to Five didn’t mean death; that survival was possible, if painful.
It was a sort of rebirth, one that made the powers at Centre sit up and take notice. But to those accustomed to using Five as a sort of Abeyance, it was not only inconceivable, it was unacceptable.
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