[Tyrana]: 64.Xaadn.Chapter Three

Xaadn scrambled back to the blanket to recover the two papers. She then fit the whole lot into her pocket, wiped the blood and the tears as best she could, curled up on a pile of blankets in a corner, and wished silently for the curious person to give up with the hatch and go back to sleep.
Xaadn didn’t know when the person left, for as soon as she closed her eyes, she fell asleep.


When Xaadn woke back up, she realized she hadn’t moved at all since she had curled up on the blanket. Every muscle in her body had been clenched all night, her ears rang and buzzed, and there was a dull throb in her head. The dried blood on the blanket and on her shirt proved that her ears didn’t stop bleeding until long after she had fallen asleep.

There were a few windows (Well… vents.) in the attic, but they were covered in snow. Xaadn covered them with blankets, anyway, to keep the cold out. She pushed a blanket aside, and knocked on the slats to un-stick some of the snow. The sun flooded through, but brought no heat with it, so Xaadn replaced the blanket, satisfied that she at least knew it was daytime. She next tiptoed over to a slate, lifted it, and looked into the kitchen. The smell of breakfast floated up through with the usual kitchen sounds, and her stomach immediately started to growl.

From what she could see, they were preparing an unusual amount of food. Apparently, her uncle was to have some more important figureheads for breakfast again today. Ever since his research was published, more and more people came to meet him and marvel at his experiments. These experiments, Xaadn understood, potentially would lead to some of the greatest discoveries in any course of history. Of course, as openly as everyone talked of them lately, she learned more and more about them as time passed. Being a curious individual by nature anyway expanded upon this knowledge.

From what Xaadn had gathered so far, there were two major experiments happening simultaneously, and both were prospering. One of them was spoken of quite openly, and in great detail. It involved some sort of paternal-memory transfer. It was believed that families had some sort of subconscious neural connection. And through some sort of electromagnetic-induced forced telepathy, memories and thoughts could be recovered from the minds of relatives; ancestors… The possibilities would extend to many different areas; History, psychology, crime investigation…

The other experiment was some sort of torture device, Xaadn was sure. It was not called that, of course. It was called many different things. She had only heard about these experiments through large amounts of spying. They were always spoken of between few people at a time, and in hushed voices. From what was said, however, these experiments seemed to be just as important, and would turn out to be just as revolutionary as the others. Which Xaadn found to be unusual, if not downright disturbing.


Xaadn couldn’t think of a way she could possibly sneak to her room from the kitchen, being covered in blood and all… But of course, she couldn’t possibly stay in the attic for another whole day, so she grabbed some snow off of the vents, and rubbed it on her skin and through her hair until she felt she looked at least halfway-normal. Though, she realized, it was exceedingly difficult to get out of her hair, as it had already stained in places. Xaadn ripped out the most of it, and combed the rest around as best she could with her fingertips.

Upon opening a second vent to collect more snow, she found that there was no snow on the outside. It was windy outside, so it wasn’t radically unusual. The slats that made up the vents, though, were warped, and some were in splinters. Figuring the wind blew another branch into the building, she reached her tiny hand in between two broken slats to grab a handful of snow off the window’s ledge. But then Xaadn saw the blood. Droplets of it on the vent, and small puddles of the stuff frozen in the snow on the ledge. Not hers, she was sure. It was on the outside of the windows, drops and puddles, and streaks of it. There were prints, too. They were tiny… Hand prints. The wind blew against the building, sending crystals soaked with blood through the vents into Xaadn’s face. She gasped, and dropped the blanket back over the opening.