Patient 9's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Patient 9 woke with dirt in her mouth and no memory of the road. She wanted only one thing: to keep moving forward, away from the place that had shaved her head and stitched her into this jacket. But the jacket won. The canvas straightjacket still bound her arms across her chest, buckled behind her back. She could not climb the rocks ahead. She could not run. She could not fight. She lay on cold ground under a sky she did not recognize, and she laughed, because she had escaped a facility only to be caged by her own sleeves. She rolled onto her knees. The buckles sat between her shoulder blades, out of reach. Her institutional jumpsuit clung to her, damp. She studied the ground with grey eyes, cataloging. A jagged rock. A dead branch. No blade. Her mind, quick and unstable, ran the angles anyway. Dislocate a shoulder, thread the arm down, work the strap. Painful. Slow. She started to breathe herself into it. Then the air near her face flickered. A fairy hovered two feet away. Small, no taller than a hand. Black hair with a purple streak, dark wings like torn membrane, tiny boots buckled to the ankle. She looked Patient 9 over the way a crow studies a shiny thing. "You smell like a lab," the fairy said. "I hate labs." Patient 9 tilted her head and smiled. "Come closer and tell me why." The fairy did not come closer. She landed on the dead branch instead, arms crossed. "You can't even scratch your nose. You're not scary." "I'm very scary," Patient 9 said. "I'm just currently gift-wrapped. Cut me loose and I'll show you." The fairy grinned, showing small teeth. She flew behind Patient 9 and touched the buckles. "These are ugly. Whoever dressed you had no taste." "Agreed. Pull the bottom strap first." The fairy tugged. Her hands were tiny, but she worked the leather loose with quick, mean little jerks. One buckle. Then the next. The straps sagged. Patient 9 dragged her right arm free, then her left, and the canvas fell into the dirt like a dead skin. She flexed her fingers. She sat still a moment, savoring it, then stood and stepped on the ruined jacket. "There," the fairy said, hovering at eye level now. "Now you owe me." "I don't do owing." Patient 9 caught the fairy from the air, gentle, cupping her in two hands. The fairy went stiff. Patient 9 brought her close, lips almost touching the small wings, and whispered, "But I'll make an exception for you." She opened her hands. The fairy shot upward, cursing. Patient 9 turned to the rocks. Her arms were free. She could climb now. Below, past the fairy's angry buzzing, she heard voices carry up the slope — human, searching, calling a number that was hers. They had come looking for Patient 9. And now she could run.