Redemption’s Power

Episode 3

(Read Episode 1: HERE , Episode 2: HERE)


Burn Out

Cassy watched the lights above her go by… 1..2..3.. as her gurney was pushed down the hall. They had sedated her again, and she had let them. Over the past couple of months (she wasn’t quite sure exactly how long) her doctor had been giving her his version of electro shock therapy. Cassy was a freak twice over; born with the ability to manipulate energy, and scarred with a Schizoaffective disorder that left her hearing the voices of the people she had accidentally killed, screaming in her head. Desolation and pain ruled her days now, as she was ‘treated’ for her ‘problem’ in this prison-hospital. She had let them drug her without a fight because she just didn’t see the point of trying anymore.

The Doc. had been using the old electro shock equipment that he had pulled out of the basement of the building. It gave Cassy a headache and made her tingle with energy, but did nothing for the screams in her head. In fact the screams grew louder and more detailed when they did this, making what could have been mildly pleasant into a nightmare. Neither effect had been what the Doc. was after so he had been modifying the old equipment.

Cassy looked around the room as they pushed her in and would have panicked if it wasn’t for the sedative. There was hardly enough room for the people already there let alone her gurney and the ones pushing it. The entire room was edged with big generators. On one side of the room, in between two of the generators was an elaborate computer system with multiple monitors. Two assistants that Cassy did not recognize sat at the computer controls. As people shuffled to get her in the large lab chair, she saw them staring at her with only mild curiosity.

The chair was made totally out of metal and was very cold. Cassy shivered as they sat her in it, but nobody seemed to notice or care. They locked her into the chair with metal restraints and shoved her head into a metal cap. Cassy was sweating now, if she could have screamed she would have. Didn’t they know all this metal conducted electricity!? She hoped to God they had thought to ground it because if they hadn’t and they pumped this much electricity into her…

“I believe we are ready Doctor.” Said one of the computer people she didn’t know.

She wanted to say, ‘ready for what?’ but all she could do was stare at the celling and wait for whatever it was to start. Her mind was tense and screaming, yet her body was limp and completely unresponsive except for the cold sweat of fear that soaked through her gown.

“Let’s start where we left off last time: 300 watts.” said the good Doctor, bending over to look Cassy in the eye. “Today it will be more than a tickle.” He said, and instead of an attempt at humor aimed at reassuring Cassy, his eyes told her he was excited at the prospect of finally hurting her.

She could feel the blood draining from her face, and she tried to struggle against the sedative. Cassy wanted to run, to get away from this horrible man who wasn’t trying to help her, but only break her. The hum of the generators went up a notch and Cassy felt the power flow into the table, and into her. On the old machine the electricity went into her through little electrodes on her head, now they were pumping it directly into the metal table. ‘What were they thinking?’ Cassy thought. Where did they think all this energy was going to go after she filled up?

The energy sang to her as it entered her body, it would have been beautiful if it wasn’t for the screams of the people in her head. As the watts they pumped into her increased so did the volume of their screams. Then they started talking, individual voices carrying through her head over the deafening cries of the dead.

“My baby! You killed my baby!”

“Murderer! Freak!”

“Spoiled child.”

“You should die for what you did!”

On and on they went, as they fed more and more power into the chair and into her. Her gown started smoking and the people watching moved back as far as they could, then her eyes began to glow.

“Yes,” said the Doctor, “now we are getting somewhere. Increase the wattage; we must burn out the circuit!” Cassy wanted to scream in terror at the glee in his voice, but her throat was clenched too tight to even breath let alone scream.




Cassy’s gown burst into flames and one of the nurses screamed. The Doctor laughed and ordered more power, as an aide put out the flames with a fire extinguisher. Her skin glowed and Cassy felt a mix of ecstasy and horror as the energy washed all traces of the sedative away yet left the voices to roar in her head like an inferno of hate. She once again felt the train’s engines overload, once again saw the look of horror on her father’s face, and in that instance she knew how to stop the energy flow. The table was her connection to the generators, and the computers that controlled them. Clumsily she sent the power cursing through her back the way it had come. She wanted to shut down the computers, so she went through the generators to them and pushed just a little.

The explosion sent the computer people crashing into her table which then sent a massive jolt of electricity into them. They danced and burned and Cassy whispered, “sorry” into the sudden darkness. A darkness broken only by her glow, which did not decrease with the death of the computers, for without the computer’s controlling them, the generators went into overload. They pumped out more and more energy which flowed right into Cassy.

Her back arched as the roar of energy finally drowned out the screams in her head. A sudden wave of euphoria flowed over Cassy and her mind stilled for a split second. In the stillness of her mind Cassy heard the Doctor say, “YES! BURN HER OUT!” and anger took hold of her as it had on the train. That part of her that was the energy reached out and gave the generators a push, sending a violent feedback throughout the entire building’s electrical system. The building shook with multiple explosions, and the last thing Cassy remembered was the good Doctor being enveloped in flames as the generators blew.

(Read Episode 4: HERE)

© Maria Rich 2011

This entry was posted in Serial Story “Redemption’s Power” and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply
