Reset

They had killed - they must die. They were the enemy - they must end. Horror upon horror they had conceived from the reeking womb of false liberty. This offspring – this mindless freedom that allowed for the murder they committed and the ‘laws’ behind which they hid – it would die, soon, and forever . . .
Who knew memories that didn’t belong to you could be more vivid than the ones that did? Everything else was still so foggy and discolored – like the morning after a battle when blood-tinged smoke and the fumes of sweaty death still licked upwards from a slick, bone-lined earth. There lay corpses of many men, some so disfigured by bomb-blast and gun-strafe, they could hardly be described as anything more than undulating swathes of foamy red . . .

No. Reset, Loki mentally murmured to himself for the thousandth time. Carefully, he layered thought upon thought over the gory images that, though he possessed them, were not his. He had never seen that kind of battle, nor would he have remembered such details so closely. The harsh sun, slicing like a bloody blade through curtains of smog which reeked of death. Upon the wet faces of tanks, broken shells and crushed helmets, the cruel light glinted. From the slick, bloody side of one helm it reflected, absorbing downwards into a thick, earth-flecked mass of swollen gray . . .

No. Reset.

Again and again. These memories were not his, but now, as Loki sat in his tiny cell, he could begin to understand what had driven him to such deeds of madness. What had goaded him into attempting war on Earth and risking the intergalactic carnage it would cause. If this had been all he could remember? And then those other vague images, all twisted by the darkened mind which had fed him these. A chilling emptiness seized him whenever he wondered which memories were true and which weren’t. To simply think that the ‘good’ ones must be real would never suffice. He had still remembered some of those – those ‘good’ ones. His mother, mostly, and with every memory of her, the fear that what he saw in those which did not belong to him might happen to her if he did not take control.

In short – Loki’s mind was a mess. And worse, there was little he could do about it. And if those things did happen to his mother? Those horrible, cruel, abhorrent, twisted . . .

No. Reset.

Reset to what? Loki wished he knew. Everything that belonged to him – the memories which made him himself – were still too difficult to discern. Not that the angry red ache pounding through his head was any help.

But Loki did not curse the headache any more than he might have cursed the mind-numbing pain in every single healing bone. He only wished that, somehow, it could have happened sooner. Somehow he could have been stopped . . . things could have been different; he could have done different, had a different mind. Not this horrifying, bloody, carnage-infested, terror-filled, gore-bloated, infected . . .

No. Reset.

Leaning forward as little as his bonds would allow, Loki peered before him through the thin air-slits in his cell door. All else was blackness, but where the air came, there also was light. Loki had no doubt there stood at least two guards outside his cell, if not more. He could sense their minds and beings’ presence. Such instinctive abilities the headache did not inhibit. However, the more important things – like memories and constructive thinking . . . well, he would just have to be patient.

The Avengers - they would come speak to him. They must speak to him. Certainly, he knew they would not want to; but how else could they execute their ‘justice’ without providing for a complete statement? Their laws required that the guilty be given a chance to defend. True, Loki did not believe he could talk himself out of this one. But maybe . . . maybe if he asked the right questions and gave the right answers, they might just say enough for him to remember.

Really remember who he was.

Until then, he would wait. He would have patience. Leaning back, Loki tilted his head upward, a short sigh puffing through his nostrils. Relaxing his face, he allowed his eyelids to drift closed. The first jolt around his mouth had warned him duly to not move his lips. Beneath a muzzle of energy-charged metal which wrapped along his jaw and clamped like a vice under his ears, his mouth was encased. They did not want him speaking. They knew the danger of his beguiling tongue. Not even the tall, blond one –whom Loki could vaguely recollect as his brother – dared face him freely. But it mattered little. Loki would bide his time, awaiting an opportunity to ask the questions which gnawed like the pangs of starvation in his mind.

He had to know! Had to be certain which memories were true. This brother of his – did he care or not? This father who appeared so vividly in his mind . . . the expression in his eyes was dark and cruel. But could Loki be certain? Did not the very fact that the only memories he retained of that person were so vivid, link them to the other twisted memories he knew were not his own? Then why couldn’t he find traces of something else – something other than the darkened past the vivid memories seemed to portray?

Another short sigh, No. Reset. Loki thought yet again. It was not only pictures of death and gore that tormented him. The very thought of the unthinkable – the knowledge of the unknown – was more agony of mind than the bloodiest of torture chambers. His very existence was in the balance – his mind on the rack. Yet for all his thinking, he could not piece the shattered pieces of his past together: Who was he? What had he done? Why had he done it? Who had placed these thoughts in his mind? Why? How? When? Would he ever be released from them? If so, by whom? When? Was there nothing he could do? Would he ever remember . . .

The bonds on Loki’s wrists and ankles chafed painfully as he shifted.

No. Reset.