text: I don't know how long I have been asleep, but my body tells me I am a woman now. I have been separated from my body for awhile as well.
  
  Some years ago, how many I am not sure, the scientists decided I was too dangerous so they put me in a coma. Their life support system keeps my body alive and with it trapped in slumber, they can experiment and take samples all they please.
  
  No one can see me, but I move about among them. I watch them and I haunt them. They all have heard my whispers in their ear, but none dare to speak of it to anyone else. They all know that those deemed mentally incompetent to continue working, are terminated. No one can simply be fired from this, there has to be an elimination of evidence. Either they go through a painful procedure to induce amnesia or collateral is taken. I don't feel sorry for the ones I drive to insanity, I can only take pleasure in the pain of such monsters.
  
  There is...another soul in my body. One that is separate and yet connected to mine. It is small and pure. The only truly innocent thing I have ever encountered in my entire life. I can't help my like it. It isn't intelligent enough to speak or even truly think, but our minds can touch. It's purity eases my pain somehow, gives me a little bit of hope.
  
  But, I am more afraid now than I ever have been before. I am afraid they will corrupt it and take it away from me. As I am now, I cannot stop them. I can only haunt them perhaps move a small object here and there. I'm not strong enough to do any real harm, unlike when I was in my body.
  
  > try to stall their progress
  I stalk the evil creatures both day and night. The scientists have a living quarter in the facility and many of them dwell in this hell hole. Of course, it is much different than the cell I used to sleep in. They have their own luxury apartments within the living quarter, beautiful painted and furnished according to the occupants tastes. My cell had been merely concrete floors with concrete walls and a heavy steel door which could only lock and unlock from the outside. My bed had been a mattress with a few blankets. The only painting on the walls had been my own works of finger painting art. They never gave me paint, so I had to make my own. The red liquid that would come out of my finger if I chewed it long and hard enough was lovely. And I often used that to decorate the drab quarters I called home.
  
  I did not go there any more. It had been sealed since they induced my slumber and threw me in the Vault. It looked the same as it did the day they dragged me away. But, it was painful to enter there. I had no pleasant memories, despite it being the closest thing to physical solitude I had ever known.
  
  Instead, I preferred to send my mind to my tree and swing. My body may have aged, but I still felt very much like a child. My manifested appearance often changed between the little girl I remembered and the woman who I had become.
  
  I liked to haunt them at night.
  
  I would whisper to them in their restless sleep and sometimes, if I tried very hard, I could touch their minds. Oh the nightmares I would give them! Many a monster would awake with a scream in a cold sweat, only to see no one there with them. Then I would giggle so they could hear me and push something off a desk or shelf onto the floor.
  
  They never spoke my name anymore. To them, I was no longer Alma. Giving me personification made them feel... guilty. So they dehumanized me and called me simply The Subject, The Project, or The Origin. They did the same to the little one slowly growing stronger inside of the Vault where they had put him into my body. They called him The Prototype.
  
  > Reached out to your baby
  I begin to pay less and less attention to the monsters in this place and start to focus on the one thing that gives me any peace. I rarely leave the room which contains my body. I guard the Vault with unblinking eyes. My body is always sleeping, therefore I never need to rest. I am a constant haunt within this evil place, the only thing standing between them and my baby.
  
  I feel the strangest tug in my chest when I reach out to his mind now. It is a boy, I know it. His mind is not open to me, I cannot read his thoughts. But, I can touch his soul with mine and it makes me want to cry when I can feel him grow excited at my presence. No one has ever been excited about having a visit from me before.
  
  I like to press myself against the cold steel of the Vault and hum the quiet tune of my old music box. I have never been so close to feeling peace before. Perhaps, when he is born, I will be able to reach out to him even more. Perhaps, one day the two of us can escape this place. I just have to become more powerful, saving my energy and practicing the use of it.
  
  "They won't let you keep him, Alma."
  
  I turned around and saw my doll, Baby sitting on the floor. I had been ignoring her lately, but at times she still appeared and spoke with me. I knew she was correct in that statement, but I wanted to hold on to this sweet, peaceful bliss for just a moment longer. If they took him somewhere my mind could not reach, I have nothing anymore. I would cease to exist as I am. Right now, I am capable of ignoring my anger and hatred, because I can feel his pure soul. It tells me there isn't only evil in the world.
  
  "I know, Baby. But, maybe he will still be here and I can reach him as I am now. I don't need my body."
  
  "And if they take him out of here entirely? Where you cannot reach him?"
  
  "I'll kill them. Every. Last. One."
  
  I stalk the evil creatures both day and night. The scientists have a living quarter in the facility and many of them dwell in this hell hole. Of course, it is much different than the cell I used to sleep in. They have their own luxury apartments within the living quarter, beautiful painted and furnished according to the occupants tastes. My cell had been merely concrete floors with concrete walls and a heavy steel door which could only lock and unlock from the outside. My bed had been a mattress with a few blankets. The only painting on the walls had been my own works of finger painting art. They never gave me paint, so I had to make my own. The red liquid that would come out of my finger if I chewed it long and hard enough was lovely. And I often used that to decorate the drab quarters I called home.
  
  I did not go there any more. It had been sealed since they induced my slumber and threw me in the Vault. It looked the same as it did the day they dragged me away. But, it was painful to enter there. I had no pleasant memories, despite it being the closest thing to physical solitude I had ever known.
  
  Instead, I preferred to send my mind to my tree and swing. My body may have aged, but I still felt very much like a child. My manifested appearance often changed between the little girl I remembered and the woman who I had become.
  
  I liked to haunt them at night.
  
  I would whisper to them in their restless sleep and sometimes, if I tried very hard, I could touch their minds. Oh the nightmares I would give them! Many a monster would awake with a scream in a cold sweat, only to see no one there with them. Then I would giggle so they could hear me and push something off a desk or shelf onto the floor.
  
  They never spoke my name anymore. To them, I was no longer Alma. Giving me personification made them feel... guilty. So they dehumanized me and called me simply The Subject, The Project, or The Origin. They did the same to the little one slowly growing stronger inside of the Vault where they had put him into my body. They called him The Prototype.
  
  > Tried to distance yourself it
  I felt a tenderness I had never felt before to the little soul sharing the Vault with my comatose body. Yet, I feared losing it would take the last little bit of my sanity with it. As time crawled on, I began to spend less and less time near the Vault. I merely kept an eye on the scientists, to make sure they weren't planning anything new.
  
  Eventually, I find myself standing outside the door to my old cell. I have not been here in awhile, it has been to difficult to look at it. Sometimes, a young soldier or janitor would enter it. This was strange to me, they did not know I was here. Why did they come? Was it just to taunt me?
  
  This made me angry, why did they have invade my safe hold even when it was no longer where I slept? Did they want to torment me that badly?
  
  It pissed me off.
  
  I waited for the next visitor to come, this time a young soldier who was new to the security force in the facility. From what I caught of the conversation, he had to sleep the night in my room as an...initiation.
  
  I would teach them once and for all, that I am not to be taken lightly.[Themes: fantasy, family friendly, fantasy, socially important, animal perspective, female protagonist]
  
  Once upon a time...
  
  [Author's Note: When the weather is fine, you've been coming to this grove to drink from the pool for centuries now. Today, you meet a stranger and hear a story that changes all that... A fairy tale adventure.]
  
  > By a clear pool in the forest...
  The soft winds sigh through the blossoming trees overhead and caress your silken white fur as you approach the brim of the pool. The air is heavy with a scent of green herbs softened with sweet floral notes. Stepping with care so as not to let your silver hooves crush too much of the vibrant moss beside the water's edge, you dip your head and begin to drink. The sweet, cold water trickling from the rocky hillside splashes across the tip of your spiraling silver horn.
  
  You were called by the name Edelweiss, long ago, when names still had meaning. Those who named you have gone elsewhere, to places you can't yet follow, and after a time spent traveling in younger days, you've been alone in this pleasant portion of the wood for some years now.
  
  Aside from the occasional disturbance from the fae folk, or a human traveler.
  
  The sounds of rustling bushes and heavy breathing warn you a long time in advance of the approach of the latter. Humans always do make quite the event of the simple act of moving from one place to another.
  
  You have moved well out of sight by the time the man makes his way into the peaceful clearing, red-faced and huffing and puffing, a loaded crossbow clattering against his side. His eyes light up at the sight of the pool and his boots sink deep into the mud as he drinks deeply, then sloshes more of the crystal liquid into an empty waterskin until the goatskin vessel bulges. He then splashes his face and gazes all around before unrolling a greasy piece of parchment and peering at it awhile.
  
  The stranger is still a young man, with blue eyes and brown hair and a short, curly beard. He is tanned and sturdily built, appearing not unaccustomed to labor, though not as wild as the woodsmen and hermits and ruffians you have mostly encountered in the past.
  
  He seats himself beneath a tree, preparing to rest.
  
  "It has been a number of summers since one of the sons of men have left their footprints beside the water here." You step from the dappled leafshadow, allowing him to see you now.
  
  The man startles and stares, jaw slack. "Well I'll be..." He breathes out the words in an awed whisper, doffing his hat and rising to his feet. "You really are real." His movements are slow and careful, as if he's afraid you'll spook like a doe.
  
  Arching your long neck, you tilt your head a bit to regard him, swiveling your ears this way and that. Curious. So this is no chance wanderer after all, but a man who seemed to know of you.
  
  "Indeed. But the children of men have short memories. I have been forgotten and rediscovered many times, since I first came to dwell in this wood. How came ye to be here, traveler?"
  
  "Now that..." He perches himself on a stone, idly rotating his hat in his hands. "...is a bit of a tale."