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It's only a needle.
Only a needle.
Only. A. Needle.
She keeps repeating these words to herself, over and over again.
It is her mantra.
It's the chant that she repeats to steel her nerves and make her all the more determined in the task at hand.
It's only a needle.
She swallows thickly and looks at it clutched between her fingers.
It's so much more than just a needle.
And she knows it.
The contents of this syringe will change her forever.
Forever as in…forever. For always. No going back, no changing her mind, no last minute doubts.
This will change her forever.
Maybe for the better, maybe for the worse.
No. She won't let herself think like that.
It's only a needle, after all. A little pin prick in the arm. Nothing more.
And it will change her for the better, she's certain of it. She has faith in that.
There's no way it would change her for the worse. Doctor Beckett said this will strip away all of her Wraith DNA and she believes him.
This will make her what's she's always wanted to be.
This will make her human.
Human. Like father.
There's a part of her that protests as she plunges the needle in. The Wraith part of her that isn't ready to be banished into nothingness. It's almost like it's...afraid.
She ignores it.
Surely the sacrifice of that aspect of her genetic make-up will be worth it.
She can see the future so clearly. The future where she and her father will be more than hermits in the forest. When she'll be able to interact with humans as one of their kind. When no one will look at her the way the runner does.
When she won't have to feed like a Wraith does. When she can survive on normal food, like she did when she was a child.
She smiles to herself at the thought.
She'll be human and she won't be lonely anymore.
Maybe someday she'll find a mate, have children...human children...and her life will be filled with happiness.
She'll finally feel like the hole in her heart has been cemented over and healed, because she'll be more than a monster that feeds on the life force of other living creatures.
There's something like ecstasy blooming in her chest at the thought of her bright future as a normal human. At the thought of really being father's daughter.
Her hopes for that future are shattered as she realizes that something is wrong.
Something other than the Wraith part of her dying.
No...it's not the Wraith part that's slipping away. It's the human part.
The human part that is shrinking away to nothing inside her, leaving her beastly instincts to fill the void left over.
No! This isn't supposed to be happening! This wasn't part of the plan!
Whatever is left of her humanity is weeping for it's loss.
What she'd always wanted was right there within her grasp, she had tried to reach out and touch it but now it's gone, replaced by an unyielding, inhuman hunger spreading through her gut, gnawing at the lining of her useless stomach and demanding it's needs to be met.
She drops the needle and it smashes on the ground.
She was so close to her dreams.
But not close enough.
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A/N: Arg! I'm going through a very 'write lots of depressing stuff just to get it out of my system' type of thing this week. I don't know what's wrong with me. I guess I'm all burnt out on humor for now and the angst bunnies have decided to demand attention for a change.
Written for the one hundred first sentences prompt 'It's only a needle' on the When Plot Bunnies Attack forum. Originally, this was going to be about Rodney getting the gene therapy that would change his life, but when I sat down to write it, this is what came out of me instead.