Wasp

Chapter 17: Wasp

Wasp opened a small leather journal and got a pencil out of their pocket. They took a deep breath and started scribbling words down.

"I never knew my parents, not really. I don't remember my childhood either, all there was were fractured memories, like viewing someone else's life through a misty window.

The first thing I remember was running, I still don't know why I was running or who I was running from but I ran and I didn't stop. That was...before they took me in, my family. They were like me, runners. They had run from themselves or their family or sometimes just for the thrill of running.

Me and the gang ran together for a while, the pack as we called it. Angel was our leader of sorts, she trained us in everything from how to kill an enemy silently to how to crochet. She was a mentor of sorts, she showed the pack the way. Angel was also the only one who knew of my...condition, a secret I would take to the grave. I'm not human.

I am a synth, manufactured in the Institute, a robot, a slave, just another pawn in the institutes game. And that's why I ran, I don't want to be C3-2..."

Wasp crossed the last five words out and re-wrote them.

"I am not C3-2"

Wasp looked out too sea again and inhaled, the salty air filled their lungs as they continued to write. It felt weird to write in their journal again, they hadn't written in it for years.

"James and Ryan are nice, I feel like the third wheel but it's not so bad once we get moving. They're going to hate me now. James knew something was up this morning and Ryan had always been wary of me from the start. They seem like the kind of people who would destroy a synth no matter who they were. Most don't see synths as human which is true but any of the 'defective' synths like me, the ones who break free from the Institutes programming, are aware of everything, they don't feel the same as humans and I'm yet to figure out certain emotions but at the same time we still feel pain, physical and mental.

And I feel it now, the same pain I felt when the institutes soldiers killed my friends, they came back. They hunted for me, they killed everyone. It was my fault, I was the only synth there and when they tried to protect me, when Angel tried to protect me they killed her. That was the first time I felt it, the pain. After I escaped I came back and wandered the broken house where we once lived. The packs blood soaked the floor and dripped through the cracks in the floorboards. Of course they fought, but the institute just sent more and more troops, for every synth they killed three or four more teleported into its place.

And now it was happening again. I'd led them too their death. Once they say they don't know where I'm currently located the synths would kill James and Ryan just as they killed my previous family. I would run of course like I always did and I'd keep running leaving a trail of death in my path. But at the same time, I don't want to run anymore."

Wasp closed the journal and put their head in their hands, listening out for the inevitable gunshots. And they came, finally they came. The gunshots rattled round wasps artificial head like a heartbeat they never had.