I See Them

Darkness Within

This chapter gets dark. Like, really dark with some gore. Just a heads up. But I'm honestly super happy with how this chapter came out! I'm super proud of it, and I usually attack everything I do, so that's saying something.
I hope you enjoy it!

Song for this chapter is I'm Dangerous by The Everlove
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"Please, momma!" Peter begged, tears streaming down his pale and sunken cheeks. The tiny eight-year-old stood pressed up against the cement wall, petrified. Blood trailed down his skinny chest from the three-inch-long incisions below his collar bones, staining the pale grey fabric of his shirt red.

Richard roughly grabbed his son's arm in an iron grip, eliciting a small whimper from the young mutant. "What have we told you about that?" He snapped, voice hard and void of any emotion.

"'M, sorry." Peter instinctually tried to shy away from the touch. Blood slowly dripped from the various partially-healed wounds on his skinny body, the harsh movements reopening some of his recently scabbed-over injuries. He couldn't seem to stop shaking, his threadbare sweatpants and t-shirt doing nothing to keep him warm in the unheated basement. Even his voice shook, wavering on every word.

He broke a rule, the third of many enacted by the scientists to keep him in line. Address Mary and Richard as ma'am and sir. His pain-ridden mind was barely able to process where he was, let alone how to properly address his superiors. Each waking hour was a living hell. Peter never knew what form of pain he would be receiving. Whips, scalpels, starvation, frigid and searing temperatures, knives, and dog whistles were tools he was all too familiar with. Even something as mundane as a belt could be used against him.

The only thing he could be certain of was that his superiors enjoyed every opportunity they had to put him in his place.

"Pl-please stop. Ple-"

A hard slap cut his words short. The sudden movement and familiar throbbing sensation radiating from his cheek dispersed some of the fog. Don't talk unless spoken to. Another rule he neglected to follow.

Mary stepped forward, her heels clicking on the smooth cement floor. She patted her husband's shoulder and smiled. A signal for him to wait. That she would take it from here. Crouching down, so she was at eye level with Peter, she reached out and touched his cheek. Her movements were slow and her touch soft with mock gentleness.

Before he could stop himself, Peter leaned into the touch, relishing in the warmth of Mary's hand and the physical sign of affection. He knew there would be a punishment waiting for him and that this display of kindness was fake. But Peter couldn't find it in himself to care because he craved this version of Mary; the kind words and soft touches. A mother. Not the cold scientist he was used to.

"You know why we have to do this." A smile accompanied her words. "Why we conduct our experiments. Don't you, subject?"

She wanted him to speak, and ignoring a question would insight an immediate punishment just as disobeying an order would. Quietly, Peter managed to nod and say, "yes, ma'am."

"And why is that?" The fire in her dark brown eyes sharply contrasted her sickly sweet tone.

"Be-because," a fresh wave of tears cascaded down his face, some catching in his long eyelashes as they fell, "because I am-am a mutant."

Her hand found its way into Peter's curly hair, tugging at the matted curls. "And what does that mean, subject?"

"That I d-don't have rights. That I deserve to be treated like the a-animal that-that I am. An-and that... that no one will-will ever l-love me."

This part always hurts the most. The part where he was required to put himself down and openly admit that, because he was a mutant, an unnatural being with strange powers, he was worthless. Because of his unique genetics, he was unfit to live as a part of normal society and be treated like a human. That no one would ever love something like him.