Asylum - On the Run Sequel

Chapter 8

TW// Strong Language

Cub watched through one way glass as Iskall stood with his foot on the hybrid's back. Scar was onlooking from beside him.
"I told you they wiped his memory. The human has no recollection of their friendship."

Cub turned and began to walk away. As much fun as he was having watching the two past friends fight with each other's, there was more work to be done.

"Seriously? What happened to you. What is it with up and leaving all of a sudden?"

Cub simply smiled and let out a single small laugh.

"And this whole pretending to be evil. Pretending your someone your not. Five years ago you would have never done this. Not in a million years."

"People change Scar. And if you're not ok with that, then you have to move on."

Cub took the final few steps to leave the room.

"What has this place done to you?"
Came from the other side of the glass. And at that moment. That small fraction of a second. Scar has never related more to anyone in his entire life. The sadness that was in Wels' voice. The pure realisation that Concorp was not what it used to be when it started. That it was so much more than just keeping hybrids.

Not only that but his life-long best friend had forgotten their friendship. Their prolonged days of planning and making sure everything was just right before building it. The time that it all changed when Scar got attacked. How Cub viewed hybrids after that but still would not lay a finger on them.

Scar rolled himself out of the room, the background noise of the two inside their shared cell still audible. The confusion Wels had and the cold shoulder Iskall was giving him. The vex looked in single cells and he went down corridor after corridor. Noticing how many of the inmates were left alone, no vex with them. Barely able to stay still when they saw one of the head vexes coming past. Shaking as if their lives depended on it.

Scar had never planned for that. Scar made sure to tell Cub that Concorp was purely going to be a place of rehabilitation for angry hybrids that couldn't control their almost supernatural abilities. None of them wanted this life. None of them chose this.

Cub wanted them all to be made better. He didn't say how. He just got Scar to approve everything and off he did to make it happen. Scar had never taken the time to look at what was going on, and now that he was? Well, it was pretty fucked up.

That horse hybrid who had its hoof ripped off to see how the anatomy worked. The Python who couldn't do its job right so it was taken in to be tested on. The fish woman who had been ripped apart from her child was a different species to see how in the world those genetics worked. Scar didn't want any of this to happen.

A tap on his shoulder made him come out of his realisation. It was Officer Dubs. Scar opened his mouth to say something but didn't.
"The Warden got away. I'm so sorry to have failed you I didn't mea..."
"Good."

Dubs was struck with bewilderment.
"Good? I'm sorry Sir I don't quit..."
"I said good. That will be all."

"I... yes sir."
Dubs walked back in the direction he came from. He turned into the staff break room and plonked himself down on a couch.

"Hard day?"
Dubs got handed a cup of coffee. No sugar no milk. Just how he liked it.
"You could say that."

Etho sat down on the couch across from Dubs with a cup of coffee in his hands too. You could tell he was smiling sympathetically through his mask.

"What happened?" Etho was the third-best vex at Concorp, behind Cub and Scar. Was. Past tense. One hybrid in a fit of rage, attacked Etho's body while he was in the mental state when he was standing too close to the bars of her cell. He could only go into the mind for a short period at a time now. But Cub couldn't convince Scar to fire him.

Dubs sighed. "Got trusted with catching the Warden today." Etho's posture straightened in interest, "lost it. Scar said it was fine though. But he didn't seem himself."
"Maybe Scar is just having an off day. I'm sure he'll be ok tomorrow. He always is."

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Scar was anything but ok the next day. If he could pace his office he would. Instead, he sat in his wheelchair and thought. He got no paperwork done for the whole day and instead contemplated what exactly he had gotten himself into for the last ten years of his life. The business was a great idea. Where had it gone so wrong?

Iskall was still extremely wary of Wels and Hels. He was still trying to regrasp the concept of a human hybrid. Wels was still patiently trying to understand exactly what had happened to Iskall to make him forget everything they had done together. Stress was still lying in her cell watching as Cub did daily wakes through the corridors, taking particularly long in the one with her friends. Tango didn't give up on trying to break the bars and now had blistering skin all up and down his arms and legs. Doc was still lying in his cell, not visited in a day. Left to his helpless thoughts, still.

Scar regretted every single second of what they had done. Of what he had done. Listening to Cubs every command. Tricking the last again into trusting him. Letting Cub use his kindness as a tool to manipulate hybrids.