ADOLESCENTE
MIDNIGHT woke up in a dark room. Unlike when he was a child, he felt no fear as he tried to adjust his eyesight to see in the dark. He had become accustomed to this kind of life. This was nothing new. Every time his father would take him to a secret location to train him, he would be injected with something that would make him unconscious and when his consciousness came back, he would wake up in the dark room again, connected to an IV fluid, just like now.
Raising his eye to the IV fluid hanging over his head, the same question he always had been seeing the IV fluid popped into his mind. What is that? No one would tell him however much he asked. As if it was a secret worth guarding tightly with their lives.
But even though he wanted to know, he curved his curiosity. He had to be obedient. This was the only way to see his big brother frequently. The more obedient he was, the faster he could go home.
Based on experience, this IV fluid would be finished in a couple of hours. That means he would be alone in the next couple of hours.
He hated to be alone. He hated the darkness. But it was not like he had a choice. Whatever his father said goes. He did not want to go against his father to avoid making his father angry. His father was always right, after all. Without his father's guidance and training, he would have surely become a burden to his big brother, which he did not want to happen.
He had to train harder.
Training... Midnight recalled the kind of training he had been subjected to since he was a child.
Training to eliminate his fear of the dark, then training to see in the dark. After that, he was brought to a private hospital for something he did not know about and he would wake up like this in the dark. As he grows up, he had a faint idea of what was being done to him.
Midnight was uncertain, but it seemed like he was being experimenting on. What kind of experiment? He did not know. It was just a wild guess. Because after every hospital visit, he would be subjected to an inhumane training of strength, dexterity, and cognitive response in a special laboratory. Sometimes it would take weeks, most of the time it would take months to finish 'testing' him.
At fifteen, he still did not know what he was training for. He just listened to whatever he was told to do, because he learned at an early age that being obedient was the only way to see his big brother regularly. He just wanted to finish this training and go home. However, he knew that his want was not something he could have just because he wanted it.
Midnight sighed and closed his eyes. In the cold, dark room, the only way to escape was to recall his memories with his mother and brother. There were not a lot of memories, but it was enough to calm him down and make him alive, even in this dull, merciless dark room.
Yes. These memories are enough. As long as big brother stays with me, I will be the most obedient so we can create more memories.
Because of the way Midnight was raised, he remained naïve to a lot of things. But Midnight was not naïve to human darkness. He knew how inhumane a human could be. He experienced it almost every day. But even knowing and facing the darkness every day, he still wanted to continue, hoping to see a light at the end of this seemingly endless darkness. And it was all to see the warm smile of his brother and to continue a life with him.
One day, we will be able to visit mama's grave. Big brother promised me. Midnight was looking forward to that day. That was why he was still looking forward to his tomorrow, eager to see what tomorrow holds, even when his past and present were bleak.
The IV fluid finally ushered its last drop. Maybe because the IV had been emptied for a while without someone taking it off him, there was a backflow of blood into the IV tube.
BINABASA MO ANG
ORGÁNOSI I: Broken Mask
General FictionBeneath a broken mask lies the truth behind the façade, and while masks can conceal pain, they cannot mend wounds. In the end, no mask was worth the torture. However, to Midnight Velasquez, who was forced to wear a mask since he was young, the mask...