The Belly of Bygone Days

Let it All Burn

Day XXX

The ringing of a bell. A flash of light. The resounding crack of gunfire.

It was over in an instant, in the twitch of a finger. The enemy soldier slumped in his chains. Doris couldn't take her eyes off the corpse. She could still hear his cries ringing in her ears. He'd been begging for his life. She felt numb. Sick. Time seemed to have slowed. Stopped entirely. The rifle in her hands was heavy; the weight on her conscious even heavier.

For a minute, an hour, a lifetime, the room was silent. Still. Then General Schultz stepped forward and broke the spell. He inspected the corpse, the place where the bullet had entered the flesh, and smiled, evidently pleased by what he had just witnessed.

"Well done, Subject C001," he said, turning to face her. "You truly are a unique specimen. Perhaps the most promising subject in the Peacemaker Squad."

"What about Subject E001?" one of the scientists interjected.

E001. Oliver.

Schultz dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand. "Subject E001 has tested well, but the side-effects are... undesirable. This one, however... This one is special."

There was a time that Doris' heart would have swelled at such praise. Now, it trembled. Her hands shook. She dropped her head, ashamed of herself. Afraid.

She didn't look up as Schultz approached. "I am satisfied with your progress, Subject C001," he said. She flinched as he touched her arm, pulling it towards himself, prying her fingers away from the gun. When he removed his hand, there were three, silver wrapped treats resting in her palm.

"Good girl," he said quietly, patting her shoulder. "You've more than truly earned these."

Doris wanted to cry. She wanted to run. She wanted to return to her cell and never come out again.

"Thank you," she whispered, hating herself for being so weak. She closed her hand around the sweets that had cost a man his life. "Thank you."

She managed to hold herself together on the long walk back through the corridors, but the moment she stepped into the common room, she broke, her vision blurring with tears. Her legs gave way. The ground came up to meet her knees. Burying her head in her hands, she let the floodgates at last be opened. She began to cry.

"Doris?"

She was a monster. A machine, no better than Oliver. Like him, she had been conditioned into unquestioning obedience. Like him, she'd let them.

"Doris." Someone was clutching her shoulders, shaking her. "Doris, what happened? Look at me, Doris."

It was all her fault. She'd let them use her weakness against her. She'd let them turn her into mindless executioner.

"Subject C001, look at me."

Subject C001, take your aim...

The utterance of that string of letters and numbers compelled her to obey. She lifted her head. A dark void stretched before her. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, a bell rang.

"Look at me."

A gun fired.

"That's better."

A hand on her arm. Good girl...

"Let go of me!" she cried, wrenching her arm free.

And just like that, it was over. Yakov sat back on his heels, his arms dropping to his sides. His expression was blank, but Doris could tell from the subtle upturn of his eyebrows, the slight parting of his lips, that he was concerned for her. He had only been trying to help. A fresh wave of guilt washed over her.

"I'm sorry, Yakov," she blubbered, warm tears spilling from her eyes. "I'm sorry."

"What happened?" he asked. Reaching out, he touched her face, wiping a thumb across her dampened cheek. "Tell me."

"I can't," she whispered. "I can't."

To speak it aloud would make it real. Something was digging into her palm. The treats Schultz had given her. A memento of what she had done, the evidence of her guilt. She unclenched her first and held the sweets out to Yakov.

"Take them," she begged. "Take them, please."

His looked down at her outstretched palm, his brow furrowed. Doris could see suspicion in his eyes. His voice turned cold. "Why?"

She shook her head. She didn't want to have to explain, she just wanted them gone. "Just take them."

"So it's true," he muttered, still staring at her hand. "They've got to you. I should have known. What's in them? Arsenic? Strychnine?"

"There's nothing in them," Doris assured him. "They're just sweets."

He slapped them out of Doris' hand, the specks of silver scattering across the floor. "You're lying. They put you up to this."

"No, Yakov, I swear—"

"Subject A001, please report to training."

"No." Something silver appeared in his hand, but it wasn't a sweet. It was a scalpel. He must have stolen it from the training rooms. "No," he said again, louder this time. "I'm not going back there. I'm never going back."

"Subject A001—"

"Stay away from me!" he roared, leaping his feet, his arm outstretched, brandishing the scalpel. "Stay back. I mean it. Stay back, all of you."

A clatter of footsteps. A swirl of white lab coats. In an instant the common room was swarming with scientists.

Yakov backed away from them, his chest heaving, his eyes wild. "Stop the experiments. Just let us go. Let us go!"

"Yakov," Oliver chided, an expression of mild disappointment on his face. "Subjects are not permitted to carry weapons of any kind unless provided to them by a member of staff for the purposes of—"

"Shut up!" Yakov screamed. He turned the scalpel on Oliver, clawing frantically at his own head with his other hand. "Just... Just shut up. Shut up! Leave me alone. Leave me alone all of you!"

The scientists pounced on him. The scalpel clattered harmlessly to the ground. Doris could only watch on helplessly as they pinned her friend down and injected something into his neck. He went limp almost instantly.

"I'm sorry you all had to witness that," Pavel told them all as Yakov's unconscious body was removed from the common room. "Subject A001 appears to have suffered an adverse reaction to his training. Please be patient as we address this matter. Sessions will resume as normal shortly."

And then they were gone and it was like nothing had even happened. No one spoke. No one moved. A glimmer of silver caught Doris' eye. Her first thought was that it was the scalpel Yakov had dropped, but when she looked closer she realized it was just the silver wrapped sweets.

Those awful sweets.