The Seventh Avenger

Chapter 9: Aftermath

EDITED

Lights blared down from the roof above me so brightly, that I can't help but squint my eyes shut against their harsh gleam. They were so bright that I couldn't see too far in front of me, though I didn't need to see to know that roughly several feet away from me was a glass wall, with three different scientists observing me through the thick glass. Ever since I had first started being placed in this room, they had always watched and would continue to do so. Not just for their own sick pleasure, but also because they wanted to see if their cruel experiments were working.

"Good morning Subject 2-0-7," Greets a voice, speaking in a thick, Swiss accent. It was the same voice as it always was, and I couldn't help but detect an almost robotic tone underlying the words. "How are you feeling today?"

It was always the same routine. They would lock me in the chair, blind me with the lights and then attempt to make small talk with me, as if this was just normal, morning routine for them. Then again, since I was one out of hundreds of other people they tortured in this place, this probably was a typical morning for them.

And every time that they said this, I would only send a harsh glare towards the glass in front of me. "My name," I hiss. "Is not Subject 2-0-7. It's Lydia Hathaway. You'd think that after all this time, you arse holes would finally start calling me by my name."

I can sense their amusement rather than see it, knowing that each of them probably wore smirks on their thin, sneered faces. Though it's only the man with the German accent whoever speaks to me. The other two only stand there quietly, only ever observing and listening to the sound of my screams bounce off the dull, grey walls of the room.

"Perhaps out there in the world, you were Lydia Hathaway," The man replies, the amusement in his tone causing me to wrench my hands up and away from the arms of the chair, hoping in vain that the movement would at least loosen the handcuffs wrapped firmly around my hands, though it's to no avail. "But in here, that girl no longer exists. In here, in this very room, you are only subject 2-0-7. Nothing more, and nothing less. Your only purpose is to fulfil our requirements of the experiments that we are conducting."

"Gee. Lucky me."

This time he chuckles. "Yes," He says. "You really are."

Even though my entire body ached from the experiments I had been forced to endure the previous day, I find the strength to tilt my head to the side, shooting the glass a look of total disbelief. "Seriously? Do you not grasp the concept of sarcasm?"

"It's best not to move, subject 2-0-7," Is my only reply, the familiar words chilling me to the core. I knew them well enough to realise that the small talk was now over: they were only seconds away from inflicting their daily round of torture. And though I had been forced to endure it for six months now, it still wasn't something that I could brace myself for.

Aching, stinging, blinding, prominent pain-

I shake my head, all cockiness and anger subsiding to be replaced only with pure terror, desperately trying to wrench myself free from the constraints, though like before this proves unsuccessful. "Please don't-"

"Proceed."

As if being struck by lightning, my eyes fling open and a gasp involuntarily escapes past my lips, the memories disappearing from my mind as quickly as they had come in the first place. For a moment I am blinded from something high above me, and for a fleeting, terrifying second, I immediately jump to the conclusion that I was back in that dreadful room, strapped to that awful chair. But upon feeling something soft beneath my fingers and realising that I wasn't sitting in a chair and was instead lying on what appears to be grass, my fear subsides slightly.