Project Alation [Completed]

Karyan

I wasn't supposed to have my previous memories, but I do. One would think that this would keep me deeply rooted in the boughs of nostalgia, but I couldn't care less. My childhood was anything but a childhood, and my teen-aged years are embedded in this civil war. Even with everything I've done to increase my chances of survival, I'm not going to live to see my twenty-first birthday. I calculated my odds.

As a child I was orphaned with my brothers, the three of us a rare set of triplets in these trying times. We were raised in the streets, my brothers working odd jobs to earn food and supplies for our shelter, while I remained behind to fend off animals and the less fortunate homeless. Disposing of rats and other pests without emotion was a skill that carried over to the act of disposing human pests, an act I am now highly familiar with. I had my first kill by the time I was eight.

When they attempted to silently kidnap me they underestimated the ferocity and ruthlessness of my skills, two men falling to my small and rusted blade before my brothers got in the way and we were captured. We were thrown in the back of a truck and injected with a large dose of slow-release anesthetics to keep us quiet as they went about their day.

My younger brother was the first to fall unconscious, thirty minutes into the ride, his voice fading away as he made small whimpering noises every time we ran over a bump in the road. My older brother was next, his higher muscle mass enough to stall the drug for fifteen more minutes, giving him time to make empty promises that we'd be fine and that we'd escape. And me?

There was a scene of a movie - one I had caught in the front window of an electronics store - where a character was describing how he slowly made himself immune to a deadly poison. Thinking that to be a useful skill, or at least a valuable learning experience, I decided to try this trick with every detrimental drug I could get my hands on. Which, as an emotionless, street-smart 9-year-old with a body count, turned out to be quite the collection.


Date-rape drugs, anesthetics, narcotics, hallucinogens, paralytics, even some common drug store products such as ipecac and ibuprofen. Slowly and secretly, I built up tolerances to them all, not even my brothers knowing the full extent of my immunity.

The three men, who were previously of a band of five, drove around for most of the day. The shifting and bumping of the covered and internally padded truck bed was enough to keep me from taking any nap longer than half an hour, according to my older brother's cheap digital watch that broke eight hours in. The padding protected us from being injured further, while also doubling as soundproofing to keep any cries for help trapped within the small and humid area.

When they finally opened the back of the truck, the cool air was the first thing I noticed. My eyes were closed to keep my immunity a secret, a card up my sleeve. They talked as they unloaded my brothers and I, hauling one limp and two unconscious forms into a building and down halls that were air conditioned, despite it being almost fall.

From what I gathered, they made it sound like a group of unethical scientists were paying for kidnapped teenagers to perform their experiments on, and our being triplets only sweetened the deal for our capturers. It had taken them no time at all to realize that the death of their two associates came with a significant increase in their cut of the pay.

They lay us on cots with thin mattresses and left, and I had carefully waited until both of my brothers had awoken before 'waking up' myself. Thus began a twisted game of survival.

Man-on-man competitions and challenges, designed to test our speed, reflexes, quick thinking, resistance, endurance, and strength. There were rewards for winning and punishments for losing. Room temperature, meals, new clothes, weapons, first aid kits. Everything was subject to change, nothing was regular other than our company. But even then, my brothers changed.