Sweet Heart [Editing?]

Prologue

Ambrose still remembered. The constant hum of machinery was still fresh in his mind, and the subtle little beeps from a heart monitor that became so loud over time, accompanying it.

He hated-no-loathed the looming figures outside of that glass cell. Who'd watch him, then yank him out and poke and prod at him; they filled his veins with fire. Oh, such burning, searing fire. He could still feel it. The fire. Exploding through his body like molten rock through a volcano, like thousands of red-hot pokers piercing his chest over and over.

The rocking, numbing pain that came in horrid waves always made him throw up or pass out, sometimes both. But those shrieking, clawing beings in hazmat suits would wake him up, inject him again and again with burning liquids and hook him up to machinery that'd feel as if Thor himself had struck him with bolts of shooting pain.

This went on for years. Six years.

Until one night he felt his soul snap in half.

It was worse than the fire, than the lightning, because he suddenly felt nothing at all. And then everything. It felt like his head broke open, dull pain surging through his head, and his heart was pried apart with some sort of monstrous tool. And then nothing.

His captors had won. He was no longer human. No longer alive but not yet dead. He felt liquid trickle down the sides of his head, that's how he knew he was still alive. He could still bleed.

In their excitement, his captors left his cell unlocked. He hobbled out, his vision nearly dark and his whole body, every fiber of his being, shook with the effort. But he made it. He made it out into the frigid night air, out of that horrid building; his orange curls matted to his forehead, and let the cold create goosebumps all over his skin. He immediately loved it. What a change from searing lighting and scarring heat.

He choked on his sobs, indifferent to the new, lesser pain in his chest and throat.

He walked until his legs collapsed underneath him, hardly able to support himself anymore. The cold dirt scraped his cheek, his bare legs and stomach, and chilled his body. He sighed softly, falling limp as his eyes started to close and a pair of bare feet entered his vision.

He watched them inch closer, and closer, and then those feet became legs that knelt in front of him. Their hands felt cold on his shoulder, but they pulled back quickly, and through blurred vision he watched the figure run off, disappearing through the trees.

He tried yelling after them, but his voice wouldn't work. He couldn't move anymore, and his vision was slowly pulled in by darkness.