Bex
How many days had I been here? Had I ever been anyone before here?
I couldn't tell. My whole life is a blur, fuzzy and locked away, at the back of my mind. It seems only inches away. If only I could reach out and grab it-
'Night!'
A merciless electric jolt coursed through every cell. I bucked and trembled. But I refused to die. Oh, why couldn't I die?
'Cherubim!'
Another shock rushed through my limbs, setting my hair on end. My eyes opened slowly. Harshly, my hands were fixed to a machine that repeatedly sent shocks through my body, but I was forced to stay standing by restraints.
'Spectrum!'
A scientist, who I'm guessing specialises in either the brain or torture, comes in every day, and we do either this, repeated electric shocks and shouted code words, or a strange drug injection, or a survey-like thing where she asks me questions which she proceeds to answer because I can't remember. Anything.
'Mellifluous!'
Another shock. I just wish I were dead.
Something is nagging in the back of my skull.
Do what they say, do what they say, do what they say.
Shut Up! I silence the thoughts, but they just keep playing, on repeat, just toned down to a whisper.
Something was posted through the door. A meal, or a new horror? I didn't care to chose. Floppy and unresponsive, my limbs feel like rubber and my eyes want to close. But then I see what's in the corner. It looks like a star. In a cage. All around it, the air seems to glow and pulsate, and the star itself is as black as it could possibly be. It seemed to swallow all light into that infinite darkness, absorbing the sheer bright and holding it there.
It was doing something to me. Stirring something inside my chest, a warm feeling, power. My arms and legs stang, crying out in pain and springing triggers in my brain. I was blacking out. Spots danced before my eyes and I could have sworn someone was hammering on my brain the way it felt. Where did I know this feeling from?
Already, I was silently screaming as my head hit the floor.
I awoke on a bed, with a long gash down my arm, gushing crimson blood and burning with the most pain I had ever felt. Terrified, I cried out, but it sounded like the scream of a girl being strangled. My voice. It had practically gone. Somehow my legs made it to the floor before they collapsed of blood loss. They felt like paper, and crumpled like it too.
'Help me!' I called out, my voice choking out the words.
But nobody came.
The next wipe was quite horrific. I thrashed and thrashed out, and now the cube had been... changing me.
The straps holding my legs snapped from all the kicking, and the metal shackles cracked into pieces as I thrashed around. Debris littered the floor, and blood, I think, I might have ripped an IV out of my arm. Scattered aluminium trays and plastic syringes covered the floor, I crept back into a ball and rocked slowly back and forth. Maybe 30 agents entered the room, and I stood up, facing the crowd of suits without any fear, besides the fear that my body would crumple in on itself, like a tin can being crushed. A stab in my back rendered my body unresponsive, a syringe jab. They forced my body back into the chair, and positioned the sensors. I could hardly focus in my drowsy state of drug-blindness, but I felt the cruel affects, the knives in my mind, the rake through my memories. And then? Black.
Slowly, the memories trickled back, so they used the glowing sensors each month to keep me theirs. I hardly remember it anymore. Everything was, a blur. A black mass of pain.
The injections became more rapid then, with things to stabilise me, slow my aging, up my resistance, force me to eat. Slowly but steadily, the cube appeared in my room more frequently. I could tell it was gradually doing something, but with the frequent memory slashing and shocks and even the cube itself messing me up I couldn't tell what.
Until they started the training.
I woke up in a dimly lit warehouse, with blinking florescent lights swinging above, threadbare grey crash mats covering every inch of the floor, and 20 or so armed soldiers pretending to hide in the shadows. Why were they even trying? Instantly, a wave of aggression flew over me, but I didn't know why. Suddenly, I remembered phrases, words, that I knew were the truth. A rush of loud colour, commands. Words. All instantly my one focus. 'You belong to us, we own you. You do as we command.' 'Don't fight it, fight who we tell you to fight.' Emotion is a weakness, root it out now before it's too late.' 'Kill the past. Let it die.'
I belonged to them, they told me what to do. Even now, I can feel their presence in my brain, telling me how to attack. Hold your fists like that, swing round a leg, curl fingers around like that, and before I knew it, all twenty were incapacitated.
'Well done asset. Await further instructions.'
A voice over the intercom. Already, my brain knew to obey.
Another 10 soldiers came into the room. Eyes closed, I inhaled deeply and looked at all of the people. Tiny whispers in my ear: go for the kill, they all have to die! Pent-up with shelved ferocity, I curled my fingers into fists, strange black energy flickering on and off, swirling through my veins to the fists, colouring them a dark contrast to my pale skin. I looked down, and it disappeared. Which was enough time for a soldier to pull a long, serrated blade on me. He carved a red slash on my right forearm, red rivers staining my exercise top. I hissed loudly though my teeth at the sudden pain, but it felt as if it was already healing. Odd. Instinctively, I grabbed the knife and tossed it to the ground. A hand tightened around my wrist, so I flipped it over, grabbed my opponent's wrist in an iron grip and popped out his shoulder. While he screamed, I delivered two punches to the side of his head, hearing the crack of broken bone. I dropped the bloody corpse and picked up the knife. Flipping the bloodied, jagged blade over in my hand, I slowly and painstakingly turned, and clumsily plunged the knife into the chest of the next soldier. A tiny trickle of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. I kicked him to the ground, and tore a strip off the bottom of my shirt. Firmly, I twisted the makeshift bandage around my sticky red forearm, and punched the next soldier in the stomach. He had a gun. In one sleek movement, the gun was drawn, and he shot one sweeping round at my chest, which I somehow managed to dodge in a burst of speed, before he shot another bullet, which clipped my arm. In the moment, time stopped. Glimmering ominously, the jet black energy around my hand shot up my arm like an epidemic, leaving a tingling feeling in my hand. It reached the bullet wound, and dragged the shrapnel from the arm. A tortured scream escaped from my lips, my face contorted in pain, the bloody hole slowly decreasing in size. Time crashed back, in a crescendo of bullets and pain. Fast forward now, I fell, head over heels from the force of the gunshot. My feet were easy to find again, I jumped back up instantly and sprinted directly towards the one with the gun, and jumped up at the last second. My legs instinctively hooked around his neck, choking the air from his lungs, and swung around, snapping his neck like a chopstick. I retrieved the gun from the corpse, and with a marksman's aim, shot three men in the forehead, before I realised there was no more ammo. 'Shit!' I called out, and tossed the empty gun aside. It looked like I had killed six already, and two had been thrown backwards from the energy surge after the gunshot, and I checked for a pulse in both. Small, frantic pulses quivered like live wires. I took a solid fist to the side of one, feeling the skull crack, but my knuckles burned. Tiny streams of blood trickled off the fist, definitely broken. I screamed out, and stomped a foot down hard on the other's neck. The pulses both flickered out. Cold, dead. Tentatively, I took a step back from the bodies, and raised my one good fist. The next wave of soldiers was coming, the remaining 2 approaching, weapons raised. I held my chin up, and stood strong. This was what felt right.
A team of scientists watched from a secret room, all taking notes on clipboards, and wincing at the gory scene: a 15 year old killing several trained soldiers in graphic detail, in many creative ways. 'The control methods have had great effect,' muttered the scientist in the front. Small noises of approval were mirrored across the room, small hms and ahs. 'Wait, who did the combat training? She just broke a knuckle from that!' one of the bosses said with a hint of anger. 'Get that fixed.'
'Wait. That energy surge. It healed the bullet wound. Note that down,' the boss called out from a dark corner.
'Keep using the cube. I want to see any new abilities.'
'What's the list looking like now?'
'Strength, agility, healing with a limit, excellent weapons handling, and that strange energy. We can't tell if it wants to kill her or keep her alive.'
'All good, continue as planned. Phase 2 is ready for implementation- AAGH!' The boss cried out in pain. Coughing violently, he muttered,'I'm going to need a minute.'
He stepped outside, hands trembling a little, and fell against the wall for support. Groaning quietly in pain, he left the hallway, and entered the men's bathroom. Instantly, his body seized up and he toppled over, faint screams from the training room still carrying through the walls. Scarlet foam fizzed at the corners of his mouth, tilted slightly in a spiteful smile, just before his blood ran cold.
