Running

21 Months Ago

TW: Cancer, Implied death, Tattooing, Electric shocks, Yelling, Crying, Pain, Implied threatened non-con, Food
And! For the first time in about 28 chapters, there's no cursing! *gasp* Anyway, uh, here's the chapter:

I look down at my bare feet, resting in a small pool of water, then at the heart-rate monitor attatched to my wrist. A woman, looking about age 25ish, is brought into the room. She looks oblivious.
"This one thinks she's here for a survey. Got it?" The doctor whispers to me. I nod my head nervously.

"Do I-I have to?"  I whisper back to him, fiddling with my sleeves. The only thing tied down are my ankles, keeping my feet in the water. Would you believe that it's my fifteenth birthday?

The man presses a button on his control board, and it sends a jolt of electricty through me, connecting with the water as I loudly yelp in pain. "Yes."

He nods at me, and I look to the woman.
"H-Hi."
"Hello! Nice to meet you, my name is Lindsey."
"Yeah.. do you have any f-family, Lindsey?"

She sighs. "I had a brother, but cancer got him last year. We never had parents, spent our whole childhoods in the foster system."

I am not going to enjoy this.

"Oh, I'm sorry. D-Do you miss him?"
"Every day. Goodness, I'd do anything just to see him again." She looks nostalgic.

I suddenly feel another rift of electricity, and I flinch, but try my best not to make any noise.
"Well, do you think you could do me a favour, for your brother?"
"Anything."

I suck a deep breath in.
"When you see him, tell him that I'm sorry."

"What?"

Snap.

I start to sob uncontrolablley. A higher voltage of elecrticity surges through me. "Stop that." He says firmly.

A man walks over to me, tattoo needle in hand. "No! Please- can we do it later? I- I did everything you asked!" I beg.
My wrist is held down as the man adds another tally, all while I scream in pain. When he's done, I start to breathe heavily and look down at the markings. That's thirty-eight now.

Just then, the man that I hate the most on this planet and possibly others walks in the room, clipboard in hand. "How's it going in here?"
I'm still focusing on my breathing as tears run down my face.

"It went well. Despite a few disiplinary moments, but I didn't need to give him any activator to get him to do it."
"Ah. That's progress." He jots something down, then walks over to me, picking my chin up to face him.

"Don't be so down, it's your birthday after all! Hey, think about it this way; This time next year, you'll finally be old enough to have that son or daughter that you always wanted."

Suddenly, I'm not upset. I'm angry.

"We don't and never have wanted to have children, and we've made that very clear to you." I say through gritted teeth.

He leans down to me, pressing the back of his hand into ribcage. I suck in a breath and bite my bottom lip. "We don't always get what we want, unfortuneately."

When I get back to our room, Melanie is sitting on the bed, reading the same book that she's read 6 times before. "Hey." I mutter.
"Virgil! I made you something, since, its your birthday, and you've been in doing tests in C Block all day."

She hands me a small paper card, drawn with prescision is a picture of me on the front, really accurate. I smile at her. "I love it, thank you."

"And!" She exclaims. "I've decided that you're gonna sleep on the bed tonight."
"I slept on it last night, though."

"Yes, that's because it was the night before your birthday! And today is your birthday, so you get it." She smiles confidently, her  feet fluttering off the floor.

"I'm not letting you sleep on the floor again, Mel."
"Too bad. It's your turn,"
"You always say it's my turn. I swear, I owe you about a years worth of turns."

Our conversation is inturrupted by the door to our room being unbolted and opened, and a worker comes in with our trays of food. Placing them on the ground and heading out quickly.
We eat our food in two minutes, even though we both know that it tastes disgusting.

Not even ten minutes, later, the light in our room is shut off, leaving us in pitch darkness, only the glow of my best friend's wings illuminating the room.

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I'm really sorry that I keep doing flashback chapters, but, uh, if I'm gonna be honest, I need a bit longer to figure out what I want to happen in the story, but don't wanna skip out the daily updates. The next chapter will be in present day.
I know certain events that I want to occur, but I'm trying to figure out how to get to them without it feeling rushed. I'm sure it'll work itself out.

Shoutouts for voting/commenting/following etc, goes to italkbadaboutmyself

Stay safe!