Deviant

First Chapter (Pilot)

We are not humans.

We are test subjects.

We are prisoners.

We are Deviants.

First Chapter

Her two, large, round eyes gazed up at the man in front of her. He was still young, though on the verge of adulthood. His sharp, black eyebrows framed the dark, intense stare of his eyes.

"Hey," Mei said to him.

"Hey," Aiden replied.

These two lived in a facility called the Panopticon, which was the main building of a military base containing the living quarters, which were cells arranged in a circular structure. This building was the most prominent building in which approximately one thousand Deviants were housed. In the center of this building was a watchtower, allowing the military officers, the Officials, to diligently watch the Deviants at all angles.

The Deviants were outsiders, forcibly taken from their lives in the Human world because of their abnormality and brought to live and train as soldiers.

Mei and Aiden were just two of the thousands of Deviants taken into the Panopticon as children. The survival rate of the children was very low, with less than half of each grade graduating complete training at age 18. These children were trained to kill, but also trained to be killed.

"It's almost curfew. We should go," Mei said.

"Yeah, I'm tired."

Mei wiped the blood slowly oozing from her mouth. Her eyes were dead, as though it were eating up the light like a black hole.

"How badly did you mess up your opponent?" Aiden asked.

"He lost consciousness."

She looked at the cuff of her sleeve, now smeared with her own blood. With her tongue, she felt around her mouth for the source of the bleeding.

"I'm just glad I don't have to fight you anymore," she said. "You always were the top combat student."

"They'd kill me if they knew I went easy on you," Aiden replied, rubbing his bruised cheek. "But if I didn't, I could've killed you."

A young man with pale, blonde hair swept across his bandaged face, and a young woman with curly, ginger hair pinned back stood by them. The man gestured to Mei and Aiden with a quick tilt of his head, nodding to the figures hanging by ropes from the watchtower.

"Oh no...," said Mei.

"Not again," Aiden sighed, staring up.

"They were arguing with an officer," Rain said, hanging his head down.

"Disgusting," said Red, looking away.

A woman and a man were both shot in the head and hanged from the watchtower for all to see. Any confrontation with an Officer was considered as treason. The punishment was a bullet to the head, then the corpse was to be hung from the watchtower as a warning to the other Deviants, scaring them into submission.

"C'mon, Mei," Rain said, gently pulling her by her arm. "Let's head back to our cell."

"Aiden's going to get us up there one day," Mei complained, her face growing paler than it already was.

"I've managed not to get in big trouble for fourteen years now... Give me some credit," Aiden retorted.

"Yeah, maybe in another fifteen years you will."