*
Bright flames as far as the eye could see, an unrelentless heat capable of even melting the marble runs rampant. How did it come to this? What did she sought to protect with this? Her golden blond hair continued to glimmer like a star under the blazing crimson, it shook violently in the wind as if fighting against fate.
"Damn it..."(?)
***
An intense emission of a whirring sounds filled the cramp space, though not as cramp for a child like her. A row of metallic grey accentuates the centre portion of the elevator, naturally she didn't know what an elevator was yet. She was exploring new territory, for the first time she stepped outside the wide white box and clicked on the 'C' button. What awaited her on the other side? She didn't know. All she had was a vague sense that the elevator brought her upwards from how she felt like falling. It felt like the earth shook under her, how strange isn't it?
When a large blocks of metal, the doors opened up, what greeted her was another white and wide box. Unlike before, the walls and ceiling were not made of marble tiles but white concrete. And last but not least, the most noticeable of all, strange structures and creatures moved around in this vastly larger box.
Next to the entrance of the elevator from the outside, was a rack filled with a new book she had never seen before. Her blond hair shivered in excitement. Picking it up unfettered zeal, her heart rose as she opened it up. The contents, only made her heart sank back down. From that day on, the moment she entered that larger box, she would have to find her own food and books. Those weird creatures she saw earlier were also little girls just like her, the structures were tables that were arranged to resemble a cafeteria. That was what 'C' stood for. Her old floor would be her private room and this would be the new place where food was provided.
Closing the book, she was met with 2 staff members of the facility. She read about it in the book, these people would help fulfill her needs in this facility. She did not know of an outside of the facility, so she didn't question the source of all the resources expended here in food and education material. All she could do was move forward as the facilitators had intended.
The 2 staff members were roughly twice her height and wore a robe of pure white,along with yellow highlights along the edge of the robe and hood. Covering their faces were a fox mask with either the left or the right eye closed, and the other eye widened to the point its veins showed. The dual masks stared ominously, urging her to step closer. After a short staring contest and a confused expression from her, they turned their heads and walked towards the West section of the Cafeteria. She followed out of curiosity but learned they had intended for her to follow due to their gestures.
It was the bathing section, showers and soap lined the walls in this seperate room from the cafeteria, she could see many other kids like her walking in and out of the entrance. Receiving her instructions, she did as she was told and cleaned herself for the first time. Usually she would appear clean every morning after falling asleep, she did not question it. If she were to scrape her skin or injure herself, it would also get bandaged and disinfected over night. After her very first self-showering, the staff duo had vanished. She was left to her own devices.
The condition to be allowed access to this area was the completion of all the preliminary textbooks, in other words she who got here in slightly less than a year was more intelligent than others who usually took 50-100% more time. Some were shock to see one so young reach that area so early, others scoffed at the idea and brushed it off as genetics. Perhaps she looked young but was as old as them, who were in the 14-15 year old age range.
Doors had actually greeted her on each side of the cafeteria, from the South was the elevator in which she came from, and the West was where the communal showering area was. The North was said to be the next room in the small book she recently picked up upon entering the cafeteria, it was an advancement like when she was now able to access the cafeteria, only some who qualify can go in. So what was in the East?
Walking closer, she jumped when the door gave off a hissing sound. It opened by itself, annihilating her common sense on the spot. Recovering her composure quickly, she left her surprise for later and tried to explore inside. Now it seemed impossible to advance.
An endless abyss stretched on into gruesome darkness as those who fell never seemed to come back. It seemed that this room had no floor, but only square pillars that she could jump on and traverse to the other side. On the other side was a special pillar, this pillar was not pure white but had a sheen and tint similar to her hair, it was a golden pillar with the necessary knowledge piled on it. In front of her feet was nothing but darkness, the only source of light being the feeble ceiling light, which happened to be weaker than the ceiling lights of other rooms. Only the top of the pillars were lit up to show where she needed to jump to, the rest of it was a darkness that needed to be avoided.
In admiration, she stared at the golden pillar in wonder at how long she would take to become skilled enough to get there. Being next to the edge of it all, she was vigilant in taking her steps. Unfortunately this was the first time she encountered others like her, so a small shove to the back and a slip of her footing on the smooth marble was not expected. She could feel the abyss calling for her, it slowly rose in her peripheral vision.
She was not done yet, she still had many things she wanted to know. Gaining a small bit of awareness in the situation, at the very moment she slipped, her ego had developed slightly and selfishness was born. 'I want to know, I want to know more about this world before I leave'. She twisted her hips in a drastic manner to her right, grabbed what little futile footing it could muster and hooked her left leg onto the person right her with a wide arc. This was a matter of survival, it didn't matter whether she could, she had to. Since her left foot was originally on the other side, it had been forcefully dragged across the floor and under her right foot.
As if by miracle, it caught on. But expecting her own weight to pull the other in was too much. Fortunately, it managed to make them lose their balance and hunch forward from instability, she made use of this attempt and grabbed the other girl's hand to pull herself up. The other girl not wanting to fall along with her put force on her legs and tried to pull her up. By the time, another closeby girl has noticed and helped to pull the both of them up.
At this point, her lower half was exhausted to the extreme and her chest heaved heavily to calm her heartbeat. The girl that was right behind had deep brown hair and iris, they all wore the same white robe that was similar to the staffs' but without the hood and yellow highlights. Mustering the last of her energy while on the ground, she swung her foot without much thought.
It collided with the brown haired girl's face which caused her to land right on the edge, she was much heavier than the blonde thought. This was the first time she kicked someone. Without hesitation or room for doubt, she gave one last kick to the brown-haired girl's abdomen and sent her into the void. The other girls could barely stare on in a daze. She sauntered out of that room with haste. Mostly out of fear for retaliation, she headed to retrieve her food which came out of a dispenser in the centre of the cafeteria.
Feeling some of her energy returning, she bit the tough bread primitively, hogging it down as fast as possible. She would need everything she could muster if she wanted to get out of here.
***
13 years of age, unknown number of months, only the facilitators kept track. 3 staff members were marching in a triangular formation while holding onto a cardboard box in the middle with one hand. She hadn't seen cardboard before, most other girls stood far away out of fear of the staff members. It seems there were still things she hadn't seen, things she hasn't learnt that the others have.
The cardboard box box seemed to be attached to a supporting stand of sorts, while connected to wheels at the bottom to support the weight. The staff were dragging quite a few boxes. Curious, she went to do her own investigation. But what else could she possibly do? Blending in with the other newcomers who have not yet shown fear of the staff, she listened keenly into the box as it slid past her.
'*Squeaksqeak* *hah**squeaksqueak*'
"..." (?) The blond girl went back to her seat, so did the other curious girls. Quietly, she began to eat. Her new friends Kiru and Meya that she made in the past few months observed her behaviour. A strange twinge assaulted their hearts, as if they needed to run somewhere and do something. It was a strange feeling they've never felt before. It was concern.
After the incident in which another girl was kicked down into the abyss, most were afraid of the blond girl, whom named herself Furei. Regardless, time passed and those that granted salvation, those that pulled her out of isolation and brought a colourful life arrived. They were Kiru and Meya. They ignored the rumours, pushed through Furei's own shell and got through to her psyche.
'It's not so bad to have companions'
'I want them to be free as well, we should all leave together'
'They are important.'
These were her valuable thoughts, held ever closely to her heart. It was something so fragile, yet so precious. No one knew what was on the other side of the North door anyway, those that went never came back. As the days go by, she could only doubt her own convictions more and more. It was very similar to the first day when she was shoved into the abyss, before getting herself back out, the darkness slowly crept up her neck and engulfed her thoughts. Gradually, slowly, it inevitably suffocates.
'This was the end'
'There is no more after this'
"... There was breathing inside those boxes" (Furei) Her golden blond locks swayed under the dazzling white light, the underside of her nose was minimally lit as she faced forward with determination. The gleaming light reflected through her large eyes as they stare on at somewhere far away, somewhere her companions could not even imagine.
"So there are others like us inside those cardboard boxes..." (Kiru) The black haired girl speculates, her bang were swept to the sides while the hair on her back was let down similarly to Furei. Her thoughts jumble and accelerate, her mind working quick to think of what they could gain from this information. Kiru and Meya knew of Furei's passion to escape this facility. A silver lining, they were constantly monitored visually but their voices could not be tracked. Their robes were too thin to fit such bugging tools, most likely out of a budget for this place.
"Yeah. But this is our key. Perhaps if we find those people, they would have the way out." (Furei)
"That's an insane assumption... " (Meya)
"Do you understand why we're here? This uniform, this consistent diet... It's a weird trial of some sort, and we have to pass to move on..." (Furei)
"A trial?....Tch, when will it be enough. When will we pass then? You saw the lift buttons, there were over 4000. I didn't even know numbers could get that large..." (Kiru)
"In any case, we've done enough preparations. It's time to take action." (Furei)
*
That night, the camera overseeing the elevator's interior had turned pitch black right after 19 girls squeezed into it. They arrived after pressing a secret button on the lift which they weren't suppose to find, entered a dim area with numerous boxes and opened the very first cardboard box to find a Dark grey haired girl. She wore a black shirt, dark grey miniskirt, grey trousers under the skirt and leather shoes. But what caught their attention wasn't the odd choice of clothing, it was the girl herself.
'Dried up' was all their faint vocabularies could muster. Furei couldn't understand what she saw, only that it wasn't suppose to be like this. She eliminated that one girl on her first day in order to not have any more additional obstacles, but in the end there wasn't even a goal post. She didn't know it was an experiment, in fact she didn't know what was an experiment. Lament, grieve, wail, curl up, despair, none of these would help the situation. So she exploded, at least her emotions did.
Nothing could done, it was only one of many facilities but it was thoroughly fried. Flames broke out that day, starting from the lowest floor, everything melted away. The girl she saw in the box, her name was Kanui. She originally had jet black hair instead of dark greyish, it was obvious even under the dim lighting of that storage room. Furei saw a normal white robed Kanui go into the North door 6 months ago.