Every night, Ercilia would come to Drystan's room - or his cell as she would call it.
She was not entirely wrong. He did feel like a prisoner. But now isn't the time to rot in despair. They had already begun to spin a plan together.
Ercilia wasn't lying when she said she knew the place inside out. She was able to show Drystan all the microphones and cameras that're hidden in his room, including those that he didn't discover in his snooping. What's more, she showed him how to deactivate them.
'I guess she really does want to help me out,' he thought while he watched her.
Ercilia is sitting on the floor at the moment. She's messing around with some bolts and wires. Drystan couldn't understand how she did it even if he tried.
"Are you sure this will work? If they see us breaking them, they'll find out immediately. I'm honestly surprised they haven't caught us already-"
"Shhh...! I'm trying to focus here."
He sighed in resignation.
Drystan is almost comforted by the normalcy of their conversation - even if they're in a situation that's by all means not normal. In the past few days, they'd been working on his escape plan. They're able to talk to each other like any friends would.
It's nearly uncanny.
He sometimes felt like slipping into trusting Ercilia before immediately correcting himself. No matter how nice she seems, he has to play it safe. Even in his own family, he can't trust anyone too much - more so when it comes to his enemy.
One of the wires suddenly sparked. Ercilia flinched in surprise. Drystan raised a brow.
"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" he asked curtly.
"Yeah, it's supposed to do that," she answered with certainty.
"Well, what exactly are you doing there?"
"I can break the wires in a way that'll make it look like they broke on their own - like a short circuit."
"Really?"
Drystan muses to himself, leaning against the wall as he looks down at Ercilia.
She seemed to have brightened up the moment she started explaining. It appears to him that she's used to this kind of thing.
"Won't they see you breaking them, though?" he questioned to which she shook her head.
"Once the camera breaks, the footage is deleted," she informed him.
"But aren't they watching right now?"
"They're not. I checked their schedule. They do rotations. No one should be looking at these cameras right now. That being said, we only have a limited amount of time until someone comes to check on them."
"Right. I see."
As he says that, he feels the rush of adrenaline surging through him. She furrows her brows, getting more serious. They stare at each other until a thin trail of smoke billows from the wire.
"I think that was the last one."
Ercilia flashed him a smile that she expected him to mirror. But Drystan shook his head, his short-lived optimism deflated.
'What's the point of all of this, though? Those people are just going to replace the cameras. We'll only be stuck in an endless loop,' he grimaced, feeling stupid for not realizing it until now.
Besides, Ercilia had already been in his room for the past few days. Even if she used the excuse that she was just delivering his food, that excuse could only stretch so far until they started to get suspicious of her - if they hadn't been already, that is.
They.
Drystan had always described his captors in very vague terms like that. He wonders what he's supposed to call them. Scientists don't feel right to him. In all of the books he'd read growing up, scientists are always portrayed as good people.
'Intelligent and brave people who're simply using their gift to try to make the world a better place to live in. They're people that should be looked up to - not feared.'
Drystan felt a light, gentle touch on his arm. He turns to find Ercilia looking up at him with a concerned expression.
"You okay? You haven't said anything in a while," she murmured softly.
"Yeah..." he replied as he slowly pulled his arm away, careful not to make it seem like he was repulsed by her touch.
"It's just.... I'm not sure how this will work. Won't they just replace the cameras?"
Ercilia smiled at him reassuringly. Drystan felt a bit more convinced, though he didn't want to admit it.
"Don't worry. I already thought about that..." she affirmed.
"You see, I was able to find some past video recordings! If we just loop them, it'll be the perfect cover-up!"
She grabbed his hands with both of hers as if trying to comfort him. He definitely wouldn't call it perfect. But it would have to do. So, he finally smiled back. Whether it was a relieved smile or a fake one to tide her over - and even though he was still not sure, he wanted to believe in her. He really did.
Yet at the same time, Drystan knew that it was foolish.
'How would two preteens, and that was a generous title as we were really just children, escape from what was basically a high security prison where the price for stepping even a little bit out of line was getting punished by a man in a lab coat injecting drugs into people's blood that would make their brains go all fuzzy?'
He would know - not from experience, of course. Besides, he hadn't been caught. Or at least not yet. Instead, Marius had shown him an example of what would happen to him.
"Watch carefully, Allaric."
At that time, Drystan stood with his fingertips pressed lightly against the glass wall. On the other side, a group of scientists dragged in someone he had never seen before.
The boy had the face of a child, but different. Instead of the normal white sclerae that most humans had, his was pitch black in a stark contrast to his bright white pupils. His mouth was filled with clunky yellowing fangs, and his face was covered in all sorts of scars and other blemishes. Adding to his grotesque appearance, he was tall. Like really tall. Taller than any adult he had ever seen.
Unlike the girl that Drystan had seen before, this one wasn't trying to fight back. He was just slumping along, letting them do whatever they wanted to do with him.
'What a sad existence,' he had thought back then.
A man in a lab coat pressed a needle into the boy's arm, causing him to burst into a screaming fit and clutch his head. Marius looked disgustingly delighted with it. He squeezed Drystan's shoulder as he told him that this was what would happen to him if he was caught trying to escape.
'And it's not like any run-of-the-mill pain. This drug had been specially created to permanently mess up the structure of one's brain. If I'm injected with that drug, it's game over for me. Not that I would die, but I would basically be a walking corpse - a toy for the Viatrix's to do whatever they wanted with me.'
Ercilia stood up and brushed off her skirt. Drystan snapped out of his flashback then, turning his attention back to her.
"Alright," she blurted out.
He can see that she's becoming as equally overwhelmed by the situation as he is. She pulled out a small notepad from a pocket in her jacket and motioned for him to come sit with her on his bed.
"Alright," she repeated as she flipped the notepad open and pulled out a pen.
Drawn on the thin paper was what seemed to be the map of that underground laboratory. She marks a small dot on one of the boxes that represent rooms.
"This is where we are..." she told him as she circled three more places on the map.
"And here are the exits."
"Where exactly is this place, though? Is it near a city?" he inquired while she tapped her chin with the pen.
"I've never been to a city. So, I'm not really sure. What is it like?"
His mind blanked at that.
She can't be serious. He can't believe that she's never been in a city before. But then again, even if she's a heiress like him, her life may be completely different from his. She may not be really what she seems.
"Sorry. That's totally off the topic. But you're right. We need to have a plan when you escape," Ercilia continued, changing the subject.