The man looked at me for a few seconds before deciding to speak.
"I hope they weren't too rough bringing you in," he said with a smile. My name is Dr.Bennett, and I have a few questions for you."
I nodded, and he began asking for information about my physical health. I answered honestly since it wasn't anything I had to keep secret. If they wanted, they could find it out with proper equipment, so I just kept answering it all. Also, unless the information would affect others, it's best to give it up. At least, that's what Ms.June said.
In my head, however, I had many profanities I wanted to say. Getting kidnapped due to my adoptive mom was crazy, but it came with the territory. I knew this was the case once they started asking questions about her, not about her weaknesses but her quirks, likes, dislikes, and so on. That's when I started lying. They were more of half-truths. Ms.June had begun to feed the media, so they left her alone.
In exchange for my information, they allowed me food. They even let me go to the bathroom. I could have run when they let me out of the chains, but I didn't know the facility, and I checked to see if they had taken my stash of defensive gear from top to bottom. Not to mention the cameras that were so sensitive they moved with us as we passed them. I did take notes of everything that could be useful. The ores began to stack as I spent days locked in the room.
Every day, I was awoken with a bucket of water, and Dr.Bennett asked me many random questions. They even asked some questions I wanted to know the answer to, but I could only shrug my shoulders. I was unfortunate that I couldn't take a shower. Had I been an actual child or someone who hadn't had thier spirit broken multiple times in thier past life, they probably would have broken me. While the other guards seemed to get more irritated with me over time as if expecting something, Dr.Bennett was happy.
After about two weeks, I got placed in a new room. It looked much cleaner, and I didn't have a chain. The room even included a window. It was barred up, of course, but it was a window. There was also a toilet and a tub with a curtain. It almost looked like a jail cell minus a bed. The room even had a mat, pillow, and blanket on the floor. They weren't what generally was in a room, but since Dr.Bennett liked me, I got better treatment. It paid to be a good liar.
In the new room, I was left with soap and a towel. I was told to wash, and I did so happily. The water wasn't warm, but I felt better seeing the dirt come off. Once I thought I cleaned with the soap and scrubbed off the weeks of dirt, I felt much better and refreshed. The scent of the soap they left was pretty lovely. After getting out, I noticed my clothes, socks, underwear, and shoes were gone. A numbered grey shirt, pair of grey sweatpants, white socks, and some gray shoes sat in thier place neatly. After putting them on, I began to feel sleepy.
It was similar to the feeling I had when I got my tonsils removed. As I stumbled and fell to the floor, I could see two people walk into the room. They wore masks and protective gear. I tried hard to move, but I felt like I had sleep paralysis. They, however, injected me with something before I could regain my bearings. My entire body felt numb as they put me on top of a hospital-like stretcher.
My head was leaned to the side slightly so I could see some of the rooms we passed. The first one we passed was open and covered in blood. That wasn't the only room like that, either. It felt like my blood was starting to run cold from it all. This facility was a hellhole. Part of me began to have actual worries about what would go down.
I tried to commit everything we passed to memory, but the sights were gruesome. Part of me wished that I couldn't see at all. The building changed from brick to metal and concrete as we continued. There was a more modern feel as we continued to move on. My hope of getting out was slowly crushed, however. There were many human guards and robotic guards we passed, in addition to many sensors and verification doors. They weren't amateurs, for sure.
I feel even more hope hearing the guards talk. Although none of them said where we were, they spoke as if I was an exotic creature. The language was one that I couldn't even recognize. This wasn't some bandit outpost but a genuine research facility. I had no clue why I was brought here and if there was even a valid link to Ms.June. The doctor was most interested when I answered questions about my opinions and myself.
What company used to own this place? That was the most significant question after seeing a unique logo of an upside-down tree surrounded by seven stars. After a while, I was moved into what seemed to be a surgery room before being knocked out. Those were my last peaceful moments before everything went downhill. Part of me wondered if fate was playing a cruel trick on me.
When I awoke, I was in a four-wall, one-way glass room. They could see in, but I could not see out. From that point, my torture began as they would beat me every day, waterboard me, and a bunch of other things. I found out that scientists watched on the other side of the glass. I was a guinea pig to them as I was poked and prodded.
The happiness of being in a new world began to die in me. The pain of my past life mixed with the current one as I stepped on the floor that constantly changed temperature. Sometimes, it was scalding, while other times, it was freezing. My feet were blistered due to it. I would cry myself to sleep just thinking of it all. It seems some people were just destined to have pain and suffering.
I felt as if I was falling into the darkness again. I couldn't swim up and reach the surface or the light. It was weird, though; I felt warmth wrapped around me. It was like a hand of light wasn't letting me sing further as it pulled me back up. The hand of light reminded everyone who believed in me in my last life and this one. My spirit felt reignited as my will began to strengthen once more. I held my necklace that they allowed me to keep and took a deep breath.
I was so close to giving up the control that I had gained again, but I didn't let that torture break me. I wouldn't let my breaking point be revealed to them. The chains that bound me in my mind also slowly began to fail. I may have been weak, but I was nowhere near defenseless. I had to focus on escaping and getting back to my home. The one that Ms.June had built for me.
Over the next month, I suffered repeatedly, but I learned a lot of information. I exchanged information with Dr.Bennett, who continued to ask questions every day and focus hard on everything the guards would say. Whether it was because the doctor was a blabbermouth or he was sure I'd never get out, I learned everything. In the hands of a child, the information would likely mean nothing, but to me, it was everything. There was my impulsivity due to the chemical compounds in my body, but I could adequately apply all the information.
This building was a facility for kidnapping children of celebrities. Most people got ransomed off quickly, but since my mother was M.I.A. often, they couldn't contact her. If the parent couldn't be reached, children would suffer some beating before having pictures sent. The ones whose parents didn't care or never reached out would be used for experiments. This facility was the lead laboratory for a company known as the Sakura Bloom Corporation. It wasn't one that I was familiar with.
My subservient act soon began not long after, and the beatings seemed to reduce significantly. I pretended my spirit was finally broken, earning me even more information. I never got the location of where we were, but a barrier in the middle of a magical beast forest surrounded the lab. We were cloaked by the combination of magic and technology, or magi-tech as they called it. The time seemed to pass slowly as I gathered the needed information without being too direct. After all, who would suspect a child of espionage?
What interested me the most was the fact most adults here had either weak magic or no magic at all. It was bizarre, and something was telling me to get out as soon as I could. Dr.Bennett, my loyal information dealer, let me know the truth. All the workers were either born unable to use magic, had no talent for it, or had it sealed. It was a bunch of people who wanted to get back at the system for either oppressing them or not supporting them.
It was also brilliant because the workers could only leave out the help of their employer, who provided everything they needed. Dr. Bennett didn't say names but talked about his boss respectfully. It seemed the money from stealing the children was only to support the research because it wasn't a subject people wanted to study. While the causes for lack of magic or reduced magic were studied, nobody was trying to solve it. Ms.June has told me why one day when I had asked. It was simply because it wasn't cost-efficient.
The people who would be able to awaken the magic within them after not being able to before would never amount to much. Thier bodies had developed and evolved in a way that would make them more suitable for other things. As for the ones born out of weak magic, they likely missed the critical stages to strengthen their abilities and become better. Magic wasn't something you could pick up to become great at because you need great teachers and bountiful resources. This world was no utopia after all, and there was only a limited amount of resources.
One of the biggest thorns in my escape plan was the tracker they implanted in me. The glass room made it impossible to get out, and it was in a location close to an essential vertebrae in my spine. I didn't dare to touch it because Dr.Bennett said it was like a mechanical bug that would dig deeper if someone tried to get it out. It would even hide under the spine. The tactics they employed were insidious.
Getting out seemed less likely as the days passed. Although escape was on my mind, I knew this facility needed to be destroyed. Even if I could get out and the tracker was gone, I still needed to get through the forest. My success would only end up with the facility moving. I needed to eliminate the problem, which was impossible at my current level.
This facility made it impossible to do anything. I would probably have a higher chance of freeing all the other children trying to play hero than taking down the facility. Recently, they put us all in one big room together so it wouldn't be hard to leave as a group, but some kids had their spirit broken. When a guard would come in, even some would move into the corner. Though I looked down on the snobby children, nobody deserved this horrible treatment.
In this world of magic, power ruled everything, just like in the old world. Power was one of the many things that could corrupt people, turning children into horrible people from the toxic environments in which power rules all. As I continued to collect information and brainstorm how to get away, I noticed some of the children who were taken from the room didn't come back. It put my nerves through the roof, realizing they became test subjects. While some were the only children in their family's youngest generation, some were in families with hundreds like them.
The guard even started to look at us with pity, and I soon understood why. I came face to face with the experiments akin to hell on earth. They were igniting mana inside human children using a catalyst to unlock mana. While it could now be relatively safe, most people didn't have fully developed mana veins, and they used monster blood to do the awakening. It was by far one of the most dangerous ways to do so, and the way they conducted the experiments, they weren't looking to keep subjects alive. It seemed success was all that mattered.
Eventually, it was my turn to go to the lab. I hoped it wouldn't be my last day living. In the laboratory, all kinds of specimens and children were hooked up to different instruments. Some were even injected with monster blood and became weird hybrid-like creatures. It was a torturous experiment, and everyone involved looked like they were suffering. I didn't get chained to anything, but I got locked into a cage. I could only sit in my cell for now.
The cages were in a relatively dark area, but there were many different hybrids near me. A woman was crying in the corner because she had become some spider monster. She was similar to the spider demoness who would pretend to be human, with half her body being a part of the spider. Seeing as she still had her mind intact, she must have been a 'successful' excitement. She may have been one of many to keep her life, but it didn't seem like it may be one worth living.
Many people were in cages, either shaking in fear or looking ahead with blank looks. Some even seemed like they'd gone crazy as they laughed manically. Whatever concoctions they mixed with the blood invoked a hidden potential and awoke one's magic power. I was able to see myself as a kid who was injected with a substance before being put in a glass room. He seemed a bit older, like a teen, but something changed in how he looked. Magic wasn't the only thing that awakened.
He began to grow antennae from his head and mandibles from his mouth. A giant abdomen also came out of his lower back above his buttocks. I was getting major chimera ant vibes like the show HUNTER X HUNTER. Even when he seemed to show some magical power in controlling ice as the temperature in the cage plunged. At least he couldn't get out.