"S-sage! Hey, wait up." Mia said, jogging down the hall way as she followed Sage, "Hey, whats up?" Sage smiled widely at her, looking down nearly a whole foot, "Nothing much, just happy birthday i guess. I just can't think of anything though..." Mia followed next to Sage, she fiddled with her fingers as she walked, "Ye.. my birthday doesn't really mean much anymore does it? No ones does, 'congrats on living a full next year, goodluck for the next', it doesn't really seem worth celebrating anyway." Sage chuckled, throwing an arm around Mia's shoulder, "Ye... You're right. It doesn't matter, I guess I still just wanted to at least try, but what's the point?" Mia laughed along nervously, simply following along having no idea where Sage planned to go.
"How's your arm by the way? Does it still hurt?" She asked, pointing her nose at the white bandage over Sages forearm, only six nights ago it was his turn to go up to the labs, and the doctors had cut open his wrist going up to his elbow, they lazily bandaged it back together causing it to get a nasty infection, however the cut was already nearly gone.
"Ye, it's fine, I'm just keeping the bandage on to keep it from getting infected again." Sage said, rubbing his right hand over the white bandage, Mia stared at his bruised and scared hands, taking in notice of the bruise on his wrists caused by the restraints.
She remained silent for a few moments, still simply going along with Sage as he led her outside, to their favourite hangout tree, Sage laid down on his back with his hands behind his head, seeming to relax underneath the cool shade of the huge plane tree. Not a care in the world as he laid their while Mia sat beside him, biting her nails and scratching at her arm anxiously.
"Out with it..." Sage mumbled, it's easy to tell when Mia is having a rough time, even if you don't know her, and typical of her she immediately burst, "I think it's Adrian's turn tonight.." She blurted out, tapping her foot against the grass.
Sage looked up at her, "What makes you think that?" He asked, "There's a pattern to this... I know it, it's not just random. I just-... Have a bad feeling." Mia explain, looking down as Sage slowly sat up tilted her head so she'd look at him, "A bad feeling as in..." Sage asked quietly, dreading off from his sentence slowly.
Mia looked up at him, "Bad..." She mumbled, Sage gently rubbed her cheek asking, "Well what do you plan to do about it?"
"I don't know what i can do.." She answered, looking away and lightly pushing his hand off, Mia's bad feelings were more often right then wrong, and the people around her have come to accept that when she says no, don't do it. But how can you say no to this?
"I just-... I feel like if he goes in there tonight..." She started, stopping her sentence as her eyes weld up in wet tears, "i-i don't know I don't know... I don't know what I think is gonna happen I'm just- scared..."
"We're all scared Mia, I'm sure you're right, there is a pattern to this, but let's hope the pattern is what you're worried about Okey? It doesn't matter what we try to do... There's no way to stop them." Sage took Mia's hand tightly, holding it while making her look at him with his spare hand, "You better be right.." she mumbled.
And the day continues, they do their own thing until 6 pm, shower time, where they go in and shower\bathe as per schedule and then switch with their bathroommates after 20 minutes, and within an hour all is good and done and the children are locked in the two gendered rooms, in case you were wandering, Mia had not received her spot in the girls dormitory, leaving her to be the only girl in a room full of 34 teenage boys, she sat quietly and read a book on all things Oceanic she found in the library, it was thick and heavy and very dusty, but she loved reading about all the wonderful things science has discovered about the ocean, however everyone else had another hour to waste.
Leaving her not only the only girl, but also the only one not making a huge rucas. The boys played with their toys and coloured and drew, however nobody seemed to know how to shut up.
They were running around screaming, or fighting over a pen. If only Mia knew what she was missing out on in the girls dorm as they all sat quietly and read or drew on paper, or even played with their toys, they had the same thing the boys had, and yet they did it quietly and calmly. Some girls giggling with each other and gossiping about their crushes, but nothing louder that would be allowed in a public library. I'm sure Mia would've killed to have such silence.
And the dreadful moment awaits, 8 pm, the guards knocked on the door of the girls room and waited a good five minutes, knowing the girls were likely not fully dressed and had no issues in waiting until everyone was decent.
They got the go to open the doors and stood in the doorway with small peaces of paper, "19 14 15 23, 12 15 7 1 14, and 1 20 1 18 9, please step forward." The guards pronounced, the girls already knew their numbers by heart, everyone did, it was hard to forget. So the chosen girls stood up and said goodnight to everyone, Snow couldn't help but tremble as she walked slowly and fiddled with her fingers, she looked up at the gaurd, suddenly remembering something and quickly running back to her bed, grabbing a pad and heading back to the guard.
The guard nodded not caring much, making a stop at the bathrooms and allowing Snow along with Atari to head in to use the restroom while Logon stayed outside, shivering from night cold.
And next stop was the boys dormitory, and as Mia had predicted..
"1 4 18 9 1 14." The guards called out, Adrian sighed not thinking much of it and got up to go, Mia quickly grabbed his arm worried, her eyes welling up already as he laughed at her, "Come on, we've been threw this so many times." He looked at her with a warm smile, gently kissing her forehead and pulling his arm away.
However Mia insisted on walking with him, he chuckled and merely continued, meeting the guards and the three girls at the door, he kissed Mia once again and told her he'd be back by morning, but she just couldn't shake the feeling. She watched as he left her, the guards closing and locking the door as she could do absolutely nothing but watch.
She eventually went back to her bed, sitting up straight staring at the door, which was straight ahead of her as the room was a great big rectangle with all white beds going on each side, seventeen on each side and one singular bed at the very back, Mia's.
All the lights went off as it was bedtime, however.. something I seemed to have forgotten to mention.
These experiments were not only inhumane, it was inhuman. The injections that the scientists had given them, quite literally turned them inhuman. Extraordinary, as you might remember.
Extraordinary victims to be exact, and what can these little victims do with these extraordinary terms and injections?
Well, for now, all you need to know, is that Adam and Soren, had been given the gift of fire, while Kai, Christian and Elio had been given the gift of luminous, and Milo Isake and Vegas didn't need a source of light. Cat eyes, as Isaac likes to call it.
And having these abilities, they most certainly did not go to sleep when told to, they continued playing but kept the noise at a minimum.
Mia sat there for hours, waiting, just waiting for them to fall asleep, and by midnight that has happened, she could hear every single small breathe, she could hear each and every calm heart beat. As if beating in her own chest, she slowly, and lightly got out of bed. Her feet just barely touching the ground as she glided across the cold tiled floor, she gently touched the doorknob. Going on a simple hunch that her plan has worked.
Click.
Mia inhaled sharply, because you see, following her brother to the door had not gone for nothing.
She's been studying these locks for years, they seem unbreakable, yet a flaw so obvious had slipped into the open years ago.
Block the lock.
If you would go to your front right now, place a clothe between the door and the wall, close it and lock. Will it? Well, this one won't. It simply pops back and unlocks, and by some miracle the guards hadn't noticed her slipping the hem of her shirt threw the door as they walked away.
Mia breathed in deep breathes trying to calm herself down, slowly opening the door and pressing her feet onto the floor underneath her as she walked out, closing the door behind her she looked over to the unfamiliar and scary shadows ahead.
The only time she'd ever seen this sight at night was when she was chosen as next, the most being a sunset on long days. She gently placed her bear feet into the grass and began to make her way towards the labs.
The closer and closer she got the more and more she regret what she was doing, what was she even going to do? Eavesdrop? Watch her brother be tortured?
That's exactly what she did, the closer she got the louder the screams became.
She was right.
Adrian was the only one screaming so loudly, she poked her head across the clear glass into the lab rooms, they were unguarded and easy to access as generally the doors were meant to be locked, it was meant to be impossible for someone that shouldn't be there, to be there. But Mia was a smart girl. She knew the only people in these long dreadful halls were the scientists and their experiments.
She grabbed her grabbed mouth to quiet herself as she watched Adrian be tied up in that chair, screaming as his blood veins popped out and bulged threw his skin sitting there completely naked on the cold metal chair.
The man in the white coat stood back drinking his coffee watching her brother screaming at the top of his lungs, his eyes were blacked in the dulled room, the blood down his chest and fresh needle marks all over his body.
Mia whimpered in tears seeing Adrian's collar bones cut open, a straight line across the bottom of each, she couldn't look away as his blood turned black. It's like she was glued to that position, watching Adrian's blood crust into chunks and bitter away onto the floor, like peaces of rock coming out of his blood stream.
The coated man chuckled, "That worked quicker then I thought, if you're lucky you can go back by 3, the devils hour~" he laughed, picking up the peaces of dried blood and putting them into viles and jars, immediately started to test them them, dripping cold water onto a peace and putting it under a telescope, occasional 'Mm... Interesting's followed as he just left Adrian screaming in what looked to be unearthly pain as he kept bleeding, crusting up within a few seconds of hitting oxygen.
Mia cried and couldn't understand why these scientists were doing this to them, suddenly Adrian looked directly at her, with blacked out demon eyes he made eye contact with her and time just stopped.
The doctor did nothing and seemed to have frozen in place, Adrian maintained eye contact, grunting and struggling to maintain his voice, "Leave... NOW!!" He yelled at her, and as if in slow motion Mia fell back and out of sight, time had continued and running once again and Mia made no attempt at wasting time, stumbling across the floor as she ran back outside and as far away from that horrible lab.
She ran into the field and forest-like enclosure that PaperCut had build for the children, she ran as far as she's ever gone sobbing and falling onto the surrounding trees, she grabbed and gasped at the branches begging gods she'd stopped believing in years ago to help them.
She cried and sobbed for what felt like hours, she was so scared for her brother, she couldn't control the panic attack she was having.
Thousands of questions and prayers going threw her mind, she was only a child, they were all only children. So why them? Why would anyone do this to them? Who benefits from this.
It seemed bearable when they had the idea that their was some kind of virus or unstoppable monsters out in the real world, and PaperCut was only trying to save humanity. But the longer they stayed here the further away those ideas seemed to get.
"Are they simply doing this for fun?.."
The burning question, that just couldn't be answered.