Fantasy A Dark Room and an Escape

[Half Pint]

EX2103 watched helplessly as EX2090 was pulled away by her caretaker. Her cry for him made his chest tighten, and tears were falling out of his eyes. He stopped struggling against Calvin, knowing that EX2090's caretaker would take care of her. "EX2103, calm yourself. EX2090 will be fine," Calvin said sternly, still holding onto the boy. "Let's get back to training. I need you focused, do you understand me?" EX2103 looked up at him and nodded, allowing Calvin to let go and guide him back to his first prisoner. EX2103 took a moment to compose himself, wiping the tears off his face and taking a few deep breaths. A new sense of anger was welling up inside of him. He looked at the prisoner in front of him, a young man with dirty hair. He looked worn down, and looked at him with this hopeless expression. EX2103 shook off his reluctance to hurt him, turning Calvin's words over and over again in his mind: "They're bad people. They hurt others."

Looking back over his shoulder, he saw Calvin nod at him. He turned back to the prisoner and swallowing his fear he looked him in the eye. "Kill yourself."

A strange feeling, one that EX2103 couldn't quite place but guessed it was something mixed with relief and confusion, spread over him as the prisoner's face went emotionless, but didn't do anything. The prisoner remained standing, some mental battle going on behind his eyes. EX2103 hadn't even noticed Calvin appearing next to him. "EX2103," he said softly. "Did you tell him to kill himself?"
EX2103 looked up at him and nodded. Calvin's eyes narrowed behind his glasses, and he took a long look at the prisoner. The prisoner's face filled with emotion, and besides a tad dazed, he seemed perfectly fine. EX2103 looked up at Calvin. "I...I did what you asked. I don't think I'm strong enough. I'm sorry Calvin," his caretaker remained silent. "Calvin-"
"Then we'll make you stronger." Calvin spat, voice ice cold. Something about his tone made the boy shrink back. "Calvin, I can just get him to beat himself up. We don't need to-"

"I DECIDE WHAT YOU DO," Calvin yelled, glaring down at EX2103. "What we need, is an efficent method to take down as many of these fuckers as possible. And we need this method now," he turned around and walked away from EX2103. "We'll find a way. I'll run every test if I have to," he ran his hand over his face, calming himself. EX2103 just stared at him, frozen to the spot with fear. Calvin looked at him. "Well? Get back to training EX2103. Continue as normal," his usual calm tone was back. EX2103 swallowed, and timidly turned back to the prisoner, who was now looking at him with a horrified expression. "I can't believe they're doing this to you," The prisoner whispered. Fear and anger mixed together and overtook EX2103. "Shut up!" he ordered. "Hit your head against the wall!"

The sounds of impact were muffled by the emotions swarming EX2103's head, and he remained in an enraged daze throughout the rest of his training, well aware of his caretaker's eyes burrowing into the back of his skull.

 

[Readytodienow]

A boy holding an elephant stuff animal stood in front of her. He was standing kind of lopsided and was smiling at her. She didn't dare look away from his eyes as she felt her moving closer and closer. "Move! Please, Charles! MOVE! The train is coming-" she screamed at the top of her lungs. These weren't her words. The train hit him causing his body to crumple against the train's front. EX2090 felt tears come out of her eyes but those weren't hers. Those tears belong to the owner of this fear. She was running toward the boy, but the one running wasn't her and she didn't know the boy. All she knew was that boy is now dead. The boy had been their son and they feared to relive the time they lost him. Nothing from this memory was hers. She had no connection to any of the people, emotions, or the accident, so why? Why did she feel all of the emotion? Why did she scream? Why did she feel like she lost part of herself? Why? She started shaking violently and opened her eyes to the Medical Unit table. Her hands were shaking and her throat hurt, but she was still screaming and crying. She couldn't get a gasp of air and struggled to breathe, but the tears kept coming, choking her and overwhelming her. She called out for Charles, the boy she will never know. The dead boy who was so young yet dead. Dead. Was she going to die too? The tears kept coming. EX2090 grabbed her knees pulling them close to her chest as she continuing to sob, gasping for breath. The doctor. What about the doctor?!

The doctor in the room was sound asleep. She let out a sigh of relief. EX2090 wondered how anyone could sleep through her screaming. After a few minutes of calming herself down, she was able to stand up. The doctor was still sleeping and she was still shaking a bit but she couldn't pass up this opportunity. I could look around a bit. She took the papers off the desk right in front of the doctor. It was title "Project 400: EX2000-EX3000." She flipped open to the first page. It was a picture of an 8-year-old girl who had really frizzy hair and a sad smile. All of her information was on this paper. EX2090 continued flipping through until she found herself. EX2090. Power: Can bring fears to life. Military use: 9.5/10 subj to change. Notes: Seems to have develop PTSD, but is able to perform duties well. Looking forward to how her power will progress. EX2090 didn't know what PTSD meant. She would have to ask Alisha about it later. She continued flipping through the pages. Her eye caught one boy in particular. The one who had helped her when she first got to the training room. When she looked at the page she dropped the folder. In big red letters on the top of his picture was the word, DECEASED. She knew what that word meant. Tears started to fall again. If only I could've saved him. She took the folder and went back to his page looking for anything to tell her about his death. The tears were falling faster now. EX2090 made sure not to let them fall on the papers. Out of the corner of her eye, the doctor stirred. She quickly picked up the folder and placed it back on the desk. Her heart was racing from not only the fear of being caught but from the last sentence on the report: Disappeared on the battlefield. There was a chance he was alive and she could see him again.

 

[Half Pint]

The last three days had been particularly rough to EX2103. The day after his powers had failed, he was dragged into a seperate testing room, given a "booster shot" of sorts, and had to go through a few brain scans whilst using his powers. Calvin seemed to be getting more and more cold with EX2103 as he was coming to the conclusion that there would be no way to get his powers quite strong enough to have people kill themselves. The day after that, Calvin made EX2103 order a guard to kill a prisoner, after telling the guard not to listen to EX2103. The guard obeyed EX2103, and seeing that he could get subjects to kill other subjects, Calvin seemed less dissapointed in EX2103. However, with more testing, it depended on who the subject of the mind control had to kill, as they ran a heavily supervised test where they tried to get a prisoner to kill another prisoner and it failed. The conditions had to be right.

EX2103 awoke from a light, restless sleep. He rubbed his eyes, greeted with the feeling of guilt that had been plauging him for the last few days. He hated it when Calvin was dissapointed.

 

[Readytodienow]

Three days had passed since the last time EX2090 was awake. She had been kept under strong sleep sedatives to keep her calm. The doctor from the day she was able to look through the folder had changed shifts and a new one put into place. This one wasn't the deep sleeper EX2090 could've hoped them to be. The last thing she remembered before succumbing to the sedatives was a doctor taking her blood and putting it in a black tube. After that, nothing. Her sleep was plagued with nightmare after nightmare, each a fear or memory of a fear she didn't know or own. Each scream, each tear, each movement, not her own. Her mind was a fuzzy mess of fear and anger. She felt the anger slowly building as she lived and relived through the fears of those she hurt. It wasn't right. It was never right. None of those people should have to experience this. EX2090 had felt the betrayal of being left on the streets, the sadness behind the smiley bright facade, the pain behind the cuts, the fear of disappointment, the loneliness of having everyone you know dead, and the sorrow of death. It made her so angry that this is the world people lived in and she only made it worse. This is what I deserve, for making them hurt more than they already are. I did this to myself. Eventually, she got to the point where the nightmares stopped. They must've run out now. Just room for the new ones coming. She thought to herself, as she sat in the darkness of her mind. A place that hadn't been left like this in a while.

 

[Half Pint]

As EX2103 ate and prepared for his caretaker to arrive with more guilt inducing tests. He tried to focus on something positive, anything to keep him going. He was sinking into a rut, pleasing Calvin was one of the only things he strived for, but he knew what Calvin made him do was wrong. He hadn't seen EX2090 in a while, not since he saw her caretaker carrying her bruised body away. Calvin had made him do so many tests, it had actually helped to keep his mind off of worrying about her. He remembered her plan to escape, and hoped she was still sure about it. His time to take Calvin's key card was approaching, and he dreaded the betrayal.

 

[Readytodienow]

After what seemed like an eternity, EX2090 finally opened her eyes. Alisha was next to her taking with a new doctor. She tried to get up silently but the pain in her arm made her cry out. Alisha rushed over quickly. "It's just bruises from the needles. Not major. You're okay." EX2090 nodded her head slowly as she pieced together where she was. Her head hurt like crazy. Alisha was saying something to her but she could only make out one word. "...training.." Her head snapped up at this word but she immediately regretted doing so. Her vision blurred for a second and the pain in her head was getting stronger. Alisha helped her to her feet which felt like jelly. She would've collapsed if not for Alisha's strong grip on her. As they made their way back to EX2090's room, she noticed it was nighttime which meant she couldn't get out of training tomorrow. As they continued down, Ex0290 asked Alisha how long she had been out. "You have been in and out of sleep in the medical ward for four days. Speaking of which, what were you thinking?! You know those REDS! How could you do that to yourself!" Her expression softened, "Do you know how worried I was? Seeing you like that again..." Tears were coming out of both their eyes now.

At her room, Alisha placed her silently on the bed. They had been silent the whole way back after that. EX2090 wanted to break the silence but couldn't bring herself to. She wanted to defend her actions but seeing Alisha cry was something that only happened when she was really hurt and she knew Alisha didn't cry often. Alisha ended up breaking the silence. "I managed to take your earpiece before anyone noticed. I got one for EX2103 too. Remember tomorrow you give it to him. We escape in two days. Get ready for this."