The place had no sky only a grey metallic ceiling, their rooms which existed more like cells had no lights, it was practically a dark cupboard for throwing human sacks of meat.
They walked a pale skinned haired boy into his cell, the boy had bruising around his wrist and his hair was cut low, almost shaved clean.
The boys face had a tired expression and with the child looking no more than six years old he looked quite haggard.
“Subject 256, named Zed Gamora this is your new facility”. The boy nodded as he went in and sat on the bed and hugged his knees.
This little boy was Zed Gamora, he was unsure of how long had passed since he had gotten here but he was no longer as he once was.
His nerves had been cut apart and stitched together his blood extracted and his bones crushed and replaced, his muscle’s sliced apart and shocked in several ways he never thought possible.
This was his new body now, a result of one of their experiments, he had been transferred into this modified vessel.
The boy shivered slightly in his corner, he was the two hundredth and fifty sixth trial for the midnight transfer process into this body and the only success.
He had originally tried to understand the meaning behind these tests, but he was lost he didn’t know and couldn’t be bothered.
This new body was far younger than his original not only that the experience had broken him somewhat.
His mind remained perfectly intact and well aware during the entire process, when the transfer ended the nerves in this body had flared up all at once.
He felt itchy, hot, cold and in pain, his eyes flickered in and out of sight and his muscles spasmed with cramps.
The bruises on his wrists were from him thrashing about in the cuffs, his small body only continued to Injure itself until they had injected him with sedatives.
They then escorted him to his new cell, likely he would have a different set of experiments on future.
The boys red eyes almost seemed to glow in the low light as he looked about the room, the room was padded, sink rounded and taps low.
“I suppose I can’t kill myself” He almost flinched at the sound of his own voice, it was such a foreign sound to him as he spent his time during the transfer screaming he hadn’t taken note.
He fell over to his side staring at the door which now looked the same as all the other walls.
“Hey anyone in there?” A voice had come from, the room across. Zed had moved his eyes in the direction of the sound but had no intentions to speak, not even sure if he could still do so.
“Did those bastard’s just come to clean the room?”
“Shut the fuck up will ya?” Another voice had come from above him, he had assumed the floors of each cell were close to each other but not enough to let sound pass through.
“Don’t tell me to shut up, I’m tired of talking to you as well”
“Hah you should be happy that your at least talking to a girl while you’re stuck in here”
“Maybe that’s the problem”
The red eyed boy couldn’t help but wonder what madness propelled these two, how in the world did they have the energy to bicker like this.
The two continued to argue and the boys irritation only grew as they continued until eventually he opened his mouth.
“S...shut up”.
The two fell dead silent, this silence had lasted for what felt like hour’s before the male voice from before spoke again.
“That was a kid’s voice right?”
“You definitely imagined it”
“You heard it too”
They had started this back and forth rapport of theirs once again, Zed was starting to see a pattern.
The two would continue speaking so long as he remained silent, but that didn’t means they would remain silent if he did, he had peaked their curiosity.
“Why do you talk so much”
The two hand stopped again but this time for a much shorter period of time, the shock not as great as before.
“it really is a kid, haha these guys are finally experimenting on kids huh?”
This had caused Zed to raise and eyebrow as he wondered if the person in question was old enough to call him a child, though just his voice wouldn’t be enough.
“Well it was bound to happen, we were the youngest they had ever taken in before weren’t we?” the voice above him paused for a few seconds before continuing “hey kid how old are you?”
“I am not a child” he answered, his body was still reeling from the transfer, the sedatives were wearing off and his muscles were starting to feel sore but he was getting used to the sound of his new voice.
The more he got used to this feeling the more disgusted he started to feel, he was a glorified flesh pilot.
“You sound like a kid though” The male voice continued, it was almost as though Zed could see him cross his arms in his cell as he heard him sigh. “How old are you then?”
The Red eyed child named Zed thought briefly wondering if this was a question he should actually answer. He sighed ever since the experiments started his mind had started to work strangely.
“I was sixteen years old when I was brought in, I have no idea how long it has been since then”
There was somewhat of a small bout of laughter coming from the cell next to him, and through the pain it had touched a sore spot in his heart.
“Those experiments must have done quite the number on your brain” The loud and obnoxious laughter continued and Zed could feel his blood pressure rising.
“Are you fucking laughing at me?” He had raised his voice for the first time since getting into this facility, not just incoherent screams but actually words.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
The man next to him had abrupt stopped his laughter, the boys voice had just been barely audible but now he was getting the boys full volume.
“You think this is funny? Huh? You think I’m funny? You think being turned into a fucking child is funny?!”
The man had gone completely silent, perhaps the isolation had caused him to forget his etiquette and he might have given off the wrong idea.
“Hey wait I..”
“Shut the fuck up” He screamed, the transfer had likely made his emotions unstable and with this being his first interaction with people in a while he was lashing out.
The floors had started to vibrate very slightly, not enough to be concerning but it was increasing.
“ I had my body torn apart and put back together as this, this abomination and you, you’re laughing at me ?” A loud hissing Sound filled the room alongside gas had started to fill his cell as he started to feel weaker until eventually he became completely silent.
The moment he lost consciousness the vibrations from before cut off almost like it had never happened.
“You really should learn to control yourself, I think the experiments might have actually messed more with your mind than his” The female voice had sounded from above them.
The cell blocks were designed in a way that such self destructive aggression was met with suppression.
The boy woke up the next morning and was guided out of his cell by a researcher, the woman had three eyes and red skin with her lips coloured black.
The woman wore her lab coat loosely with a pair of trousers and a crop top underneath.
The boy was looking at her and trying to figure out what exactly she was supposed to be in charge off and how someone needed to probably check her dress code.
“Something wrong with how I look?” The boy averted his gaze and looked straight ahead while the researcher bent to his height. “I know you can talk you damn lab rat so look at me when I talk to you at least.”
The boy looked her dead in her eyes, they were green like emeralds, they seemed to be moving like a see of acid.
“Well? Say something”
“Something” he said sticking his pinkie in her ear to scratch it as he repeated the last part of her sentence.
“Very funny, but at least I can take that off the list” she said tapping on a small circular device , swiping her finger and crossing off something on the checklist.
The boy looked at the device with mild curiosity, he was interested in what exactly was written there but already had an idea.
The woman had started to walk around the cell block and urged him to follow while she asked some questions.
“Name”
“Subject two-five-six” The woman paused and rolled her eyes before asking the same question again.
“Your given name”
“Zed Gamora” the lady nodded and crossed another thing off the list as they continued walking.
“Age” Zed tilted his head slightly and the woman added “mental age”
“Sixteen”
“Are you aware of the passage of time?” the boy moved his eyes towards the upper left as he thought before shaking his head.
“vaguely”
That day he didn’t do any absurd experiments, he just followed the lady around the various cell blocks and did some counting.
The boy had not spoken unless he was spoken to and the lady never seemed to stop speaking, even if the boy didn’t respond she would keep talking regardless.
“Is the purpose of this just to access my mental health?” He asked now sitting on a table with her taking readings.
“You’re the first to succeed with the mind transfer, the facility want’s to make sure nothing happens”.
The boy had noticed he was oddly cooperative and his mind seemed to suddenly drift off and return to him.
He had the suspicion that the ladies ability was to blame for this, but for some reason the ability wasn’t working the way it was supposed to.
He could see the micro expressions of frustration on her face, while his face had remained relatively the same from the beginning.
He returned to his cell after what felt like an eternity, the fog in his mind finally cleared.
The cell door above him clicked shut a few minutes later thinking about how quiet it was until just now.
“That red skinned bitch is in a bad mood today” She said aloud the moment they could no longer hear the click of the facility members shoes.
The boy could swear he just heard the person next to him snicker but perhaps he was just being sensitive.
“What happened this time?”
“Get this, I’m supposed to be taking my routine health inspection and this woman makes me strip”
“Sounds exciting, but that’s normal around here no?” This was the first time he felt this person had said something sensible.
“Yeah, maybe but she like used that weird ability of hers to make me before the others left, like she was testing something”
The man next to him was quiet and he thought to himself about the encounter today, the events replaying in his much faster mind.
“That might be my fault” He summarised, his sudden membership to the conversation had stunned them.
Zed might not have had a very good start with them but if he was to be stuck here for probably the rest of what would be his miserable life he would at least try to talk to them.
“Now what could you have possibly done to get her my suspiciously young sounding friend?” The person’s tone almost made him narrow his eyes but he ultimately just shook her head.
“I think her ability didn’t work on me, properly”
He started to explain how his day had gone and the two listened rather carefully until he finished.
“Well that sucks”.
“It’ll pass Sona”
This made The red eyed boy raise an eyebrow, this was the first time they had actually addressed each other by name, he mentally took note of the name.
The boy gradually got used to his new body and the changes that came with it, the numerous experiments had provided him with greater understanding of himself.
The time inside the facility was hard to measure and with no way to mark the walls he wasn’t sure how long it was since this body barely seemed to grow.
The only passage of time would perhaps be the length of his hair, which seemed to still grow normally.
This new body was much more durable than his old one and it healed almost like he could regenerate or perhaps he did, he was never fully conscious during all the experiments.
He had also confirmed his suspicions on his mental ability having improved, everything felt much slower than it would usually and he had better pattern recognition.
He had eventually learned and shared his name with the other two and now knew what they looked like.
The girl whom they all called Sona had knife like ears and a dark skin tone with what seemed like gold freckles on her face with grass green eyes and ash coloured hair.
The boy who was named Demiurge was and had red hair that resembled blood with yellow slit eyes that seemed to glow in the dark.
They all received checkups around the same time and this was another day following the same routine.
Check ups, odd questions, shock therapy, power checks, and then back to their cells, this was just another day.
This was what Zed had assumed at least. The alarm’s for the facility blared for the first time Since he entered the place.
[Alert, the facility has been compromised, I repeat the facility has been compromised, Terminate all redundant test subjects and secure subject 256]
‘Subject 256? Me?’ Zed, confused by the announcement didn’t get the luxury of time to process his findings as the first scream sounded to the death of the other subjects.
The facility rattled and shook with small to large chunks of debris falling everywhere.
He ran as fast as his legs could carry him until he bumped into something, a bunch of tall men in black full body armour.
“Subject 256 identified, beginning retrieval of—” a the cell door had slammed into the guards into the guards head and knocked him over.
“Run!” The person who threw the door shouted as his body was riddled with holes from their abilities.
The test subjects had started fighting back, with the ability suppression removed they were more than up for the challenge, and while the guards were overpowering most quite a few of them were being killed.
The blood and screams were starting to make him panic as his breathing became heavier.
He could feel everything moving much slower as his mind started to blur and thing’s became hazy..
He let out a scream, feeling something pierce his skin. The boys body hit the floor, the others that saw this had attempted to kill the guards.
This might be out of anger or perhaps what was left of their humanity, but whatever it was had failed miserably as the boy was covered in blood and Viscera.
“Retrieving subject 256”
Zed could feel his heart pounding, his breathing became difficult as he struggled to so even perform basic cognitive thought.
The small pieces of debris on the floor had started to rise with each laboured breath, the blood and chunks of flesh rising into the air.
“Abnormal activity from 256 detected attempting to—” the guards head and those of the others behind him had collapsed into their chests, the ground crack and the metal platforms and ceilings started to bulge, twist and snap.
A small black sphere has appeared above the boys head, the boys body spammed with his eyes rolled back and streaks of black has started to fill his eyes like ink.
The space around the Sphere started to deform with anything making contact with it disintegrating with it’s size and range increasing.
The young child lost control of his ability and was about to reduce the entire facility and it’s residents invaders or no into dust