None of this made sense…

His steps echoed as he walked, and yet Liam could hardly feel the floor beneath him. Looking around only made him more confused, since there was nothing to see. He had tried sleeping while the girl healed him, because he was still uncomfortable with people grabbing him. He had no choice on allowing her to heal him, though.

He was in too much agony to consider otherwise. The pain had become clearer now that the clones were gone. He hadn’t noticed before, but a part of him went away when the clones came to life. The ‘him’ from the day before had been basically riding on autopilot, barely any better than a clone. Only when he saw the bunch of clones finally disappear, did he realize why. Each one took a bit of his mind, his sadness, his grief.

His happiness.

They had all been… suppressed, whenever he had made a clone. It was almost unnoticeable every time he did it, but now that they were no longer alive it had become all to clear for him again. His angry thoughts, his fear of powers, they came back in full swing, along with the sensations in his body.

Now that he could feel all those again, his body had started getting harder to control. Thanks to the pain, which had been so crippling that he had almost passed out before he even went onto the bed, he had been ready to knock out. But he hadn’t. He was in this place now, this darkness that encompassed the world around him. Was it a dream? But it seemed too real to be one. No, he was awake, unlike any time he’d been awake before. He had closed his eyes… and now?

He was alone. He felt like he was standing, but not. And darkness… why was that all Liam could see? He thought he had closed his eyes, and fell asleep but… He felt awake and up now. He no longer felt pain, even when he could feel his dormant body still, even when his eyes refused to open. He was awake. He felt soft hands run over his chest in the real world, tentative and gentle as if to not hurt him. In the darkness, it was the only source of stimulus to him, and he couldn’t tell if it was because it was real or all in his hea-

“Crying over memories.”

The voice rang out, calm and monotone, despite the strange words. He turned in the darkness with a snarl, scanning the area with the desire to kill whatever was there. The voice sent a huge spike of anger rushing through him, something so primal and intense that it replaced any normal sense of thought. This was his space, his own, personal space!

…Why he thought of this darkness like that, he had no idea.

“Where are you! Where am I!?” He shouted, wondering why he couldn’t even hear any footsteps. This was a dream, he knew that. Emily was over him in the real world, he could feel her hands on his chest… but. There had to be a reason behind this nightmare, right?

“Spitting out indifferent words” It groaned out again, though this time it was fearful and cowardly. This time the voice didn’t anger him, but he felt complete disgust deep inside him.

“What? Shut up! You don’t know me!”

Indifferent… Liam wanted to snap the thing's neck for daring to speak. Its meek voice grated on his ears like scratching a fork on a plate. Who the hell were they to talk to him like-

“Waiting for the signal.” A hopeful, sad tone said.

“Don’t say you can’t do it.” A depressed, lonely one that time.

“Tired of pretending.” Spiteful, jealous, the voice was crying.

That…

His heart and mind went around in circles at the myriad voices, and he caught himself before he fell to the ground, snarling while on all fours like an animal. There was more than one voice wasn’t there? Shit. He could hear each one of their voices coming from the darkness, each the same voice but layered with a different, intense emotion to each one. In the darkness, all he was left with were these conflicting emotions, until the world shattered around him again.

There were cracks in the darkness now, pure white linings that showed the people around him. The people outside, he could see pieces of them, their hands, their feet. He could only see them through the facets of the cracks, but they were also trying to look in, and in each one he could see those damn golden eyes peering in. Each one of them was him, he could tell now…

He was going to tear his out when he woke up.

He shuddered and gagged, his thoughts finding terrain once more. “Get me the hell out of- W-wait! I meant get the hell away! Get away!” He howled, his mind constantly fighting against itself. As he saw their hands reach in through the piercing darkness. The cracks widened, pieces flying off and becoming more and more bright. The idea of this darkness becoming any less obscuring scared him somehow. He could see his own hands now, no longer the dark, Ego form he had gained but the hands he used to have. Soft and malleable to the touch…

Just like the ones weaker than him, trying to break through.

He couldn’t allow that.

Without thinking, he ran towards one of the bodies, grabbing the arm by the wrist and smashing down on the elbow. He heard a sickening crack, and his body almost crumpled as he thought of the sensation. He pictured his own arm in that position for a moment, before destroying the thought and reaching out into the white void, grabbing the bastard’s neck. Pulling them in, he could see their eyes, devoid of anything Liam could call human.

“Arguing based on emotion.”

…That was right. His hands wrapped around the thing’s throat even tighter. The bastard wasn’t human, right? They were an Ego.

A power.

“Can you dream of the future anymore?”

He could afford to kill them.

“Don’t say it’s too late now.”

Even if they died, he couldn’t be punished in this place. Not in utopia, where he would just be imprisoned in another cage. It made more sense just to kill him now. Around Liam, the copies of him had all stopped. He could tell because the darkness had completely gone away now, leaving nothing but an empty, white void. Each had their hands gently wrapped around their necks, mouthing the words the copy dying under Liam was saying.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“The world is a really dark place.”

No matter how tightly he squeezed, they never seemed to stop talking.

“Everything I want granted has been taken from me.”

“Shut up!”

“You don’t have a way to return, though.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Liam slammed his fist into the clones face, his eyes shifting all around at the others in anger. “All of you!”

“I come to hate it, but slowly I come to like it.”

“I’ll fucking kill you!” Liam shouted, his throat raw from the effort. He hated this. He wanted to go home. With his friends… With his mom. His actual mom, not the damn woman who suddenly decided to bring him with her to a fucking happy-merry adventure. She had been his Idol back then, Mika. He had been born from such a strong woman, and he had wished to become as strong as her one day. But he had done everything to make her proud back in the badlands, and this district had been his punishment…

He just wanted to be with people he had spent his whole life with…

But this was the best he had! Why did this clone think it was so bad to find comfort in it!? So what if he liked the comfort!? He liked not having to worry about being killed. So what if he had become so soft that he had died to a shitty Ego death!? So what if he liked living like a goddamn district one softie!? It didn’t mean anything! He still wanted his friends, his family! The people who would die for him, that he would die for!

He still wanted to go back to his old district, damnit!

“I want to be dyed in their colors.” It let out, the words hitting him in a spot he hadn’t realize was so vulnerable.

His grip tightened once more, and this time the clone finally looked like they felt it. He was going to kill them, and it was going to be something he regretted. “Please… Shut up… I dont wanna die…” He groaned out of his own tightening windpipe. He figured out a while ago that what he was doing to the clone was hurting him. He could feel his mind shutting down, and his strength was going with it… But he didn’t want to let go. As his arms wrapped around Liam’s neck, he knew there was no other way out. He didn’t want to let go…. He didn’t-

It grinned, the first emotion on it’s face since he’d wrapped his hands around it.

“Let us talk until our tongues go dry.” It growled, the same menacing grin on it’s face that Liam had in a fight. It was of one who knew they had won.

Liam closed his eyes, no longer able to keep them open.

____________________________________________________________________

Emily was perplexed. Her hands were pouring energy into the boy’s chest, but barely anything was happening. She could feel the unstable state of her body, one of the parts of her powers she had. It was telling her that the boy was… stagnant. It felt odd, and unsettling, as if all she had been doing was healing a dead corpse. But his chest was rising, his arms were twitching whenever she attempted to touch his elbows.

His fingers were…

“Ooh, sweetie. Might want to back up a bit. His hands are… why are his fingers like that?” The nurse beside Emily said aloud. She seemed worried as she looked at the long, black claws coming out of Liam’s hands about three inches, only relaxing when they receded back into the fingertips. Emily didn’t move, now used to the phenomenon. She had noticed the claws a while back, and they had been moving in and out constantly since the boy had fallen asleep.

They weren’t going to hurt her, she at least knew that. Every time they exited they quickly went back in after a minute, so after the first few times she had just continued healing despite it. After a while she had even learned that moving the boy’s appendages, allowed her to bring the claws out on her own. Pawing and squeezing at Liam’s fingers and palm as the c;aws slipped in and out erratically had taken up quite a bit of her time.

Until the nurse had caught on.

Albeit, Emily hadn’t been hiding it whatsoever, since she didn’t seem what the problem was in playing with the body she was healing. After a lesson of what the ‘hippocratic oath’ and self-image was, and a small chastising, the nurse had decided it was too irresponsible to leave Emily with the boy alone. Now she was watching by the side, and Emily was no longer allowed to have fun. Well, she could still make up reasons to inspect their body.

Specifically, she had wanted to check out why the un-shoed boy’s feet had an extra toe-

“Gah…”

The boy suddenly opened his eyes, and alongside it her energy finally found footing inside his body, rushing to heal anything and everything it could find. It was so sudden that she couldn’t help but release a gasp as pressure filled her mind. This was less on the level of healing and more of her dumping energy into a hole. A hole that desperately needed to be filled. Whatever had been happening to the body must have been quite serious… And all the boy did was turn his head, as if embarrassed to be there…

How did the boy look so calm under these conditions?

___________________________________________________________________

That was… not pretty. Liam thought.

The girl above him had seemed surprised to see him wake up, even though he had been keenly aware of what she had been doing this entire time. He tried standing, before realizing the broken state his body was in. His ribs were on fire, and if he had felt any more in pain he would have whited out then and there. But it was slowly going away thanks to the girl’s green energy, and he couldn’t help but feel glad to have her there.

It allowed him to consider what the hell had happened. He had… killed himself. Was that right? The dream felt strange, as if it had been meant to explain something to him that got lost in his own mind. Something more than what he had seen. He knew the basics, at least. He wanted to go back home, but he was also starting to like it here.

Leonard might have forced this situation with their intellect, but fighting with Ezekiel, being healed by Emily, even the recognition of power he seemed to have gotten from the bag girl was something he had not felt in a long time. He was starting to find some semblance of his place here, and despite everything, he hated that fact. He was from district 3, he had people in there that were everything to him, people who…

Whose faces, he was starting to forget.

His heart burned as he considered that stupid thought, and he turned his head away from the girl as his golden eyes started to water. If Liam let any of these people see him this way, he would personally kill them himself. The healing was terrifyingly effective, already taking the pain from his broken femur and turning it into barely more than a passing itch. He felt fine, his throat was fine… his body was in agony, but he didn’t feel like he had lost anything more.

Anything, more?

Ah, that was right. He had almost died.

“That’s enough… Gimme a second.” He tried standing up again, and this time he was just strong enough to try it without groaning in pain. The girl must have noticed his pain, though, because she immediately tried propping him up. “I know how hurt you are! Please don’t move unless it’s serious!” He nodded absentmindedly, sure that this counted as something serious. During that whole scene when he fought himself, he had been ready to die alongside the clone. It made him realize that moments like those, where his death was an inevitable choice, could happen at any moment.

And that he needed a way out if they ever happened again.

Without thinking, he pulled one of the red cylinders out of his pockets. They felt heavier now, sturdier. The feeling of morbid suspense was no longer piercing his stomach when he held it either, which seemed to be a good sign. He cracked the small cylinder in his mouth, allowing his fang to pierce it. Mrs. Deus had thought the thing needed blood to recharge, but he had also heard during the exchange between her and Leonard that his ‘DNA’ could have worked as well.

He remembered that the stuff had been swabbed off his cheek when he had first come here, so that was simple enough-

He threw the cylinder when it started softening in his mouth, and it fell to the side and transformed almost instantly. It had the ego shape on it, and it’s hair was intact so he had assumed it to be the third clone he had created. That was perfect. He kept a complete focus on his emotions, and found them to change slightly just as he had thought. He felt better, less in pain… All because of his own power? “...Stay by my side. Don’t do anything that might get me killed. Just… just stay by my side until I get better.” He groaned out, ignoring the strange look Emily had given him.

The clone nodded, and kneeled next to Liam with determined eyes.

Eyes that told the kid that he was safe, if for the moment.