I had lost count of how long I spent here. Could’ve been weeks, months. I didn’t care. I didn’t have the energy to deal with it. I had been deadnamed, beaten, killed who knows how many times. I was near my final breath.

The scientist was leaving for the day as he removed my restraints so I could eat. I said nothing to him, as I normally don’t. I lost my will to speak. He then placed a hamburger on the ground.

“Thought it might be time to let you remember outside food.” The scientist said.

I remained silent, not touching the hamburger.

“Christ, you’re a tough nut to crack. I mean, you barely look different, and we’ve had you off your meds for awhile. Your resolve must be made of steel or something.” he chuckled, grinning menacingly, “that’s okay. Maybe tomorrow will be the day.”

I then spoke for the first time in weeks, “what are you planning?”

“You want me to descend into a bond villain monologue? Right now? Are you joking?” he laughed, his grin stretching wider across his face, “You’re not worth the trouble.”

His grin immediately faded, so just gave me one, final look of disgust and slammed his foot directly onto the hamburger, destroying it completely. Feeling good about himself, he left the room as I fell to the ground, emotionless, drained, hungry.

That’s when I made my choice. I’ll finally just die. Go to sleep and never wake up. I was starting to really feel the effects of being off hormones. I opened up my mouth to draw my final breath and felt two tiny, oval-like things fall into my mouth.

Estradiol.

“Where the fuck did these come from?” I said to myself quietly, sitting up and looking around the room.

Suddenly, a short man dressed in a black, glitter bodysuit and a hat that looked a lot like a bird’s beak, fell from the ceiling above and landed almost perfectly next to me, in the same superhero landing position in superhero movies.

“Don’t worry, I’m here to get you out,” he whispered to me before slinging me over his shoulders and heading towards the door, “Okay, I got the last person. Headed to the designated position.” he whispered again, this time after pressing the bird-like logo on his chest.

“Roger that, Starling.” a voice I didn’t recognize responded back.

I was so tired at that point that I just passed out then and there. I didn’t see anything else. Next time I woke up, I was in what looked like a futuristic nursing area. When I sat up slowly, I recognized that this wasn’t even a hospital, it was a normal room. It had everything I needed, a bed, a computer, a tv, and even a bookshelf filled with the most well written movies of the 20th and 21st century.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

As I gazed around the room, incredulous, a familiar face entered through the sliding door.

“Mylo?” I spoke in amazement.

“Yeah. I bet you have a lot of questions.” He replied immediately, happy to see me as well.

“Most people would in a scenario like this.”

“Okay, let me start with the basics, then, tutorial-style. This is the chamber of the Unreliables. They’re the people who fought off that massive robot before we got kidnapped. They’ve been working on cleaning up and tracking us down after they realized that several queer people across the area went missing after the incident with Jared Lang and the Kinderdrawer.”

“Wait, wait, wait... are you saying that we’re in a superhero’s base?”

“I wouldn’t call it a base. It’s more like a shelter that Alphonso had constructed to help the victims.”

“Alphonso?”

“You might remember him more as Dr. Neo Cortex. He goes by Quantum Brain. There’s also Buzzkill, Eye Trace, Starling, and me...” he said, puffing up his relatively tiny chest, “the bean!”

I came very, very close to laughing, not because I didn’t believe him, but because the way he says bean is just so fucking adorable that I can’t help but chuckle.

“I can see you holding back laughter, but this isn’t a laughing matter at all. Whatever that guy did to us there, it gave us... powers. Well, it gave me powers. No one else seems to have powers yet.” he continued.

“No one else? There were others?”

“There were a lot of queer people in there. All of them tortured by the same person. The scientist. They were all kidnapped during the same time frame we were, across the entire state. These people are more organized than we are.”

I slumped back in my bed, trying to understand what was happening. It was a lot to process. Not only do superheroes exist, but Mylo might also be one, and if he escaped the same place I did, I might be one too. I felt my anxiety start to take over, but I wiggled it off before it could take hold.

“Wow, you just wiggled off a month of torture. I’m impressed.” Mylo responded.

“I haven’t been myself in weeks, dude, give me a break.” I replied, spying a bottle of spiro and estradiol sitting on the counter.

I immediately took both of them, one after the other.

“I’ve missed you, my pretties,” I spoke to myself quietly, holding onto the newly resupplied pill bottles.

“Okay, okay. It seems you’re back to your usual self. The rest of the team wants to meet you,” Mylo told me, walking out the door, “come to the living room when you’re ready.”

As I stood there, my mind reeling from everything that’s happened over the course of the last month. All the torture, the dehumanization... it nearly got to me. I let it get to me. But I escaped. I have a second chance at life, and I’m going to use it to beat the shit out of the scientist that kidnapped me and my friend.