Chapter 7: Suspicious Past (part 1)
It was roughly fifteen years ago. I was eight years old then, just like the many other initiates who were forced into the organization. Back then, I wasn’t ‘Lois,’ but a little girl known as 0-3-5-6. However, most would call me “chipmunk,” a nickname I earned because of my brown hair and the fact that I was the weakest girl in my cohort.
The training was brutal, relentless, and unforgiving. Each day felt like a battle for survival, and every lesson drilled into us that weakness was unacceptable. I was constantly reminded of my own frailty, mocked by the other initiates for being the smallest, the slowest, the least capable. They all had nicknames they liked, and identities they just as easily accepted, while I was just a number, a faceless cog in the machine of the organization.
Currently, I was sparring with a dark-haired boy who was no older than me, his eyes wide with panic. His stance was sloppy, his movements hesitant. He was afraid, and at that moment, I saw a reflection of myself in his fear. But I couldn’t afford to show any mercy. Mercy was a luxury that could get me killed.
“Fight me, you trash!” I shouted, my voice filled with a forced bravado I didn’t truly feel.
“I… I don’t want to fight!” he stammered, his eyes pleading for a reprieve.
But there was no room for kindness in this place. The instructors watched us with cold, calculating eyes, waiting for any sign of weakness to punish. I had learned the hard way that hesitation would only lead to pain, and that showing any kind of softness would be met with cruelty.
So, I lunged at him, fists flying, driven by the fear that had been instilled in me since the day I was brought here. My movements were wild and uncoordinated, but I fought with everything I had, desperate to prove that I wasn’t as weak as they all believed. I wasn’t just a number. I wasn’t just the “chipmunk.”
But deep down, even as I landed blow after blow, I knew that I wasn’t truly strong. I was just a scared little girl trying to survive in a world that demanded more from me than I could give.
The boy I was fighting was numbered 0-0-1-3. His smaller number indicated he was among the earliest batch, most likely born within the facility. Unlike me, who had been kidnapped from the outside, he’d known nothing but this place. It was a cruel irony that they’d have called me ‘trash’ if it weren’t for him. In a twisted way, I was thankful for his existence. The burden of being the weakest had fallen on him instead of me.
As we fought, I channeled all of my anger and frustration into every strike. I hated this place, hated what it was turning me into. But at that moment, all I could think about was how much I hated him, this boy who was even weaker than me. I didn’t realize back then that he was bullied harder than I was, that his life was a constant torment.
To be frank, I took relish on knowing that at least this boy was weaker than me, making him the weakest person in the facility.
I swept his legs out from under him, and he fell to the ground with a thud. Without hesitation, I straddled him, pinning him down as I rained blow after blow onto his trembling form. He raised his arms feebly, trying to defend himself with all the strength he could muster, but it was pathetic.
This place was hell, and I was becoming a part of it.
“Fight, damn it!” I screamed at him, my voice cracking with a mixture of rage and desperation.
But the boy just stared up at me with wide, vacant eyes. “We all live in a game,” he muttered, his voice tinged with a hollow insanity. “We aren’t real!”
His words were the ramblings of someone who had been broken by the relentless training, someone who had lost all grip on reality. But they unnerved me. They were a reminder of how close I was to the same fate.
The only reason this boy was weaker than me was because he never fought back. Every time we sparred, he was beaten to within an inch of his life by his sparring partners, and he never resisted. I hated him for it. I hated him because I was terrified of him. If he ever decided to fight back, it might be me who ended up in his place, broken and defeated on the cold, hard ground.
The World Order, known simply as the Order, was a sprawling government entity with a singular purpose: to conquer the galaxy. Beneath its vast umbrella were two key organizations, the Union and the Guard, each with its own distinct role in maintaining the Order’s dominance.
The Union was the face of the Order, standing in the light to protect the interests of the people. They were the superheroes, the enforcers of justice across the worlds under the Order’s iron grip. To the common populace, they were the champions, the defenders of peace and stability.
But there was another side to the Order, one that thrived in the shadows. The Guard was a secretive organization, filled with powerful and influential figures dedicated to securing the Order’s control by any means necessary. They orchestrated conspiracies, eliminated threats, and manipulated events to ensure that the Order’s authority remained unchallenged. While the Union wore capes and saved lives, the Guard pulled the strings from behind the scenes, ensuring that the Order's vision of the future was realized.
I had been thrust into this world, into a facility known as the Dome. It was a training ground, a brutal and unforgiving place where children like me were molded into tools for the Order’s grand design. This was a project jointly organized by both the Union and the Guard, a collaboration between the light and the dark.
The instructor’s voice was cold and detached as he addressed us, a group of wide-eyed children who had been torn from their previous lives and thrust into this nightmarish existence. “This training facility, the Dome, was created by both the Union and the Guard,” he began. “You have one purpose here, and that is to grow strong. In the future, you will be planted in various positions within society, and you will learn to contribute. Understand this: the weak have no place in the future of the Order. That is why you must grow strong.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
His words sent a shiver down my spine. There was no room for weakness here, no place for fear or hesitation. We were expected to survive, to become stronger than we ever thought possible, or to be discarded as failures. The Order had no use for those who couldn’t endure the training, who couldn’t adapt to the harsh realities of the world they were building.
As I stood there, surrounded by my fellow initiates, I felt a sinking dread settle in my stomach. This was the world I was now a part of, a world where only the strong survived. And if I wanted to live, I had no choice but to become one of them.
The Dome was a place of unrelenting cruelty, a brutal environment designed to break children down and rebuild them into something unrecognizable. It was one thing to subject us to this hell, but to do so knowing that each of us possessed a superpower made it infinitely worse. The process of awakening our abilities, known as 'shedding,' was a horrific ordeal that left deep scars, both physical and mental. It was an experience so agonizing that it could twist even the most honorable person into a psychotic monster. And for a child, it was nothing short of sheer wickedness.
We were all victims of this twisted experiment, and the Dome was our prison.
The instructor’s voice cut through the cold air like a knife, “Sparring! Come forth, zero-zero-five-two versus zero-three-five-six.”
My number. I swallowed hard, my stomach churning with a mix of fear and resignation. I had no choice but to step into the arena. My opponent was already waiting for me—zero-zero-five-two, the albino girl with deadly telekinetic powers. She was one of the top five ranked fighters, a position she had earned through sheer brutality. Her pale lips curled into a vicious smile as our eyes met. She knew as well as I did that my defeat was practically guaranteed.
I gritted my teeth, forcing down the rising panic. Rushing at her blindly would be suicide, and there was no clear path to victory. But I couldn’t just give up, not in a place like this. Not when survival depended on proving your strength, day after day.
The instructor’s voice broke the silence again, “Zero-zero-five-two, I prohibit you from using long-range telekinesis. Only tactile telekinesis in this spar. No flight, no hurling objects, and no immobilizing your opponent. Do you understand?”
The albino nodded, her smile never wavering. It was clear she relished the challenge, even with the restrictions. The instructor gave the signal, and the fight began.
“I will crush you,” she sneered, her voice dripping with confidence.
Her words sent a shiver down my spine, but I pushed the fear aside. There was no room for it here. I had to focus, to survive. Even if it meant facing one of the strongest opponents in the Dome, I would find a way. I had to.
The albino girl moved with terrifying speed, her telekinesis amplifying her physical abilities to unnatural levels. It was as if she was cloaked in a thin, invisible armor of force, propelling her across the arena with impossible agility. In the blink of an eye, she was behind me, her leg already swinging in a vicious roundhouse kick aimed at my skull.
I barely had time to react. Instinctively, I crossed my arms above my head to block the blow. The impact was brutal, and I felt my arm dislocate under the force. Pain shot through me, but I couldn’t afford to hesitate. With a thought, I used my power to reset the joint, the sickening pop accompanied by a wave of agony that I forced myself to ignore.
“You should do better than that,” I growled, my voice dripping with defiance.
Anger and dark emotions surged through me, fueling a reckless abandon that I embraced fully. My power, a unique form of self-targeted hypnosis, allowed me to remember everything with perfect clarity—not just sights and sounds, but every sensation, every detail of my experiences. It wasn’t just a photographic memory; it was total mastery over my own body.
I had honed this ability to the point where I could tweak my biology at will—increasing hormonal secretions, restructuring bones, and even commanding my involuntary organs to act according to my conscious desires. It was a dangerous power, one that I had learned to wield with ruthless precision.
No, it wasn’t meant to be a dangerous power.
However, through the education of the Dome, it was made into one.
I focused on that mastery now, channeling my rage into a single point of impact. Lightning sparks crackled around my fist as I swung it toward the albino girl, who had barely recovered from her last attack. My fist connected with her face, and the combination of adrenaline, bioelectricity, and sheer anger sent her crashing into the concrete wall with a deafening thud.
She slumped to the ground, unconscious.
The arena fell silent. My fellow initiates stared in disbelief, their faces pale with shock. But my instructor didn’t share their astonishment. He stepped forward, his expression unreadable as he assessed the scene.
I stood there, breathing heavily, my knuckles still tingling with residual electricity. The fight was over, but the rage still simmered beneath the surface, a constant reminder of the cruelty that had shaped me into this.
And I fucking hated it.
"Congratulations on your second shedding," the instructor announced, his voice echoing through the sterile confines of the Dome. His words were sharp, each one a reminder of the brutal reality we lived in. "This is what the Dome is looking for—initiates who prove that the weak have no place in the future the Order has set its eyes on! There’s a reason you’ve all been chosen! While some of you are weak now, you shan’t be weak forever."
I stood there, my body still trembling from the aftermath of the fight, as the instructor’s gaze landed on me. There was something in his eyes, something almost...proud, but it was buried beneath layers of cold, calculated indifference.
"Don’t look too happy, zero-three-five-six," he warned, his tone cutting through any sense of victory I might have felt. "Your opponent was yet to shed a second time. The organization has plans for you, so don’t disappoint. Now that you’ve had your second shedding, it’s time to make you more useful."
The weight of his words settled over me like a dark cloud. That day, we were taught the theory behind multiple sheddings—how by repeatedly dipping ourselves into the realm of insanity, we could shed again and again, each time emerging stronger, more powerful, but also more fractured. It was a terrifying thought, the idea of losing oneself piece by piece to become something the Order deemed "useful."
In the following months, life in the Dome became more bearable, but only marginally. The lessons were harsh, but the physical and mental strain began to feel routine, almost normal. However, that small comfort was nothing more than the calm before the storm.
For the next few years, I was sent on missions that would haunt any ordinary person, tasks that were designed to break us further, to push us beyond the limits of our sanity. Each mission chipped away at whatever humanity I had left, leaving only the hardened shell that the Order required. Despite it all, I persisted.
I hated the rotten life I was forced to live, but what choice did I have? If I refused to endure it, someone else would take my place. And where would that leave me? Most likely six feet under the ground, buried for the worms to feed on. Survival was the only option, no matter how hollow it felt.