Doctor Illinois looked through the glass walls of the children’s chamber, his children now. He always wanted kids, what a way for his wish to come true.

He relished the sight.

Pulling up his HUD the Doctor did a quick review of the children, the surviving fifteen. These kids who had survived the prototype enhancer. The stimulant was designed to increase the athletic attributes of the user as necessary. The tests the children had completed with their small physiques had pushed the drug to the limit.

The Doctor took great pride in his work, the drug acted as a wonderful tool to weed out the weak. It was pointless to keep the incapable alive, they would only serve to consume and waste his work. Their corpses stayed stored just in case he found a use for them, but the degradation from the stimulant made some almost unrecognizable.

The boy that had died in the chamber had simply refused to accept his own death; his body had started to shut down much earlier.

Some subjects in the group showed great promise though, the triplets were of a special interest to him. While the three were not identical, a great shame as a control group was always a nice treat, one of them showed great resilience to the drug’s negative effects.

Noah was his name.

Another boy of interest stood out, the long-haired boy, Tom. The Doctor would need to shave that mop off soon, perhaps it would be best to cut all the children’s hair down, it would provide more room for probes.

The Doctor sent an order to have the children’s hair shaved.

The boy Tom though, while he still showed mild aftereffects from the stimulant, he performed the best out of the group. The speed and strength of the child was truly phenomenal, all thanks to the Doctor’s own research though of course. He would have to test some of the stronger enhancers on the boy, perhaps build the child's resilience to the negative effects.

Looking at the group one more time, he sat there content. He finally had a good amount of subjects to test... hopefully these would last longer than the previous group.

His ears rang as a call was received, Director Jane, he would have to answer. It wouldn't end well for the Doctor to ignore the person in charge of his research funds.

He tore his gaze away from the children and answered the phone.

What a bother.

----------------------------------------

A girl named Kaylee was the next to die.

Tom hadn’t known her long, she had lived on the far side of the town, so he rarely saw her before the fires. In the past few days though, the group had become very close, they got to know a lot of little things about each other. Kaylee had enjoyed deep-fried pastries, cloud watching, and catching sand lizards.

Kaylee was an only child; her parents had died long ago so she was taken care of by her grandparents. The girl had always been there to console Tom and the other kids when they got back from their tests, feed them when they were too weak to, despite her own pain.

She was truly kind... Tom didn’t think she deserved to die.

It was unfair.

Tom had waved goodbye when she left for her test, a simple reflex enhancer.

She had a bad reaction to the drug and was placed back in the children's room. The stimulant had affected her metabolism, having sped it up to unsustainable levels.

“Don’t worry guys, I’ll be fine, I just need some sleep.” She had offered up, her voice gentle and mild, to console the younger children.

She starved to death a few hours later.

Her corpse laid in the room with the kids until morning.

The children all cried that night.

Tom tried to get angry, to fight back against the circumstance and avenge Kaylee, Yiku, the others... but he was just too tired.

Every day he was taken back into the testing rooms and forced to move large weights for hours at a time, multiple weaker injections given to him throughout the exercise. He had no choice but to follow their commands despite his strength.

As much as Tom wanted to use the enhanced strength to fight, his flesh wasn’t bulletproof, and there were no small number of guns pointed at him.

At the end of the day, he was unable to move from the soreness and pain. Every night he cried himself to sleep, on the nights he could sleep that is. Kaylee was the one who had fed him on those nights, his own arms too painful to move.

Noah took Kaylee’s place, being the only one not greatly affected by the drug’s aftereffects. Noah was gone the most often, along with his brothers. The triplets often came back beaten and bruised; they always refused to say what happened to them, or what they had done.

No one ever pressed the issue.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Almost every day after Kaylee’s death another person disappeared from the cell, never to come back. Each time a child was taken away for their turn for tests, they would wonder if it would be the last time they were seen.

For some, it was.

As the time passed the group dwindled until only seven of them remained. A fraction of the original amount.

After that, the number of children remained the same, Tom tried to be thankful for that.

That is, until one day, the Bouncer Boys were taken out together again. Only Noah came back that time, his face bloodied and pale.

His knuckles raw and dripping red.

Despite Tom’s attempts to talk to him, the boy stayed silent, refusing to elaborate on what happened.

Now there were only five.

----------------------------------------

They took Noah again; he needed more psychological tests apparently. He never spoke after the tests, not for a while at least. He fought like a demon whenever they came for him now.

Tom and the others had no choice but to sit and watch their friend be taken, their own bodies broken and fatigued, they needed their strength to survive their own tests.

Noah never mentioned the lack of help from his friends, but he understood. He held nothing against them for it, he would have done the same.

Tom.

Noah.

Leo.

Ant.

Zia.

These were the names of those that were left. The only ones strong enough, or lucky enough, to survive this long... If the kids could call themselves lucky.

Tom didn’t.

Tom leaned against the chamber's glass wall, looking at the last living remnants of his town. He wanted to cry, but all the tears he would ever cry had long been used up. The unfairness of the situation hit him all again.

He missed his mother, he missed the way the chemicals would burn his nostrils, he missed how she would yell at him for sneaking out to play with Paris, and he missed how she always was there.

He wanted her here now; he wanted her to yell at him for not eating well. To yell at him for just taking his life laying down, to tell him to suck up his pain and get on with it.

But she wasn’t here, she was dead, and so was everyone else.

His mother was buried under an ashen town and long dried tears.

Paris, Kaylee, and so many others sat inside a freezer, their bodies forever frozen in agony.

“Mom, Paris, Kaylee, I am so sorry.”

With those final words Tom started to relax, to untense his body and allow the great pains to fade. His body was relieved of all its stress; he would let himself fade into the dark.

Tom fell backwards into his mind, the world growing oh-so-far away. The light turned dim as everything closed off, his body shutting itself down. His breath slowed, his heart stalled, and he lent himself to the abyss...

“Tom!” A voice called out to him from across the void.

Tom ignored the noise.

“It’s me!” It echoed out in the distance, closer.

Who? Tom thought as he continued to drift further away, wishing to escape the noise.

“Paris!” It supplied to him; the voice ever closer.

Tom smiled lightly.

Paris was here with him... Perhaps the abyss wouldn’t be so lonely.

“I’m here to save you!” The voice shouted at him suddenly, immediately next to him.

Tom was shocked off death’s door and snapped his head around to find the source of the voice.

Peering through the glass, a little girl beat her hand against the chamber’s wall, a broad smile adorning her face.

Tom moved closer to her, coming face to face with the girl, she was familiar, yet he was afraid to admit it.

“Paris?” he asked softly, afraid that even the slightest noise might scatter this vision of her.

The girl nodded her head vigorously, her smile only growing larger.

She was really here; Paris was alive and in front of him. Tom didn’t know how to react, here she was, just across from him, yet still out of reach.

In this place of nightmares and apparitions, a smiling angel.

She shouldn’t be here; an angel shouldn’t be in Hell.

Tom had to warn her.

“No, you can't be here, you have to leave!” Tom shouted at her desperately. He wouldn’t allow her to go through what he did. Even if she ended up being fake, he couldn’t accept it, nor would he allow it.

The door’s chamber opened; Tom flinched as it did so, the sound a haunting warning of what was to come.

Standing in the doorway, a robot, a cold steel man with a smile etched on his face. Tom recognized the machine, its name started with ‘C’. Tom couldn’t recall the rest, the memory having long ago been burned away.

The machine turned to look at him, its hard red eyes boring into the boy.

“Tom. Where is everyone else.” It accused, the machines voice emotionless and cold.

Tom looked at the machine and shook his head at it.

These were them; these were the only ones alive. Tom had wanted to save more, he wanted to make everyone go home, but he had failed. Tom saw all this now, as he was judged by the machine.

He looked at the robot and the children around him, at the open doorway.

So few things were left in this life for him, yet there were still things left. He wouldn’t let them go again.

Never again.

Tom paced over to the open doorway and crossed over, his muscles aching as he did so.

The boy was nearly knocked off his feet as Paris wrapped her arms around him, lifting him into the air.

The pressure burnt against his skin and the pain nearly made him faint. He fought to stow the pain and he embraced the hug.

Paris had returned for him.

Paris dropped him to his feet, her toothy grin never fading.

“Wow! You're so skinny now! I can pick you right up!” Paris exclaimed loudly followed by a giggle.

Tom didn’t remember the last time he had smiled, but that laugh made him not only smile, but grin.

I missed that laugh.

“Tom.” The robot said, interrupting the reunion, “We have to get out of here quickly, they might already know we are here.”

Tom was irritated at the sudden interruption but nodded his head in response. The boy was fully aware of the gravity of the situation. The doctors most certainly knew that they were there.

It was time to leave.

With a final smile flashed at Paris, Tom went to the other kids, Noah now among them as well.

“Are you guys ready to move?” Tom asked them, cutting straight to the point. The kids had learned to limit their speech, if they could talk, they were fit enough for another test.

The children nodded in response; Noah relented though.

“I need to grab something.” Noah told the group.

Tom watched as Noah paced over to one of the doctor’s desks and opened a drawer.

From within the drawer Noah pulled out a data card and a handful of red injectors. Tom recognized them to be the strongest stimulants they had had tested on the children, a single one strong enough to incapacitate Tom for three days.

“What are you doing?” Tom asked Noah as he pocketed four of the injectors.

“Just in case.” The boy responded, handing the data card and last injector to Tom.

Tom looked at the items in the boy’s hands, the phantom pain of that particular drug still bore its talons within his mind. Hesitantly he reached out and took the items, pocketing them as well.

“Just in case.” Tom emphasized to the other boy.

Noah nodded lightly and they both returned to the others.

After a few moments, the machine called the group over to it. The robot stood ready and armed near the doors leading into the greater laboratory.

Tom watched as Paris held onto the robot's side and whispered words up to him, a kind smile on her face. Tom smiled again at her expression, ecstatic each time he turned his head to find she hadn’t disappeared.

Try as he might, this still felt like a dream to Tom.

One that he didn’t want to end.