At some point, I finally lose my mind.

I'm so tired.

I try to kill myself.

I do everything I can think of.

And my body betrays me and puts itself back together again.

The doors burst open. They must’ve heard me.

“You’re going to hurt yourself!”

The guards grab me, and I see a doctor flicking a needle.

“No! Let go of me!” I can barely see through the tears. “Let me go!”

The doctor approaches me.

“No! Get away!” My voice breaks and all of a sudden the lights flick on.

“What the fuck?” Someone yells. I struggle harder, and the lights flicker brighter.

“Let! Me! Go!”

Stop touching me, let go, let me go, I want to go, make it all go away--

Fingers are digging into my brittle bones as the lights start to strobe. I grit my teeth and scream.

Make them burn.

The lights shatter and all of a sudden I can’t see anymore, all there is is white.

But I can hear them.

A sizzling sound.

Screams.

I smell hot blood.

It all goes dark a moment later. I can’t see, my pupils dilating to try and adapt to the darkness.

When I can see again, I want to throw up. I do.

The guard and the doctors lie on the floor, their skin charred, and white… something... dribbling out of where their eyes should be.

I crumple to the floor, staring at it all.

More people rush in.

I don’t hear them. I don’t struggle when someone pushes a needle into my forearm.

All I can see is the corpses and their eyes.

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

People take me away after that.

It was their right too, apparently. My parents signed away their parenthood months ago. I'm an experiment now.

I hope they’re happy.

They throw me into a padded room with no lights. On good days, I get the mittens. On bad ones, I’m in a straight jacket.

Good days are when I participate willingly in the experiments where they need my cooperation.

Not all of the experiments need that.

They can cut me open at will, see that my bones are hollow, steal my blood, and then by the end of the day everything inside me is put back together.

They keep me in darkness all the time except for the experiments. My room has no windows and no cracks for light to seep through. When they fetch me, they black everything out and wear night vision goggles.

The only time I see light is when they put me in a bright experiment room. Every time, my formerly blind eyes feel like screaming orbs of pain.

I’m starting to dislike the light.

The darkness is lonely and maddening, but at least it doesn't hurt me.

Besides, in the dark I can think of things to accompany me. In the light, everything is far to clear.

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

Use your light to break this glass.

Ok.

Use your light to melt this metal beam.

Ok.

Use it to kill this chicken.

What?

Do you want the straight jacket?

No.

I’m sorry, chicken.

Kill this prisoner.

What? No!

Why not?

He’s a person.

He’s a prisoner of war.

I don’t care!

Fine then. Shoot him.

Wait!

BANG BANG!

Lock her up.

No wait please--

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Again and again and again. Day after day after day.

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“Hello?”

I look up at the sound.

There are floating colors in the darkness.

“I know someone is in here with us.”

“Who--”

12 circles appear suddenly in the darkness. I gasp, shutting my eyes, expecting the sharp pain of the light.

Nothing.

I squint one eye open.

No pain from the light emanating from the circles.

Not circles. Eyes. All in different colors.

“Who are you?” I ask the eyes. I feel that I should be crawling up the walls, screaming for help because there are strangers in my prison.

But I don’t.

“Not who. What.” A pair of eyes, a dark purple, come closer to me and interrupts my thoughts. “And we should be asking you that. You are the one who gives us our forms.” The voice is smooth, dark, and sounds like the finest of music to my ears. It makes my muscles relax, almost against my will.

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course not, you’re hanging onto the human definition of sanity like it’s the last thing you have.” He, I think it’s a he, based on his voice, pauses. “Oh, it is the last thing you have, isn’t it? And you’re not doing a great job of keeping it.” His voice is making it hard to think.

“Why are you here?”

“You made us.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Ah, but you’ve forgotten. Your mind is no longer intact.”

“So I’m crazy, then?” I’m not exactly surprised, but it still stung to hear it from someone out of my subconscious, apparently.

“In the human sense, yes.”

Human sense? Like they are something else? Well, I suppose they are something else. But what about me?

Oh right. I’m not human anymore.

“What is your name, not-human child?” Purple eyes asks me, pulling me out of the whirlpool of despair I swirl down whenever I re-realize my species status.

“My name?” I had one of those, didn’t I? When my parents still loved me. When I was more than the growths on my back. “I… I can’t remember. I’m not sure.”

“Oh? That’s no good.” There’s a shuffle of sound, and the eyes get closer to me once again before they dip. I feel warmth and something solid to my side. “We need to call you something.”

“The people outside call me Subject.”

“That’s no name.”

“I know. But that’s all I have.”

“No it’s not. You have your wings.”

My lip curls and I look away from his eyes, all the eyes, and into a corner.

With a rustle of sound, the one with green eyes comes forward and drags their hands down the edge of my right growth. I yank it away with a hiss of sound.

“Maybe we’ll call you Angel.” Green eyes says.

“No!” The word is torn from my throat. “I’m not an angel. I’m the farthest thing from an angel anyone can be.”

“Hmm…” Purple is silent for a while. “Then I’ll call you Sin.”

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

“You still haven’t answered my question.” I say, staring up at what I’m assuming is the ceiling, but I can’t be sure because of the darkness. The six others are lying in a circle around me, enclosing me in a circle of warmth. They’re a comfort, even though I can still only see their eyes, each pair a different color. “What are you guys?”

Purple shifts beside me, looks down at me. “Sins, of course.”

“Sins?”

“Yes.”

His gaze shifts away from me. “Why don’t we introduce ourselves? I am Lust.”

The one with orange eyes sits up. “I am called Gluttony.”

One with lemon yellow eyes is next. “Greed.”

Someone with pale, pale blue eyes speaks up next. “Sloth.”

Next, emerald green eyes. “I am Envy.”

And finally, molten silver eyes. “The sin of Pride.”

It was odd. Aside from Lust, all of their voices seemed to constantly shift. It was impossible to tell their gender, the cadence of their tone, nothing.

“Interesting.” I say. I don’t know how to respond to this.

“That’s all you have to say?” Lust laughs. It’s a very nice laugh. Husky. Sweet. “Aren’t you curious as to what we can do?”

“You can do stuff?”

“Obviously.”

“Oh. Well, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” I still don’t know how to respond to this kind of thing. Lust is right, I’ve well and truly gone mad to think of this stuff.

He tsks at me. “Oh this won’t do at all. Where is your backbone?”

Warm fingers tilt my chin up to his purple gaze. “One does not grow wings, does not summon us, without a fire in their souls. You want something.”

I can’t keep up with his gaze, and my eyes flick away from him.

“You are mistaken.”

“Bullshit.” His voice allows no dissent. “Regardless of anything and everything that has happened to you, you still want."

"Uh--"

“I am Lust. When someone looks at me, I appear to them as the person they want the most. The person they would do anything to possess. Everything about me, my looks, my smell, my voice, all of it is tailored specifically to whoever looks at me. To you. But you don’t beg for me or my touch? That means that you want, you need, something else. Something that none of us can offer because you aren’t going insane for us.”

“I don't want it. I don't want you.”

“But you want something.” His hands grip my shoulders, shake me a bit. “What do you want?”

“Nothing.”

“Lies!”

The door bursts open as Lust shouts.

“Let’s go,” the guard says.

“No.” I want to stay with them. With Lust. They’re safe. They don’t hurt me. The darkness doesn’t hurt me.

“Grab her.”

“No!” I shriek as they tear me away from Lust. “No, I want to stay here!”

“Crazy bitch.”

“Lust!” I cry out. “Please!”

“What do you want?” Is all I can hear him say as they drag me out and slam the door, trapping the sins inside.

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

They keep me in the light room, the experiment room.

Every day I don’t kill the person they want, they keep me in there for another day. Week? Month? I don’t know anymore.

I want Lust. I want the sins. They make me feel safe.

“Kill this prisoner.”

“Please let me go back.” I whisper. “Let me go back.”

“You can go back when you kill this prisoner.”

I look at the man in front of me, bound and gagged. He looks at me. My growths. I think he’s praying.

To who?

To me?

“Kill this prisoner.”

I don’t want to.

“Kill this prisoner.”

Bang bang?

Kill him.

Kill him.

KILL HIM!

I want something.

Everything is a blinding white for a second.

And then it’s all black.