The place had no sky only a grey metallic ceiling, their rooms which existed more like cells had no lights, they had only a singular opening allowing them to gaze outside at their captors or perhaps at the distant cell.
The sounds of foot falls had brought many to the narrow windows of their cells to catch a glimpse of what would be happening today, they gazed upon a pale skinned boy with white hair, his hair was cut low and his ruby eyes were lifeless.
The boys face lacked any discernible expression, if anything he simply looked empty, hollow even, his hands hung limply in front of him bound by his shackles, the faceless enforcers and researcher leading him to his new residence.
"Subject 256, this is your new facility". The woman with red skin and obsidian horns adjusted her frames and looked at her holo-deck, no one actually needed glasses these days, it was mostly just an accessory. The boy looked up at her and slowly nodded.
The shackles came apart with a click and he trudged into the room, the door slamming shut behind him while he just sat in a corner and hugged his knees in silence. This little boy was Zed Gamora, he was unsure of how long had passed since he had gotten here but he was no longer as he once was.
His nerves had been cut apart, stitched together, his blood extracted and his bones crushed and replaced, his muscle's sliced apart and electrocuted, his skin burned and peeled like paper. At some point he wasn't even sure if he was screaming anymore, his own voice drowned out by the tearing of his mortal vessel.
His current appearance stood as a testament of the so called success they had managed to achieve, The boy shivered slightly in his corner, his number was merely the batch number for this vessel, they had taken his DNA and reconstructed this modified clone.
He had originally tried to understand the meaning behind these tests, maybe that would grant him some solace, but he was in too much pain to find any meaning behind it, all he managed to understand was that they people had a way to give people powers.
This new body was far younger than his original, but it was probably stronger, when the process began he blacked out severally, and his skin burned, his body convulsed and his bones snapped against the metal braces that held him in place.
The new body had not spared him from this pain once the transfer completed, his nerves flared up and his brain panicked inside of it's new shell , He felt itchy, hot, cold and in pain, his eyes moved about rapidly as he was unsure if he was actually in pain or not and his muscles spasmed and his bones threatened to continue with shattering his bones
The bruises on his wrists were from him thrashing about in the cuffs, his small body only continued to Injure itself, but oddly the wounds were disappearing as quickly as he was making them, after about a minute of this tedious process he was injected with sedatives 'It still hurts'
His wrists throb and he felt a dull ache in his bones, his hands still twitched from time to time but he felt lethargic due to the sedatives, it felt like he was half asleep, like his mouth was moving slower than his voice and his mind was swimming through muddy water.
The boys red eyes almost seemed to glow in the low light as he looked about the room, it was padded and likely filed with monitoring systems to watch his every move "I suppose I can't kill myself" He almost flinched at the sound of his own voice.
It was small, weak, yet so very strained, like he was on the verge of death, he frowned, he wasn't sure how he was going to get used to this, or if it was possible for him to do so, He fell over to his side staring at the door which now looked the same as all the other walls.
"Hey anyone in there?" A voice had come from, the room across. Zed had moved his eyes in the direction of the sound but had no intentions to speak, not even sure if he could still do so, he just wanted to sleep, however he seemed to have more than one neighbour.
"Did those bastard's just come to clean the room?"
"Shut the fuck up will ya?" Another voice had come from above him, he had assumed the floors of each cell were close to each other but not enough to let sound pass through, the fact they can talk to each other like this had to be intentional some form of psychological comfort?
Zed grew more annoyed at the thought, it was like a lab rat "Don't tell me to shut up, you want someone new to talk to more than I do?". The voice above replied in a condescending tone.
"Hah So what if I am? you're the one who said talking to a girl made you feel better"
"That was before I knew you were insane, things are different now"
"Are they? Are they really?"
The red eyed boy couldn't help but wonder what madness propelled these two, how in the world did they have the energy to bicker in a situation like this, one would think they were on a camping trip and not in some dead-end facility.
The two continued to argue and the boy's irritation only grew as they continued until eventually he opened his mouth, and forcing the words out of his unfamiliar lips, he wasn't sure if his inability to speak was more annoying or their bickering.
"S...shut up".
The two fell dead silent, this silence had lasted for what felt like hours before the male voice from before spoke again "That was a kid's voice right?". Zed could hear the surprise in his voice, it must have been rare to see a child in this place after all.
"You definitely imagined it" The female replied, causing the man to scoff
"Now I know for sure I heard right".
They had started another back and forth rapport once again, Zed was starting to see a pattern, the two would continue speaking so long as he remained silent, seeing that no one else was complaining means either no one was next to them or had given up stopping the pair.
"Why do you twotalk so much"
The two-hand stopped again but this time for a much shorter period of time, the shock not as great as before. "it really is a kid, haha these guys finally caught another one would you look at that?"
This had caused Zed to raise and eyebrow as he wondered if the person in question was old enough to call him a child, looking down at his own body he had the thought that perhaps just his voice alone wasn't the best determinant for his age
"Well it was bound to happen, we were the youngest they had ever taken in at the weren't we? Or does it hurt your feelings to not be so special anymore?" the voice above him paused for a few seconds before continuing "hey kid how old are you?"
"I am not a child" he answered, his body was still reeling from the transfer, the sedatives were wearing off and his muscles were starting to ache more but he was getting used to the sound of his new voice.
However the more he got used to this feeling the more disgusted he started to feel, he was a glorified flesh pilot."You sound like a kid though" The male voice continued, it was almost as though Zed could see him cross his arms in his cell as he heard him sigh. "How old are you then?"
The Red eyed child named Zed thought briefly wondering if this was a question he should actually answer. He sighed ever since the experiments started his mind had started to work strangely.
"I was sixteen years old when I was brought in, I have no idea how long it has been since then"
There was somewhat of a small bout of laughter coming from the cell next to him, and through the pain it had touched a sore spot in his heart.
"Those experiments must have done quite the number on your brain too" The loud and obnoxious laughter continued and Zed could feel his blood pressure rising. "Sixteen hahaha, I almost believed you"
"Whats so funny?" His tone was humourless, if not threatening, The man next to him had abruptly stopped his laughter, he realized he had angered the boy a great deal at the moment. "What? Don't want to laugh anymore?"
The man had gone completely silent, perhaps the isolation had caused him to forget his etiquette and he might have given off the wrong idea.
"Hey wait I.."
"Shut Up!" The floors had started to vibrate, it started small but as his agitation rose, so did the frequency and intensity of the vibrations
"I had my body torn apart and put back together as this… this abomination and you, you're laughing at me ?" A loud hissing Sound entered his ears, his room starting to fill with a strange odourless gas, the rising vibrations had stopped and their frequency decline.
"You really should learn to control yourself, I think the experiments might have actually messed more with your mind than his" The female voice had sounded from above them once the boy had fallen completely silent.
The boy was taken from his cell the next day by the same red skinned woman with obsidian horns, now sporting matching lipstick the woman wore her lab coat loosely with a pair of trousers and a crop top underneath.
The boy was looking at her and trying to figure out what exactly she was supposed to be in charge off and how someone needed to probably check her dress code, then again they kidnapped children so maybe that wasn't the issue he wanted it to be.
"Something wrong with how I look?" The boy averted his gaze and looked straight ahead while the researcher bent to his height. "Look at me when I speak to you boy."
The boy looked her dead in her eyes, they were green, almost looking like a sea of acid floating about inside her skull "Well? Say something" the woman urged him and the boy smirked
"Something" he said sticking his pinkie in her ear to scratch it as he repeated the last part of her sentence.
"Very funny, but at least I can take that off the list" she said tapping on a small circular device, swiping her finger and crossing off something on the checklist.
The boy looked at the device with mild curiosity, he was interested in what exactly was written there but already had an idea.
The woman had started to walk around the cell block and urged him to follow while she asked some questions.
"Name"
"Subject two-five-six" The woman paused and adjusted her glasses with mild irritation.
"Your given name"
"Zed Gamora" the lady nodded and crossed another thing off the list as they continued walking.
"Age" Zed tilted his head slightly and the woman added "Mental age"
"Sixteen… I think"
"Good enough, are you experiencing any difficulties?" the boy gave her a judging look raising his shackled hands up for her to see "I meant in terms of perception"
"I don't understand your question." The lady however didn't speak again and just nodded crossing another item off the checkboard.
That day he didn't do any absurd experiments, he just followed the lady around the various cell blocks and did some counting.
The boy had not spoken unless he was spoken to and the lady never seemed to stop speaking, even if the boy didn't respond she would keep talking regardless.
"Is the purpose of this just to access my mental health?" He asked now sitting on a table with her taking readings.
"You could say that"
The boy had noticed he was oddly cooperative, his mind seemed to suddenly drift off whenever she spoke, returning to him just when he was about to answer taking him some mild effort to not respond, he had the suspicion that the lady's ability was to blame for this, but for some reason the ability wasn't working the way it was supposed to.
He could see the micro expressions of frustration on her face, while his face had remained relatively the same from the beginning, He returned to his cell after what felt like an eternity, the fog in his mind finally cleared.
The cell door above him clicked shut a few minutes later thinking about how quiet it was until just now. "That red skinned bitch is in a bad mood today" She said aloud the moment they could no longer hear the foot falls of the facility members shoes.
The boy could swear he just heard the person next to him snicker but perhaps he was just being sensitive.
"What happened this time?"
"Get this, I'm supposed to be taking my routine health inspection and this woman makes me strip"
"Sounds exciting, but that's normal around here no?" This was the first time he felt this person had said something sensible.
"Yeah, maybe but she like used that weird ability of hers to make me before the others left, like she was testing something"
The man next to him was quiet and he thought to himself about the encounter today, the events replaying in his much faster mind.
"That might be my fault" He summarised, his sudden membership to the conversation had stunned them.
Zed might not have had a very good start with them but if he was to be stuck here for probably the rest of what would be his miserable life he would at least try to talk to them.
"Now what could you have possibly done to get her my suspiciously young sounding friend?" The person's tone almost made him narrow his eyes but he ultimately just shook her head.
"I think her ability didn't work on me, properly"
He started to explain how his day had gone and the two listened rather carefully until he finished.
"Well that sucks".
"It'll pass Sona"
This made the red eyed boy raise an eyebrow, this was the first time they had actually addressed each other by name, he mentally took note of the name.
The boy gradually got used to his new body and the changes that came with it, the numerous experiments had provided him with greater understanding of himself.
The time inside the facility was hard to measure and with no way to mark the walls he wasn't sure how long it was since this body barely seemed to grow, the only tell-tale sign was the length of his hair, which had grown quite long.
This new body was much more durable than his old one and it healed most minor wounds almost immediately, it would certainly ben a blessing back during his school days 'To think I'd miss being harassed by those fools".
The girl whom they all called Sona had knife like ears and a dark skin with what seemed like gold freckles on her face with grass green eyes and ash coloured hair, the books of old would call her an elf, though she herself had no idea what race she was.
The boy who was named Demiurge was and had red hair that resembled blood with yellow slit eyes that seemed to glow in the dark, he claimed he was human when he entered, but neither Sona nor Zed believed him, and he had no evidence other than his questionable belief in this.
They all received check-ups around the same time and this was another day following the same routine. Check ups, odd questions, shock therapy, power checks, and then back to their cells, this was just another day.
This was what Zed had assumed at least. The alarms for the facility blared for the first time Since he entered the place. [Alert, the facility has been compromised, I repeat the facility has been compromised, Terminate all redundant test subjects and secure subject 256]
Their cell doors all opened and the confused test subjects filtered out of their cells and looked around in confusion, this was something that neither of them could have predicted but it was certainly an interesting situation. An opportunity even.
'Subject 256? Me?' Zed, confused by the announcement didn't get the luxury of time to process his findings as the first scream sounded to the death of the other subjects, the building vibrated and the footfalls of the rushing enforcers along with their weapons fired.
This had at least confirmed a thought that Zed had about this particular area, abilities didn't function here, one of the armoured enforcers cut down another test subject and turned its reflective helment covered head at his direction.
The surface glinted for a moment "Subject 256 identified, beginning retrieval of—" the building shook again and the lights in this sector flickered and the ever present humming had grown silent. Everyone stood frozen for a moment before a cell door had slammed into the guards into the guards head and knocked him over cracking his helmet.
"Kill them! Our powers are back!" The person who threw the door shouted as his body was riddled with holes from their abilities, his body reduced to red mist.
The test subjects had started fighting back, with the ability suppression removed they were more than up for the challenge, and while the guards were overpowering most, a few of them were also being killed, this place was becoming a river of blood.
The blood and screams were starting to make him panic as his breathing became heavier, as he ran, everywhere he went there was death, the enforcers where also trying to capture him, he was afraid, he couldn't make sense of what was happening, the sector had started to vibrate.
A gloved fist collided with the back of his skull, he tasted iron as his mind spun, colliding with the floor he felt like electric currents where running throughout his body, his chest burned and he suddenly felt like he was underwater.
He let out a scream, shrill and loud, packed with all the pain and confusion he felt, the enforcer standing over him had a red visor over his face unlike the full helmet enforcers, a black haze of sand surrounded him shredding anyone that came too close to him.
"Retrieving subject 256" Zed could feel his heart pounding; his breathing became difficult as he struggled to so even perform basic cognitive thought, the vibrations only grew more intense and violent The small pieces of debris on the floor had started to rise with each laboured breath, the blood and chunks of flesh rising into the air, the enforcer looked up and back at the boy and tapped the side of his visor.
"Abnormality detected attempting to—" the guards head collapsed into his chest, the ground and walls of the sector cracked, the metal platforms and ceilings starting to bulge, twist and snap.
A small black sphere has appeared above the boy's head, the boys body Convulsed with his eyes rolled back and streaks of black spreading across the sclera of his eyes like ink.
The space around the Sphere started to deform with anything it touched disintegrating with its size and range increasing. The young child lost control of his ability and was about to reduce the entire facility and it's residents invaders or no into dust