White. All the walls were white. The bed was white. The sink was white. The ceiling was white. The floor was white. The door was white. The lights were a blinding white.
The clothing the prisoner wore was white.
Through a one-way mirror, scientists stared at the prisoner with wide, intellectual eyes, making calculations; assumptions; statements.
The prisoner was a young man. He looked barely older than sixteen. He sat with his back to one of the walls, opposite the shiny white door that never, ever opened for him. His eyes were closed. He barely looked like he was breathing.
"Who is he?"
One of the scientists behind the one-way mirror looked to the side, at the one who asked.
She was new. She was a child psychologist. Twenty seven at the most. A child prodigy. Ironic. Her wide brown eyes were fixed on the prisoner, her black hair brushing her shoulders, her ample bosom hidden under a doctors' white lab-coat. She had thought that she'd much like to be back at home with her boyfriend, but... The prisoner...
"It has three names," the scientist told her. Her brown eyes never wavering from the prisoner.
"Why?" she asked in a quiet voice.
"It's different."
Her eyes were on the scientist now, her mouth open slightly, a small, confused frown on her face.
"It has two personalities," explained the scientist, old eyes glancing back at the prisoner. "One name for each personality, and a name for the being as a whole." He took a breath. "It spites us. If we tell one of the personalities not to do something, the other one will do what we said not to do, just because it can. We use the 'whole' name to tell them both something."
The old scientist looked at the young woman. "How old do you think it is?"
She looked back at the prisoner, lively eyes dancing over his still frame. "Sixteen?"
The scientist smirked.
"Try five."
The prisoner sighed gently, his back against the soft wall, eyes closed, two separate voices conversing in his head. He was still on the outside- like a shell. Like he was dead. But, on the inside, he was lively.
The door hissed open and a young nurse stood there, a plastic tray of small metal objects in her hands, her whole body clad in pure white. Like she was part of the walls. Part of the building they were in. She took a step forward, and the doors hissed closed behind her.
"Hello Leon," she said in a slow, careful voice.
The prisoner's eyes opened.
"I'm here to collect some blood, Leon. Can you please co-operate?" the nurse continued, trying not to shift under the blank, but piercing stare she received.
'Leon' just watched her for a long moment, before one of his arms rose; palm facing upwards; hand slack.
The nurse knew what that meant and hurried forward, kneeling in front of him, placing the tray of instruments in front of herself. She tied a rubber cord around the young man's bicep of the arm that was risen, and tapped the hidden vein on the inner-side of his elbow with practised precision.
The nurse looked up at the prisoner's eyes hesitantly.
'Leon' stared back. His eyes were a greyish-blue blur. His brown hair, falling jaggedly around his shoulders and in his eyes, was slightly oily, but otherwise in good condition. As was the rest of his body.
"I need Squall's blood first," the nurse told Leon.
His eyes changed- from a greyish-blue blur, to a simple, flat light blue with a ring of grey around the edges.
The nurse gave him a hesitant, small smile and he just stared back.
"There." Squall's voice was a soft, deep rumble. "Just bleed me already."
The needle pierced his vein, and he didn't even blink. Bright red blood spewed into the small plastic container clipped to the end of the needle, and Squall watched it with light blue, emotionless eyes.
With a quiet sigh, the nurse collected three small tubes of Squall's blood, before slipping the needle out and pressing a small cotton bud against the tiny weeping hole. Her eyes glanced back up at Squall's eyes, and she chewed her lip lightly. "I need Cloud's blood, now."
His eyes changed again- The flat light blue morphed into a bright, almost artificially bright blue, the grey ring around it darkening slightly.
His hand immediately came out and touched the hem of her skirt and she jumped back automatically, dropping the cotton bud, a scowl that she'd used many times darkening her pretty face. "Cloud!" she barked angrily. He did that every single time. No exceptions.
"What?" Cloud asked, a smirk twitching at his lips. His voice was a little higher than Squall's, but it was breathier too. Softer. "It's not like you weren't expecting it."
"That's not the point," snapped the nurse, carefully kneeling before Cloud once more and picking up a clean needle, tapping the vein she'd punctured just before- the skin perfectly healed.
"Then what is the point?" Cloud asked, eying her with bright, piercing eyes.
She pushed the needle under his skin, ignoring him, and he just watched her.
"It evolves the longer it's alive," the scientist told the young woman beside him. She was listening intently. "The two personalities are basically the same, but they are slightly different.
"Squall is the more intellectual of the two. He understands patterns, probabilities, and just about anything else to do with numbers much better than any man should be able to. He's a genius.
"Cloud is the stronger of the two. He can lift anything. Bend anything. Break anything. He can run faster than anyone. He's an athletic prodigy."
The old scientist took a breath, staring through the one-way mirror as the nurse stood up with her blood samples and Leon stared up at her with a piercing stare. He made no move to follow her. No move to run for it. No move to force his way after her as the doors hissed closed behind her- leaving him alone once more.
He just closed his eyes.
"Squall and Cloud share these abilities, however," breathed the scientist. "They share, but that is not all they do." He stared up at the young woman with old, tired eyes. "He evolves."
For come reason, those two words struck right into the core of the young woman. Made her feel cold. Alone. Lost. Horrified. She'd felt so many things since she'd entered this building. Disgust. Horror. It just... Made her feel wrong.
"He's only been alive for five years-- But he evolves. He heals. He ages. He knows things he shouldn't."
She felt dead. She felt like the thing –Leon– shouldn't exist.
"He's the Perfect Being."
Leon slept like that. He slept sitting with his back against the wall. He didn't move. He didn't make a noise. He was dead on the outside.
The doors hissed open and he made no move to open his eyes. He awoke immediately, but he made no move to see who it was. It was an anomaly for someone to come into his room at this time. He remembered every time someone came into his room; he remembered the very seconds. They always kept to the appointed times.
Who was it?
"Leon? Can you please wake up?"
Blurred greyish-blue eyes opened immediately and took in the large-chested young woman standing just in front of the closed white doors, her hands clasped in front of her, a concerned, but curious expression on her face.
She gave him a small smile. "Hello, I'm Tifa."
Leon just stared blankly at her, and she coughed quietly and continued, her lively brown eyes glancing away. "I'm a child-psycologist. I was brought here to--"
"Can I call you Tiffie?"
Tifa froze, staring with wide eyes at Leon. The young man just looked at her, his young face impassive, brown hair falling into his eyes.
"Your father called you that, didn't he?" He was smiling. That smile made her feel cold inside. It was just like His. "Tiffie, Dear Tiffie." His smile widened into a perfect, toothy grin. His eyes stared into her. Piercing. Evil. "Run Tiffie? You can't run from me."
It was His voice.
Tifa was barely breathing. She was cold. She was sweating. She was shaking.
"Run, Tiffie."
She was clawing at the door. "OPEN!" She screamed at the camera just above it. "PLEASE!"
"You can't run from me, Tiffie."
The doors hissed open and she sped out of the room, haunting laughter ringing in her ears.
She refused to go back into that room.
She never wanted to go back into that room ever again. How did he know? How?! She was speaking to Demyx; the young man who worked there, who sat before numerous screens and buttons; unlocking doors and locking them- Security Man, he called himself.
"He knows stuff," Demyx told her simply after Tifa had told him of her ordeal that happened a month ago, sitting beside the young man. "He sees into people's minds. He evolves more abilities the longer he's alive. The Docs are wondering whether they should kill him before he becomes too powerful."
The young man tapped a button on his desk, and a screen that showed two boys in their own little room, look up just as the door of their room opened, and a trolley with some food rolled in. "It's too late for that, I think," continued Demyx darkly. "I guess we're just lucky he can't change what we see yet. Illusions would be a bitch."
"How did he..." Tifa didn't know what kind of word she was looking for. She struggled for a moment, before the young man beside her glanced away from his screens, before his bright blue orbs looked up at a series of screens showing Leon's room.
"He was found," murmured Demyx. "In a hospital near here. Alone, on the bed. They could practically see him growing up in his blankets, and they decided to make him into a lab-rat."
The young man sighed. "Bad idea, really."
Grey-blue eyes stared through the screen at Demyx, and he looked away, shifting on his chair.
Tifa sighed, placing her hands in her lap. She wanted nothing to do with this place-- these freaks of nature. She just wanted to go home. Back to her sweetheart and his arm embrace. Her brown eyes looked up the moment she heard the young man sitting beside her make a quiet, confused sound.
"What is it?" she asked, swivelling slightly on her soft chair.
"Must be a bad circuit," Demyx mumbled offhandedly, eyes focused on the many screens before him; freaks, people, animals being shown in the screens. They were all there. In the same building. Behind locked doors that only Demyx, the trusted young man he was, could open.
Tifa's brown eyes flickered between and glowing screens and the young man, and blinked when Demyx stood, raising a hand and pressing every 'off' button.
One by one, the screens went black.
"Demyx--" Tifa began.
Grey eyes stared through the last screen at the young man and he turned that off too.
"That's better!" brightened Demyx, going about his work once more, hands flying over buttons, bright aqua eyes glancing up at the dead screens from time to time, pressing a single button forcefully before continuing. "They're all back on."
"Back o--?!" squeaked Tifa. She knew something was wrong. What was he doing?! "Demyx! They're all off!"
He turned to her, blinking.
"What?"
The door of the small room slammed open and the two of them whipped around to see Him.
Leon stood in the doorway, smiling.
Demyx's gun was out in a millisecond, pointed at the monster. The freak. The Perfect Being. "How did-- What--?!" gasped the young man, gun steady, but face a chalky white with fear. "How did you get out?!"
"You let us out," Leon said smugly, his voice a mixture of both personalities, white clothing hanging off his muscled frame. He was taller than Tifa thought he was-- she'd only ever seen him sitting. "You freed us."
The security man became utterly still. The screens-- The buttons--
"' just lucky he can't change what we see yet'?" Leon mocked, taking a slow step forward into the room.
"Don't you dare--" began Demyx quickly, gun fixed on the monster-- before the gleaming weapon was suddenly pointed at Demyx's own temple. Locked. Loaded.
"Don't what?" smiled Leon.
There was an echoing bang and Tifa screamed, blood showering across the front of her shirt and the side of her face, some bits of something she didn't want, and couldn't identify flying past her and onto the floor and walls, the metallic taste of blood that was not hers peppering the inside of her mouth.
A quiet snigger sounded from the monster in the doorway, and the click of the door locking behind him made Tifa feel cold to the core. Even with the warm red liquid coating her clothes and skin.
She hears the sound of bare feet padding over cold, clean, plastic floors –unlike the usual squeak of rubber soles– and she shivered. She couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't think.
"Hello, Tiffie."
He was there. Right beside her. She could feel his breath on her ear and neck. Tifa winced, squeezing her eyes closed, trying to sink further into her chair. No, no, no.
Leon eyed her like she was meat. Like she was an object, and he smirked.
Turning to the screens, they were all suddenly on. Functioning. Grey eyes stared over all of the occupants of the testing rooms. At his brothers. Sisters. Family born of hurt and abuse. His hands flew over the buttons and touch-screens. One by one, the doors opened.
Tifa squinted an eye open and choked back a sob at the sight of monstrosities flying to the open doors of their rooms. Their prisons. She knew it was not their fault-- but, somehow, she could not feel right about them. They. Were. Wrong.
Freaks.
After he had opened every door of every habitat, Leon turned back to Tifa.
She stared up at him, hands clutched to her soaked-red chest, brown eyes wide and gleaming with fear.
He leant down, hands placing themselves on the arms of her chair-- effectively trapping her. She tried to sink way from him, but all she got was a creak from the chair. She was trembling she couldn't move. Breathe. Speak.
"Now," he breathed. She couldn't dare herself to look at him in the eye, but-- His voice-- It was Squall. She knew it was. "What are we to do with you?" Squall hummed quietly with his soft, deep, rumbling voice.
All she could do was stare, her eyes snapping all over him- except his eyes. His mouth morphed into something feral. A hand was on her thigh.
"How about we show you a good time?"
Tifa's eyes finally snapped up to the creature's, and saw them finish morphing into a bright, piercing blue. Cloud. All she could manage was a strangled gasp. No, no no...
"Of course," Cloud continued, his voice slow, breathy, tantalising. His eyes were pinning her down. She couldn't move. "Your father already did that, didn't he?"
"GET AWAY FROM ME!!" It was like a switch had been flicked and Tifa shot out both her hands, slamming them into the man's –he was five years old. But, he was a man– torso, shoving him away with as much force as she could. It was not much, but Leon stumbled back three paces. Enough room to give her some air.
Blue eyes looked down at the puddle of blood and shards of bone and gore he now stood in and Cloud looked back up at the panting woman.
Now that she was further away from him-- she could hear it.
Screaming. Fighting. Gunshots.
The monsters were fighting the scientists.
"'monsters'?"
Brown eyes snapped back to Leon and Tifa was pinned down with loathing, light-blue eyes. Squall. "'monsters'?!" he repeated in a seething hiss, teeth bared. He could hear her thoughts. He was listening.
"You think we're the monsters?!" he snarled, taking a bloody step forward, a perfect red footprint being drawn on the smooth white plastic. "Have you seen what they do to us?!"
Tifa was having trouble breathing again-- he was so powerful. She was sure he was putting pressure on her throat. Even without touching her. No, she'd never seen--
"Exactly." The word was so quiet. So packed with emotion. His voice was quivering.
Leon was in front of her again. His hands were on the arms of her chair, and the cheap plastic was splintering under his terrible grip.
"Run," he snarled into her ear. Both of them were saying it. Both loathed her. "Run, Tiffie. Run away from us, and may we never meet again. If we find you--"
The door slammed open and a bloodied doctor stood there, wide-eyed. "DEM--" he began, but cut short, eyes widening behind his square spectacles, old eyes reflecting the trembling woman, the creature leaning over her, and the corpse.
Suddenly, there was a shattering CRACK and the doctor fell to the floor.
Two boys knelt on his back, their little fists buried in his white coat. One boy was blonde, the other, brunette. They wore opposite colours; white and black, respectively. They were opposite in nearly every way- except for a few details, and the clear tubes poking a few inches out of their chests. Their wide blue eyes looked at Leon, and the children smiled at him.
A feral, blood-thirsty smile.
Leon straightened up and smirked at them. "You got the keys?" he asked them. Squall.
The boys –twins, now that Tifa could tear her eyes from Leon– rose their hands- from the looks of it, they were holding hands, but, on closer inspection, they held a ring of keys. Gold, silver, white, red, blue, green, grey. All colours. All shapes. All with different functions.
The oldest monster motioned to them, and the twins crawled off the crumpled, dead body of the doctor and walked over to Leon, Tifa staring at the corpse, to see the doctor's head was facing the wrong way. They'd snapped his neck.
The twins stepped over Demyx's prone corpse and padded through the young man's blood to the bench of tables and screens. Together they placed a single white key in a single slot and turned it.
All the screens went red and a piercing scream exploded all around the building. Tifa gasped and clapped her hands over her ears, Leon looked down at the twins, and the two boys grinned at each other, still hand-in-hand.
The twins were nudged toward the door by Leon's knee, and they gave him identical winks and sped out, two pairs of bloody footprints following them. Grey eyes snapped to Tifa, and she froze, the piercing scream of the alarm seeming to stop. Everything stopped. Nothing moved. Nothing sounded.
"Run," said the Perfect Being. "Or I'll destroy you, Tiffie."
She was out of the door within a second.
"I said RUN!!"
Tears were streaming down her face. She was running as fast as she could. Running, running. There was blood splattered all over the walls. Mangled corpses of doctors and monsters alike strewn on the floors and through windows and doorways. She just ran, and ran, and ran.
She was near the doors that lead to the outside-- she knew she was-- when suddenly, something latched onto her ankle and she screamed, flying forward and slamming into the sticky, red, hard floor, all the air in her lungs leaving her in a split second. She twisted herself around with a choked gasp and screamed.
On top of her was a... thing. It was black. Completely black. Crouched over her like an animal ready to tear into it's prey. Glowing yellow eyes stared down at her and a pure black mouth filled with jagged black teeth was wide and spewing forth sickly, smoky-black breath.
She was about to scream again-- when something caught her eye.
It had a tube poking out of it's chest.
It was one of the twins.
Tifa felt sick.
It was wrong. Sickly. Unnatural.
Another creature appeared just behind him. White. Pure white and tinged with grey. It had long, thin, emaciated limbs and spoon-like hands. It had no eyes. It's head was more of just a beak than anything.
Tifa felt her stomach squirm.
It had a tube sticking out it's chest.
Wrong! Disgusting! MONSTER!
The white creature opened it's gaping beak to reveal a grey tongue and it screamed. A piercing, shrieking scream that echoed and shook the whole building. Making the blood that was pooled on the gleaming floor shimmer and ripple like it was alive.
The black thing pants, smoke rippling over Tifa's face and making her choke. It speaks in a childish voice. "Can we eat it, Roxas?" it asks.
The white thing –Roxas– turns to the back the black thing. It's bony shoulders shrug. "Sure, Sora."
A black, clawed hand was up. It was already coated with the blood of many doctor's, and even a few of their brethren who had been too slow to move. Tifa stared at it, and she swallowed. It was held so that it would not slash off her head-- no.
But to sink into her chest.
"Heartless," breathed Sora in a quivering, gleeful voice.
A gunshot exploded and Sora shrieked, flying off Tifa in a tangle of clawed black limbs. He slammed onto the bloody and cracked floor and was on his clawed feet and hands in a second, and he snarled loudly, smoke spewing from his mouth, a large, gaping bullet-wound in his side.
Roxas whipped around too, emaciated limbs swaying like reeds in the wind.
A doctor stood there, a gun in hand, his grey and black ponytail caught over his shoulder. Tifa gasps and scrambles backwards, blood all over her front and back now, pressing her shoulders against the blood-splattered wall. The doctor's gun still trained on the two monsters.
"You dare attack us?" queried Roxas in a quiet voice, his white, thin body swaying on his feet as though it had no bones at all, but, it seemed to be powerful. Not weak. Sora appeared by his side, crouching on all fours, smoke gathering around his wound- mending the blackened flesh as he twitched and jerked like he was barely holding himself back from attacking.
There was an explosion of blood, and the gun clattered to the floor.
The doctor still stood there, eyes blank, blood spewing from his mouth like a scarlet waterfall, a long blade protruding out of his chest.
Tifa swallowed as she saw the doctor being thrown to the side, his bloody, crumpled body slamming into the wall before falling there- beaten. dead. She looked back to where he had died and she felt cold once more.
"Boys," greeted Leon, blood coating his front and his hand that held the blade that had just killed the long-haired doctor. The twins nodded their heads in greeting, and in unison, looked back at Tifa.
Roxas swayed over, and a long, scoop-like white hand rose toward Tifa.
She was going to die.
"Wait."
Tifa's eyes snapped to Leon. He was looking at her. Like he'd just noticed something that confused him. Roxas looked at him too, before the white being took a long step back to come back beside his twin.
A cold, crooked grin spread across Leon's face and Tifa shivered.
"Boys, be free." Leon's smirk widened. "I'll take care of her."
The twins looked at each other, before looking back at the Perfect Being. "You're coming with us, right?" queried the white one. "We got those keys to open the gates so that you would come with us."
Grey eyes glanced at the two abominations, and Leon nodded. "I'll be with you after I've worked my magic."
After another moment of hesitation, the twins were swooping down the hallway and disappearing around the corner. They'd be out of the grounds and free within moments. They'd have to hide, but they would be free from experiments and abuse. Free.
The perfect being knelt in front of Tifa's huddled figure and eyed her with amused grey orbs.
"It's twins."
Something about those words made Tifa stop and listen. She didn't feel as cold as she had been. She didn't even notice that the alarm about the gates being open was gone. She didn't notice anything except the man- child- thing in front of her.
"... What...?" was all she could breathe.
The male smirked, raising a bloody hand. Almost gently, he pushed her legs out of the way- shielding her from him- and placed a bloody finger against her belly.
"It's twins," he repeated, feral grin taking over his face.
Brown eyes floated down to her belly, where his finger was still placed. Just under her navel. Twins... Babies... "I'm pregnant." Not a question. She knew he was right. She was going to have a baby. No. Two babies. Tifa looked up at the perfect being before her, and she felt cold again. What...
He leant closer. "You fear my kind," he said quietly. Both of them said. "Because we are different." His eyes changed. Cloud now. "I find your stupidity amusing." Changes again. Squall. "How about we make you feel what we feel?"
He smirks, shifting closer.
"Freak."
Suddenly- blood is spewing from her navel, where his hand is embedded up to his wrist.
Five years later, Tifa sat on her kitchen table, a hand on her forehead. Before her, sat her two babies. Denzel and Marlene. Denzel on the left, and Marlene on the right. She loved them so much, but...
"When is daddy coming back?" questioned Marlene.
Tifa leant back, eying her children with a sorrowful expression. She'd left her boyfriend- their father... Because she knew what they were. She knew what Leon had done. She knew. And Leon made sure she knew.
Marlene was on the left, and Denzel was on the right.
A tear gathered in the corner of Tifa's eye.
The two children swapped places once more.
And they swapped again, without moving a muscle.
"We're going to make you feel like a freak. We're going to make you 'wrong'."
"Hey, Mama, why can't you do what we can do?"
((END. Inspired by a finale-episode of something I hadn't watched before. I'm not really sure what to feel about this oneshot, thus, the shortness of this little thing inside the parenthesis, but, I hope you like it.))