Rose peered through the hole in the wall anxiously, searching for something… or rather, someone. The cement-walled tunnel was empty, however, save for the few bugs scrambling around frantically. The blonde winced at the sight, but continued her search.
"I'm here!" a voice called. Rose frantically waved the girl over. Marinette crawled out of the tunnel and tumbled to the ground with a light "oof."
"You're alright?" Rose asked. Marinette bounced up, unaffected. "I'm fine!" Rose smiled slightly before turning and going to the corner where Juleka sat.
Meanwhile, the dark-haired "unofficial" leader of the group dashed around the small room, whispering in each member's ear. They all nodded in understanding and then proceeded to drop whatever they were doing and head to the middle.
Finally, everyone was seated, and the meeting commenced.
"Attendance, first of all," Marinette said. "Everyone stay still so I can do a headcount. One, two, three…" By now, everyone knew it was safest to stay silent while the girl led. "Alright, who are we missing?"
"Max," Kim offered up worriedly. "It was his turn again…" Everyone winced at the thought of the resident genius being submitted to many tests and torture devices designed to force superhuman genetics into them. Rose frowned, knowing that Juleka's turn was next. Her worried blue eyes met Juleka's copper ones. The dark-haired girl shrugged nonchalantly, but Rose knew it ran deeper than that. Still… there wasn't much they could do anymore but submit and bide their time.
Marinette frowned deeply and her eyes reflected pain but she nodded slowly.
"Mylène?" she asked, turning to the side where a small girl brushed a dreadlock away from her face. "Is Ivan done with his treatment?"
"For now," Mylène said sadly. "With the supplies we have… I suppose it's all I can do. I'll prepare Max's medicine." She pushed herself up from the floor and trudged over to the so-dubbed "hospital corner", where there were rickety makeshift shelves, mostly bare with the exception of some pain relievers, a roll of bandages, and some homemade cure-all medicine, mixed with the small flask that Mylène had managed to bring in when she was dragged here. There wasn't much left, however. Marinette had made her swear that the remaining substance must be used for those with life-threatening illnesses, leaving only the pain-relievers and bandages left to heal.
Marinette stared out at the remaining crowd. "Do you guys have anything to say?" she said with a slight plead in her voice. The silence was deafening.
"Very well…" she murmured. "You may proceed."
…
Adrien walked around the room in a leisurely stride that disguised the panic that filled his body. "No," he mumbled to himself. "It's fine. We're going to get out of here." Even as he said that, his hand instinctively raised to rub the purple butterfly tattoo that signified their imprisonment at this lowly facility. It hurt to touch it. Memories came flooding back of the searing pain that bubbled at the back of his neck as they poured a "skin-softening solution" that burned like the acid it was on his neck, before relentlessly stabbing at the wound with knives and needles.
Rage flooded his mind, tinting his bruised skin red. No, he thought harshly. Don't get mad. He needed someone to talk to. He walked over to Nathaniel and sat down across from him.
"Whatcha drawing?" he asked warily, in a voice that was extremely unnatural. Nathaniel looked up, his visible turquoise eye piercing. A wry chuckle escaped from his mouth. Adrien stared at him strangely.
"You still don't trust me, do you," the redhead observed, his pencil not stopping the endless scratch-scratch-scratch against the chalky paper they were given.
"I trust you!"
"…Sure. After my last transformation… I'm sure you do." They both grimaced at the memory.
…
"Nath!" Screams erupted from the group that had sworn to stay as silent as possible, but couldn't help themselves now. The shy boy had staggered into the room and fallen to the floor, much to everyone's horror. His eyes raised, sparking with a fire that few had seen before.
"Nathaniel?" Rose asked weakly, watching as her friend rose from the floor, his pale skin flooding with a light lavender, the color of the butterfly imprinted on his forearm. His normally-flat hair rose, revealing the eye that people rarely saw, discolored with years of testing.
The tips of his hair were now a dark purple, while a tattoo resembling a butterfly mask was spread over his eyes. A stylus and tablet appeared in his hands as he let out a sadistic laugh.
"Sick of this, I tell you," he spat. "Utterly sick of this. I'm tired of being restrained. I want freedom."
"Nathaniel!" Marinette yelled, "This isn't you!"
"You're right," he agreed. "I'm not Nathaniel. I am so much better than him! I am one who desires freedom, artistically and physically!"
"Why fight us, then?"
"I don't care who I slay," he assured her. "If you happen to be in the way, you die."
"Nathaniel, no!"
"Don't try to stop me, Marinette, or I will physically knock every single one of you down to the ground." Alix balled her fists and attempted to dive for him, but she was restrained by at least five other prisoners.
"Alix, stay down!" Juleka urged, securing her grip on Alix's wrist. The pink-haired girl growled but slowly relaxed.
"Running away isn't going to stop him," she hissed, staring at the tablet that he was so violently scribbling on. "Ladybug, you can't either. I don't care what kind of crush he had on you, sweet-talk isn't going to help him."
Said girl nodded, pressed back into the concrete wall and thought. It was those superhuman genes that were driving him to do this. But why? This was the first attack they've had in the prison. Sure, they'd transformed in the lab, but never the prison. They all knew this day was coming, though. Meanwhile, Nath- no, she didn't know what he was anymore, sent a barrage of flames and spikes at the thick concrete wall, barely leaving a dent. He gripped the stylus just a little tighter and decided to use the other features of his tablet.
He erased a clean circle from the wall and cackled in victory, before the laugh died in his throat when he noticed that a purple aura crept up the stones and poured into the gaping hole, filling it to the brim and replacing the concrete there. He reached out to touch it but screamed when the aura climbed up his hand and coated his right shoulder, where his butterfly lay.
The other prisoners could only watch in horror as he screamed and screamed, until finally the purple aura melted away and left him twitching on the ground, his disguise melting away. Mylène hurried over and signaled for another to help her carry the boy to the hospital corner.
Everyone gathered in a circle around Mylène as she bent over the redhead. She held up the bottle of "cure-all" and tilted her head at Marinette, as if asking for silent permission. Marinette gave an almost imperceptible nod, whole body stiff with worry. A few drops of the clear liquid were dripped down his throat and onto his tattoo until the boy stopped twitching and lay still. Rose stifled a scream.
"Is he dead?" she whispered. Mylène found his pulse and shook her head.
"Just sleeping." A collective sigh of relief swept over the group. Her amber eyes flashed dangerously as she continued. "I have a feeling not everyone is going to go down this easily, though."
…
Both boys shook back into the present and stared at each other awkwardly.
"No," Nathaniel said, "I think it's best you don't come near me." With that, he pulled his legs closer to him and returned to drawing. Adrien realized he wasn't getting anything else out of the boy and decided to get up and stroll over to where a small group of two sat.
The girl with the candy-colored locks greeted him first.
"Hey," Alix said, not looking up from where she was battering the wall with a series of light punches. Kim just watched her fists fly without thinking, a blank look in his eyes.
"What, no race?" Adrien said in a joking manner. Alix looked over her shoulder with a harsh glare and jerked her head in Kim's direction. The blond nodded in understanding and slumped down on the wall next to Kim.
"…You worried about Max?" he asked. Kim ignored him.
"Believe me," Alix said, "It's pointless to try to talk to him. Doesn't it look like I've tried?" Adrien didn't answer. "Look, just leave him alone, alright?"
He sighed, but got up and continued on his rounds. He stopped by Rose and Juleka, who also didn't seem to be talkative, neither did Chloé and Sabrina, and then Mylène and Ivan, who politely said hello and then asked if he could leave, until he reached Marinette and Alya.
"Hey," he greeted.
"Hey," Alya said back.
"Hi," Marinette responded, her bluebell eyes darting around the room, not meeting his gaze. Alya's dark curls spread around her like a chocolate halo as she lay back and stared at the cement ceiling, a faint crack webbing across the smooth gray.
"What time is it?" the girl asked.
"Four o'clock," Alix offered from across the room, dangling her lone special possession from her finger, a rustic pocket watch. Each of the prisoners was only allowed one thing, one thing that connected them to a past life. Alix's was a pocket watch she had gained for her birthday. Alya unfolded the scrap of paper lying on the side and raised it to her eye level.
"Sabrina, you've got the shower."
"O-oh! Of course!" She turned to the side shyly. "Chloé, do you want to shower now instead?"
"Duh," the girl said snobbishly, turning up her nose. "This place is absolutely filthy! If my daddy were to hear abou-"
"No one cares," Nino spat from where he sat on the floor. Everyone stopped and looked at him, shocked that the usually quiet boy would say something so bluntly. "Go take a shower. Clean your mouth."
Chloé looked taken aback, and then silently crawled into the tunnel that led to the network connecting their cells. A stiff silence fell across the room. Nino looked unapologetic as placed the headphones over his ears, despite the lack of music filtering through them. His headphones were the one thing that managed to come in with him.
Adrien decided it would be a good time to walk over and join the boy in the blue hospital gown.
"Nino?" he said worriedly. The boy raised his headphones just slightly.
"What's up?" Nino asked, with a slight tone of sadness resonating in the two words. Adrien observed his friend, green eyes glinting.
"You don't normally snap," he observed. Nino shrugged and wrapped his arms around his knees.
"I don't know, man. I just… I'm just so sick of this."
"We all are, Nino. We all are. That doesn't give you the right to snap, though. I know it's Chloé, but still. We're all a team here. A team needs to work together." Nino bowed his head in shame.
"I guess." He didn't speak much after that, though.
Adrien left him alone.
…
About an hour later, Alix jerked awake and yelped.
"Guys!" she called, "It's 4:56!" The members in the prison all dropped what they were doing and a flurry of movement swept over the room. A mad dash for the hole in the wall started in their attempts to escape. Rose stood at the back, knowing that the shortest distance to the room was from her cell, and Marinette hung back with her.
"You should go," the blonde told her. "Your cell is pretty far." Marinette shook her head. "Better me be caught then anyone else."
"That's not true," Rose said. Before she could say anything else, she noticed the heel of a foot disappear into the tunnel and pushed Marinette forward. "Go, now."
Marinette didn't look back as she dove into the tunnel, and Rose soon followed. She couldn't see much in the dark, so she relied on the scratching of rough skin on smooth stone to guide her way until she reached the massive crossroads with fourteen paths, each leading to a different cell. Without much thought, she dove into the center tunnel.
Wincing as her hand brushed the hard shell of a beetle corpse, she bit her lip and crawled on until she saw the fluorescent lighting, dimmed by the golden sheet of hay covering the entrance. Gently, she flipped aside the sprinkling of hay before pulling herself up so she rested on the concrete floor.
Her hands trembled as she covered the hole again and pulled any hay strands out of her blonde hair while brushing her hospital gown clean of stray dirt clumps. Eager to stop the shaking, she reached for the pink bottle, long since emptied of the fragrant liquid that had been the contents, but the slightest of scents still wafted from the bottle when the crystalline lid was removed. She rolled the long stem between her palms, her blue eyes following the men in dark suits as they walked down the hall.
Their polished black shoes clacked against the cool concrete as they slid Styrofoam takeout boxes through the cells, tilting them sideways regardless of their contents. Rose silently prayed that it wasn't soup today.
When she got her food and looked at the contents, she decided maybe she was happier with the soup. A meal of stone cold sausages that were clearly microwaved instead of grilled, limp vegetables that Rose was positive came from yesterday's "salad", and a paper cup filled with rancid water that only went down if she plugged her nose. A small square of poorly mixed blue gelatin wobbled at her from the corner (under the vegetables, she observed), looking as if it was an attempt to make things allll better. It really didn't make anything better.
She winced when she heard a retching noise coming from a cell along the way. Mylène's cell, she realized. She heard the soft mutterings of Ivan in his attempt to comfort her. Rose sighed, and resignedly picked up a pink sausage between her two fingers.
She plugged her nose and took a bite. She promptly screamed and dropped the sausage back into the Styrofoam box. It was squirming with maggots that eagerly twisted and tossed at the light of day. Juleka looked at her strangely before her only visible eye widened in horror.
"Oh… my gosh. Rose, throw that outside and just forget about it." Rose pinched it between her fingers and held it over the pathway outside the cells in an attempt to drop it, but a chattering startled her and made her drop it. She scooped it up before searching for the noise. The dirty hay squirmed as she glanced over it.
Wait, squirmed?
It moved aside to reveal a small mouse with red eyes and snow white fur stained with dark dirt. Juleka pressed against the bars, attempting to see what Rose was looking at.
"Rose? What… what is that?"
"It's a mouse!" Rose bubbled with an enthusiasm that none of them had carried for months now. "Hello there, little guy! Do you want some food?" The mouse squeaked eagerly and scampered onto her palm, where it feasted on the maggoty sausage.
"I can't believe you found a mouse that actually likes that food," Juleka muttered, but a smile was creeping onto her face.
"I'm going to call him Azali," Rose decided promptly.
"Why?"
"Because I liked the name Azalea, and I used to have a friend named Ali…" She trailed off as her eyes started to water.
"Shh, shh," Juleka urged, "It's okay. You've got us now." Rose wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand and then cuddled Azali closer to her chest.
"That's true." She set the mouse on her shoulder and started picking through the vegetables, searching for edible scraps. Whatever she didn't eat, she gave to Azali.
The blue gelatin was saved for last. Her deft fingers picked at the blueberry-flavored cube, tearing off chunk by chunk, sharing it with Azali verrrryyyy slowly until she fed Azali the last bite. She slid the Styrofoam box between the metal bars and watched as it hit the ground, a hollow clattering following.
"Alix, time?" Marinette called.
"6:00."
"Alright, guys, we should go to bed. Especially you, Juleka," she added, looking sadly at the taller girl. Juleka nodded and disappeared into the corner of her cell where the cot was placed. Eventually, one by one, people returned to their beds for a fitful sleep that Rose was sure not one person would enjoy.
She set Azali down on the stiff pillow and clambered onto the lumpy cot, shivering at the cool breezes seeing that the thin rags they were given barely did anything.
She allowed sleep to wash over her.
...
"You couldn't race me, even on skates," one of the boys in her neighborhood said cockily. "You're a girl. You're slow." Alix growled and stepped closer.
"I could beat you any day," she hissed. The boys burst into gales of laughter.
"She's got an attitude," one observed.
"Hey, Leon," one of the boys said, "You should race her. See how much she thinks of herself then."
"You know what?" Leon said. "I think I will. I challenge you to a race, missy."
"You're on."
The boys had detailed the race to go around the block twice. Alix rolled her eyes. That was her daily running routine. Skates were even easier to go on. They crouched at the line that they declared was the start, waiting for the signal.
"Go!" They sped off, leaving everything else behind them. Alix wasn't looking back, but she knew that Leon was falling behind, further, and further. She cackled and skated on, unaware of the stick lying in her path. She hit it and catapulted. Her legs flew out behind her as she fell towards the pavement.
Only, this time was different. There was no pavement. She just fell down, down, down…
"Augh!" Alix burst from her dream with a yelp as she sat straight up. That wasn't how that dream was supposed to go…
Nathaniel awoke from the cell left-diagonal to her. "You okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Go back to sleep. I'm going to sleep now." She slammed her head back down onto the stained pillow, wincing as it jarred her vision momentarily. Finding she couldn't sleep, she had no other choice but to lay there, still and silent, following the slow swaying of the silken cobwebs hanging on the corner of the cell bars. A hard circle was under her pillow, but she knew what it was. It was all she had to remember her past life.
She pulled it out now. The watch had gold detailing's that glinted in the dim light that filtered in around the locked door at the end of the hallway. Carefully prying it open, she grinned at the little blue projection that popped up from the center, its gloved hands clutching a watch that showed the time. Her hands pressed the lid down again, and a satisfying click ensured that it was shut. She didn't want anything happening to it.
This watch was given to her on her 15th birthday, the day she had been kidnapped. A regretful chuckle bubbled inside of her. Some birthday that was. A loud groan, clanging of cell doors, followed by a thump drew her out of her self-pity.
"Max?" she called, legs swinging over the side of the cot and onto the floor. "Max, you there?" Someone groaned from the floor of the cell across from her, presumably Max. "Oh crap! Max?" The sound of her bare feet slapping the floor was enough to draw her other cell neighbor, Kim, out of his deep sleep.
"Eh? What? Max? Oh gosh, Max, you look bad…"
Max slumped on the ground, propping his foot up on the bed so the simmering wound on the back of his ankle wouldn't touch the ground. "Really," he said dryly, rubbing the bruises covering his arms, "I never would have noticed. There was only a 0.000001% chance I would make it out unharmed, though, so this is good."
His two friends watched him lay down on the cot worriedly, before turning to face the other, worry evident in their eyes.
When is this going to end?
…
Amber eyes surveyed the wound with a gaze that masked pain. Mylène had given him a pill to swallow (It had barely gone down with his dry throat and all), but it wasn't much use. All she could do was tie a bandage on and tell him to be careful. Rose sat next to Mylène, taking some of the water she had saved from yesterday and rinsing the white cloth bandages they used clean of bloodstains and more.
Max's nostrils flared as the pain in his ankle throbbed, and he had to resist the urge to touch it. Mylène looked at him, only a slight nod signaling he could leave. He hobbled over to the corner where Kim and Alix sat, the two bickering about who knows what. Kim grinned a rare grin when he saw him.
"You better now?" he asked. Max shrugged, and slumped against the wall.
"Statistically, there is a 5% chance I'm fully healed, but for now, I'm fine."
"Good," Alix said. "Kim was a grumpy idiot while you were gone." Max pushed up his dusty glasses and smiled at his friends.
"That was to be expected. I mean, there was a 79% chance-" Alix punched his arm lightly.
"Good to have you back."
…
Over back at the hospital corner, Mylène was clenching and unclenching small fists, her cheeks coloring with frustration. Rose looked up at her from where she was rolling the newly cleaned bandages.
"Are you alright?"
"I… I don't know… I mean," she said, voice breaking, "it just hurts to see all the people who get hurt and I can't do anything but give them a pill and send them on their way! At least in the hospital we had more…"
"Hospital?"
"Oh," Mylène said, realizing that Rose had no idea what she was talking about. "I used to intern as a nurse when I was younger…" The unspoken words of "before I got captured" hovered on the tip of her tongue. Rose frowned and reached out to place a hand on Mylène's arm.
"I'm sure you were wonderful."
"I wasn't that good," she said humbly. Rose sat back on her heels and gazed at her expectantly. Mylène cocked her head curiously at her.
"Sit with me," Rose said, patting the ground in front of her. "Tell me more about yourself." Mylène flushed in embarrassment but joined the girl on the ground.
"I-i was a nurse intern, and my father was an actor. We were very close. I used to act in some community plays, sometimes sing… Tell me about yourself," she said quickly, feeling tears well up in her eyes, and so turning the subject away. Rose smiled widely.
"I had this stunning garden, and I sold a lot of flower arrangements. Oh! I was also in a scrapbooking club. Have you ever tried scrapbooking? It's so fun! There's so much color and glitter and these pretty little fabric flowers you can stick onto the corners of the pages, and the darling little bees that have that little dotted trail at the end…" She trailed off when she saw Mylène's amused expression.
"I'm rambling again," she said, disheartened. Mylène patted her shoulder comfortingly.
"It's okay, tell me more. I enjoy hearing you talk. It gets my mind off things."
"Yay! Anyways, one time I put this glitter glue…"
…
Marinette traced a finger on the wall, filling it with imaginary swirls and loops, scribbles and sketchy lines. Adrien came over and sat next to her in silence, admiring the ease that her finger moved with. She bit her bottom lip in concentration until a satisfied expression filled her face and she drew her hand back, and leaned back to rest on her elbows.
Adrien blinked in surprise when he saw that she had a completely miserable expression on her face.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"Do I look like I'm okay?" she asked bitterly, before hesitating and looking sorry. "My bad… I'm sorry I snapped. I don't actually know how I feel right now, though…" His green eyes glowed in the dim light as he nodded for her to keep going.
"Everyone's morale is so low, and I can barely divvy up the medicine anymore. I feel so bad knowing that the cure-all is just sitting right there but we can barely use it and now so many people are in pain and now people are getting akumatized!" Her voice raised in the end and cracked. "I'm a terrible leader." She buried her head between her knees.
He rested a hand on her arm. "You're not terrible… trust me. You're doing a lot better than what I could do." She raised her head and rested her chin on her knee, her bluebell eyes meeting his emerald.
"…Thanks."
"No problem, Marinette."
I have no idea where this is going to go but have some scribbles