Disclaimer: I do not own Charlotte or its characters in an way.
One more minute.
There was no clock in the room, but my internal clock had adapted well enough to its absence that I was confident should I start counting, I could match a stopwatch in its accuracy to tell how much time had elapsed.
I had began counting since the day before yesterday and if my memory serves me, the door before me will open in one more minute.
My throat was parched and I quickly recall all the necessary information.
I am fourteen years old – that was what those men in lab coats told me a full moon ago. I had no idea what month it was seeing as the room I was in was devoid of anything apart from the bare essentials.
The bare essentials being a bed, a sink without any mirror, a desk and a toilet bowl.
There had been a time that a mirror existed within the room, but after I had attempted to stab one of the guards by breaking the mirror by the sink, they had saw fit to remove it.
That was twelve full moons ago.
Turning discretely on my bed, I partially opened my eyes to take a glance at the steel door.
My name... I had forgotten it a few full moons ago, but the last full moon had made me remember it.
I am Otosaka Yuu.
My hands clench and despite the feeble strength allotted to me by my diet, I knew that I had enough energy within me to make this attempt. I had calculated the amount of calories it would take for me to perform certain tasks and I had conserved most of my energy from the past few days by doing the bare minimum of movements.
Thirty seconds left.
The room was pitch black as it was sometime before the sun would rise, but given how valuable I was to the men wearing lab coats, this was an anomaly that could not afford to turn a blind eye to.
The room, after all, was supposed to be well lit regardless of what time it was so that it was possible to observe the movements of the subject 24 hours a day.
Even now, I can hear the guards rushing in – they spoke in a language that I was not accustomed to. It wasn't Japanese, the language of my homeland but I would have been surprised if they spoke that language outside of tests seeing as I was far from home.
I wasn't even in the same country for that matter.
But throughout my time here, I began to understand certain words and phrases through observation.
Based on that, I understood that they just called the engineers to prepare a new light bulb before they opened the door.
Ten seconds left.
I had tested the personnel's reaction time to various incidents in the past few full moons.
Out of all the incidents that I had secretly instigated, I had determined the 'light bulb' incident to be the most lax out of all possible reactions of the personnel. More so, if the time was between midnight and when the sun finally makes its presence known in the skies.
Today was no different.
"Another blown fuse? Have the higher ups cut the budget for the engineering department again?" The voice of the guard echoed within my lonely room as the telltale sound of several locks opening made it to my ear.
"The next shipment of light bulbs isn't set out to arrive by next month so all we have stocked right now are a bunch of old ones nearly ten years ago."
"Damn. This place sure has differences in level of technologies from place to place."
The steel door creaked, and light entered the room. My breath hitched and once I saw the man boots of the security guard appear from the door – I made my move.
My vision temporarily blackened and I found myself looking at my room from a whole different perspective.
"Hmm? What's wrong?" A voice said from behind me.
I didn't answer, I took a glance behind me and I was relieved to find that only the engineer was with the guard.
Without warning, I took the man by the collar and threw him into the room. And with no hesitation, I unfastened the gun by my waist and fired at the man by the floor.
The man did not even get a chance to scream as the silenced pistol was unloaded.
There was no flash emitted, as the gun did not use gun powder. In a facility like this, every subject was important – hence every gun within these facilities were all tranquilizers with varying levels of strength.
It was based on that knowledge that I aimed the gun I held onto 'my' neck and fired.
My eyes shot open and I was greeted by the sight of the guard falling forward and landing onto the cold pavement.
What I had performed moments earlier was the reason I was confined to this room in the first place.
Ever since I could recall, I had the ability to 'possess' any human being within my immediate sight for five seconds.
I could only possess one human being at any given time, but I can do it any number of times possible with no effect to my stamina.
The main limitation however, is that my true body becomes defenseless. Once this is known, it was easy to take my body hostage and it was for that reason that whenever anyone entered my room, at least two personnel's were present.
In my time within this institute I had learned the limits of my ability and its potential – the ability itself remains rather unchanged in the past years I have been in the institute, but that was only because I kept any new developments to myself.
If the men in lab coats were to determine that my ability was developing and had new aspects to it, then the amounts of test and guards for me would increase to a level that I wouldn't be able to handle.
Two unconscious bodies now resided within my room. I didn't feel any remorse, nor did I feel any form of elation. I only felt relieved that everything went off without a hitch.
I took the gun from the unconscious guard's hands and with a bit of hesitation, took the man's clothes.
It was fortunate I knew who was going to be in the morning shift, as this was the only man that was around my height and build.
Without turning back, I shut the door behind me.
"Now then..." I muttered quietly as I looked across the many steel doors within the hallways. "Where did they put my sister?"
My eyes snapped open and after a moment of determining why I was sleeping on top of a sack of potato with my sister sleeping by my chest, did I realize what had just happened.
Or rather, what situation I was currently in.
"Ayumi."
I gently shook the shoulders of my sister and after a moment, she stirred and she looked up to me with sleepy eyes.
"Onii-chan?"
"How are you feeling?"
"I'm fine... but should you really be asking me that question?"
"What do you mean?"
"I'm not the one that's injured all over!"
True enough, in comparison to Ayumi who was wearing a t-shirt several sizes too big for her, I on the other hand was littered with various wounds all over my body. The 'bandages' that covered the more larger wounds were all created by what looked like torn clothing.
Well, it was less 'it looked like' but more along the lines of 'it is' torn clothing.
"Ignore that for now." I said. The pain wasn't obvious – or at least, it wasn't as obvious when I got the injuries. "It seems like we're approaching the harbor. The boat isn't creaking that badly anymore."
It had been two months since our escape from the testing facility and after crossing several thousand miles through land and sea, illegally migrating through multiple borders, the end of our journey is at sight.
...although it wasn't actually an end of a journey, but more along the lines of a temporary checkpoint.
There was no doubt the facility would be looking for us, but the least likely place they would probably look for was Japan.
That was what I wanted to hope, but in reality, I merely chose this place so that Ayumi could spend one last time in the place she was born in before we are on the run again.
I regretted that I could not give her a peaceful life – a life that someone her age should be able to live.
But like myself, that was impossible.
Ayumi had an ability, the very same reason why I had been admitted to the facility in the first place.
But that's where the similarities end.
Her ability was far more destructive and the first time she had used it, she had only lived because the bodies of the researchers had made a makeshift meat-shield for her that allowed her to shrug off the debris that fell.
Her ability, 'collapse', had nearly killed her in its activation.
The months that followed allowed her to hone her ability, though obviously not through her own will. If anything, she would rather not use the ability at all.
Nevertheless, her mastery of her own ability allowed our escape to be more simple.
I felt guilty for relying on her, and it was due to that I made sure any escape plan would involve very little (or none at all, if it can be avoided) help from her.
I had two months of practice of eluding or downright incapacitation of our pursuers – and I hope that was enough experience to remove Ayumi from escape plans entirely.
"...how are we going to get out?"
"The usual."
No sooner had I said that, the cargo container we were in slowly opened.
Before anyone could step in, I assumed control of the man opening the container.
I took half a second to regain my bearings, and I found myself alone and outside of the container I was in. I confirmed everything around me, and after noting that everyone else on deck was looking elsewhere, I dashed to the side of the ship and jumped off.
Before I hit the water, I was once again back into my body.
A large splash echoed through the container that my sister and I were in. It didn't take long before the sounds of footsteps entered our ears.
"That should be enough of a distraction. Let's go."
My sister was a little uneasy at my casual disregard for human life, but she didn't voice anything out and simply nodded.
I was a little uneasy myself, but I consoled myself with the fact that I made sure that the man landed in the water with proper posture.
In the first few weeks of avoiding our pursuers, I had used several methods to incapacitate or elude said pursuers. One of those methods are through self destructive methods such as jumping off a high building or by stabbing one's self on the foot with a nearby weapon (usually a knife, or sometimes a gun).
I was already desensitized to casual violence in my time within the facility I was confined in, but I had tried hard to regain much of what I had lost with Ayumi's help.
Still, I was far from it based on the minute gestures that Ayumi would show every now and again when I incapacitated a person.
...I wish there will come a time that I will no longer be forced to do this – but until that time comes, I'll have to bear with it.
I'll have to bear with the sins that would no doubt come from protecting my own life and my sister's.
Author's Notes:
The first thing I'll say is this: this story will likely be never completed. I am simply posting what I have written as a means to inspire others to write a similar story or so that the Charlotte archives can have more stories under it. I still have a few chapters for this story and will be posted in due time, but it only goes as far as the beginning episodes of Charlotte. From there, this story will be considered complete and up for adoption.
Feel free to put a review or what not, but it's unlikely that this story will ever get completed as I don't have as much motivation to write for this in comparison to my other stories (such as Lost Fragments or Awakening).