I was the little kid, but with that I don't mean that I was picked on. The older girls loved to mother me, carry me around, play with my hair and tell me I was cute. At least until the killing started.
There wasn't a kid at Teltin who didn't know who Subject zero was. During the first years of my life I would go to sleep listening to the older kids telling us younger ones about how Subject zero would kill us all. How she was insane. A psycho. A monster. In our stories she wasn't a child or a girl, in our stories she turned into a robot. A killing machine.
I caught a glance of her fighting once, through the windows in my joint cell. I was subject 327, not yet old enough or ready enough to be put in the ring against her. I was happy I didn't have to fight her, I much rather take the experiments.
Subject zero was vicious, she killed any child put against her. Not just with biotics but with fists and kicks. I watched her bite into my sister's neck and pull, blood pouring out of her mouth and onto the ground. I believed that she wasn't a child, not a girl, she was a monster.
At the facility there wasn't much to do but wait to die. The experiments were painful, they cut my body with knives and flooded my bloodstream with chemicals but as long as I was not put in the arena to fight her, I considered myself lucky. Chiildren accept reality for what it is. This was my reality and I didn't question it. I knew nothing else.
I remember the night that Teltin fell. Like the others, I had no idea what triggered the uproar and I still don't know today. I just know that some time during the night the facility filled with children's screams echoing against aluminium and steel. I wasn't scared at first, not until I heard that Subject Zero was loose. I wasn't scared of dying knowing that death was relief, but I was scared of pain. And all I could remember at that moment was the pained face of my sister as Zero bit into her. And how insane Zero had looked with wide eyes and blood smeared around her mouth.
One by one, my bunkmates ran away, but I didn't dare. I was young, I was so small and my legs not long enough to keep up with the others. I watched my last bunkmate run from our cell and away in the corridor, but she hadn't gotten far before a biotic blast came out of nowhere, pushing her into the wall, cracking her skull open. Subject zero ran into my view and even though I tried to keep quiet I couldn't help the shriek that escaped me.
Zero looked at me and I had expect her to look like she had in the arena, crazed and with her eyes glaced over. But she didn't look bloodthirsty. She looked scared and confused and very much like a child.
The monster child walked towards me like something from my nightmares, one blue fist raised towards me. But she didn't look murderous, her eyes were uncertain. For some reason, my childhood brain must have understood that I was dealing with something close to a trapped animal.
I don't know what made me do it, but I put my palms up making sure I made no sudden movements. I showed my surrender.
"Please, don't hurt me," I begged her, "I don't want to die."
She still looked unsure but nodded after a little while, looking more determined.
"Get out," she said. It was the first time I had heard her voice. Her voice was normal. It was just a girl's voice.
Subject zero had left after that and I had not gone with her. The facility had also gone quiet shortly after and I had, at loss at what to do, crawled into my bed and slept. I'm not sure what happened the following days but I must have managed off Pragia somehow.
The galaxy is cruel to an unwanted child, expecially a fugitive one. I learned the hard way to make my way in the world and I spent the next twelve years relying on prostitution and stealing to eat. I got older, less naive. I guess you could say that the galaxy hardened me in a way that interestingly enough, Teltin never had.
It's funny, but to me, the reaper war was actually a blessing. I wasn't a fugitive anymore, but a refuge. The human government was responsible for me and I took full advantage of this, finding a place at a refuge camp on the Citadel.
Eventually I even got a job, selling food near the Presidium. It was strange having a proper life, I could even pretend to be normal, hiding the angry red scars that criss-crossed my body. I could pretend. I was very honoured that Ascension students frequented my little store often, even though I would watch them with envy. I hadn't known who their teacher was.
I didn't recognize her at first. She came in one day, her eyes calm and a smirk on her lips. She looked so balanced, it is not strange that I didn't see that it was her. She turned to me, after a while, cradling a small packet of black cherries in her hand.
"How much?" Her voice was darker of course. The voice of a woman, not a child. But she looked happy, not panicked or unsure. I knew that it was her. It was her face, her eyes and clearly, with the amount of skin her clothes were showing, her body still carried the scars even if she had tried to cover them up with tattoos.
I had to look down, the sight of her causing a wave of nasea travel through my body. I wanted to whimper, put my arms up and beg her not to kill me.
"Zero," I whispered, the word escaping me without my permission. She looked a bit shocked for a moment and she squinted her eyes suspiciously. I know that she was trying to remember. I wanted to take off my clothes. I wanted to show her my scars from inscisions and needles. But I couldn't tell her. She looked happy and strong and beautiful. I didn't want to ruin her day by reminding her. I didn't want to risk waking up whatever monster she still had inside. I didn't know why, but I felt an urge to protect her even though I was closer in age to her students.
"Zero," I said with more confidence in my voice, "you soldiers do enough for us, for you, it's free."
Subject zero, or whoever it was that she was now, looked relieved and smiled.
"Heh, thanks," she said and turned around to leave. I wanted to call out to her. I wanted to find out what had happened to her since leaving Teltin. I wanted to talk. I wanted my own childhood confirmed, to for once not pretend like it hadn't happened. I wanted to ask her if she had ever forgotten, if it was possible to get over it and recover.
"Excuse me!" I was yelling and imidiately lowered my voice, "I'm sorry...mam, can I ask you something?"
She turned around, suspicion back in her eyes. She wasn't stupid. Subject zero had never been stupid. She lifted an eyebrow, clearly waiting for me to ask my question.
"How old are your students?"
"Why?"
I was so scared at this point I bit my tongue, but I managed to get my words out even as my mouth filled with blood.
"I'm 17," I said, "maybe I could be accepted into your program?"
"Who are you?" She asked in place of answering my questions.
Mathilda Easter was on my lips, the name I had chosen for myself.
"Subject 327," I said instead and then burst into tears.
Zero's face went from surprised, to sad, to angry and she took two steps forward, raising a blue fist in my face for the second time in my life. She had turned into the monster again.
"I don't know what you want, but stay away from me."
"Please don't hurt me," I said, scared and remembering Zero's face, stained with my sister's blood. I collapsed on the floor, hugging my legs to me, trembling pathetically and sobbing.
"Please," I whimpered between sobs, "please."
Zero didn't say anything for a long time, I almost thought she had left but hadn't lifted my head to check. Eventually, her voice pierced the silence. She didn't sound angry anymore.
"If you were there," she said, "if you were there, I'm sorry. But I don't remember you. We don't owe anything to each other. I don't fucking owe you anything. I don't want you around my kids. I don't want any reminder of that place to touch them."
I continued sobbing as she talked, never once looking up at her, scared that looking at her would send me into another panic attack.
"I'm sorry for you," she said again, her voice authoritative but calm, a teacher's voice, "I wish it hadn't happened to anyone but it did. All that is required of us is to stay alive and if you are still alive now, you don't need my help." My sobbing subsided slowly and I heard her sigh.
"I'm going to go now, " she said, "there is a war waiting for me." She walked a couple of steps away from me but then stopped.
"Get a tattoo," she said, "tattoos solve fucking everything." Then she was suddenly gone. And that was the last time I ever saw Subject zero, the monster of my childhood.