I don't own K Project, Project K, or K. Whatever you shall call it! I don't own!
+*{Chapter 1: True, we acted like we should and did all that we could}*+
The room was white. Just white. All of it. She had grown so used to it and yet she was becoming increasingly disgusted with the boring same color. She had been here for already several months yet the feeling of abandonment never left her. Or was she really abandon in the first place?
You would think her own flesh and blood would understand her or at least, try to understand but she only kept telling herself that. She knew all too well that she didn't remember much of said flesh and blood. Were they even her family? Or was she all of a sudden brought forth in existence without any real meaning or explanation?
Her frustration was building as each day went by without the explanations she needed. Inside she could feel herself tearing apart. She was so alone..
She slammed a fist, as if holding onto her frustrations, into the wall, the same wall she had been staring at for what seemed like hours. The pain erupted through her knuckles then burst through her wrist. She pulled away and noticed the large, fresh hole she had made. Without a doubt she was going to be punished for it later. She couldn't care less at the moment.
With a cringe she cradled her small reddening hand to her chest, her breath quicker and heavier as strands of pitch black hair was sucked into her slightly gaped mouth.
She hated it here! That is when she was conscious enough to understand her feelings instead of being high all day on the sedatives they fed her, when she could finally think and walk straight. Those times all to rare in this corrupted insane asylum.
She had learn to slip them under tongue whenever she felt something hard in her food or beverages, just far enough for the nurses not to see. But those were just the pills. This obviously didn't work with the liquid kind. The thick, slime cascading down her throat. She could practically feel it burning and she gave a very noticeable shudder. Luckily for her they still haven't noticed but this couldn't go on forever. If they ever find out, when they find out, they will force feed it to her through a tube!
She pressed her small palm to the core of her violently pounding chest. The empty feeling was increasing as the days passed on; the longer she stayed here and realized how alone she really was. This increasing void.
She had notice it when she had turned seven, which was about a year ago, as she blew out the candles on her cake which was ironically white. Who would have thought she'd be seeing that color repetitively from then on.
Her "family" crowded around her with smiling faces but she wasn't smiling. She couldn't, all that filled her was that vacantness. It was small just faintly noticeable, nonetheless, still there.
I spent the rest of my birthday in my room as the laughter of my peers echoed throughout the house. But that was so long ago… or so it seemed.
She examined her hand as the ache subsided. Her knuckles still red, she pressed them to her face and the heat of the blood warmed her dry bottom lip.
She stood up and began her trek down the white tiled halls with her cold, bare feet. Nurses passed her by without a second glance her way. She was so used to it… I guess.
She stopped when she heard a faint whimpering: a girl's soft sobs. The gentle voice entranced her and she followed it hall after hall until finally she found the owner of the sobs. She was crouched at a dead end of a hall… Her short golden hair fell in short uneven choppy layers barely grazing her shoulders.
They had cut almost all of it completely off, I had got the same treatment when I came here as well. The platinum blond was about the same age as me, her head was pushed in the little space between her legs making it hard to see her face.
The black haired girl stood at a safe distance from her, nervously clenched and unclenched her fists. She hopped impatiently on one foot to the other when suddenly the sobbing golden haired girl twisted her head up and screamed.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT!?" The dark haired girl flinched and scratched embarrassingly at her ear.
"I'm sorry… I just heard you and wanted to… Make sure you were okay..?" Instantly, the blond was on her feet marching her way to black haired girl. The young blond shoved her onto the floor and began pulling the longer, darker hair of her peer. Screams and groans filled the once quiet halls as the girls menacingly slashed at each other, clawing and even biting!
They were torn apart as the nurses grabbed each of the girls, they struggled to keep the girls calm.
"GET THEM OUTTA HERE! PUT THEM IN THEIR ROOMS! NOW!" As instructed the nurses pulled the girls in opposite directions to their assigned rooms. The doors were slammed closed with the sound of a heavy lock clicking.
The black brunette banged her fists into the door and kicked it repeatedly until they grew numb and even then she strived to at least put a dent in it. She knew she could too.
"YOU BETTER STOP LITTLE GIRL! OR DO YOU WANT TO GO IN THE POOL!"
Such a simple and almost fun name but I knew better. I had been to the "pool" before. It was horrible. They'd strap you to a seat facing forward, slowly you were lowered backwards into a pool full of icy water. I remember the feeling of needles stabbing into my flesh. No matter how much I screamed or pleaded they'd dunk me in there again and again. Just when I'd think I'd run out of breath in the water they pull me back up. When I almost had enough air in my lungs, they'd slowly dunk me back in. No matter how many times I was dipped in the water… the sensation I'd receive every time was just as painful and electrifying as the first.
She fell to the floor, her body pulsing in pain and teeth grinding in pure hatred for the blondie. With the throbs pulsing her body like a melody, she fell asleep in pure exhaustion.
Whoever that girl was… I hated her.
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I stared at the flames as they flickered in different colors. It wasn't everyday that they'd lit a fire in the common room. But today was an especially cold day.
Strains… That is what they called us, "strains". That is what the nurses whispered to each other. What exactly were we straining? What is a Strain? Was it something bad? It had to be. Why otherwise were we all put in here and tortured? Sure, we had a much higher tolerance of pain then them… then humans. It didn't give them any right to treat us so.
It would take much more than a simply fall to scrape our knees, to break the skin. Even if we were injured we'd heal just a quickly. We didn't fear as much as they did. We perhaps, didn't fear at all. We could survive much higher elevations as we fell. Jump higher. Run faster. Hear from far distances. See more sharper. We could even smell more superior than even perhaps a dog. But did that make us monsters? Was a strain just another word for fiend?
These strains, all seemed normal to me. Well, as normal as you can get inside an asylum.
Like me, most of them kept to themselves. Always wandering or gazing at nothing in particular, something that was never there. We all felt the same; that lonely, lingering feeling but knew all too well that we weren't equal. Imagine… being categorized together as a whole but having nothing in common. Nothing.
There was once a boy here, he was the only one my age at the time. We talked but that was all we did. We never bothered to be more than just talking strangers. He told me he could find a person's blind spot and he'd abuse it to make himself disappear. I asked him to show me how he did so. Soon he had completely vanished in thin air . I spent the whole day calling him and looking everywhere for him. I didn't know he was just a little ways from me. It startled me when he'd all of a sudden started laughing when I had given up looking for him. Almost immediately he ended up collapsing into a coma for a couple of days. That was how much energy and power it took from him. He'd always talk about leaving this place and asked if I'd come. I never had a straight reply then… I stopped seeing him. I figured he'd finally escaped. It's not like he really cared if he left me or not anyway. I know I wouldn't.
A strain doesn't have to be as complicated as he was. Here dwells a sorrowful man in his late thirties or at least, that is what he appears to be. He speak to me often and said he was immortal. He had been living for thousands of years. He'd tell me stories of his travels, wars, and the many lost languages and civilizations. He'd tell them so passionately that I couldn't tell if it was the truth or not. He once thought he found a true love, a soul mate someone to spend his life with. That was until he saw the days of her aging and himself the staying the same. He had watched her die and said it only seemed like a day the time they had spent together, that was how long eternity was. He'd always say devotedly that he couldn't wait for the day until he finally died…
"A life of a strain is a lonely one, youngling… Just wait and see." He'd remind me anytime we'd see each other.
I didn't understand when I'd see him and he'd be strapped tightly to a wheelchair. Not just any simple cloth strap but metal ones. His arms and neck covered in bandages. He had tried killing himself. But strains couldn't die… Right? But why was he all of a sudden closely watched and constantly drugged? Could it be? He had almost succeeded?
The heat from the flames warmed the tips of my fingers as I tried to touch them. But all to no avail, the gate surrounding it were too sturdy.
All I had to do was kick them and they'd fall. Though I didn't want to chance the many liquids and pills the nurses and doctors would shove down my throat if I did.
Out of all the strains here, I didn't not know what made me one. I had no special abilities. Though, I felt the same emptiness as they did.
The single yellow flame brought me to my senses. It reminded me of a blond haired girl I remember fighting with a couple of days ago, practically destroying each other. I wonder what happened to her.
"EMBER!" The screech echoed loudly through stunned ears. Oh no. Turning to the voice, my cheek made contact with a harsh palm. The force of the blow had temporarily knocked me out and I was left breathless for a moment. I was fastened down on the floor, many hands holding me in place. My eyes began to water when a tube was forced into my mouth. A thick, slush like liquid slithered into my mouth. Feeling helpless and defenseless against the tube separating my teeth, I swallowed.
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I wandered down these now unfamiliar halls. Colors that weren't there now splashed chaotically on the floors and walls. The room seemed to shake uncontrollably under my hesitate feet. The nurses had given me too much. I knew my heart had never beat this hard before.
It throbbed against my ribcage, for the longest of drifting in and out of consciousness, I thought it was just going to rip out of my body. I feared it would. A vision of a pulsing bloody heart appeared on the floor in front of me. Bile rose up heatedly in my throat.
Suddenly, I could hear sirens and ringing church bells, even the crack of the flames seemed way too loud.
No. This was too much. Again the walls began to quiver. The drumming of my heart and blood booming. Clasping my chest, I steadied myself on my knees. It was the only way to keep myself from tripping over objects that flashed randomly whether they were real or not I didn't know. I was scared.
I laid flat on my back on top of the now rearranging floor tiles. I squeezed my eyes shut to keep the room from spinning and the lights from burning my eyeballs out.
Even lying there, it felt as if the hall rotated at an unearthly speed. I wanted this to stop. Please! Just stop! A sudden warmth wrapped around my arm.
I was too afraid to open my lids, I feared that if I'd open them the room would swirl and I'd lose myself in a non-existing whirlpool. The warmth never left my side. It clung to me as my senses went wild. Was I imagining it?
I spent hours just lying flat on the floor, gripping the ground beneath me like any normal person would on an edge of a cliff. It wasn't the average drug.. This was too much. What had the nurse given me? WHAT?!
Even as hours or perhaps years had passed, the heat at my side had stayed. The only real thing in my panic.
It never did. I finally had fallen into a black slumber. Still the warmth was there… With me. I wasn't alone for once.
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I came to, the harsh white lights red in my lids. Like blood. Sluggishly I eased my eyes open. I couldn't really open them much wider, they stayed heavy hovering over blurred vision. Everything like fuzz, how long was I out? Slowly feeling edged its way into my consciousness.
It was probably my punishment for the wall I punched… Or maybe the nurses just had a bad day. Again.
Warmth. The warmth was still there. For a couple of more minutes, I struggled to turn my head to this heat filling my side. There distorting my vision was a mess of blond hair. Such damaged and tangled strands, what had happen to the smooth and flawless hair I saw just days ago.
When she noticed me staring she shifted her head up, a slight uneasiness to the motion. Her eyes were the deepest grass green. How beautifully fitting for someone as beautiful as her. Underneath those eyes raw pink and tender flesh. She hadn't been sleeping. Her skin looked paler than the last time I saw. I noticed how dry it was… It hit me.
I've seen this before. The disappearing boy told me he was punished with just squatting in the observing room, They made him sit on his knees for days. Fastening binds around his wrists which were attached to the floor so they knew he wouldn't stand up. The position making it hard to sleep or eat. They'd turn on a loud siren when he had finally drifted to a slumber and brighten the lights to where it became unbearable until he no longer wanted to sleep. They called it "the cradle". Is that what she had gone through? What had she done to earn that punishment?
"Hi." It took awhile for her to reply so I went on. "My name is Ember, patient number 13." She pressed her nose into my arm. She muttered.
"I'm Ash. Patient number 31."
"…Nice to meet you, Ash. Are you okay?"
Ha! I hoped that didn't seemed too confusing! As you can tell this is not exactly a K story immediately. I was hoping to base it on Ember and her life as a strain when she stumbles upon the Red Clan. Though I don't want to give too much away! Keep reading if you want to follow her adventures!
To explain about earlier in the chapter Ember is talking in sort of third-person.
A little information about Ember (If you don't want to read it's fine).
Name: Ember (She doesn't remember her last name so it's Ember, Patient 13)
Age: 8
First realized she was a strain when she turned 7. Doesn't remember much of her family.
Hair: Black
Eyes: Grey… (Is that how you spell it?)
I hate these kinds of things and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person! Just little notes just in case it wasn't clear in the chapter.
I hope you liked the read! Had to get this story down.
Oh and another thing about the boy the same age as Ember he was actually a shape shifter! Haha but I was reading a K story and I stumbled about a boy who was a strain and was a shape shifter! I didn't want to seem like I steal ideas so I had to change it. It was funny too because I was going to have him shape shift but his eye color would stay the same but the other story had it too! It was too bizarre when I realized I wasn't the only one with the idea! Though what was different was the way they shape shifted. While the other shape shifter shimmered then changed, mine had his hair, teeth and skin peel off. Kind of grotesque, yes I know but I figured there had to be some up and downs being a strain. Right?
If you follow me you already know my name is Shayleen. I kind of dropped the alter ego shizz. I figured I out grew that phase. Don't get me wrong they are still there but it doesn't matter to me as much. My alter egos Shay and Savage. Blegh. That's all.
(For all the kids reading my Ouran Fic, I'm sorry but I don't know if I'm gonna continue it anytime soon! I will finish it I promise but I don't think anytime soon! Ciao!)