His fingers glided over the slightly battered Mp3 player, pressing 'Previous'. It had become a habit, pressing the same button over and over again, no matter whether he appreciated the song or not. 'Radioactive' came up after a few clicks- Elliot came back for the song almost unconsciously by now. Always, always the same one. There were other mixes and several songs with the same or similar titles, but he liked the original Imagine Dragons song the most.
Was it developing a taste for irony, or a simple connection to some of the words sung? No matter whether it was one of the two or both, one thing was certain- it was the piece he blasted into his head the most these days. His roommate didn't exactly always appreciate it, since Elliot's headphones were loud enough to echo through the entirety of the enormous room, but nothing was ever said about it. Everyone sought their own entertainment however they could, no matter the limited possibilities.
'Every kid has his own toy', Elliot would sometimes hear others joke about it. When there were others, that is. Slowly, one by one, and sometimes more, they took everyone away. It was sad, of course, as everything alive that existed in the room amounted to family for the boy, the only family he had ever truly known. Or remembered. Nothing was more of a pain than memory alteration his own radioactive blood provided as a side effect.
Elliot surely could say that there was something that let him connect the word 'family' with his inmates. Was it the feeling of love? Knowing you belong to something, like a group, like a circle of humans the same as you? Some vague and often twisted blinks of remembrance would sometimes pass through his mind- it was, according to others, his old memories. But it was never enough to actually discern past in any way.
What he could only remember was this room. Always, always this room. A huge space framed by slightly cracked blue walls and ceiling, with several square chambers built in the middle whose walls extended far upwards in a column-like fashion. Simple beds were pushed to both left and right walls in lines. There weren't even thirty of them, but certainly enough to feel how many people were missing. And things, so many things thrown around- left behind, forgotten or deliberately left as a gift. Elliot picked them up rarely- he felt he was lucky enough to not have his Mp3 taken away. It was filled with thousands of songs of different genres, from metal to classical, old and relatively new. Elliot wasn't exactly sure what year it was, or whether the device was updated to the date he found it. How should he know what is happening outside or even how much time had passed?
I don't even know how old I am, he frowned at the memory of one of his family members, a little girl named Lily, deciding that they should all celebrate birthdays. She didn't leave any of the inmates alone until they all had chosen a date, which she marked on her silly handmade calendar her older brother had made for her. The brat kept bugging everyone to participate, patiently counting the days by how many times they had gotten meals. "That's 8 times, so only one and a third day left till Elliot's birthday!" she would cheerfully announce with a wide smile, her sharp canine teeth making it look a bit more like a menacing threat rather than a peppy report. Soon everyone had gotten used to celebrating- some out of boredom, some genuinely having formed bonds with each other.
What was the point though? Every single of them knew it wouldn't last forever. Lily was the fifth one to go, and soon enough the tradition died out. And now, when there were only two left, it barely ever rang a bell unless Elliot's eyes would occasionally stumble over the pieces of paper hung on the wall above one of the beds on the opposite of his own.
His gloomy thoughts were interrupted by the only other living being in the place, who was courageous enough to yank the black headphones off Elliot's head. "How many times have I told you not to do that unless you want me to bite your hand off, brat!" he yelled at the grinning bastard that was sitting down on his bed. Oz just put them around his neck and waved him off. "You know very well you won't do that, Elliot," the blonde said it with conviction. He leaned down and scooped a book from his own bed, which was next to Elliot's, and dropped it into his annoyed friend's lap. Elliot's eyes widened.
"Is this the 11th volume!?" he cried and took the velvety treasure into his hands, at first admiring the simple cover and then flipping to the first page eagerly. Oz nodded. "I found it under Gil's bed while you were sleeping," he explained, triumphant over the discovery. "Since I still haven't gone through the 10th, you can have it."
It was truly a wonder that there were in total of 11 volumes of the same book series stashed in their residence- what were the odds of it? But of course, they had various things left for reading, although the stacks of books were scarce in adventure genre. Their custodians probably didn't want anything rebellious to start forming in their heads, resulting in the severe lack of anything interesting left for their imagination. The Holy Knight, though, was most probably deemed as passable- or, that's what both Elliot and Oz had decided. No one really knew what their caretakers' objective was, neither what insinuated a certain chain of strange behaviour. Even the smart ones of their group seemed perplexed and annoyed at the irrationality displayed for them to maul over.
Trying to figure it out didn't do any good in the end, or so it seemed. None of those people were left anymore, even if they were intelligent- all their plans, theories went down the sewer. Oz still liked to imagine a completely mind-blowing escape which, after real hardships and maybe several of them injured, worked out in the end, but Elliot was skeptical.
"Hey, give me your player for a bit," Oz, as soon as he snatched it from Elliot's slightly hesitant hands, started pressing the buttons rapidly, going through the folders of genre, band, artist and album. The order was pretty handy like that, although the owner of the device himself rarely ever had the patience to go through them. He most usually had it on shuffle, unless he wanted to listen to a certain song- which, recently, was always.
The blonde finally settled on the same Norwegian guy who once won some sort of a contest. At least that's what you could figure out by some of the longer titles. He turned the music on maximum volume, letting the sounds of a violin plunk throughout the room. "The last thing I ever wanted was for you to get obsessed with this sappy gull," Elliot sourly remarked, pushing himself back against the stiff pillow. Sharing things between each other was the norm, although it got pretty irritating when Oz found a new romantic or chipper song to grate Elliot's brains with.
"Says the one who feels the need to blast the word 'radioactive' into his head until it's permanently carved into his brain," the boy replied, jumping back on his bed. One thing Oz didn't have trouble with was jumping both short and long lengths with ease. His genetic code altered to add up rabbit qualities to some of his features and abilities was most probably the case here. At least being so short definitely wasn't something that provided help.
Instead of answering, Elliot threw the first thing he grabbed from the floor straight at Oz's head. The blonde caught it- or, rather, the object was pierced by his long sharp nails.
"Don't catch it with your right hand!" Elliot snapped, staring at the poor impaled plush toy- Lily's favourite. Oz carefully removed it, looking at the holes with a scrunched up face.
"Shouldn't I be saying 'Don't throw things at me' instead? By now it's become a simple reflex!" he put the inanimate creature next to him. Only tossing a single 'fuck off', Elliot focused on the book instead. Reading the volumes one after another over and over again had gotten a bit boring, so the new adventures of the courageous noble Edwin and his stupid servant Edgar were refreshing. Everything was so interesting: the suspenseful story, action scenes and a brave and honourable character that the boy idolized replaced the lack of it all in his own life.
Being the mediocre reader, Elliot had only finished around 30 pages when he picked up the faint, but unmistakable sound of the door opening far away. He tensed, glancing at Oz; the blonde was up as well, straight as a chord, his eyes painfully aware of what that meant. No one ever really came into the room- all their food was served through a rectangular hole that opened up like a drawer. That is, no one ever, unless it was time to go to the Meltdown chambers.
"They can't be serious," Elliot said in sotto voice, which was rightfully irate. Both of them already had gone through all the stages recently- making them go back so soon would be plain murder. His bones still ached, and he knew Oz was no better. Although, it wouldn't be surprising if they finally decided to stop wasting time and money on them, and just kill off their lab rats without one ounce of chagrin bothering them. It wasn't human. Nothing about them was.
Some time passed until the coated party reached them. Their white clothing, fully sealing their bodies with the rubber material, fitted in very nicely with the surroundings. That couldn't be said about the remaining, and usually most important part of a person's body- their faces, hidden beneath brownish green masks that enveloped their heads, made them look like deformed dolls. And really, who knew- not like the habitants they came to examine could judge someone based on their appearance only. Not one knew how a normal body was even supposed to look like, as the mutations mangling their bodies were the customary.
Their outer appearance wasn't what made them so threatening, though. Elliot instinctively reached for something to defend himself with, or anything that could delay at least a moment of what's to come, but detected nothing on his bed besides the book. That would barely do any damage, or help him ward off those beings. An orange was thrown on both occupied beds, startling the boys more than a simple fruit should have.
"Eat."
Slowly picking up and scraping his neat round shaped nails along the orange skin was just another way to try and let the seconds go by. Elliot slightly nervously dug into the soft fruit, peeling off a small patch until it tore by itself. Then, repeat. Gilbert, one of the closest people to both Oz and him, used to be able to make a beautiful, seamless orange spiral in one go. That is, until they all started hating any kind of fruit.
Another piece. He dropped them on the bed, one by one. Through his fingers slowly started flowing and dripping on the sheets the juice of a luscious treat their caretakers gave them in order to stimulate certain factors in their bodies. Irritating orange bits stuck under Elliot's nails, and the feeling of everything around him getting sticky annoyed him. But not enough to make him move faster. He cast a quick glance at Oz. The blonde wasn't doing too well as he could barely ever do any delicate task with his monstrous hand, and shaking only worsened the process.
Finally, the orange was freed from its protection. Was that some sort of analogy? That no one cared about what happened to the shell they lived in, as long as their insides were still tasty enough to analyse and experiment with? Stress is screwing with my head again, Elliot wryly thought. He might have cursed loudly if it weren't for the constant reminder that soon he will be in various kinds and levels of pain. The boy pulled one wedge from the others and put it in his mouth, slowly chewing the sourly sweet fruit.
He finished first, which normally meant he went in first together with most of the masked group while Oz would be left in supervision of two or three others. This, however, wasn't the case this time- they all continued waiting in silence while the second orange was sloppily dealt with as well.
"BBR, come with us." A smooth voice which belonged to one of the examiners ordered. There was no doubt now- those three letters referred to Oz's personal mutation code.
The blonde got up, his relatively small body trembling barely visibly, and went to the first column followed by three of the whitely encased so called 'scientists'. A door, soundlessly opening, let them in and then closed, looking like a mouth of a hungry metal monster, still greedy after so long. Oz didn't look back not once, didn't search for assurance in his friend's eyes and words. It was one of the few things he claimed was left for him after everyone else was gone and pain still here after such a big amount of time. And that left Elliot worried, more than ever- it felt like the end. The tip of a rope they've been balancing on for so long.
The ground shaking, just a bit. Muffled bangs. Yelling, slowly scaling into shrieking. Silence. The same cycle, in a different sequence. An unearthly howl, which ever so rarely escaped throughout Oz's turn over the years. Silence. Elliot wanted to grab his headphones, but wasn't allowed to move an inch from his own bed. His hands were repugnantly sticky; it felt a bit warmer in the room- which was impossible, as it was kept at neither hot or warm nor chilly or cold temperature. His mouth was full of saliva, the juicy taste still lingering on tongue, on the insides of cheeks, on teeth. He wanted to spit it all out, preferably straight at the only inhuman beings in this room.
"Why are you doing this? Wasn't it enough already the previous time?" Elliot growled instead. When no one answered, he swore loudly. "We are not fucking emotionless! What did you do to others? What will you do to us? There are only two of your precious specimens left, so you think you can just drain everything you assholes need from us and then leave us to die!?" he stood up, strength of voice sinking heavily down- questioning, blaming. Elliot knew this will end badly, but it didn't matter by now. It was either let yourself fall down or try and grab the loose rope.
He was restricted immediately: after one word to his associate, they pinned him to the ground, not sparing a few powerful strikes to his head and back who would've been enough to knock a normal person out. The boy let out another growl, and struggled with no success for some time, until he felt too strained to move. This will definitely prove to be a kickback when it's his turn, but Elliot couldn't care less about it at the moment. All he wanted was to be able to somehow change it. A move which, unfortunately, was impossible for a single pawn to perform.
The procedures took somewhere around a few hours. Through this whole time, Elliot lied on the ground, his face pressed to it in a somewhat degrading manner. The boy was getting stiff, and he breathed out in relief when the weight was lifted off from his body upon the sound of the door opening again. He shot up and riveted his stare at the people coming out, frantically searching for Oz. But the blonde wasn't walking among them- the scientists were dragging him out, aiming towards the exit.
He can't be… Elliot's face relaxed for a moment when he saw his friend's head lift up a bit, but soon he began panicking. They're taking him away— no, he won't come back if they leave!
Elliot's sudden sprint towards the retreating three figures was stopped about halfway. "Get up, you damn shorty! Don't let them do this, not again- we said we wouldn't give up, no matter what! Keep your damn word!" he yelled, frantically resisting the hands that tried to grab him. But Oz didn't respond. It made Elliot only more furious, and he, with all the strength he could muster up, kicked one of the masked beings in the pelvis. A cracking sound echoed together with Elliot's shouts. The person sank on the ground, not letting out a single cry of pain. The enraged boy expected for the others to immediately help or at least check on their accomplice, but they only took the chance on finally seizing a hold on Elliot. They pulled him straight to the Meltdown.
The first of the four chambers was painted in an olive green colour, like someone had thrown up broccoli all over it and didn't bother cleaning it all up. It reminded of pain only. Seven chairs stood next to the left wall built straight into it- each of them had different restrictions, from simple belts to thick metal cuffs on them. All of them were separately designed to attend to varying size proportions. Elliot was taken to the first one and forcibly made to sit down.
He wanted to stand up, but one of the scientists quickly clasped the solid bracelets around his hands, then feet and neck. Meanwhile, another wheeled a grey trolley right next to them. Elliot hated the Weakness room the most. All the inmates would call the chairs 'thrones of a king', although such names seemed stupid once you were on it yourself. "We are now commencing tests on the lack of immunity to different actions and substances. WK, testing substance number 122, acid extracted from a mutation," a muffled voice came from one of the masks. They opened a slim beaker and poured the white liquid on Elliot's left arm.
A frown formed on his face, but he only grit his teeth. The pain was searing into him, it burned, it itched, it actually hurt. A feeling like this hadn't visited his skin since that one time they poured gasoline over his hand and set it on fire. Elliot twisted around, trying to escape from the metal, but it only hurt more. "The substance was able to affect the subject's nerve system, but the hardened skin only reddened in places the substance was poured on."
"Explain right now, you bastards!" he started yelling again. "Where are you taking Oz? Where did you take others? What is the whole point of this!?" Elliot shouted over all other words said by his tormentors, but clammed up once another liquid was dumped on his arm. He would never give the pleasure of hearing him shout, never. The numbers it truly ever hurt for Elliot were scarce, but the exhaustion of being worked with for more than anyone else was bad on its own.
"The subject's blood pulse is raised to mild hypertension because of exterior reasons. WK will now be transferred to final Meltdown room, skipping room two and three."
"You still haven't been in the chambers, right. They call it Meltdown in general, but it's only the final room that the word is meant for. When our blood pressure is raised on a certain level, they drag our body there and lock us up, watching from an undetectable camera hidden somewhere there. We then, well, have an actual meltdown."
The room itself was the same as ever- small, red and as full of horrible memories. Elliot's eyes hurt from the bright colour which he was soon pushed into. The door behind him closed down and didn't open no matter how many times the boy banged on it. He left quite an indent, but there was no point on keeping up. "Shitheads," Elliot growled.
There wasn't a worse time to be angry, knowing that such an emotion will make it more painful. The entirety of this room was meant to irritate him, to fasten the blood flowing through his veins enough for it to make his body switch to a protective mode the mutation granted. As soon as Elliot would change into this mode, the radioactive parts, laced together with his skin, muscle and bones, would heat up in the process and make it excruciating for the body, granting only a specific type of defense for the person with the price being the highest amount of pain ever possible to achieve.
Nowhere else was there to stare at but the red. It was everywhere, not a single patch or line was different. Elliot sat down on the ground, trying his best to calm down. A task not easy for a hothead like him, and on such circumstances which practically screamed 'just have a meltdown already and be done with it!'. Maybe he really should? It will probably happen, sooner or later, and they would not let Elliot out until then. But it wasn't like he could control any of this. Or actually want to give up so easily.
He started counting the time. Five seconds. Ten seconds. Fifteen seconds. Twenty seconds. One minute. Two. Three. Four. Four minutes and a second. Four minutes and two seconds. Elliot wasn't relatively sure if he was counting slow or fast enough, but why the hell should it even matter? The red protruded through his eyes straight into his brain, the sharpness of it leaving a forming a throbbing pain in his head. The boy's eyes were probably one of his weak spots, although the scientists hadn't ever touched them yet. It was probably already noted down right from the first time, when he covered his eyes the moment this exact unknown feeling of pain reached him.
Around ten minutes passed and Elliot was about to give up and kick the door until either it gave in or he had the damn meltdown already when he heard muffled noises from outside. What are they doing now? He stood up and came closer to listen. Such a thing never happened. Everything was specifically quiet so that the 'subject' would soon blow down if not from anger, then from the madness of being with their own thoughts. It didn't work on a lot of them, but it was kept so anyways. Which is why Elliot knew something was up.
He only had a second to jump back before the door was sent flying into the wall. Elliot widened his eyes at the boy who came in like it was the most casual thing ever. The short, long haired stranger looked around until he spotted Elliot, staring at him for a few moments. The one who felt being scrutinized by unfamiliar figure, suddenly became extremely aware of how he looked like- grey hair, messy and unkempt, white complexion hidden only because of the room's colour, the scruffy clothes that were too big for him and, of course, thin metal plates that covered his joints like some sort of rings. The boy nodded.
"So there was someone in here, after all. Come with me." He turned on his heels and walked out of the room just as light-paced as he had gone in.
"Wait, who the hell are you? How did you get in here?" Elliot shouted and ran after the guy, almost tripping over the bodies on the ground. He looked closer- it was the masked tormentors. They showed no signs of life whatsoever. Some feeling formed in Elliot, and it felt unexpectedly relieving, although such an emotion was weird to have when thinking about someone's death.
"I got in through the door, I thought that was obvious," the long haired intruder brought Elliot back from his thoughts and made him shoot up as to not lose sight of the retreating back. "As for who I am… well, you could say I am, in a way, your saviour."
Both of them came back to the huge space of calming blue. Elliot saw that the exit had been literally blown out as faint traces of smoke still rose from the crumbling hole. Did he actually do this just in order to get in?!
"We'll be leaving this place, so it would be considerably precious time I'm giving you to take whatever you want," a sigh came from the short 'saviour' of his. Elliot frowned at the attitude he was being given, but he himself wanted to escape as soon as he can himself, so the retort which was already formed and waiting, was left behind his twisted lips.
Elliot immediately ran to Oz's bed and grabbed his headphones together with the MP3 hanging on the other side of the cord, before taking a glance at the rest of the bed: still messy, with an open book thrown on it, pieces of the orange skin laying around and the black hat he kept close since Gilbert was taken away. Gritting his teeth, he reached out for it, then came back to the one who was waiting for him.
They advanced into the darkness in silence. Besides a few split roads, everything went in a straight, gradually rising pathway dimly illuminated by a few green square lamps hung on the walls. Sometimes Elliot would have to overstep a body lying on the floor. How many people were killed while doing this? Was this just an attack? Or did they come here to rescue us? What if they'll just take me to another place like this, or kill me? A ton of questions swirled in his head. Finally, when they reached another hole, he stopped in his tracks.
"Are you going to explain what is going on here?" Elliot demanded. If he would not answer it or even do it but with an unfavourable outcome for him, Elliot was more than ready to take the stranger on in a fight.
"Didn't I say already? We're rescuing you." the boy replied, peeking out through the hole. "Ah, Lily- have you finished searching the other levels?" he asked the orange haired girl who popped up right before them.
Elliot stared at the scene unbelievably. "Lily!?" he managed to exclaim before she dashed right at him in order to give the boy one big hug. She was just the same as ever, although a bit taller and fuller, but no one could mistake her toothy grin and the black, sharp blade-like protrusions coming out from both sides of her cheeks.
"Oh Elliot, I missed you so much! I am so glad we weren't too late to find you!" she started pulling him by his hand. "Leo, this is Elliot, remember, I told you about him!" the chipper tone, directed at the long haired boy, seemed to leave a small amused smile on the receiver's face.
"Yes Lily, I remember. But we have to escape now- soon enough, Pandora will arrive to investigate the meaning of explosions, and we certainly don't want to be found among the bodies."
"Wait, what about Oz? Lily, did you find Oz in here? We can't leave without finding him first!" Elliot snapped, pulling his hand back to stop the short girl from dragging him any further.
"He was taken by that mean Rainsworth family before we could understand what was going on. It's so unfair that they got dibs on Oz first!" she huffed. Leo, upon seeing Elliot's confused face, sighed and jumped through the hole.
"We'll explain everything later. Now's not the best time to argue- what do you think they will do to you, lonesome survivor in a sea of dead people? You're in just as much trouble as us now."
There was no choice left, and Elliot realized that. He clutched his two belongings closer to himself, and followed the two red cloaked figures out into a world he had completely no formed image of.
Author Notes: This might be Elliot/Leo, I still haven't decided. I hope some scenes let you understand at least a bit of how long the times passes when you're not free; it reminds me of a recent movie a person recommended to me. Until next time.