There was always a constant, steady beep that filled the air - not that anyone of them knew where it came from - and the occasional protest from a newcomer who had been kept in the dark or an old timer who was aware that day was most likely their last so they were free to take liberties.
It was a newcomer this time around, a pretty girl whose beauty was marred by the prominent tear tracks that trailed her face, the quivering of her bleeding lips and the flitting of her cloudy, grey eyes. No one raised an eyebrow, no one turned a head - this was their normal and she simply did not understand it. They all sat there, staring straight ahead, focused on nothing, dressed in monochrome and tagged around the wrist with a coloured wristband.
They were branded too, on the inner forearm with a number. She didn't remember receiving the brand, the band or the attire but she had awoken in a stark white room she had never seen before to be greeted by them all.
She was numb as well, aware of what was happening but unable to physically feel the grasping hands of the wardens around her biceps, to feel their blunt nails slowly piercing the tanned skin, dotted with freckles like they were constellations.
She screamed and cried and protested until her voice was hoarse, her mouth dry, her breath gone, her throat doing some protesting of its own. Still, not a single kid, for none were older than seventeen, bat an eyelid.
She was forced into submission only by the limits of her own body and the realisation of the futility of the pain she was putting herself into. She had gone limp, dangling like a rag doll from the arms of men thrice her size, by the time they threw her roughly down onto a stool of her own, made of dull, worn, hard plastic like all the others.
There were ten of these stools to a table including her own, all but one occupied by a kid, all older than her.
Instantly, she shrunk into herself as she felt an array of intense eyes piercing her from silent faces: the fiery gaze of the mountainous boy beside her; the deadly but enchanting pools of gold of the petite girl beside him; the electric blue that was present on two unsmiling; stern faces; the kaleidoscopic heterochromia of the gorgeous girl next to the blue-eyed boy; the burning yet not fear-inducing wide-eyed stare of the scrawny boy whose fingers drummed on the tabletop; the gentle blue of eyes that did not intimidate, only analysed; the wide pits of pure darkness beside him that pulled her in, like the abyss, the longer she stared into it, was staring back at her.
At last, the wardens left with an unnecessary slam of the door and the room seemed to breathe again. The figures became more human and less like statues as they leant forwards in curiosity as they were freed, their gazes not relenting but their focus drifting slightly.
She looked at them properly for the first time. They were all pallid and ill-looking, slim but not too skinny even though she could blatantly hear the rumbling of empty stomachs - even they seemed to have hushed in the presence of the wardens! Dark circles, like heavy bruising, fell beneath eyes that, the longer she looked at them, became sadder and sadder, heavier and heavier.
They all had their elbows placed on the table arms, scarred with the brand, burn marks, numerous injection sites and various other markings she'd rather not consider, were all tagged with the same colour as her own: orange. All of the colours were bright, she supposed it made them easier to spot and distinguish.
She kept her eyes trained on the empty chair to her right.
At least until one of them spoke. The voice belonged to a girl, clearly, though it held little femininity, only a dry, raspy quality that sounded rough to her unaccustomed ears.
"Welcome to Hell." Shredded lips spread, crimson seeping gently from some of the cracks. It was clear, however, the girl was not joking.
Another thing one could tell from simply observing these kids was, despite being teenagers, their appearances had entirely dropped from their minds. The girl who spoke, for instance. Her hair looked to have once been short but had since grown out unevenly, the odd neon streaks of blue, similar to her eye colour, that made appearances not beginning until about halfway down their respective strands. She looked to be one of the older ones in the room, seventeen at most.
Her chipped nails found their way to the band that was tied tight around her wrist. "I'm Thalia." She dropped the band and let her chin fall to rest in her hands. Her arms were so smothered in freckles, the pale skin, nearing translucency, could scarce be seen through them.
She waited for a moment in silence, not one of the nine braved breaking. "You know," She was picking at the band again "It'd be polite for you to respond?"
"Oh!" The new girl exclaimed, feeling sick to her stomach, terrified and disoriented. "Annabeth!"
"Well, Annabeth, what'd they get you for?" This time it was a male voice, hoarse but still soft and gentle - she supposed it matched his eyes.
Her stomach tied itself into a tight, uncomfortable knot as her mouth went dry "What?" She squeaked, she had no clue why she was there - why any of them were - was he insinuating she had done something wrong?
"Will," the dark eyed boy next to him complained "Perhaps you'd like to explain something before asking that?"
The boy - now identified as Will - sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck, fingers getting tangled in his matted sandy hair. He chuckled a little, uneasy. "Right…" He paused for a second, sending a glance to the dark eyed boy that was staring at him still, waiting for him to do something wrong "Well," he began again, pulling at his own orange band "You don't know what this place is, right?" Annabeth shook her head slowly "They've not changed that then!" He sounded angry "Bet you don't know a thing about us either?"
"Will, you're frightening her. She doesn't know who we are, how's she going to know anything about us?" The girl with the golden eyes said as she reached over to gently hit his arm "And Nico," The dark eyed boy turned to her sharply "Stop staring at him like that, you're making us all uneasy."
Nico let out a breath that whistled as it passed his lips "I'm the older sibling," he insisted "I'm meant to boss you around, not the other way around!"
"Debatable." Hazel muttered, Annabeth had no idea what she meant by that.
That was a surprise to Annabeth - the only similarity she could find was the lack of height. He was as pale as anything, everyone there seemed to have been drained of healthy colour, but her skin was dark and warm, the only inviting thing Annabeth had seen thus far. His eyes were dark and uninviting yet she was oddly drawn to look at them. The girl's, on the other hand, were as warm as the rest of her, Annabeth felt like she could stare into them for hours without drowning, she would just float in the pool of molten gold.
"Sorry Hazel." Will apologised after a moment, turning his attention back to Annabeth "So, you don't know anything?"
For the first time, she spoke an entire sentence "I know so little I don't even know what I don't know."
"It was the same for all of us," A gentle, charming voice assured her as she was met with kaleidoscopic eyes. "I'm Piper." she smiled, her pretty face lighting up like a beacon in a place as dreary as that.
Will began again "Would you like to hear about what you don't know or why you don't know it first?"
"What I don't know."
"Right, Frank?"
The large boy by Hazel's side coughed into his fist before turning to her and showing off a baby face, covered in a large smile. She just didn't understand it - how were these kids who were so obviously messed up and messed around with so normal, calm and kind?
"We're, well I suppose the most gentle word is special." he almost snorted as he said that, as though the prospect of calling them special was entirely ridiculous "To put it simply, we can do things we shouldn't be able to. I don't mean mediocre things," he clarified "Like popping your joints out of place at will or whatever, I mean things they think make us dangerous.
We can't show you much," he sounded apologetic "They've got eyes on us each passing second, if they think we're doing something with our oddities they'll have us quarantined" His eyes flitted from the space behind her to Hazel "No one here has ever been quarantined." That statement applied to the entire giant room of kids "It's just a rumour but, apparently, only one person has ever been quarantined - the youngest kid ever here, one of the first as well. That was, what, eight years ago?" He looked to the tall boy next to Thalia, the one with the same eyes, for confirmation. He nodded.
"No one here has ever seen him, all of those Originals have long gone - we don't actually know what they do with them but, once you turn twenty, you disappear. There are a few theories, the most popular among them including the idea they move you to another site or they no longer have any use for you, that you are no longer any good to them and their experiments and they'd rather get rid of threats young.
But they say he's still here."
"But why are we dangerous?" She almost cried.
"We can do things they can't. Me for example, I am type X39YT." He flashed her a glimpse of his band. The code was printed there in large, easy-to-read letters. "It means I'm stronger than most."
Hazel picked up where he left off "I'm type A12PH. I can control things underground or found there."
"But what do those codes mean?" Annabeth butted in before the next person could continue.
"The letters describe the type of oddity," The blonde boy Frank had checked with earlier told her "The numbers are a further classification of strength and subdivision. That said, we aren't experts on it - we haven't yet figured out the numbers exact meaning. You see, Frank's X39YT, we know his oddity and that, while categorised by the same letter code, it is different from Clarisse's," He gestured to a large, snarling girl sat across the hall "She is X45YT. But we don't know quite how different they are."
She nodded her understanding as the boy whose fingers had been playing an erratic beat on the table that nearly matched her heart rate spoke. "And I'm A26BF." He almost sounded proud of it. "I'm good with fire - from what we figure, 'A' codes are rare, too." he scrunched his eyebrows for a split second, looking as though he were mulling over something he had forgotten "Oh! I'm Leo by the way." he told her as he remembered.
Thalia came next "A18GE. Newby, you got yourself paired with the Oranges - they say we're the most dangerous, we've got the most As too."
Then was the boy next to her, the one Annabeth was just going to assume was her brother, who took the liberty of introducing himself before he told her. "Jason," He said curtly "A15GE."
Thalia flung an arm around his shoulder, making him look as though he'd rather not be there "We're oddities among Oddities." She explained "Very rarely do you get siblings who are both Oddities, much less ones who share the same letter code. Like hazel and Nico - they're siblings who are both Oddities but hazel is APH, Nico is ADG - A61DG, by the way."
Jason weaselled his way out from under her arm as she made a childish face towards him.
"I'm B65FS - as far as we're aware, anything that's not an 'A' has no significant meaning in rarity or anything, just in case you thought a B code was impressive." Piper said.
"It's not common though," Jason told Annabeth as Piper kicked him in the shin "The only other BFS we have here is that girl over there," he pointed to a girl's back a few tables away "Drew - B76FS."
"E34GD" Will said simply.
"But what does that all mean - Frank is strong, Hazel has her control, Leo has his fire, how about the rest of you?" Annabeth dared ask.
"Thalia and I can control certain aspects of storms," Jason informed her "While we are both capable of using each, I have shown a strong preference towards air over my sister's preference: lightning."
"I am…" Piper began before pausing and looking up as though searching for suitable phrasing "Convincing." She, at last, settled on a word. "I can make people do things, anything." She didn't sound very happy about it. Annabeth couldn't imagine she was - she didn't understand how Leo was so upbeat about being one of these Oddities when it had landed him in a place like that.
"Nico's a necromancer," Will said "I'm a healer."
"There you go again," Hazel snickered "Making this seem like some kind of fantasy novel."
"And me?" Annabeth croaked as she lifted her arm to her face and examined the bold lettering "Z45QT?"
"ZQT?" Piper asked "That'd be an abnormally enhanced mental ability, right?" Jason nodded "There are a few like you." She reassured Annabeth before turning to Jason "Are there anymore 45s?"
"One." he said "Or at least as far as I know. Malcom." he lightly poked the boy sitting on the table behind him, making him yelp in surprise before turning.
"Jason, what was that for?"
"We've got another Z45QT."
"Oh, really? That's cool. She's tiny though - how old is she?"
"Don't know." piper told him "Ask her yourself; her name is Annabeth"
"Hi Annabeth." She waved back nervously "How old are you?" Piper and Leo both snickered at how strange he sounded speaking in such a way.
"Twelve."
Every face grew a little darker - after the rumoured Quarantine kid the youngest ever admitted, the youngest that had ever been allowed, was fifteen: Hazel's age. No one said a thing.
"Why did I not know any of this?" Annabeth asked at last, she was having trouble believing any of what she said and was still incredibly uneasy.
"Oh that." Thalia said "Frank mentioned that they think we may be dangerous, right? Well… he can tell you the rest then."
"You're so helpful." Jason told her as Frank sighed.
"Well," The baby-faced teenager began "I'm not entirely sure - everything we know is down to what the ZQTs can figure out - but we think it's because they fear resistance. We are more powerful than them by default. If they leave us be or allow people to know about us they're afraid we will be assets in a rebellion against them."
"Them?"
"The government. Say, did you see the name of this place when you came in?" She shook her head, her curls, damp with sweat, bounced over her shoulders. "Huh, they've got more violent as well then? Hazel's been here for about six months, I've been here about a year, yet everything you've told me is worse than what she did. Anyway, it is 'The Elysium childhood institute'. You know what Elysium is?"
"It's from mythology, right? I suppose you could call it the equivalent of heaven."
Frank made a noise of agreement before he shook his head "This place isn't like heaven at all. Then again, it's not much of what it says at all - someone a while ago claimed to have heard about this place before they came here - it advertises itself as a hospital for physically and mentally ill children who are either dangerous to themselves and or others or whose parents just cannot cope with the extra care needed at the time, apparently. It's meant to be a temporary thing; it never is."
"And the brands?"she carefully ghosted a finger over her own, the skin uneven, surrounded in red, irritated and tender to the touch. She grit her teeth and recoiled.
Jason looked at her "They're us." He said simply "Instead of names, they give us numbers - easier to remember and it makes us easier to keep track of. I'm not Jason Grace anymore," he mumbled the last part "I'm 364."
"Why don't our parents say anything?" A chill ran down her spine as she anticipated the answer she was convinced she would not like.
"They can't. There's another rumour about the Quarantine Kid - his mother refused to keep her mouth shut, she cried and screamed and yelled and threatened to tell when he was taken. She wouldn't let go. They killed the poor woman - they killed her for not letting a group of violent officials drag her child away from her, never to be seen again." frank said, shivering "You know what makes it even worse? The Quarantine kid? He was four at the time. Worse still? She was killed as this kid - this toddler - was held in her arms, crying and not knowing what was going on as he was carted away by these officials carrying the same guns they had shot through his mother with."
"His mother?" She asked quietly "Was she his only parent?"
"So the story says."
"But why would they do that - go straight to lethal weaponry when there were so many alternatives?"
"I don't know - sadism, or their twisted, prejudiced views that make us subhuman and demonised?"
"But where did this even come from?"
He didn't respond anymore, just shook his head before placing it on his arms, crossed together over the table.
Hazel looked at him "You know you can't sleep - they'll kill you if you mess up their experiments."
"What?" Annabeth asked her.
"They're doing experiments," she said, her voice lowering in a way Annabeth could not possibly perceive as characteristic of her "all the time." she ran a hand through her thick, curly cinnamon hair, not bothering to push it back when it fell forwards to cover half her face "Everything we do is part of their experiment - the way we act, the things we tell you, the things we do every single boring day." She sighed "If he is real and still alive, I feel sorry for the Quarantine kid. Six months here and I'm not sure I'll last another - eight years here in high security, no contact with any kids his own age, never knowing any different. We don't know all that much, but we do know this place is wrong."
Leo and Malcolm were talking, Malcolm contributing more sighs than words to the communication. Annabeth couldn't hear them. It felt like there was blood rushing through her ears like a river. She couldn't hear anything.
Something had struck her - this was real and she was living in a kind of Hell. And her Hell was nothing compared to his. She had an odd feeling in her stomach, she couldn't help but think he was real; she wasn't sure why, but she knew.