Truthfully, I hated it in these parts. This room, one of many various detention cells, was used to keep us in place. To make sure our obedience never wavered. So they could positively say; if we were ever tortured for information, we'd never tell a soul who the mastermind was. This cell was very similar to every other one, small and poorly lit. The only light that made it to our surroundings was the illuminating glow that was created by the moon's radiant light, it peeked in through the bars of a side wall window. The only other thing in this room than me and her was a table. On this table sat multiple tools. I shivered, knowing what they were for. They were for us.
Who are we, though? We, are the same as you and the person closet. Well, mostly. Though we were born the same, Fate has a twisted sense of humor.. And we are the creatures that lurk in this darkness. The withered flowers in the garden that no one dares to touch, for all we are- thorns; pedals once ready to branch out and meet the sun, the rain, now lie dead on the ground...
Why? One, simple answer.
Naraku
• • •
Her scent had spiked the second she saw me, fear coursing through her veins alongside her blood. The moment I had jumped from the roof, I could tell there was no recognition in her chocolate brown eyes. But should I blame her? Last time we met, I had been an innocent kid in the first grade.
Her trembles brought me back to the present. The erosion of her delicate skin worried me. Rope that tightly bound around her wrists and ankles caused the amount of currently flowing liquid to increase, and I could tell the girl was not comfortable. She struggled to see, as if the light was off and she was straining to find a light switch.
It was not the lights that were dimmed into nothing, but her own vision. She had been injected with a drug, blinker shock, that was commonly used here. This drug was able to shut down the bodies sight nerves for eight hours, leaving it's victims blind.
"W-Where am I?" She demanded. I was surprised to see how short tempered she was. I had just kidnapped her for heaven's sake, and she's ordering me around like she owns the place. But even so, she was terrified. Before I could answer her, a new voice tore into the conversation.
"Hey babe, miss me?" Bankotsu sneered, his meer presence making the raven haired women tense.
"Y-You!" She gasped. Fear tampered with her tone, along with disgust and a tinge of hatred.
"Yea, its me. Who else would send this dog after you?" A stiff hand found itself in between my shoulder blades, a growl sent up to my lips. Bankotsu's hand retreated.
"Dog..?" I rolled my eyes, a smirk shooting itself at the tyrannizing man that had made his way besides me.
"She's on blinker shock." I informed.
A disappointed frown tugged the corners of his lips down. "Can she still feel?" He asked, a new interest spiking in his voice.
"No." I lied. "You can only rape her with your words." He took this as the honest truth, and I felt a flaring heroicness burn in my chest. I quickly realised that I had not saved the girl; I had simply put her in my debt. And I would make sure she paid before we departed ways...
Bankotsu's eyes found my own. I didn't like him. He was reckless, annoying, and took every chance he could to defile any women. His eyes, a chestnut brown, slitted as a toothy grin formed on his lips. "Just make sure to inform me when the drugs are done inside of her. I wanna turn after 'em." A low growl escaped me, making his smile widen in satisfaction. "Good." With that, he turned, one last lustful glance at the girl, and left. I was soon to follow after him.
I closed a large, metal, door behind me, her wails and demands being silenced to even the most sensitive ears.
That was another thing about this place that I hated. The hallways, unless someone was speaking with in them, were deathly still. The doors were usually closed, and when they weren't it was because one was checking up on the area's contents.
The hallways, though quiet and eerie, were peaceful... in a way. There were no tools to sear into my flesh. No needles to apply a new aspect to my appearance and abilities. And last, but certainly not least, I was alone.
My footsteps echoed around the steel, bouncing from wall to wall with every hoist of my leg. It all looked the same. Doors stood proudly across from one another ever few feet, and it took about a minute before my eyes could decipher the end of this particular detention hall.
I was met by two, large double doors. I knew what would await me when I pushed through these said doors. I mentally screamed to myself as I walked in, trying to convince my body to turn around and convert my track so I would end up back with Kagome. But it was too late. My knees were moving while my mind was resisting, so by the time I had come to the conclusion of retreating, I was through the doors and faced with cages.
Cages that contained people- animals. In this rathskeller there were four of these halls. One for the young ( 1-5 ), kids ( 6-12 ), teens ( 13-19 ), and the last one was for the "elders" ( 20-deceased ). You see, all of us were erased from this world one day or another, and anyone on to live past their teens was considered a god.
I was still nineteen, but I was not kept in a cage. I was a "staff" member. That title simply meant I was one of the many experiments whom was obligate to complete and clean up Naraku's dirty work. My hands were tinted with so much innocent blood; I stopped thinking about it.
A whimper from a small child met my ears. I scorned myself not to, really, but I looked over a the kid anyway. He couldn't have been more than three! Except, unlike the normal child, this one's face was covered in green scales that dug into his skin, the broken flesh raw and bleeding. His fingers wrapped themselves around the bars, showing that they were like his face, blood stricken and sore. Another whimper escaped him, and I couldn't help myself from wanting to release him, give him a freedom he'd never find feasible.
Many projects had tried to run away, even myself at once, but it had proved futile. Narkau's minions always found us, dragged us back to a place worse than hell itself. Some, if on their multiple attempt of escaping, would be killed. And not painlessly, either. No one here believed in a painless death. Even the kids, the ones just like the kid that sat across from me, pleading tainted yellow crocodile like eyes that begged for mercy, knew that pain was apart of life and therefore, apart of death.
I turned away from the kid, unable to do anything about his predicament. He cried out for me, his stirs causing others to do the same, and by the time I walked out of there, my heart- the little pieces that still existed- shattered. I would never admit it to anyone, but I had a soft spot. And that, I knew, would be my weakness in the long run.
Coming to the end of the wails was another set of double doors. I eluded through them, the dog like ears that sat atop my head in a nest of fur becoming restless, straining to turn back and help the toddler. But I continued on.
One stride after another in an all to familiar hallway, I made it to my destination. A door on my right stood identical to every other one. It was the twenty third door in the line, an that was the only way I knew it'd be where I was sentenced to.
A small boy sat on a stretched surgical bed, his green eyes trembling when he saw me. Fiery red hair sat atop his head in a pony tail so that we could easily access his cheeks. A large white bandage covered the majority of his face. I frowned, knowing what I'd see when I took the coverage off his lips.
My steps were smooth as I walked over to him, my hands lifting. He flinched away, and I couldn't blame him. He was only a kid, and he was thrown into this pandemonium. I gently tugged at the fresh bandages. No surprise met my features when I saw the bloches of blood clumping and clinging to the fabric. His mouth was no better- worse even. The second I removed the only thing that subdued the fresh wounds from reopening, a cry elapsed to my ears.
His fangs were growing nicely; but at what cost? The same cost I had to undergo at his age. Blood dribbled down the side of his spilt open mouth, tears joining to create a goulash of panging hurt. His lips continued to drain of fluids, scabs unable to form due to the constant saliva. It was like a rigid abstract art piece, as if he had sat there tearing at his face with a scalpel- and now his sharp canine like teeth glinted a tainted crimson.
A sick form of art...
His dubious pleading eyes begged for help, obviously ignored by all other "surgeons". I wasn't the best, but I couldn't sit back mundanely as he suffered. Picking up a needle and glories thread, I begun. He flinched violently the moment I came close to him.
I could already see that his teeth was apart of a chain. A tail, indelible was just a stub; no more than two inches. It unveiled itself from a tare in the already tattered clothing that loosely covered him. This bone was covered with a rough texture- that was neither skin nor fur, but more of a gray sandpaper. It was impossible to say which one it would turn out to be, once fully grown- or even if it'd change from the current coverage.
More bandages swallowed his hands, red bleeding through the white at the fingertips. Claws.
Another thing about him was his ears. Luckily, he had not gone through the agony I had of a saw tearing at the flesh slowly, pain sparking my vision into stars as screams clasped anyone's hearing it could get to. Instead, he kept a human ear that, no doubtfully uncomfortably, formed into more of the folk lore's elf ear.
Continuing to stitch, the boy reacted by squeezing his eyes shut and holding a fist full of the hospital bed he sat upon. He took it like a man. He should be screaming about even scraping his knee, but here he sat, medal thread pulling the torn flesh back together, only letting out low whimpers.
I finished my task as swiftly as possible. Unlike everyone else here, I did not take my anger out on the experiments. Some, like Bankotsu, let go of stress and past memories by using the women, others used their power to inflict much suffrage to anything they could lay a hand upon.
I would not, though. I was stuck in this life, this hell, and I could do nothing about it. Nothing but try and keep these kids, these women, and even the men, from as much as I could. I had once thought about setting a bomb aflame, erasing data, pain, and any possibility for the experiments to intake more of this lifestyle, but I knew it would serve useless. With how protected everything was, it was futile to even think about.
"There you are." I tried to coax over his silent sobs as I applied a new bandage. The male's trembles continued, but a sort of trust shone in his eyes. I wanted to scold him for it, tell him never to trust anyone in this insular, not even in the outside world, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. He needed someone that he could count onto not to yell at or hit him, and I took the responsibility to be this figure. "It will heal up nicely," I lied, giving a single hopeful nod. I could not see it fully, but I could tell that the kid was frowning even more at this.
So, he knew I was lying, eh?
"Just, don't scratch at it or I might have to dig out all that threat and replace it." His eyes shone in a fearful understanding. With no antibiotics or painkillers, even a needle piercing the skin had impeccable pain behind it, so having to not only do it again but reverse the action was overly repulsing. "Good, I gotta go now." I turned, and I felt his stare pleading me to stay. Though I wanted to be a hope for him, I could not get attached. Here, any second he could drop dead because all of the foreign DNA in his system. But before I fulling pushed through the door, I looked over my shoulder at him. "Stay strong, Shippo." I had learned the kid's name early on- when the disability to speak was not caused by edges of bone searing through his gums.
I remember my request being a simple one, but he was shuddering like I held a knife through his throat. At first, I thought I had heard him wrong through clattering teeth, a name like Shippo was rare. But nevertheless, his title was that. And only that. No surname, as far as I understand.
Before he could even release himself from the trance that engulfed him at the unusual string of words, I was gone. A man met me at the door, clipboard clutched in his hand. He was a scientist. Human but a beast at heart. A white lab coat hung off his shoulders and glasses sat on the bridge of his nose, capturing his cerulean eyes. He passed me with no quarry, prepared to take the kid back to his settlements. His cage.
I whittled a growl, in full knowledge that these monsters had no interest in their patients. Other than the results, of course.
You'd think that with so many experiments, scientists, and data someone would have caught on and gone "Oh! There's something illegal going on. Let's shut it down!" But no. No one knew, and the ones that did, stayed silent, the only thing in their selfish minds- their own safety.
Shuffling away before my ears could twitch at the sound of a trembling child on plastic sheets, I planned through my mind the rest of the day. Not much was listed. It was still late, and I could go get some sleep before the sun rose, but like every night previous of this one, I would not. Sleep brought dreams. Dreams brought memories. Memories brought pain. And I did not need to be rendered helpless in my own mind.
So I walked on. The hall seemed endless, but I knew far too well it wasn't. At the end of this hall was the kids' cages. Not wanting to elude through the double doors that lead to that particular scene, I turned into a door on my left.
Locked.
A single eyebrow lifted in sudden curiosity. The only time a door was rewarded the ability to be locked was if there was a privet surgery or important data no one was permitted to see.
I had been in this place that incinerated all life held in its walls since I was small. Even though I had been put through so much, I had numbed to it at a pace no other child around me had. I remember nights in my cage where kids would cry for their mothers, fathers, siblings. I would just yell at them to shut up. Tell 'em the blunt reality they needed to hear "no one is coming for 'ya. Save your breath." So, while most kids sniffles and screamed, I trained my new eyes to search in the dark to a single lock that imprisoned me in the steel bars. Picking this said lock had taken months, fingers always bandaged or scabbed over, but once I had gotten used to the claws and learned to use them to my disposal, it was a piece of cake. I remember how I jauntily boasted, a feeling of earned freedom running through my beating heart as I heard the click that first time. Now, I knew it was not freedom I had acquired, but a skill. Simple tool to be used in times like this.
With a flick of my finger, a satisfied jolt lifted to the air as the lock came loose. I did not hear anyone as I creaked the door open. My ears listened for any sign of a surgery. Nothing. Safe, I fulling opened the door and filed in, shutting the block behind myself. The only contents in the room were a computer- an older version that's back was drifted wide due to the block that made up its backside- and a couple filing cabinets.
A smirk was dueled, dancing upon my lips. So, what are they hiding today?
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AN~•~ Aha! Chapter two is done! Sorry it took so long! Between band, track, and school play I have no time to write! But, seeing as I have two other stories to also update, I hope that you all will forgive me *
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