Survival of the Fittest
John 356 learned fairly quickly that while actions against his fellow "students" (Inmates? Patients?) would be ignored, actions against the staff incurred swift and brutal punishment. He only had to experience solitary confinement a couple of times before he learned to avoid it at all costs. Solitary confinement involved being strapped to a gurney in a very small windowless room and left there for hours on end with no food, water, or any way to relieve yourself. By the time you were let out, you were starving, dehydrated, and covered in your own urine and feces.
That was actually the best case scenario. There were plenty of people on staff with very creative cruel streaks. A helpless victim was too good for them to resist. They had plenty of time to cause unimaginable pain and leave horrendous scars, both physical and emotional. There was no way to protect yourself, and no one would help you even if you weren't gagged and were able to scream.
But John was a survivor. He hadn't made it through the house of horrors to die here. Rape, torture, anything they could dish out he could learn to take. He also learned how to avoid it as much as possible. It wasn't a matter of never going after a staff member, it was a matter of not getting caught. John was very good at not getting caught.
However, there was always someone trying to get him in trouble. John had made a lot of enemies in a very short time. Those who couldn't get at him directly found ways to frame him for acts he didn't commit, or at least bribe a staff member into accusing him of something. It wasn't always possible to avoid punishment when this happened, so he learned to endure and get his revenge later. Delaying revenge just made him get crueler and more creative. It was also a lot more fun.
John wasn't a particularly large or muscular boy, but size and strength weren't everything. Being cunning and devious went a long way to evening things out. Creative weapon-making also helped. Being brutal and vicious was the order of the day, and John could dish it out with the best of them. Most of the other kids quickly learned not to confront him directly. Those who didn't tended to end up in the infirmary, if they lived that long.
One of the other lessons John learned was that you didn't have friends at Milledgeville. There were the people in charge, who had to be obeyed, then there was everyone else. Of the rest, people were either your allies or your enemies. Trying to remain neutral would get you killed by both sides. No one wanted someone weaker than them as an ally. Those kids were no use to anyone. They were destined to have very short, miserable lives and brutal deaths.
John would never admit it, but he was actually bothered by the senseless cruelty against those too young or weak to defend themselves. Isn't that how most of them ended up here? There was nothing he could do to protect them, however. Standing up for them would only make John a target and gain him nothing. So, John did the only thing he could think of that would be merciful, he became Milledgeville's very own Angel of Death.
It was actually another boy who showed John how mixing certain chemicals together would create a very potent, fast-acting, relatively painless poison. Just the tiniest scratch with a poison dipped object, or a mere drop of it in someone's food or drink was all that was needed. The boy who taught John all this was his first victim. No one suspected him at all.
Some people thought poison was a weapon of the weak. John thought that was very narrow-minded. Why limit yourself to one type of weapon? As long as it worked who cared what it was? The more weapons in your arsenal, the better prepared you were for any situation. John liked being prepared.
John learned as much as he could from anyone who would teach him, even if they didn't know that's what they were doing. Knowledge was also a weapon. He kept his skills sharp and his position in the pecking order at Milledgeville secure by practicing what he knew on the others. He kept careful note on the abilities and weaknesses of others, but he never interfered anyone's behalf unless there was something in it for him.
There was only one thing he could do for those who couldn't find their place at Milledgeville. He kept small stashes of his special poison in hiding places around the institute. He never knew when he would need it or an opportunity would present itself to end someone else's suffering undetected. The weaklings he killed weren't mourned by anyone. Their fate would have been much harsher if he hadn't intervened, and they still would have ended up in unmarked graves on the institute's grounds.
The only reason anyone cared about the deaths was because no one knew who was doing it and how. Strangely enough, it was actually a first for Milledgeville. No one had ever cared enough before to actually become a mercy killer. They never did figure out it was John. No one suspected that he was even able to care about someone other than himself.
No one would ever dream of uttering the words "mercy" and "John" in the same sentence unless they were talking about someone begging for it. As far as most people were concerned, John had no conscience, no soul. To those who could fight back, John was a skilled and dangerous opponent. As he grew and absorbed all the lessons he was given (both official and not) he only became more so. He had a hair-trigger temper that few could keep under control, but he was brilliant and creative and would stop at nothing to achieve his goals. He was going to make the perfect Time Agent.