Chapter 3:
Many days have passed since the first time those children have been brought into their personal hells, or at least it felt like days for the occupants of the white cell. No one inside the room could really count the number of days easily, for there was no window inside the suffocating room.
Instead, they counted days by meals. They were given meals three times daily, and (un)surprisingly enough, each meal consisted of nutritious food for it would not do the Estraneo any good if their test subjects were to die of hunger or malnutrition.
Twenty meals have already passed them by, and according to #49(who was quite good at math), it was already the afternoon of their seventh day in the white cell. Dinner time, however, was quite different.
Instead of men clad in white, a man in a tuxedo brought them their cart of meal. The first thing they noticed was the black color of his tux. It had been quite a long time since they've seen a color other than white after all. The next thing they noticed was his face. His face was quite the grotesque picture. The face of the man had skins of different colors, most likely from different people, stitched sloppily, making him look like a twisted human-version of a quilt.
"I am Angelo Estraneo," he introduced himself. "I am the boss of the Estraneo family."
Though the word angel had been his name, the children saw him as a figure far away from it. This man was a devil-the devil- who was responsible for the pain that they've been put through.
They wanted to do so much to the man. They wanted to hurt him, make him bleed, and cry, but they did none of those in fear of dying.
The man started explaining to them, in great detail, the misfortune of their family, and what was to be their fate if they didn't do anything about it.
"Our family-the mafioy that your parents belong to is ruled by me. I do not know how involved you children are with the mafia side of your parents, but the only thing that you need to know right now is that were are in distress."He let hisnwords sink in. "We are being persecuted. We've already lost so much of our members from all of these shenanigans."
"Our current goal is to make invincible soldiers out of you." He said bluntly. "You may all hate me now, but believe me, even if I didn't get to you first, surely, the mafia would have."
"Death is the only ending we have," he said with such a hard look on his eyes.
The little occupants of the room had a variety of reactions. There were a couple of children whom understood, or at least tried to understand the man in tuxedo, but the majority still became lost in anger, defeat and despair.
They didn't want this. None of them did. But they have no choice now.
"I'm sorry," the human patchwork said with intense sincerity.
He exited the room, preparing himself to give the same speech to the other specimens. He touched his face, the same one he himself had destroyed so that he could feel a fraction of the same suffering the children would experience. He was deluding himself into thinking that empathizing with them made his sins lighter.
It would be the last time he would show such emotion to them, he silently vowed.
An hour after Angelo's visit, men in white came into their cell once more. All of them were taken into different rooms, and though they would much rather stay inside, they didn't really have any choice.
Slowly, they were taken away. One by one until none of them remained.
"Now, now. Be a good little experiment and stay still okay?" A man ruffled the black haired asian boy's head, an electric razor on his right hand.
The man gently ran the razor along his head, shaving all of his black hair. The little boy was scared, but was even more upset. His mother loved his hair that he inherited from his father, he couldn't possibly come back home without them.
He closed his eyes in pain. That's right... There's no more home to go back to.
After having his hair shaved off, #49 soon found himself strapped on a metal chair, but instead of the usual cables and machineries that littered the room, he found various cutting tools instead. The room no longer looked like the Pain Simulation room, but looked more like a surgery room.
He suddenly felt suffocated.
The boy gulped as one of the many people surrounding him touch his head and held it in place with some metallic ring. An oxygen mask was placed on his face, but it only suffocated him even more.
An IV fluid bag was placed high above him. It was connected to a long plastic tube with a small needle attached at the end. They positioned the needle to point towards a particularly visible vein on the back of his chained hand.
His eyes were getting heavier, and it was getting harder for him to stay awake. He'd much rather watch himself get torn apart awake, than violated while asleep. It was a grotesque thought, but it was something that made him want to stay awake, for his greatest fear was to die in his sleep.
"Preparation for lobotomy..." He heard one of them say, though it sounded as if the speaker was talking inside a tub filled with water inside his hazy mind.
Lobotomy*...? He knew that word. His thoughts were starting to jumble. He had read about it before, from the little library they had back at home. His eyes were growing heavier. Ah, he remembered now.
No. No. No!
And then he saw darkness.
One of the brave souls whom tried to struggle was the blonde boy named Ken, who was trying to mimic his friend, Toby's, defiance. It earned him a hard hit at the back of the head, but he felt good, in a twisted way, knowing that he was at least trying to fight.
He was taken into the same room as before, but with a new addition. There, on the corner of the room, was a huge machinery of some sort. The men in white were dressed differently too. Though the lab gowns remained, they now wore masks, gloves, and caps, as if preparing for a surgery.
His eyes widened in comprehension, and he felt his dinner making its way back up his throat in the form of bile. His previous spunk was long gone, and only the fear remained. He didn't want to be cut open, no, not at all.
But of course, he had no choice.
He tried to struggle as hard as he could, but the strength of the men in white was simply too overpowering for him. Soon, he found himself strapped on the metal bed, facing a heavy light above his body.
"This should be easy," he heard one of them tell a comrade.
One of them rubbed a cotton ball all over the bridge of his nose, while the other held a syringe, positioned readily near his face.
A shot, and then numbness, but the boy remained conscious. He was feeling light, and drowsy, but he could still see, with hazy eyes, a sharp scalpel being brought down to where his numbed right cheek was supposed to be. He couldn't feel the pain, but seeing his face getting cut was already enough to make him sick to his stomach.
A clean slice was made, running from one cheek to the other, exposing the part of the boy's nose where the bone and the cartilage met. Using a clamp, they pried open the cut to reveal his bare nasal cavity. And then they began working.
By the time they were done stitching and bandaging his freshly cut face, most of the anesthesia had already faded, and though the pain was somewhat bearable, the sensation that the operation had brought, wasn't.
He could smell everything. His senses were being bombarded by the unwanted scents. He couldn't stop.
He could smell the sweat of everyone in the room. He could smell the different perfumes worn by those who were surrounding him. He could smell the saltiness of his own tears. He could smell the blood in the room so strongly that he could practically taste it.
A man went beside him and started to work on the straps that were holding the boy in place. The boy gagged a little at the strong scent of antiseptic and sweat coming from the man. He could smell something else... something that was distinct to the man, and the man only.
Everyone had that scent, he realized. Though a lot of them had a musky scent, they would always somehow smell different. Some of them smelled sweet, some smelled like smoke, while some smelled like things he didn't recognize.
He felt himself getting nauseated. He wanted to get out of there.
Slowly, with the help of the man who unstrapped him, he made it back to their cell. The moment the door opened, he immediately wished that he had died instead.
Inside the white cell were occupants who smelled like sweat, urine, feces... and fear. Purely, unadulterated fear.
*Lobotomy: surgical severance of nerve fibers connecting the frontal lobes to the thalamus performed especially formerly for the relief of some mental disorders—called alsoleukotomy. (Werriam-webster)
I'm so, so sorry for the late update. I completely forgot that my midterms exam comes right after my hell week and aaaaaaah! My exam ends tomorrow so I'll be back to updating regularly after that. In the meantime, please enjoy this quick update. I love Ken and Chikusa.
Oh, and please review! It's good for the kokoro. /shot
xXBloodyIllusionXx: Ooooooh, I get what you mean with the love at first sight thingamabob. It's a personal peeve of mine, especially if it was done on a character with trust issues and stuff. Like, noooo!
I love cyberfood uvu. *sends cookies*
Thanks to xXBloodyIllusionXx and Akayuki Sawada for the reviews; to MuiL0VR, ShannyHeartsYou, L4N498, and Victini-Kumi for the follows, and; to MiiL0VR for the follow. *hearts*