I don't K Anime, K Project, Project K or just [K]. Ohkay? On with it!

x+*{Chapter 4: We can give you anything}*+x

It… It wasn't suppose to go off…

He had been on his knees as the ring of the gunshot still blocked out the crackling around us. His eyes were void like two empty holes, I faintly wondered if this is what it was like looking into a Strain's eyes. His eyes no longer held such rage and fury like they had just moments ago... before the gun went off.

Behind him small flames of reds, pinks and yellows ate at the walls of the hallway.

The fire.

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**Earlier That Day**

"Ember, come on!"

"Ash, we aren't supposed to be out this early. Someone can find us…"

"But I want to do something special for you!~"

"Keep your voice down, please!"

"Do you trust me?"

"...What?" The question had left me stunned for a couple of seconds. Was she genuinely asking me… or was she testing me like she usually did? Again, Ash asked.

"Do you trust me?" Her eyes flickered to mine before they strayed to the bottom half of my face. Her green eyes analyzing my reaction. Cautiously, I gave her the answer she was waiting for.

"Well, of course I do."
"Then let's keep going!" We had been scurrying quietly through the vacant halls during our little argument, her hand clasped tightly around mine, dragging me behind her. The medium length platinum locks that were once decorating her head were now horribly and angrily chopped off. Absence of hair had given me a feeling of loss yet it sparked more hatred than what I already held for the humans. My free hand ran through my hair that had, also, been forcefully cut. The texture, thickness and color of my hair didn't compare to the soft, vibrant blond waves of Ash.

The unexpected swivel we made brought me back, we had intentionally turned into the nurse's residence hall; it was supposed to be a short cut to the pool room Ash found when she had explored. The doors were all shut but it didn't change that the doors were paper-thin. Morning light seeped through the open window of the pool room and stained the tile floors as we entered.

As we stepped on the roof, the breeze of the early morning swept past us and the hair on my arm stood up. The chill I felt from the breeze became overwhelmed with an entirely new sensation as the warmth from the rising sun splayed across my exposed skin.

Just as the clouds did on the countless days of rain, radiance from the sun swathed the sky above us. My heart lodged into my windpipe and my vision became fuzzy while I tried to search through the blinding glare of the sun rays for something familiar however the only thing I could find was the growing feeling of pride. I knew it! I knew it would look like this! I never imagined I'd view the sun rise!

The sun seemed to hit every perfect angle atop the buildings and blue waters surrounding us that everything seemed to glisten. It was like looking into a cup of glitter. Everything sparkled and shone, beautiful didn't even begin to place what I was seeing. If I hadn't been the girl forever trapped in this bland asylum; if I would have been normal like every other human, I wouldn't have been able to witness the… enchantment the morning presented as this magical morning. I vaguely noted my cheeks had gone damp with my tears and I had held my breath.

"Ash. Ash, I don't think anyone will be able to give me anything more than what you just given me… Thank you." She smirked as she grabbed her dingy white sleeve to wipe at her own face.

"Happy 11th Birthday, Ember."

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If there was an experiment, out of the many practiced here, that I certainly and absolutely didn't want to take part in... it would be this one. All Strains possessed heighten senses, some conceivably more than the other whether it was with sight or smell or touch, our senses were above all humans. This would be the paramount stamina test. It wasn't even much of a test, it was more like a trial. An annual trial.

Every Strain underwent the very same trial as I was just about to undergo; some had gone through it more than I have, some were lucky enough to have gone through it once. All Strains have been through this and all hadn't returned as they were before the trial.

Prior to the actual trial, the doctors and nurses would strap you down, stick needles and tubes into your unwilling body then drain enough blood to shut down your limbs. After a while, you could feel yourself just become numb and cold from the blood loss. You'd feel weak and barely able to keep your lids open. As you were on the verge of passing out, you'd feel a syringe full to the brim with THE drug, stab into your neck. The whole trial was to purposely drain us to the brink of death only to build us up again.

Just like they had created a sedative powerful enough to subdue any Strain, they had also created a drug that temporary elevated a Strain's abilities and senses. It was like a steroid that not only strengthen you but drove your senses erratic. Doctors and nurses had yet to find a Strain who was able to control the drug instead of the drug controlling them; every Strain would shut down eventual or go completely insane. I was one, along with Ash and a few others, to only briefly handle the drug before blacking out.

"You're a year older now, Patient 13. Your body will, no doubt, be changing. More stealthier, more stronger, and more tolerate. Perhaps, today is the day you gain your abilities." The doctor's face obscured by the white mask covering more than half his face.

They all sounded the same, they all were the same. These humans... They were the real monsters. His voice was gentle and careful but his intentions were anything but as I felt him plunged the iv's inside my arms and feet. The savage treatment had left my skin discolored permanently, along with the bruising from the straps that seem to forever bind me. "Wow! Been here for four years already!" I could make out the nasty sneer hiding underneath the cover of his medical mask.

"Four hellish years!" He seized my face in his hand, forcing me to stare into my reflection of his bug-eyed lenses. He began crushing my jaw and his nails, that had punctured through the latex of the glove, dug into the hollows of my cheeks. Despite the many punishments I obtained, my tongue had still not been easy to keep in my mouth. He threw me head against the metal gurney before turning away to fiddle with his little table of supplies.

"Happy Birthday…" The doctor whispered as a needle sunk into the flesh of my neck. The drug slithering into my blood system then slowly coursed through my body.

Always without warning the drug would finally kicked in. The room would fill with loud noises and the lights would brighten to petrifying levels to the point where it seemed the lights could burn the eyes out of my sockets and the noise would blow out my eardrums. The experience itself wasn't something easily put into detail. If such an experience existed that could be compared, it was like dying and forcefully being brought back to life, over and over again. The horrifying process would take hours but those hours were all too long for the suffering I underwent. Our high tolerance of pain had been something I definitely had been grateful for. It was a stamina test, after all.

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I awoke to the overbearing stench of burnt plastic and what smelled like burnt hair; because of the overpowering drug given to me, regardless how long ago, the smell had me forcing back the bile that was hacking its way up my throat. I violently gagged several times before I was able to control the dry heaving my body was making, the bitterness of the acid from my empty stomach lingered in my mouth. I hadn't even noticed when I had fallen from my gurney.

This scene was unusual, the nurses never did leave a patient unattended and yet, tossed heedlessly out of the room where the procedures occurred, not to mention I was strap-less. Again, the smell of different substances burning drifted into my nose and I was reminded of the revolting taste of vomit in my mouth. The bright fluorescent lights above were flickering on and off obnoxiously causing my brain more disorientation than I desired. The flickering was a bit off-putting and exactly was going on?

Doors thrown open and the floor littered with documents. Ranging from photos, medical records, schedules, or even short biographies about the strains residing here. One did catch my attention. At the very top of the paper in bold black lettering read "Patient 0".

No one has heard or seen Patient 0 since he first arrived here. People even began to doubt he made it past a week. So why was his file still here? As best as I could I crawled, well, more like slid on my belly to the unprotected document. They were thick pieces of paper and the weight of the stack was, humiliating, too heavy for me to pick up. Lifting one up at a time I skimmed the pages, luckily, we learned to speed read.

Most of the information stamped violently with a large red lettering that said "Classified". What could be too classified for this corrupted asylum holding non humans with unexplained powers and abilities? The only thing not marked with "classified" was the basics like weight, height, and age… He was 2 years older than Ash and I. It listed his ability as well, it was fire.

He could create fire? What exactly did that mean? Glancing about the other documents I noticed that none of them sported the same "Classified" like his did. What made him so special? More special than the rest of the Strains? Then again, Ash and I weren't special to begin with. We didn't harbor any aboriginal abilities but we did both have the strength, intelligence, stamina, and emotions as a Strain. No. But he was different. He was kept away from the rest, singled out. Why? Turning back to Patient 0's documents, I skipped to the very last page which displayed an image of the said boy.

Your eyes were first drawn to was his crimson hair. It was impossible to have been his real hair color, right? The second was the color of his yellow amber eyes. Eyes that looked bored but yet held an intimidating intensity. Such fire behind an apathetic gaze.

For a moment I had forgotten about the burning stench. Something was burning… Something was on fire! Could all this have been from him? I needed to find Ash, make sure she was okay. I needed her to be okay!

It took longer than I wanted for my motor skills to work. I looked like a bug on it's back and I felt like one too. Sweat formed on my brow and some beads successfully making its way into my already stinging eyes as I clawed at the walls to keep me balanced. Every now and then I'd spot a familiar Strain but they made no acknowledgement toward me. They seemed at a loss, like someone who didn't know what to do with themselves. They too went unattended and boundless.

I heard shuffling to my left and chanced a peek, there on the floor being strangled by a Strain was a doctor. His eyes were bulging out from his skull and despite his crushed air pipes, gasped loudly for air. The strain was too set on killing him that my presence went unnoticed. The doctor, however, had caught me gawking and pleaded breathlessly for my help. Without regret or remorse, I turned on my heel and never looked back. They all deserved it.

The further I went into the asylum, the more I saw bodies of nurses and doctors sprawled out lifelessly on the floors. The air was getting thicker with smoke. My throat felt raw and scratchy from the fumes. It would have been enough to kill a human but it only seemed a bother to a Strain.

Before long, I had made it into the nurse's ward. The temperature began to rise the further I pressed on. Instantly, my heart leaped into my throat, had the fire consumed Ash… No. Ash isn't dead. She can't die. She just can't. What would I do then? Nothing.

The single room, I was now loitering in front of, seemed familiar. It took a while before I registered it to be the male nurse's room. As I reached for the handle, the door flew open and, just as surprised as me, was the charcoal smudged face of Ash. Her green eyes adjusted to the fog of smoke drifting about, she pounced on me and she began to sob horribly into my shoulder. Her hands were heavy with the two desert eagles that were kept hidden under the bed. She continued to cry for a while, long enough to have my strength depleted. We fell to the floor and I couldn't help but give a very relieved chuckle. She joined soon after.

"Ash… What happened, where's Everybody!?" The mood became serious with just that one single sentence. The laughter ceased and the air became thick and not only with smoke. Her lip trembled, the action creating deep wrinkles into her chin. Her eyes grew bigger and redden with struggling tears.

"EMBER! I thought I lost you! I couldn't find you- and- and I grew scared!" She must have noticed my minor cautiousness as she began to pull out of my embrace, her death grip on the desert eagles she held behind my head slacken. She stared empty at me.

"Tell me what's going on, Ash." Strands of her hair had become stuck inside my mouth. The furious blush covering her usually ivory cheeks had been the main signal of her distress. She took a few deep breaths before a genuine smile pulled at her face.

"Oh Ember, don't you see! We are free. I know we always had those chances on the roof to leave but we are REALLY FREE NOW!"

"What do you mean?"

"The doctors, the nurses, the locks, the documents, even the strains, themselves, have disappeared because of the fire!"

Fire. The word had become permanent in my mind. Ash may not have understood the cause of it and I was hesitant to tell her. So, could this really have been because of Patient 0? Ignorantly I ask, "Fire?"
"You were gone for so long, I was beginning to think something had gone terribly wrong! I was going to search for you after I finished being force-fed. All of a sudden, the alarms came blaring on! I'm glad you weren't here when they went on, it was the most disturbing and off-putting thing I have ever heard!

"The mess hall flooded in red flashing lights. It turns out the asylum was going into some sort of lock down. From over the alarms you could barely hear the voice of a doctor yelling for all staff to immediately go to the observation and testing hall!

I thought for sure it had been because of you! Something was wrong, I wasn't the only one to feel it. All the strains hadn't been acting right today. Something... was going to happen. And that something did.

"The mess hall became overheated like an oven. It wasn't until Patient 60 had got up to check outside, we realized the hall filled with flames. A fire had broken out. We don't know where or how but seeing as there wasn't anyone looking after us, a huge riot arose! The nurses and the security tried to contain it but seeing as they are only human, they lost and I don't only mean that figuratively. As the fire and fight went on, I snuck out to come find you. When I wasn't able to find you I ran here to see if you were being kept here. Then…"

"Then?!" Her green eyes had glazed over and her arms dropped with the weight of the guns. She picked up the black desert eagle, running a finger over it admiringly.

"Then I found these again... I- I COULDN'T JUST LEAVE THEM HERE, EMBER! You have to believe me, I can't explain it but-!"

"I believe you!" A pregnant pause materialize and she refused to look away from the black desert eagle. I placed a hand over hers and that was enough to get her attention."Just… Is that all? The strains? The staff? The documents? What about the fire?" She shut me out again to look over the inanimate deadly object in her hand, the feeling slithering down my spine was something akin to fright. In a soft voice she replied.

"The strains… they all left. The staff. Dead. The documents all destroyed because of the fire. And… the fire. The fire is still there, our savior-"

"Enough, Ash! We have to leave too! There might be people coming to see what happened here! Now co-" I now understood why I had that apprehensive chill. Ash was too distracted to noticed but I sensed someone else with us. I turn to see who our uninvited guest was only to be knocked unconscious for a small moment by a blow to the back of my head.

Brought back by Ash's shrieking, which sounded farther away than they should have been, she was thrown on the floor leaving the desert eagles abandon beside me. She was being violently strangled by the half burnt owner of room. The male nurse himself, Mister Monster.

Out of anyone to have survived, what was the human's day of reckoning and the strains rebirth, it had to be the one person who hated us the most. His face was half torn by the fire and all that was visible was seething pink flesh. The image all to gruesome and horrible to describe. His face was truly monstrous to coincide with his monstrous being. As if channeling his rage on Ash, he unleashed a second hell. She was able to fight him back as best she could but I knew it was only temporarily that her strength can hold.

What I was expecting to happen, I don't know, but it certainly wasn't this. Instinctively, I reached out to the silver desert eagle then raised it up to the flesh exposed nurse and pulled the trigger. Ash and I knew that there were no bullets in the gun or even in his room... So why did it go off?

My body and hand vibrated with life. A fuzzy and exhilarating thrill filled the cavity of my chest, the feeling far stronger than any of the sedatives or enhancing steroids the doctors and nurses could ever hope to drug me with. I felt alive. I felt whole. My heart had been too loud in my ears to acknowledge Ash's shouting. A sickening drop hit my stomach, the sad realization enveloping me in fear before I could welcome the intoxicating feeling anymore. The gun went off, I shot him.

"Ember, get up! EMBER! WHAT DID YOU DO?!" Ash pulled me into her lap as I lay stunned at my actions. Am I a murderer? Did I kill him? "Ember… look, he isn't dead. He's still awake!" He was motionless on his knees looking vacuous at us. It was like he was dead by the empty stare in his eyes but his rising and falling chest had told me otherwise. Why isn't he dead?

Ash's delayed rage had finally surfaced. She dropped me and tackled the male nurse, using what's left of her strength on his willing body. The sound of her punches making contact with his half exposed face was like the sound of punching meat. "GET UP! NOW! YOU BASTARD! YOU DESERVE TO DIE! WHY AREN'T YOU RESPONDING!"

"Ash?" I brought myself to her side as she took out her built up emotions on the male nurse. Still he stared on with empty eyes. Gently, I pointed the gun at his head, making sure it touched his temple. The hatred residing in me surfaced as well, I found myself shouting at the unaltered fool, "Are you mocking us? ...Get up!"

He sprung up instantly at my order causing Ash to come crashing off his chest. His back was pin straight yet didn't seem threatening. He just… obeyed me. Another order slipped out my mouth. "Walk." Like a puppet, at first, he began drunkenly pacing but gradually building up his motor skills until he was walking nonchalantly up and down the hall. "Ash. I think. I'm. Controlling. Him."

Sooner than I'd like it, we became distracted by a blur of blue light. It surrounded and cloaked our bodies just as a huge spiral of fire came at us from down the hall. Any longer then the flames would have no doubt killed us. Unfortunately, for the male nurse, was trapped among the hot flames, practically eaten like the other half of his body.

As his body turned charcoal the odd connection that had formed between him and I, the one that allowed me to momentarily control him, became severed. It wasn't no simple clip either. His death created a smoldering blaze behind my squeezed eyelids and erupted a red-hot blaze in my skull. I could feel the human monster take in his last struggling breaths before silenced. Pain surrounded my senses and I was lost to the situation happening at that moment.

The blue veil formed into a circular shield holding the inferno back from us; it sparkled, reminding me of this morning when Ash had shown me how beautiful the seas were when dawn came. Had that really been this morning? It just wasn't possible.

As my sense became duller, from inside the flames, I distinguished a shadowy figure. A male figure standing inside the fiery of red, yellow, and at times, pink glowing flames. The fire not affecting him at all.

My body had been lifted from the ground, that we were hovering in mid-air hadn't been my first priority. With Ash and I being pull away from the figure in the hall. My mind began to go into a state of urgency at leaving the person behind.
"NO! NO, WAIT! NO, GO BACK! WE HAVE TO GO BACK! THERE IS SOMEONE THERE! WE CAN'T JUST LEAVE HIM! LET ME GO!" To my horror, we didn't stop despite my objections and the small circle veil underneath us turned into a solid bubble, forbidding me to escape. I began throwing myself against the blue walls hoping to at least damage it in some way. It took a few more times of me hurling myself that my weakened body succumbed to the inviting depths of sleep.

The boy, he was still in there and I couldn't do anything about it. Powerless.

Welp. It was going to be longer before I realized how long it was on here. Despite what two of my reviews say I'm still writing this! As you can see my story doesn't have anything to do with K… YET! Even then I'm hoping to be more realistic for Ember's case. A young strain girl being tortured for a few years now, this will no doubt affect her further on. I will definitely have time skips which should be soon! She will no doubt meet up with Homra, but if you came here for an immediate and happy romance with one of the boys in Homra then this is probably not the story for you. Anyway, I said a lot in here. I have what's going to occur in this story planned out, it's just taking me a while to put it down in writing!

THANK YOU TO: year-of-the-panda for my first ever kind review! I actually, didn't do this much for reviews but because of the other two I was beginning to doubt going further into the story. I'm actually kind of surprise that you liked the gruesome scenes, I was thinking it was probably too much and wasn't very good. I guess, I was in a dark place at the right moment! Good assumption with the SCEPTER 4 idea. But no, they aren't, it would be interesting though. It sounds kind of like something that might happen! *Shrugs*

The whole origin story of this story will be in the next chapter, along with developing more further into the story! Wait, what? Tell me what you think might happen next! I don't know, if anyone gets it right I'll dedicate the next chapter to them, the whole chapter! What do you say? Okay, Beyond out!~