I don't own Lab Rats. I do own this story.
* * * Chapter 9.1 * * *
Douglas . . . Douglas . . . Douglas Da . . . Dav . . . David . . . no . . .
He couldn't get the mind game from the day before out of his mind. It kept him awake when he wanted to sleep, and when he resigned himself to wakefulness, the thoughts wouldn't leave.
That man from the game: Douglas. He knew the man. That man was his father.
Yes!
No?
He couldn't determine if it was all a set-up. Who was Douglas, and why had he been included in that fake story?
Oh, how he wished it were real. To be free! What a glorious fantasy.
But it was only a fantasy. A dream, a trick, a ruse. Something designed to flush out his true feelings and reveal them to his captors. They'd programmed an escape, and he'd fallen for their games.
Their games, always twisting and warping his mind until he didn't know reality from fiction.
He'd been taken to the room eight times, and each time they prodded his mind with some kind of tricky riddle or horrific situation. Until the eighth time, he knew they were fake. Now they had proven their prowess in messing with his sense of reality.
He fingered his chest—the hole in his chest. It sat below his collarbone, the smallest of his injuries. That bullet came closest to hitting its mark. Two more centimeters and it would've pierced his heart.
So close.
Freedom. He didn't know what it felt like. He had never experience it.
No, that wasn't true. He had, but not here. Not in this prison. There was a life before this nightmare, a day before the dream. If only he could remember.
What did he remember? What did he know?
He was bionic. Someone from his old life gave him his chip, and his current captors used it against him.
He was no longer a teenager. He figured he was when he came in, but it had surely been years. Unless his sense of time was entirely askew—which indeed it was—he had grown into a man.
He had a family. He didn't remember them at all, or even how many there were. He didn't remember his mother or his father, and he didn't know if he had siblings.
Siblings. He liked that word. Maybe he did have some.
Douglas was his father? Yes? No? At the very least, was he a relative? Possibly. He couldn't remember. He knew Douglas's face. He knew his name. He knew his personality.
Douglas was someone from his old life, and perhaps a key to unlocking the memories.
They would regret reminding him.
He leaned back and groaned, cracking his shoulder blades. If he ever wanted to have a chance at freedom, he needed to become even stronger than before. He couldn't sit here and become truly pathetic. He couldn't wither away waiting for bullet wounds to close and stories to reach their ends.
He dropped to his hands and knees, pushing himself up and down. His muscles tensed, his nerves screamed. His voice did, too, and he hoped the guards would think it to only be another prisoner gone insane.
Inspiration: Uncle Iroh's time in prison during Avatar: The Last Airbender season 3.