A stinging sensation caught the boy in the face, and he stumbled backward. His hand reached to cradle his cheek, and he winced, feeling the forming bruise underneath. The man whom had struck him yelled something, but the boy couldn't hear. He was in a state of shock.

What just happened? His green orbs stared forward, watching the older man's mouth as he spat words at him, but he couldn't comprehend it. Had he done something wrong? Again? It wasn't his fault he wouldn't do it... it wasn't his fault he was too afraid.

Suddenly, he was pushed roughly into a chair somewhere behind him. The scientists around the room moved with haste. A blonde stood beside him, and in her shaking hand she held a syringe. She looked to be in her early thirties, her lips sealed tight and her eyes looking down. She was new here, of course; she'd never forced a kid to have an un-tested needle before. Well, yeah, it had been tested, but two rats, a rabbit and a doe didn't really count. Not to him anyway. Not since he was being forced to have it.

She grabbed his arm and held it against the table beside his chair. He tried to pull away, and he managed to rip himself out of her grasp.

This earned him another slap to the face.

"Don't fight it 12, you have a job to do." A calm voice behind him spoke, and he recognised it. It was his 'dad', Dr Brenner. Even without looking, Twelve knew the silver-haired man stood still behind the glass, his hands clasped behind his back and his eyes scrutinizing.

Tweleve lowered his arm slowly back on the table, the woman holding it more firmly this time.

He knew what would happen if he disobeyed Brenner, it had happened too many times already. He didn't want to go through it again.

"Don't worry, it- it will be alright." The woman attempted to calm him, but she was afraid herself. He could feel it in how her words wavered, how she held the syringe, how she couldn't look him in the eye, how her smile seemed eerie and how she hesitated to put it in.

He patted her shoulder gently with his other hand, and she finally looked down at him, but she never met his eyes. Her own eyes were red and her lip trembled.

He smiled. "Do it." She shook her head, looking away, strands of hair falling out of her bun as she did. "I'll be alright, like you said." She looked into his eyes, and he could see just how she felt. Fear, guilt and... anger?

Then, something hot pierced his skin.

He jumped, and something entered his veins. He could feel it. He felt the needle go in, and he felt the space around the hole in his arm go red and itchy. He felt his veins protest as the sharp object intruded, and felt his blood go cold when the liquid followed suite. He could barely register anything but the feeling of the cold substance. It was inside of him. It was like it was a part of him, and he had never felt so scared of himself. Not even when his own father pushed him into a fire and watched the flames lick at his skin. Not even when the fire scorched him, and... he liked it. Not even when he walked right out of the furnace, his clothes destroyed and blackened with charcoal, and found that he wasn't even burnt.

Only then, when he couldn't even hear his own pained shouts or notice his own spasms or feel his own sweat. He didn't even see the woman as she cried out his name, his number, or his DAD as he just STOOD THERE. His arms crossed, his eyes disappointed and his eyebrows creased.

But, even while he didn't register anything but the substance now within himself, he knew he was a disappointment.

He knew his dad was disappointed, and he knew the woman was disappointed, and he knew every other doctor and scientist watching was disappointed.

He was disappointed.

The syrum wasn't working. In fact, it wasn't ever going to work and everyone knew it. It was killing him. In fact, he wasn't ever going to live through it and everyone knew it.

Twelve's eyes became heavy, and he suddenly became very aware of how tired he felt. His body began to relax.

His violent spasms became something more of a shiver. His screams and shouts of pain simply small whimpers and shallow breaths. His vision spotted with dark blotches, and he felt himself begin to lose consciousness. Right before drifting off, without realising it, he looked to his dad. Only to find he had already left. Left him to die.

Then, he blacked out, a single tear leaving his eye.