Chapter 23

Sam followed the English-speakers, excluding the girl from earlier who had decided to go back to the room she was in prior to his arrival, down a new set of stairs and into a room that looked eerily similar to the one he'd spent his whole life in—before Sam and Tucker, that is. He felt something click inside him and an urge to act normal overwhelmed him. The urge to obey. To not try to communicate. To numb himself. To never question their behavior.

He couldn't help but numb himself, as though his conscience had retreated to the back of his mind. He was simply watching his body move at this point. English-speakers had talked about such an effect once. Something about a defense mechanism, whatever that meant. They knew what he was doing. They never seemed overly concerned about it. Perhaps they wanted it.

There were glass containers with green stuff—quite possibly ectoplasm—on almost every desk. He saw a couple of syringes. White antiseptic wipes. Small towels. Various other fluids. No other English-speakers. A reclining chair with straps. A table with straps. Nothing to suggest he would be put in another deponejo de akvo. Were they cancelling Project Level Up? Or…perhaps, was this the next stage? What did it have in store for him this time? A diet change?

…Was…was Sam in on this the whole time…? Did that mean Tucker was too…? There was no other explanation for bringing him back to face Project Level Up. Yet…he refused to believe the obvious, that they had just been faking it all. There was no way they didn't care about him at all. They were at least a little different from the other English-speakers.

"Sam, pull up a seat," the woman said. "We have a lot to discuss."

Sam reached up to touch his hair and softly sighed. She dragged a chair over for him to sit on. Even patting it, using body language to tell him to sit, there was no vocal command for him to follow. Eventually she did tell him, aloud, to sit down. There was no possible way for him to be more grateful to know these English commands. Plus, his ankles were starting to hurt from the weight being put on them.

Sam placed another chair right beside him and looked at the woman intensely. "Well?"

The woman inhaled and said, "First, I feel I should address your concerns regarding my husband and me. With what you know now, I don't blame you at all for not trusting us. It's true that we did work for a facility about twenty or so years ago. We started out as grunts not knowing pretty much anything about what our job was supposed to do. Fast forward a year and we starting climbing the ranks. We ended up in different fields of research dealing with chemistry and other biosciences, or in other words—"

"I already know what bioscience is, Mrs. Fenton," Sam interrupted. "Skip to the parts that actually matter, like ohhhh maybe, you know, when you hurt Daniel?!"

The woman put her hands calmly in her lap. "Actually, we never came into contact with Daniel. We weren't even supposed to directly work with any of those…like Daniel. Our field was strictly research. We were told that we were developing a solution to the paranormal problems humanity faced rather frequently back then. Being chemists at the time, we both assumed this 'solution' was a chemical of some sort and we had to help make it. Eventually Jack and I began working together and noticed a few strange patterns that didn't quite match up with what we were told. You see, ectoplasm—" He visibly flinched at the word and the woman seemed to notice it. "—is a substance that, simply put, is a ghost's blood. We kept asking ourselves why pure ectoplasm was in every mixture we were supposed to make. Remember, we were supposed to stop ghosts, and ectoplasm wouldn't do anything at all to them. Years went by and as we continued to move up we started jotting down some of our shadier findings. Finally we decided to dig deeper into these chemicals and stumbled across a restricted file labeled 'Project Level Up' in the process. Inside were horror stories that still make my blood boil when I think about them. The reason we worked so much with harmless substances to ghosts was because we were actually working on something that could be safely injected into humans. Ectoplasm was an absolutely necessity, the project couldn't be completed without it. We were such fools to be so blind to that!"

"Maddie…" the man mumbled. He put one of his hands over hers and gently squeezed.

The woman took a few deep breaths and nodded before continuing. "Right. Right… We snuck into restricted areas whenever we could, we didn't tell a single soul about what was in that file. One day we found a kid, which people would later call a 'volunteer' for Project Level Up, who had recently been injected with a serum we named 'synthetic ectonomia'. He was much younger than Daniel, probably seven or eight years old? He was curled up on the floor…couldn't cry, couldn't move, crippled by the pain. He died that very night and another boy took his place. We gathered every bit of evidence we could and took this to court. Those who knew what was going on were charged with either first or second degree murder and were sentenced to life without parole. Project Level Up was shut down on grounds of inhumane practices."

"You expect me to believe that? Daniel is part of Project Level Up, he wouldn't be like this if it was shut down!"

"Because somehow, somewhere, someone found a loophole and was granted permission to start it back up. I'm willing to bet every penny I have that this time there are heavy restrictions on what they can and can't do…but seeing Daniel now, they're either breaking those restrictions or what we saw before was far worse than we ever imagined."

"What about Daniel, what happened to him?"

"Daniel was taken from his mother as a baby, assuming they're still using their old methods, and was raised very particularly. Project Level Up is extremely sensitive and won't work unless everything runs flawlessly. If he only knows Esperanto it's because they've been giving him commands in Esperanto and never exposed him to English. Those rings? Sickening to look at but they work like handcuffs and give anyone else full control over him. When we were working there, the rings didn't even exist. It was all shackles and chains. I guess they found a way to break his spirit too, no wonder they never took those rings out."

"Why would anyone do this to such a gentle person?"

"If Daniel is the finished product of Project Level Up, he's ridiculously strong. He has all the powers of a ghost on the human plane. There had to be a way to keep him under control if he were ever to realize how easily he could escape. They were prepared for him to turn against them so they took every precaution possible and by debilitating him, they've done just that."

"So…I mean, was he injected too? And if he was then why didn't he die from it when everyone else did?"

The woman shrugged. "You mentioned something about him always being tired when you first met him. My guess is that something went wrong and Daniel was able to escape, but not before he was subject to Project Level Up. If he escaped before then, he would be no different than you or me. Something probably went wrong in the middle of it and they were forced to stop, at least for a time, and I suppose their attention was on whatever went wrong. They probably thought he wouldn't dare to even think of escaping and didn't watch him, which gave him the opening he needed."

"How did he manage to get away with these stupid rings in him? He can't walk, can't talk, can't hold anything…"

"The only way to know that is for him to tell us what happened. Nobody before Daniel could talk either, as far as we know."

The woman walked over to one of the many desks and picked up a small, thick stick. She came back and opened his mouth. A very bright light shined from the tip of the stick. It wasn't his first experience with light sticks. Apparently this wouldn't be his last.

"Well…" the woman sighed. "He can't talk but he's certainly been trying. His vocal folds are inflamed. Looks like he gave himself laryngitis."

"Soooo does that mean you can't fix it?"

The woman clicked her tongue. "I think I can. There's a metal strip embedded into the walls of his throat, in the back, that keeps the vocal folds from moving properly, so he can't make a sound. If I remove that strip then they'll be able to function like they're supposed to and he'll be able to speak again."

"Why did they stick metal in his throat to stop him from talking?!"

The woman let him close his mouth and put the light stick back in its place on the desk she got it from.

"They did it to control him," she said. "Wouldn't it be a little disheartening to want to communicate but no matter what you do you know you'll never be able to? Wouldn't that eventually wear you down? Just another basic human ability taken away from you. Wouldn't you feel like you've already lost too much to bother resisting the people that did it to you?"

Sam clutched her arm, as though she was using it to anchor her security.

"So…he used to talk?" she asked.

"Yes."

"And he had to go through all that just because people wanted to control him?"

"They knew he would be much more powerful than any other human so they didn't want to take any chances with him."

This discussion of theirs was much too similar to the English-speakers' he had grown so used to. It was also much lengthier than usual. His name was brought up more often than before. This was no short, casual conversation. This was dead serious, and more concerning, it was between Sam and two other English-speakers that were clearly involved with Project Level Up. They could be trying to persuade Sam to make him stay here. No way she would give in to that.

But she did bring him here… Tucker helped…

He swallowed nervously. Once again his actions didn't go unnoticed by this inhumanly observant woman… He could see the interest in him in her eyes. He wanted to look so menacing she would hate him enough to force Sam and Tucker to keep him. However he knew from experience that someone else keeping him would be an ideal but completely unrealistic situation.

"Now," the woman said. "It's your turn."

Sam sighed. "After I came back from my trip I found this boy in my room. I freaked, because I mean, there's this person in my house and how did he even get in? Which, later I realized my window was left open to air out my room and I guess I forgot to close it before leaving—I was late and Jazz was waiting on me so I was rushing. Anyway, I almost called 911 but ended up calling Tucker instead. I didn't know who else to trust and he really didn't look all that dangerous. He look pretty scared, actually. I felt kind of bad for him and thought he might've been abused or something…? He didn't trust either of us at all and kept acting like we were going to hurt him."

"And…is you ever hurt him, even accidentally?" the woman asked.

Sam shook her head. "No, never. I mean, he would accidentally hit his rings against something and they were already hurt from I think climbing a tree close to my window. He probably hooked them around branches and lifted himself up like that so yeah, his hands were petty tender. They would bleed a lot and I bandaged them up. I'm guessing that hurt but he seemed to know I had to do it."

"He knew about medical treatment then," the woman said matter-of-factly.

Sam shrugged her shoulders—he had come to understand that this often meant confusion among English-speakers.

"I guess," she replied. "He stayed in the same corner for days and most of the time he slept. I don't think I've ever seen anyone that exhausted before. Oh, and he had burn marks on him."

"Burn marks…?"

"Yeah. Like his clothes were singed in some areas and there were some black spots here and there on his body. It almost looked like he came out of a fire or something. I didn't know he didn't speak English at the time so I only talked about it with Tucker when he was asleep. It helped convince Tucker that letting him stay with me wasn't such a horrible idea after all."

"So Tucker was against him staying with you? Did Daniel ever lash out or look aggressive?"

Once again Sam shook her head. "He didn't have a name back then. Tucker's my best friend, he was just really concerned because we didn't know who this boy was or why he was here. Tucker even talked about what I would do if he was faking it all and was, as Tucker put it, 'psychologically challenged'."

"How did you respond to that?"

"I told him it didn't feel like he was faking anything. I mean he had burn marks. That, and if he wanted to hurt me he had a lot of chances. And because there was just no way he could get the upper hand with the rings on like that."

"I see. So him having rings actually helped you trust him?"

"Yeah."

"What about him trusting you? How did you manage that?"

"Tucker and I just left him alone. After a few days he came out of his corner and started to explore my room. I ended up naming him Daniel and shortly after that we figured out he didn't know English."

"How did you know about Esperanto?"

"He started to stink up my room and I wasn't going to bathe him to I called Tucker over. He gave Daniel a bath and found some branding on his back that said 'Projekto Nivelo Up E 428'. Of course that caught our attention so we did a little bit of research and found out it was Esperanto. We kind of assumed that's what he spoke and we tried it out. Voila, he speaks Esperanto. We also sort of guessed that he was an experiment. We asked him and he said yes. Sooo… Tucker and I decided to keep him a secret. We figured that was why he escaped, and by coincidence he ended up in my room probably trying to hide."

"If he was trying to hide then why exactly did he let you know who he was?"

"Well first off, we could find out much about him at all since he could only nod or shake his head. Our questions always had to be very specific. Plus, we were the ones taking care of him. I'm still not completely sure why he told us, but maybe it's because we gave him food, water, baths, etc."

"Did his being an experiment bother you?"

"Uh, YES! Tucker thought it was cool and I was just freaked out by it. Then I started worrying because I didn't know how to take care of him—what if he had allergies? What if need medicine or treatment or something and I didn't know? After a few days Tucker and I both got over it. I never gave him any more new foods or drinks just in case, and I wouldn't let Tucker use any different soaps or shampoos, again just in case. We started teaching him English and he learned how to whistle. He can't tell the difference between numbers and letters yet but he's starting to recognize animals and he knows several English words and phrases."

"Like what?"

"He knows to go to sleep if I tell him to go to sleep. He knows when it's time to eat. He knows when I tell him I'm going to school. He used to explore the bathroom but when I kept telling him to stay out, he didn't go in anymore unless it was with Tucker."

"So, commands?"

"I don't know if I'd call them 'commands' but he does piece together some English. And he does know most objects in my room like a dresser or a nightstand. Bed, desk, books, etc."

"And by this time he trusts you?"

"Yeah. Tucker, too. He's come a long way from where he was."

The woman looked at him for the longest time, not maliciously, but thoughtfully.

"Do you think it's possible that he could trust other people as well?"

"Probably. He already trusts two," Sam replied.

Still staring at him, the woman nodded.

He didn't need to understand one word of the conversation to know where this was headed—but his question now was, why would Sam and Tucker do this?

A/N

Whew! So this was 7 pages long! I have exams coming up so I won't be writing much this week (please forgive me), which is why I procrastinated to update this so soon. This way you guys have a chapter and I'm…stuck with everything I don't really care about. Anyway, time for me to hit the books. Hope everyone enjoyed the new chapter! No seriously though. I really struggled to get this one out, it better be enjoyable or I'm gonna SQUEEZE A LEMON!

OHHH and one last thing before I fry my brain! It's actually been pointed out (and questioned) multiple times to me that it must be hard writing a mute main character. Yes. Very much so. A common assumption is that it's hard because he can't talk. Not necessarily, that's a myth. I've written like eight paragraphs before in which Danny understands English and had to delete them all because I screwed up. Only once have I ever made him speak and of course, realized later what I'd done. Mixing the dialogue with the thoughts is in fact very taxing and I'm constantly rewriting or deleting multiple sentences or paragraphs because his thoughts plus their dialogue is just...it's a hassle.

Ah, and because I can't bring my computer everywhere, I do most of the writing on a Mic Word app on my phone, which means autocorrect always wants present tense. So if you see "survives" instead of "survived" or if the verb tense doesn't match up (it's all supposed to be past tense), it's because autocorrect hates me and intentionally tries to ruin my writing.