Libitina's POV

...

My eyes shoot open at the sound of the morning alarm. The bell ringing loud, echoing throughout my room and in the halls of the facility.

I sit straight up and frantically look around, sighing in relief and hating that I'm not used to the shrilling sound by now.

I swing my legs over my small, twin bed and give myself a look over. My silver hair seemed to be ruffled. My white and sky-blue nightgown was smudged with dirt. There was a small, dark scorch mark in my side from the laser-wand attack that I had last night.

I wince from remembering the events of last night.

"If only I had a little bit more time….I could've found out some information to help us…" I mutter to myself. My voice was hoarse, and I realized I was extremely parched. I wearily glance glace around the room that I am forced to call 'home'.

My small bed was in the corner of the square-shaped room. There was a large, rectangular window that was one-sided, so it looked like a mirror from the inside. My personal stainless-steel shower was in the adjacent corner from me, with a stainless-steel sink and a small toilet next to it. The walls were lined with some sort of padding, the surface white and worn.

I flinch in place when I hear loud banging on my metal door.

"Let's go! Rally up in the Playroom." Orders one of our section's guards. I heard his command echo throughout the remainder of the hall as he does the same thing to the others.

I slowly stand up, my legs wobbily.

I hear the sound of metal locks unsealing and see the light above my door change from blood red to green.

I limped lightly to the entrance, heaving the heavy steel door open.

I staggered out into the hallway and see everyone else slowly making their ways out. The hallway lights flickered and hummed, basking the hall in an eerie orange glow. The paint on the walls were peeling off and the air stunk of sweat. No one spoke a word as they fell in line and marched to the Playroom.

As far as I knew, there were five different sections of our "program", with letters ranging from 'A' through 'E'.

Each section was dedicated to two specific halls, one with each of the members quarters and one with rooms they call the Observatory. The playroom rested at end of the halls, connecting the two. There were sealed emergency exits located throughout the halls, with steel, bar doors located at the opposite ends to keep us enclosed in. The only time we've ever been able to leave our sector was when they bring us to the courtyard.

The neon letter 'E' flickered in several different areas throughout our hall, constantly reminding me that I am a prisoner in this place. I fall in line with some of the others and tread my way to the Playroom to meet up with the rest.

Passing through the doorway, I'm greeted with the usual scene. A square room with no windows, the same unfurnished walls and bleak ambiance. Most of the others have already taken seats on the empty floor, their eyes sunken in and vacant. Some seem to be talking to others in low murmurs, but for the most part, the room is melancholy.

I gaze around until I see Ilia. I shuffle past some others and meet up with her in the back. Her brown eyes glance up at me as I approach, familiarity growing in her eyes.

"Good morning, Ilia.." I softly say. She lightly grabs my hand and squeezes it.

"Hey, you. Feel better after your little escapade last night?" She whispers to me. "You caused quite a ruckus." I avert my gaze, glancing around the room. Several of the Onyx guards have already filed in, taking up positions around the room.

"Keep your voice low!" I quietly shoot to her.

She reached low and grabbed my gown, grazing the scorch mark.

"You need to be careful, Libitina. You're too high on their list for them not to notice you missing or acting up…"

I lightly push her hands away and sigh.

"I know!" I wince and take a quick peek around the room. None of the others looked our way. Or cared. I lowered my voice and returned my attention to Ilia. "Look, I know…I just need answers. There's a reason why we're here and no, it's not to become the 'best versions of us we can be' like Dr. Winters always says."

Ilia sighs and squeezes my hand again.

"Look, I'm not sure what you've heard or what you know, but everything will turn out fine! I mean look what happened to Liz, she got released the other day.."

She falters and we both look around the room. The late-teen red-head was no longer with us here.

"As if. They've taken her somewhere else, there is no 'being released'."

Ilia rolls her eyes at me.

"You're too negative. I believe this will all be worth it."

I give her a piercing look that causes her to flinch slightly.

"This will all be worth it? Have you not been conscious at all here? For Christs sake, they're running experiments on us! How am I supposed to believe that anything good is going to happen when we're just going to die here anyways?"

I notice that the low murmurs that resonated in the room was replaced by silence. I turn around and see Dr. Winters enter the room.

His presence was already enough of a surprise, for he never really comes around at these times. A majority of the others in the room noticeably become fidgety, full of discomfort. Everyone that was standing drops to the floor, waiting for him to address us.

He slowly paces to the front of the room, so he is centered with our group. He is garbed in his normal white, cotton scrubs, with a brown trench coat worn over top. His brown eyes methodically scan the room through his circular spectacles, his hands planted firmly behind his back.

His eyes lock onto me for a moment before he finished scanning the room.

"Good morning, Section E." His deeper voice booms at us. No one responds, just the buzzing of the overhead light is heard.

"I wanted to be present for the attendance portion of your morning." He slightly turns to the nearest guard, who hands him a clipboard. "You all are well aware of the procedure by now."

He clears his throat and flips through the papers before beginning. Each one of us are assigned a number next to our appointed section. I move my eyes around the room as each member answers when they are called out.

'How is everyone so blind to what's happening? Or do they not care?' I think to myself. I realize the room has fallen quiet and flinch when I hear Dr. Winter's clear his throat. I look up to see him piercing me with his gaze.

"I said….'E-11'."

I nod my head and give a verbal response. He keeps his eyes plastered on me for a moment before returning to the clipboard to resume attendance.

I look down at my wrist, seeing my brand scream at me. 'E-11', etched into my skin, a constant reminder that I am more of an experiment here than I am a person. I pull my sleeve down to hide the mark.

He finishes his attendance and hands the clipboard back to the guard who graciously accepts it, falling back to his post.

"Let us have a productive day. Remember, you're here to become to best 'you' that you can be."

I mentally roll my eyes.

He treads over to the exit and idles by, watching the room again.

"You are dismissed to your quarters for hygienics and nourishment."

The room is filled with the shuffling of the rest of the others, sitting up and filing uncomfortably out of the room. Me and Ilia fall in and start towards the exit.

"E-11. Stand by for one moment." I hear Dr. Winters order, making me freeze. I feel the hands of an Onyx guard roughly take hold on my arm and steer me back out of the group. Ilia looks back to me with a worried expression on her face, but continues on, having no choice otherwise.

The room clears, leaving just me, Dr. Winters, and the two Onyx guards. I feel myself start to get anxious, and the fact that the three men in front of stayed quiet didn't help anything at all. I just kept my mouth shut until I was spoken to.

"Libitina…" He says, his voice freezing me cold. "…you are one of our most prized candidates. The Speaker has been observing you closing, monitoring your progress. You have abilities, or the potential, that no one else possesses. We haven't seen this since…..Her."

I averted my gaze and tried to prevent the slow build-up of stress.

"Your sister was…special. She possessed such abilities that we could only have dreamed of. It was so unfortunate when she….left."

He punctuated the word 'left', carefully choosing the word as if his feelings clearly meant something else.

"Due to her departure, that brought us to put our utmost efforts on you, being her younger counterpart. We have been making amazing progress on your abilities and we are not halting now because of your rebellious urges."

I stared back up at the man and furrowed my brow.

"What? Keep making progress for what? All you do is…torture us until something snaps in us."

He took a step forward, becoming dangerously close and towering over me.

"Torture? Libitina, do you think the studies we do here are torture?"

His beady, brown eyes scanned my face. I gulped and stood still, feeling terrified at his dominant aura.

"Let me tell you something. We are here to unlock your biggest potential. You would not get this anywhere else. We take pride in guiding you towards your strongest self and I will be damned if you make a mockery of me and my institution. This little imagination of yours that's running wild, we will fix it."

I felt shivers go down my spine and a weird primal fear eat at my soul. He must've sensed my plight because he delivered a sinister smirk.

"You see? Already understanding the consequences if you continue this escapade of yours. I would hate for such a wonderful member of this institution to be placed into the Pit."

I shuddered at the thought.

"Retreat to your quarters. We'll see you in the observatory when you're called. Go."

Without hesitation, I sped out of the Playroom, making my way to my room.

I heaved my door open and slammed it shut, breathing heavily with my back against the hatch. I could feel my mind racing, feel it breaking. I raced to my sink and turned on my faucet, splashing my face with water.

I looked at my face through my cracked mirror. My cheeks were flushed, and my blue eyes are bloodshot. I realized I was shaking, and I hated it.

I heard the horizontal slot on my door open, a metal tray being pushed into my room.

'Breakfast. Perfect'

I slowly walk to the tray, pick it up and sit on my bed. I poke at the rations before choking them down, sighing dejectedly. I couldn't stop thinking about what Dr. Winters told me before.

'The Speaker has been observing you closing, monitoring your progress. You have abilities, or the potential, that no one else possesses.'

What abilities is he talking about? I'm just like everyone else….right? He even had the audacity to bring Her up. As if he doesn't know what happened. He's hiding something from everyone. From me.

I was jerked of my trance from someone pounding on my door.

"E-11! Report to the Observatory Hall, Room 4"

I sighed and placed the almost untouched tray next to me, taking breaths to steel myself for the day.

…...

Andrew's POV

….

I huff and take a sip of a juice I purchased from a nearby vending machine. I leaned my back against the wall, resting on head on the hard surface and resting my eyes.

'I am soooo done with these damn exams'

I take a peek at my watch.

"A little behind for the club, but better late than never."

I toss the emptied container into a trash can and stuff my hands into my front pockets, navigating my way through the almost-vacant halls.

I entered the clubroom and all four of the girls' heads popped up and greeted me. I smiled and waved, slightly bowing my head.

"I know, I know, I'm the highlight of your day. Glad to be here." I sarcastically say, dropping my bag into a chair.

"Apparently not that glad, considering you're like fifteen minutes late!" Sayori hollers at me from beside Monika.

I roll my eyes and smirk.

"Hey now, calm yourself little lady. I was finishing up a stupid exam that took me longer than expected, besides I fetched this for you from a vending machine I was at."

I toss her a chocolate bar, which immediately elicits a happy response from her. Her blue eyes light up and a grin appears her face. She clumsily catches the bar and ravenously tears it open, closing her eyes and humming to herself as she consumes the treat.

I chuckle to myself and take a seat in a desk.

"Am I forgiven?" I slyly ask the cinnamon bun.

She dreamily shakes her head and happily sighs.

"You are such a goofball, you know that, right?" Natsuki cheekily says to her.

"Yeah, but she's our weird, easily amused, ball of sunshine goofball." I add, causing the rest of the girls to laugh.

Monika stands up from the big desk she always sat at (seriously, she is never anywhere else) and maneuvers her way to the front of the room.

"Alright guys, listen up for a moment please!" She asks, receiving the attention of everyone. "I am going to have to leave soon, I promised someone I'd help them with an exam for tomorrow. With that being said, I'm going to leave the command to our vice-president.."

We all turn our heads to see Sayori still dreamily finishing her candy bar. Her eyes are closed, and she clutches the bar in her hands, hugging it tightly to her cheek. Monika clears her throat and Sayori's eyes shoot open.

"Huh? Who?" She sheepishly mutters.

"As I was saying.." Monika says in between giggles. "..Sayori will be left in charge for the club activities and such for the remainder of today."

We all nod in agreement. Monika glances around at everyone and brandishes a lovely smile.

"Sweet! I hope you all have a great rest of your day and I will see you guys for our fun, traditional club meeting tomorrow!"

We all exchange goodbyes and she leaves the classroom.

"So, Miss. Vice President, what do you have in mind for us to do today?" I casually ask Sayori.

She taps her chin in thought.

"Hm…..how about…..we just relax and study for exams or whatever?"

I look around and chuckle.

"Isn't that what we do, like, everyday?"

She prods her fingers together and sheepishly smiles.

"Well, er-yeah…"

I laugh and pull out a textbook from my bag.

"I'm just giving you a hard time for making it sound like a hard decision, dorko. That's a good idea, though."

Everyone murmurs in agreeance before dissolving into their own routines.

It seems like time ages slower whenever I had my head in a textbook. I felt like I was here forever.

"Okay, everyone!" Sayori exclaims to us all, snapping me out of my bored stupor.

I already began pre-emptively putting my stuff away, knowing it was her end of the day talk.

"Today was fun! We have one more day and then we are freeee~….for a little bit anyways." She giggles to everyone.

We all laugh and start to get up, exchanging goodbyes from everyone.

I shoulder my bag and walk over to Yuri, who was just getting up herself.

"Hey, bookworm. Have a good day? Didn't talk to you much today." I say to her.

She flashes me a smile and shoulders her bookbag.

"It was a good day. The exams weren't as tedious as I once imagined they would be, so that definitely helped lighten the day."

I chuckled as we made our way to the door and out into the hall.

"Well, I guess that good! I'm just ready to get through tomorrow already." I groan.

She giggles and lightly turns to me.

"Already? What do you plan on doing for the evening?"

I sigh in thought and shrug my shoulder.

"I don't know, the usual introverted stuff. Pet my cat, play some games, eat a frozen dinner or two and relish in my own perpetual lack of human interaction before going to sleep way too late and regretting it all in the morning."

She gives one of her rare laughs before covering her mouth subconsciously and clearing her throat. I perk an eyebrow to her and smirk.

"Oh yeah, and what exactly has you dying of laughter? My lifestyle? Cause if I remember correctly, you aren't exactly the most sociable person yourself."

She straightens her shirt, still unable to hide the smile on her face.

"I just found that very….poetic."

I kept my eyebrow raised at her and examined her face tint a shade of red.

'Why the fuck is-oh, right. She yearns for me, I forgot.'

I playfully roll my eyes and realize we're at one of the exits, opening the door and holding it for her.

"Yeah, well what can I say? I must be learning something from all these damn lectures."

She followed through the door and pivoted on her feet, facing me.

"Well, if that's all you have going on….would you mind accompanying me to library?" She shyly asks me.

I flash her a grin.

"Of course. We haven't gone in about a week anyways and frankly, I was worried that you were running out of books to read anyways."

She smiled happily, once again another rare occurrence, and turned to walk beside me. She is definitely one of the most reserved people I've ever met in my life. Over the years, we became closer and she's opened up more. She seems much different than before, coming to me for conversation or inviting me out to things. It was very nice, given how rough interactions were at the beginning of freshman year meeting her. I always felt that she had a different side to her though, I just couldn't place my finger on it…

The local library was only around a fifteen-minute walk from our university. I always asked her why she preferred the local library as to the library we had in our school and she always insisted she just liked taking the walk, but I knew better. Although I couldn't bring myself to feel entirely the same way about her that she does about me, I still loved indulging her of my company. If she ever found out that I knew, I think she would combust. Or hell, maybe she knows and just feels comfortable with it. Either way, it doesn't ruin the friendship we've built one bit.

We got closer to the library and I could see her body language become increasingly excited. Her entire person visibly shook with eagerness, like taking a child into a candy shop. I couldn't help but laugh at her mannerisms.

"Yuri, are you like more excited than usual?"

She immediately straightens herself out and sighs excitedly.

"Is it that noticeable? Well, today there is a novel that was released that I need to get my hands on. It was very limited though, so I'm nervous that I won't be able to locate it here."

I see her become slightly downcast, no doubt imagining not being able to find the book. We reach the front doors of the castle-like library and open up the double-windowed doors. We pass by the front desk and give a courteous nod to the front desk librarian.

"I'm sure it would be in here somewhere! What's it called anyways?" I quietly ponder to her. Her eyes scan shelf after shelf, trying to narrow down her search.

"Portrait of Markov." She murmurs to me, rocketing into the non-fiction section.

"Hmm, sounds interesting." I mutter, picking up a book and scanning its contents. "Do you know what it's about?"

She purses her lips and places her hand to her chin, scouring the shelf in front of her.

"Well, there wasn't much information released on it. Just that it's about a church camp that got turned into a human experiment prison. Special individuals possess a sought-out ability that turns them into uncontrollable blood-lusting machines. The individual in command took pride in a certain bloodline that was at the prison, but before he could forge upon their extraordinary prowess, his most powerful creation escaped. But that's more or less what the summary was about, it was mostly vague."

I raised an eyebrow and picked up another book.

"Damn, that sounds intense. Why are we in the non-fiction section, then? Doesn't that sound like more of a fantasy novel or something?" I curiously ask her.

She almost disregards my question altogether, picking up books and replacing them.

"That's the genius of this book. There's no noted author for it, and it's rumored to be written from an individual that worked closely with that same encampment."

"Hm. Sounds neat. I'd hate to be in a place like that." I side-eyed her and noticed her carefully reading through a row, as if almost finding what she needed. I chuckle softly to myself.

"Man, the way you're searching for it is almost as if you have fucking been there yourself or something."

I notice she didn't make any sort of reply, so I gaze over her direction. She was standing there with her hand partially reaching for a book, frozen. Her purple eyes were wide, and her mouth was slightly open. It's like she was frozen in time.

"Umm.." I mumble before she just as quickly resumed moving like nothing happened. I casually glance around me to see if anyone was close by and saw the weird phenomenon happen too. I turn back, but before I can say anything, she excitedly rips a book off the shelf and hugs it to her chest.

"Yes! I found it!" She breaths, drinking in the colors and text on the front of the book. I place the novel I had in my hand where it belonged and walked over next to her.

"This is it, huh?" I mumble, scanning the book.

It didn't look like much. It read 'Portrait of Markov' at the top in sharp, black lettering. An ominous eye took up a majority of the center of the cover, it's blood-red iris and bloodshot orb weirdly mesmerizing.

I reached out to hold it before she snatched it to her person, away from my reach. I raised an eyebrow and shot her a confused look.

"No! I mean.." She stands up straight and closes her eyes, taking a deep breath. "I meant, we need to take care of it, no scratches or any sort of discrepancies, you know?"

I slowly nodded my head, still wearing my confused face.

"Right….well, I'm glad you found it I guess."

She immediately dons an eager face.

"Yes! After waiting all this time, I've finally found it. I've seen it dancing in my dreams for so long….calling to me…" Her voice fades out while she just stares at the cover of the book again.

She wore a very uncharacteristic, wide grin on her face and her purple eyes were beady, frantically scanning the book like she couldn't get enough of it. The way her purple bangs flowed over her forehead, it cast a shadow along her face, making her eyes glint almost…..red and make the rest of her features menacing.

I cleared my throat, for some reason extremely uncomfortable. There was a strange sensation permeating the air and I felt the urge to hide. I glanced around me, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.

I put my hand to my chest and observed my heart rate increased, and I was lightly sweating. I look up and flinch in place, seeing Yuri's gaze piercing me, her grin never faltering.

Something about seeing Yuri like this gave me the legitimate feeling of primal fear.

"Er..Y-Yuri? Do you want to-*cough*-finish checking out that book or something?" I stammer out, uncomfortably shifting my weight in place.

She nods her head and giggles, treading right past me and making a beeline to the front desk. I stay back for a moment and observe her behaviors as she checks out the book.

'What the actual fuck just happened?' I think to myself.

I notice that the strange aura that filled me was gone, leaving me just standing in confusion. I shake my head and take a deep breath, walking to the exit of the library to wait for Yuri.

She quickly walks to me, proceeding through the door I had open for her. She seemed much more….unpredictable right now.

We began the short journey to our homes. She lived in a nearby condo by herself while I was a block down in the same apartment complex as Sayori and Monika.

The walk back was silent, just Yuri smiling and hugging the book to her chest. I took this as one of her patented Yuri-Is-Weird moments and didn't question her.

We got to her block and she hurriedly sped off to her home, without much of a goodbye at all. I scratched my head and sighed.

"I guess this is what….super excited Yuri is like?" I mutter to myself, though I felt like I said it more as I question.

I shake the weird event out of my head and tread home, to spend another night doing the same routine of food, game, sleep and repeat.