A glimpse into the past, part 2: this part of this fanfiction details events that had happened before the time series covered by the anime. Basically, this is a prequel, happening before the anime and before the non-"A glimpse into the past" chapters of this fanfiction as well.
~Tokyo, Initiator training nr. 4, four years before current events~
Enju: "(yawn)" the girl finally woke up from her bed, rubbing her right eye and feeling very drowsy for whatever reason that day. Her mouth also felt incredibly dry which was very unpleasant, to say the least. Even though she woke up on time as she usually did, that day getting out of bed was way more difficult for her than any other time.
She had a feeling that she knew exactly the reason why that was though: the day before, she had had a particularly nasty headache due to how much explaining and apologizing she had to do to the director of that facility, Naoto, as well as to the superintendent, after her and the other girls' act of rebellion.
But that was only natural and quite expected for them, given how they sabotaged sensitive and expensive equipment in that facility, entered prohibited areas in it, used the computers there to cause a state of emergency and also kept many soldiers busy by having them chase them for a good while. Frankly speaking, the fact that they got almost no punishment whatsoever in retaliation against what they had done was a miracle to say the least.
Granted, all of them had received many hours of scolding, as well as some minor restrictions to their freedoms, such as having an earlier curfew than the others there, no desserts allowed after any of their meals and the introduction of their names in the watch-list that was used to record any extreme misbehavior of children there (a watch-list that was used in that facility to keep track of delinquents and that was then handed over to the soldiers there to keep an eye out for the said individuals). The latter punishment was the worst for them, since it basically guaranteed that they would be under elevated supervision from that point onward, which was a guarantee that any further attempts at escape from them would become very unlikely and difficult to pull off. And given what they had done, it's very probable that their names won't be erased from that list for many years to come, possibly even forever.
That would also probably encourage the soldiers to become even more aggressive with them specifically when they will misbehave in the future again, which was just a promise for them them that they will receive worse treatment compared to the other girls in that facility.
But still, it was pretty incredible how they got away with so little given that, at the end of the day, what they wanted to do was escape. Anyone before them who had tried the same thing got off way worse than them: specifically they were all sentenced to The Room.
The simple fact that none of them had gotten that treatment, not even Nozomi who organized the whole thing, was unexpected to say the least. They had been pleasantly surprised when they had heard that they were basically gonna get away with just that, without even receiving physical punishments, as was the tradition in that building.
This was probably just the consequence of the fact that so many of them had participated in this escape plan, since their group was of fourteen members. That was undoubtedly the largest rebellion to have ever happened in the history of that facility, which meant that their director, Naoto, was so shocked by it that he had to reconsider their own policies and internal rules since it clearly wasn't just a simple matter of disobedience, but of a far larger problem that had been brewing for a longer time, given the scale of it. He probably already realized that the practice of giving out photos of their mothers to them was probably the ignition point, which was bad news for them since he could probably order them to dispose of them at once to quench the fire, although that would probably backfire and cause even more unrest.
Fuka: "Good morning, Enju! Didn't sleep well last night?" her roommate asked unexpectedly, making the girl almost jump out of her bed.
Enju: "Geez, why do you all like to startle me?!" she asked, trying to calm herself down after her initial scare. Fuka rolled her eyes at that reply.
Fuka: "We don't. You're just very nervous all the time! You'll probably grow old quicker than everyone here if you keep up with that behavior. You're always so stressed out!" that was easy for them to say. Since she had gone through what she had been through two days before, Enju felt like she was entitled to be very anxious at that point.
The experience of being chased down by soldiers had been more traumatizing than the actual punishments bestowed onto them, ironically enough.
Hiyori: "Yeah, maybe you'll turn as bitter and angry as Nozomi-chan, if you keep up with that!" spoke the last and final member of that room.
Enju: "You shouldn't be talking about Nozomi-chan behind her back…." she hated how Fuka and Hiyori used to do that a lot. That always felt disrespectful to her and Nozomi, given how they were a bit older than both Fuka and Hiyori, who haven't reached the age of seven yet. Generally, the rule in Japan always dictated that the younger people should be more respectful towards those older than them, even for small age gaps, yet those two never seemed to hold those beliefs at all.
Enju: "You shouldn't talk bad things about Nozomi-chan, especially when she's not here! That's as bad as gossip!" Nozomi, after being discovered by Naoto to be the one who sparked the rebellion, had been detained into a different cell for further interrogation ever since, which meant that, for the time being, Enju, Fuka and Hiyori were the only inhabitants of that room. "I really hope she's alright…." the redhead thought, still praying for her missing roommate's safe return.
After all, she did feel guilty for sabotaging Nozomi's plan of escape and forcing all the other girls back into the facility's hands once again. Even if it was to lessen Riko's punishment, it was still a clear act of betrayal from her part, an act that wouldn't be forgiven very easily, she was sure.
Fuka: "Meh, whatever!" the girl still smiled a sheepish happy face, before turning her head upwards to look directly at the girl sitting on the bed on the higher level. "Ready to go eat breakfast, Hiyori-chan?" the other girl also beamed a smile of her own before nodding her head energetically, to indicate that she was.
Enju sank back in her own bed, a bit depressed and still stressed about the events that had happened two days ago. She didn't feel like eating, especially not without Nozomi, since the two of them would also go together to eat breakfast. It was also because of this that she had skipped breakfast the previous day as well.
Enju: "I wonder if she'll ever forgive me…." the guilt felt incredibly heavy. Even though she didn't really understand why yet, she still felt very bad for what she had done. From her eyes, she was just as guilty as Nozomi was, so it wouldn't really be fair if she didn't receive as much punishment as she would.
Hiyori: "Wanna join us, Enju-chan?" came the unexpected offer out of nowhere. Enju was surprised. Normally they never invited her to join them in eating breakfast; but that was probably because she always went with Nozomi. Since she wasn't there with them anymore, and since they had seen Enju not go to eat breakfast the day before, Fuka decided to be nice and encourage her to eat with them.
Enju stood there, thinking. She normally wouldn't go, since she didn't want to enjoy herself without her friend. But seeing how Hiyori seemed worried about her, it would be rude for her to refuse now.
Enju: "I'd like that…." she conceded.
~Cafeteria~
The girls finally arrived at their destination, with both Fuka and Hiyori as carefree as always. Enju was right behind them, tailing them while keeping her head low and with a depressed expression on her. Clearly she wasn't feeling like eating at all, despite agreeing to have breakfast with the two. In fact, she felt so down that she was even considering just grabbing a bread and a glass of juice and then simply stare at her roommates while they ate by themselves.
She had a lot of disinterest in pretty much everything, mainly because of her constant obsessive thoughts with regards to her actions two days ago. They were eating away at her sanity.
Still, that very quickly changed when one of the two noticed something which they didn't expect.
Fuka: "Oh hey….look! It's Nozomi-chan!" one of them informed the others while pointing her finger in the direction of the specified girl. Immediately Enju's heart skipped a beat when realizing this. "Finally, I was actually wondering where she was! Let's go say 'hello' to her!".
As soon as she finished that sentenced, both her and Hiyori almost instantly beamed themselves over to her location. Enju was scared. She didn't even have the courage of facing her anymore, even though she knew she had to.
For a second she considered suddenly turning around and running back into her room. She was too afraid of Nozomi at that point. However, her hopes were bludgeoned very quickly when Nozomi lifted her head when hearing the two approach her and instinctively threw a glance in Enju's direction.
Enju: "Crap….she saw me" now it was too late. Even if she ran away at that point, it wouldn't help, since now Nozomi knew she had been in that cafeteria at one point. Running away now would only send the wrong message. "I hope she'll forgive me…." she thought to herself a second time that day before pulling herself together and summoning the courage to walk forward and head into the direction of Nozomi's table. It was while she was walking towards her when she noticed how all the other people at Nozomi's table, as well as at the tables around hers, were all from their escape group, sitting together in the same area. And not only that but all the girls who were there glared at her when they caught glimpse of her timid arrival. That was a bad sign.
Fuka: "Geez, where have you been, Nozomi-chan? We're starting to get quite lonely without you!" came the nonchalant query which annoyed Nozomi instantly.
Nozomi: "I've been busy with various things. For one, Naoto-san sent me to a single-bed room for now where I was interrogated a lot" she blandly revealed, without displaying any emotions. Finally, Enju appeared next to her table and joined the other two in their discussion with her, although Nozomi chose not to give her any attention.
Fuka: "Wooo, that's so cool! So that means you have a room all of your own?! I'm so envious!" naturally, the younger girl missed the most important point of that conversation entirely. Clearly there was really no benefit to continue having a conversation with that person….
Nozomi sighed to herself before she picked up her fork again and continued to eat her food as if she had never been disturbed at all by them. Enju didn't know what to say, still thinking hard on how to approach the silent girl. However, Hiyori beat her to it.
Hiyori: "So, uh, when are you going to move back into our room? How much longer does the director plan to keep you under supervision?" the other girl, a bit more serious now than Fuka, addressed the question that was also on Enju's mind.
Nozomi: "Never" that was probably the most direct and blunt Nozomi had ever been in her entire life, simply landing that word clearly and concisely and without even an explanation afterwards to her former roommates. Even in the days when she had been in poor mood, she never acted that coldly to them. This perturbed them a lot.
Fuka: "What….do you mean by that? The director doesn't want you to live with us anymore?" that was a laughable conclusion to take. Much like always, Fuka couldn't be any further from the truth.
Nozomi: "Actually, no. I was the one who requested to move to a different room. That's why I never came back from the interrogation room. I'm ordered to stay there until a new room is assigned to me to move to" that still didn't explain the most glaringly obvious question that all the girls had in their heads though: the reason why she decided to do that.
Fuka: "What the hell?! You don't like us anymore?! I thought you liked chatting with us...or at least chatting with Enju-chan!" when hearing that name, Nozomi's eyebrow twitched compulsively.
Nozomi: "Yeah well, I don't wanna live in the same room with her anymore" she replied dismissively, almost like Enju was not there to hear that at all. She knew she was there with them, she just didn't care about hurting her feelings anymore. The redhead felt her heart ache a bit at that, realizing that her suspicions had been now validated and that her feared outcome was indeed proven true now: Nozomi hated her.
What could she say in response to that? She knew she was guilty, yet she didn't feel good being treated like this. Even if Nozomi was the one in the right, clearly, she didn't want their relationship to end like this.
Fuka: "You….don't?" this was the first time Fuka could remember seeing Nozomi say anything bad about Enju in any way. And the fact that she was so cheeky that she said that while also clearly doing her best to ignore Enju made this even more awkward and uncomfortable. "Why? Did she do something bad to you-...?" this was the limit to how much Enju could wait for.
Enju: "I'm sorry!" she suddenly bowed her head down as low as she could bend, which shocked the two standing beside her. Nozomi was not impressed though, as she continued to ignore her. "I'm sorry that I did what I did! I just…..thought it wouldn't be fair if we abandoned Riko-chan like that…." she tried to apologize in the most honest way she could think of, knowing that her friend harbored a lot of hate towards her.
Nozomi wasn't going to accept her regret, though. In fact, she had no intention of showing any more kindness to the girl in front of her.
Nozomi: "Please….don't talk to me!" the girl almost whispered between gritted teeth, feeling very angry even at Enju's mere presence. Clearly her bowing her head to her didn't mean anything to Nozomi who was unfazed by the gesture, despite the incredibly painful posture that Enju was in. "I don't want to see you ever again! And neither does anyone else at this table! So go eat with these two by yourself! I'm sure you've got some interesting stories to tell them now after our little…..incident!" with each word, Enju's heart felt like it was sinking deeper and deeper into her chest, like a rock slowly sinking to the bottom of a lake.
Enju: "No, I don't wanna!" this was the second time she defied Nozomi's clear orders, something which the latter wasn't very happy about. In fact, Nozomi was extremely displeased with this, so much so that she was losing her patience with her. "I know I messed up! But….I really did want to get out of here, just like you did! I also wanted to meet mama-..."
Nozomi: "DON'T SAY IT!" suddenly, like a bomb going off in the middle of a quiet forest, the girl exploded with so much noise and impact that the other girls around their table looked back, having their attention caught by that instantaneous outburst. "YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO SAY THAT AFTER WHAT YOU DID! YOU NOT ONLY ABANDONED YOUR OWN MOTHER, YOU'VE ALSO FORSAKEN OUR OWN CHANCES OF MEETING OUR OWN ONES! IF ANYTHING, YOU'RE THE ONLY REASON ANY OF US ARE STILL HERE, AND PROBABLY WILL REMAIN HERE FOREVER NOW!" that was a bit of an exaggeration obviously, since at no point back then had any of them had a guarantee that they were actually gonna escape successfully. Even if Enju had never interfered with their plans and quietly followed them through that air vent while leaving Riko behind, they still probably wouldn't have escaped. They would have probably ended up roaming around aimlessly for a good couple of hours before getting caught anyway, since they had no real navigation aides at all to guide them to an exit. Still, apparently Nozomi was hellbent on believing that Enju was the one at fault for everything now. She was quite unreasonable.
Enju: "But I….uh….I" she felt like she was on the verge of crying. Never before had anyone been so angry at her in the past, or at least, nobody so important to her. She always considered Nozomi to be a friend to her, or at least more than a regular roommate like Hiyori or Fuka. So to hear such anger come from her and directed towards herself was painful. She didn't even know how to defend herself now.
Nozomi: "Honestly, I hope you never see your mother! In fact, I really hope you'll be the last one here to ever see her in real life!" that was a bit too much, even Fuka and Hiyori had to admit, and they didn't even know the context of that conversation and, as such, they were naturally impartial.
Enju finally began crying, feeling like she couldn't take it anymore. She felt miserable, being publicly humiliated in such a way in front of everyone else. She couldn't understand how things could turn up so badly for her. She just wanted to help someone who was clearly in need, so why was she being punished so heavily for that?
Trembling and sobbing profusely, she backed away truly shaken by that outburst, feeling like she was ready to run away at any second at that point. When seeing how much she was suffering, she stopped caring about what Nozomi personally felt about the situation and tried to respond with her own anger.
Enju: "That's not fair! You were being cruel to Riko-chan! If I didn't do that, she would have been-..."
Nozomi: "I DON'T CARE!" the other girl responded again with a particularly unpleasant blowup of vengeful fury. "I DON'T CARE ABOUT ANY OF THAT! All I wanted was to see mommy! Do you have any idea how hard it is to dream about your mother being there with you, holding you, kissing you goodnight like in those fairy tales we keep hearing, only to wake up to this cruel world every morning?!" there was no stopping her, since she clearly wasn't going to calm down by herself. Still, now she was triggered. She felt that so much hate built up inside of her that she finally broke and decided to get her revenge then and there on Enju.
Nozomi: "You don't, do you? Because, if you did, you wouldn't have stopped us! If you really cared about her, you wouldn't have given any crap about anything else other than doing whatever was necessary to meet her! And yet, you not only decided to abandon all of that, but forced all of us back into submission, just because you were too scared to face the consequences of your own decision alone!" everything she said felt right. In fact, Enju knew she was right. She couldn't agree more with her. It was because she was right that her words were so painful to hear, after all.
Nozomi: "Grab her!" suddenly, she yelled that. The other girls sitting next to her, rose from their seats and suddenly surrounded Enju, before she even got the chance to respond. They grabbed her by her arms, preventing her from running away.
Enju: "Let go! I'm sorry! I'm really sorry, OK?!" she tried running but couldn't since the others were holding her tightly.
Hiyori: "Nozomi-chan, you're being too cruel!" she commented very concerned when she saw how the girls who had been spectators until then, suddenly grouped against Enju. "You're taking this too far!" she tried to defend before Nozomi shot her down with a cold glare.
Nozomi: "Stay out of this, Hiyori! You don't know anything about this, do you?" that was a valid point. She knew she had no right to interfere, especially since she wasn't that great of a friend to Enju and she also didn't even know the reason for this intense hatred between the two. She didn't have that much of a reason to defend her.
Hiyori: "Demo…." she tried to think up a reply but couldn't find any.
Nozomi: "She deserves this!" she then walked past Hiyori and Fuka and approached Enju who was still crying and struggling to get free. "You didn't betray just us, Enju!" once she was literally in front of Enju, she pushed her hand in Enju's pajamas' front pocket, only to pull out the photo of her mother that she kept in there.
Enju: "NO! GIVE THAT BACK! LEAVE MOMMY ALONE!" she tried struggling even more, although it was still pointless. Fear was evident in her eyes, although this didn't impress Nozomi either.
Nozomi: "Who you betrayed the most, was her!" she said pointing with her other hand at the picture between her fingers now. "And you don't deserve her anymore!" and then she simply grabbed the photo between her two hands and ripped it in half, in front of Enju's terrified eyes.
It was then when time seemed to stop for the poor redhead, when everything seemed to happen in slow motion to her brain. Her mother…..was broken…..viciously by Nozomi. She wished that was a nightmare. She prayed deep within herself that maybe that was indeed just one sad, truly horrifying dream that she would eventually wake up from. And yet…..it felt all too real.
So real that it was unmistakably true. Everything that was happening was ultimately and undeniably the reality.
The first couple of seconds, she didn't say anything after seeing that photo torn. She just stood there, tears still flowing heavily on her cheeks, her face slowly becoming as red as her hair (to some extent), and remaining silent. She didn't say anything. She just stood there motionless, releasing any tension in her muscles, stopping her struggle entirely.
The other girls who were holding onto her looked at each other concerned, feeling how she wasn't pulling away from them anymore. That worried them when they felt no more resistance.
Enju's body went limp and lifeless as soon as Nozomi did what she did. She didn't yell, she didn't jerk, she merely sobbed every so often, while feeling a great pain in her chest.
Nozomi: "You don't deserve her!" she stated before cruelly allowing the two halves fall onto the ground next to her. "Let her go!" and with that, the two holding the poor child let her loose. Her now unrestrained body fell onto the ground like a plank of wood, without even a reaction from the impact. Then, after a couple of seconds, she crawled on the ground towards Nozomi, grabbing the two halves of the picture at her feet and pulling them to her chest, holding onto them like they would disappear the moment she would drop them. She didn't lift her head off the ground. All that time, she kept her face glued to the floor, without even glancing back up.
Nozomi huffed indignantly, before starting to walk away slowly, motioning with her hands for the others to follow her. She had enough. The little satisfaction she felt when doing that to Enju definitely felt too meager to please her. It all felt pointless to her now.
Soldier: "And where do you think you're going?" came a loud adult male voice from the entrance to the room. It was a soldier, one who, by the look on his face, had witnessed that entire ordeal.
Nozomi: "Oh fucking great….I went overboard!" she was screwed. She knew from the very beginning that soldiers there tended to carelessly watch from the sides whenever quarrels like that happened in that facility, only to intervene at the end when everything seemed to wrap up. It was good practice for them since they didn't need to prove anything afterwards to the management for inflicting physical punishments on the girls who disturbed the peace there since the entire thing would be passively recorded by the surveillance cameras, so all they had to do when all things were done was merely intercept the perpetrators and beat them mercilessly, now that those actions were justified.
And they also did it because many of them usually saw some sick twisted entertainment out of spectating peacefully from the sides, and enjoying the violence that would escalate there because of their tolerance. Sometimes it just felt good watching other people fight with each other, especially children who would humiliate themselves.
The man then approached Nozomi who was cursing under her breath for having lost her temper earlier.
Soldier: "Have anything to say for yourself?" he asked while pulling a baton from his holster, ready to smack the crap out of her.
Nozomi: "Go ahead! I'm ready! I know that's what you wa-…." but she didn't get the satisfaction of ending that phrase as the back of her head was hit hard by a flying plate that made her fall down unconscious. The dishware fell onto the ground with a deep crack on its surface, a clear remnant of that intense impact with the unfortunate girl's skull.
The soldier lifted his eyes, only to see Enju from the distance, stretching her arm a bit, clearly after having thrown that thing. She had a very mad look on her face, a look of merciless hostility.
Soldier: "Stand down! You're both under arrest for-..." but he was ignored as Enju sprinted very quickly towards him, like a savage animal jumping at its prey. The man, suddenly seeing the fury in her, immediately backed away before trying to reach for the taser, realizing that he may have allowed the situation to escalate a bit too much and now things were out of his control. However, he soon came to realize that it wasn't him that Enju was targeting, it was Nozomi. The girl grabbed her almost unconscious opponent from the ground and began beating at her wildly, with the look of a murderer on her face. She began hitting Nozomi's head with so much determination and hate that she didn't care how much her knuckles were hurting from the incessant punching. She kept hitting and abusing the other girl's face like there was no tomorrow.
The man, sitting next to her, realized that this was just her way of getting her revenge for what she had underwent earlier, so he calmed down a bit before pushing the taser back in his holster. He then pulled out his baton again and, to finally end that charade, seeing how Enju wasn't the least bit interested in following his orders, he lifted it above her head while she was ignoring him and hit her head with his weapon. The child went out only after a single hit.
~Four hours later, restricted area~
Enju: "I'm sorry! I'm really really sorry!" the girl desperately cried in pure panic, trying to pull out of the man's grasp one more time in a futile attempt to break free from his hold. The soldier, obviously, didn't allow her to escape and it wasn't like a seven year old could beat in a strength game well trained military personnel. "I didn't mean to do it! I promise I'll be good from now on! I really do!" she wasn't crying anymore, although she was on the verge of it. Her face betrayed unadulterated terror, the type of face a child makes when they hear that they have to get a shot from a doctor. However, where she was being dragged to by the soldier was no medical office at all, it was far worse than that.
Soldier: "I know you're sorry. But we want a little bit more than just that" the man had a small, almost sadistic smile on his face, as he walked forward with the girl being forced to join him. "We want to be sure that you'll be so sorry that you'll never repeat what you did today" she really messed up now.
After being taken to Naoto's office by the other soldier from the cafeteria and after informing him of what she had done and the degree to which she had injured Nozomi, the man's reaction was more intense than she could ever expect. It was clear, by that point, that he was fed up with all the chaos running around in his facility; first the break out attempt and now this. 'I really trusted you, Enju. I really thought you were a good girl' was his exact words back then. 'That was one of the reasons why I refrained from giving you girls any real punishments. And yet you betrayed that trust not once, but twice now….' and after that, with a bit of disappointment behind his voice, he grudgingly gave out the order: have Enju be sent into solitary confinement into The Room for twenty four hours.
That was, by all accounts, that facility's worst punishment, one that was reserved only for recidivists or specimens who truly didn't care at all about regulations and who managed to get, at some point, on Naoto's really bad side. And all of the girls who had underwent that punishment were never the same since.
In fact, only one girl had ever been known, to that point, to receive two Room confinements, in the history of that facility…..and after ending the second session in it, she had lost her ability to speak properly. She would always stutter when talking in dark rooms since then, almost like having a minor nervous breakdown whenever she would enter improperly lit areas.
Enju: "I said I was sorry! I even promised I would never do that again! Please! I don't wa-..." but her incessant begging only served to annoy the one dragging her all the more.
They eventually reached one of the public bathrooms there. The soldier then turned to glare at her.
Soldier: "Did you take care of the things I told you about?" he asked with a very menacing voice. Enju blushed slightly at that while averting her eyes from his.
Enju: "N-no….I didn't. I didn't feel like going…." that response was not what he wanted to hear.
Soldier: "Let me be very clear here: this bathroom right here is your last chance to have a toilet. Once we seal you into that room, you won't have access to a toilet at all! And if we'll find a pool of urine or crap on the floor when we open the doors tomorrow, we'll beat you to death!" he said that with such cold emptiness in his voice, with such emotional disconnection, that she truly believed, almost instinctually, that everything he said was true. The girl couldn't stand it, her heart was about to explode in her chest because of the stress.
She tried to put her hand over it and began to breathe slowly to calm down and recollect herself, otherwise she would surely lose her mind then and there.
Enju: "Yes, sir!" she said lowly before advancing into the bathroom and doing as she had been instructed. She took care of all her physiological necessities, washed her hands at the sink and then exited back outside with a very depressed, almost lifeless look on her face. It was the look of someone who had given up on all hope, someone who just realized that there was no way they could get out of that. It was that particular look that all the soldiers there enjoyed the most: the look of submission.
Soldier: "Come with me, now!" the man ordered, still maintaining his very stoic persona. They then began to continue walking down that corridor, with a slow pace. The walk felt like it lasted forever for the child. She kept on trudging along, feeling her heart sink into her stomach a bit more with each step she took. She was trembling a bit.
Her imagination was tormenting her poor little mind, while her heart beats were racing at such a speed that it felt like her chest would burst open. The stress was great.
Soldier: "We're here!" eventually the man replied in a monotonous voice. They stopped just at the entrance to what seemed to be a big chamber on the side of the hallway.
The room they were facing was not as impressive as Enju had expected it to be: it didn't have chains and torture devices in it, it lacked any skulls or any over-the-top decoration that her imagination envisioned, nor was it in any way hellish or even scary. It was just a dark room at the end of a hallway. Granted, what was inside that room remained a mystery since the lack of light inside made it almost impossible to see its contents.
All she could see inside….was darkness.
Enju: "You're…..going to beat me in there?" she asked very scared, still trying to not have a heart attack on the spot.
Soldier: "No…..nobody's going to beat you. In fact, that room is empty, and you'll be the only one in it for the duration of your punishment!" what an odd thing to hear from the man. Enju raised her eyebrow in curiosity.
Enju: "So….you'll leave me alone in there?" she asked a bit confused, not really getting where the punishment part was from all of that. To her, it simply sounded like all she had to do was just stand in a room all by herself.
Soldier: "(smirking a mischievous smile) Yes, your punishment will basically consist of you just sitting quietly in that room for twenty four consecutive hours. You won't be fed, spoken to, or even visited at all throughout this entire time by anyone" something was off, she could sense it. Clearly something was missing there, considering that this was the infamous Room that so many of the girls there talked about….the same punishment that left many with nightmares for months on end.
So to hear that all she had to do was just wait in a room for her sentence to pass felt….unusually forgiving. Surely, something more sinister had to be attached to it, right?
Enju's gut feeling was warning her, though, that this was not gonna be as easy as she was expecting it to be.
She squinted her eyes, doing her best to focus on what was inside there, although it was useless, as not even a ray of light could be found in that room.
The guard then moved his hand to touch Enju's back, before giving her a slight nudge, an indication that she should enter that room now without him. The girl listened to her instincts though and didn't proceed just yet.
Enju: "Where's the light switch? Aren't you gonna open the lights before I go inside?" she asked what was a fairly normal question, oblivious to what was going to happen to her.
Soldier: "There is no light switch. In fact, there aren't any light bulbs at all in there! You'll have to stand in there in the dark!" it was then when the girl realized it: this was going to be way scarier than she had originally anticipated.
The man, becoming impatient, gave her another nudge, which only made her even more reluctant now.
Enju: "I….don't wanna. It looks scary!" her small brain finally decided exactly why that punishment was so horrific. She couldn't explain to herself why she felt so much dread when looking inside, she just instinctively felt that going in there would be bad for her. Sadly, though, she didn't exactly have the right to say 'no'. "Please, don't make me go in there! I'll be good from now on, I promise! I'll apologize to Nozomi-chan, I'll even eat all my vegetables this time!" she began to cry for sympathy, although that didn't impress the man next to her in the least.
Soldier: "Why are they all so pitiful when they come here? And yet when they disobey they're always very confident and proud" he had it with that child. He grabbed her by the shoulders and began to push her inside.
Enju: "NOO! PLEASE! I DON'T WANNA!" she struggled fruitlessly as the man easily overpowered her with raw strength, lifted her body off the ground, and literally tossed her inside, effectively throwing her on the floor in the middle of the chamber.
Soldier: "Think of this as a vacation! See you tomorrow, 328!" and with that he pressed a couple of buttons on the panel at the entrance of the room. The door immediately shut closed and a metallic click was heard, signifying that the electric lock activated.
Enju: "NO! DON'T LEAVE ME HERE! PLEASE!" she ran back to where she thought the door was. The most frightening thing with respect to that entire ordeal was that she couldn't see the door anymore since it was sealed shut so tightly that she couldn't even see the light from the corridor outside pass through any hole at all.
Now she was engulfed in complete darkness.
Enju: "PLEASE! LET ME OUT!" she began to violently bang her fists against it. Even the sounds of her hitting it were barely audible since it was made of reinforced steel that didn't produce as much noise as she expected when hit.
There was no response from the other side, although given how thick that door was, the girl doubted she could have heard anyone from outside even if they yelled.
She began crying, scared, acknowledging how truly sad and cruel her predicament was now. Tears started flowing down her cheeks a second time that day, before she started yelling in desperation at the door in front of her, hoping that it would take pity on her and open. The only problem for her was that it didn't.
Enju, feeling her heart start to beat insanely quickly and feeling a sudden ringing in her head because of her unhealthy blood pressure, finally collapsed onto the floor, in a fetal position, grabbing her legs with her arms and hugging them tightly.
Enju: "Mommy, please….please mommy…...help me! Wherever you are….please help me!" but her calls for help fell on no one. She gently pushed her hand into her frontal pajama pocket to retrieve the two halves of her mother's picture.
She couldn't see the image ingrained on that plastic since there was literally no light in there, but she remembered her mother's face. She remembered how that picture looked like and despite it being torn, she pulled it to her face, to have the pieces touch her cheek, almost like the image would begin to speak by itself and whisper in her ears. She didn't really need anyone to help her break out of her cell, all she needed was for someone….anyone really, to whisper words of comfort in her ears, to reassure her that everything would be alright and that she'll be able to survive that. She needed her mother to be there and give her peace of mind.
However, the pieces didn't respond to her cries. The texture of the plastic didn't soothe the girl's raging panic. She really wanted to have her mother there and calm her.
It was then when she realized what Nozomi had meant: a mother is worth caring for more than any other thing.
~A couple of hours later~
Enju: "Where….is everybody?" the girl's perception of time was awfully skewed. Having nothing to do and nothing to distract herself with, no one to hold any conversations with and no audio books to listen to, the only thing she could do was just obsess over her own situation, embracing the misery she was in and quietly trying to patiently wait for the arrival of her tormentors to open the door and announce the end of this entire inhumane treatment.
And yet, in reality, only four hours have passed. To her, it felt way longer since she didn't do anything else there but wait and that made her feel like it was about time for her to be released already. She even went to sleep at one point, only to wake back up and find herself on the same spot on that metallic floor.
The floor was cold and unwelcoming, although it was the closest she had for a bed. No furniture was in that room, or that's what she could tell after a very brief walk around and feeling around with her hands. The room felt devoid of any objects…..not even a bed to lie on.
She only had the floor to sleep on.
Enju: "I'm…..thirsty" her lips were dry, cracking already from all the screaming she did before. She wanted a glass of water to calm down, if only she had one.
She tried rising back into a vertical walking position, so that she could start to feel around the room again. Maybe her exploration this time would get lucky and allow her to find a sink to drink from.
It was awfully unlikely considering how she had already did a pretty thorough check before. Still, a child could only hope for a different outcome in those situations.
It was incredible. She had never before seen such a depressing room, one in which regardless in which direction you would look, you wouldn't find even a speck of light anywhere. She couldn't even see her own hands, not even when they were literally a couple of centimeters from her eyes. It was clear that that room was specifically designed in such a way as to not allow for anything, literally anything to escape inside or out.
She hadn't heard any sounds while in there either, apart from the very few ones generated by her own movements and interactions with the walls and floor. It was like she was in a different world already, governed by entirely different sets of rules and laws of physics. That room was like a reality bubble detached in its own pocket of existence from the Universe she knew of.
She placed her palm on the wall she had walked to, then she began to follow this wall in a random direction, dragging her hand along to not lose track of the path. Even the metallic texture of that wall felt so dull and perfect, without any abnormalities or bumps in it at all, intentionally crafted that way only to drive whomever was in that room even more insane.
She walked around trying to see if she could find something, anything really, with her hand. The wall didn't seem to indicate that there was anything on it though.
The girl sighed to herself, still not losing whatever shred of hope she had in herself. She needed to find something….otherwise she would go insane. She kept on walking, still fighting with her pessimism and trying to build some hope for herself.
Suddenly, she felt something: the wall was becoming a bit warmer. Just when she thought that she might find something, she sensed a very slight, almost minuscule shift to a warmer temperature on that side she was touching. Finally happy that she was making progress, she began to run, trying to find the source of this warmth.
Enju: "How come I never felt this before when I checked the room out?!" she asked herself, before discarding those seemingly meaningless thoughts and accelerating even further. Finally she was making progress. She ran a bit before suddenly not feeling any more warmth, and observing a sudden drop in temperature. Now the wall was as cold as it had always been.
The girl backtracked quickly to find the warmth again, only this time it disappeared.
Enju: "NO! DON'T GO AWAY! COME BACK!" she yelled in frustration, trying to feel around for that vague source of radiant tactile bliss that she so desperately needed.
Sadly for her, it didn't return and now she was trying to find it again in the same spots on the wall that she could have sworn she had already visited, yet were now as cold as they had always been, without any notification of a change. "WHERE IS IT?!" she cried out before suddenly hearing a growl that froze her blood in her veins.
Enju: "H-hello?" she asked, almost having a heart attack. She had heard a growl immediately after yelling, hadn't she? It wasn't her mind playing tricks on her, was it? "Is…..anybody there?" she almost whispered in fear, although not receiving any answers.
The girl began trembling. Was there something in that room with her? What was it? She obviously couldn't see it because of the darkness.
Suddenly she felt insurmountable amounts of dread engulf her yet again, although this time it was because she felt a presence in the room with her now….an evil presenve. This one came from a specific direction: from behind her.
She immediately turned around in a sudden spin, focusing her eyes as intently as she could to see anything although that didn't really work. She didn't make out anything visually, although she felt her stomach beginning to turn when looking in that specific direction: at one of the four corners of the room where she had come from. The corner suddenly began to emanate what seemed to be like warm air, with the same warmth as the wall before.
That couldn't be a coincidence, could it?
Enju: "P….please leave me alone! I don't want to hurt you!" she timidly said, feeling like she was losing her mind now. Even her eyelids were trembling now since her eyes were shaking just as much as her body…..probably. Or wait….were they? Was she shaking?
Maybe…..or maybe she was imagining it? Maybe all of this was an illusion?
Corner of the room: "(roar)" suddenly even more sounds came from the corner. The girl realized that something was probably in there with her. She lost, at that point, control of her bladder as she turned around again to run in the opposite direction, away from whatever that thing was. The warm feeling of her urine dripping through the legs of her pajamas was a holy feeling at that point, since it reminded her brain how it felt to...well…..feel again. She began screaming from the top of her lungs, desperately trying to remember where the door was.
She threw her body at a section of another wall, believing that was where the door was, and began banging her fists into it again.
Enju: "HELP! THERE'S A MONSTER IN HERE WITH ME! HELP ME! PLEASE! IT'S GOING TO EAT ME! IT'S-"…..
~Next day~
Two guards were walking down the hallway towards Enju's cell, one of which was the same guard as before that had guided Enju to her chamber the previous day.
Soldier 1: "So…..just to be sure I understand this: the reason we use this roundabout way of punishing the girls is because of UN regulations?" one of the two began speaking, with a confused look on his face. Clearly he was a rookie and still learning how the more experienced soldiers there did their jobs. "There are still countries which give a shit about any of that even after the Great Gastrea War?!" he asked a bit in disbelief.
Soldier 2: "(sighes) Basically, yes, that's the reason. IISO is fundamentally an international joint movement to find ways to repress the Gastrea invasion. Because of its international roots, it still harbors the same humanitarian idealism that the former union had before its member states went into disarray because of the war. Despite IISO allowing for some leeway with respect to how each country handles its Promoter-Initiator systems, they did the bare minimum by forbidding any facility from going too far in abusing its training Initiators. And one of the prohibitions was to prevent us from torturing the girls" he explained a bit bored, feeling very disappointed how he became more of a mentor for this fellow. It annoyed him since he obviously didn't feel any incentive to train him and explain all of this basic stuff.
Soldier 1: "Aha. And, because we can't torture the specimens, we end up locking them in solitary confinement for a couple of hours? How is that a punishment, anyway? It sounds just like giving a naughty kid timeout! I don't really see why you consider this to be an effective punishment!" he persisted with his questioning, much to the latter's clear dislike.
Soldier 2: "It's not just solitary confinement. The chambers themselves are specifically designed to provide a form of…..sensory deprivation, let's say" they finally arrived to the girl's cell. The older man began typing at the same panel he had typed the day before when he closed the young girl inside.
Soldier 1: "Sensory deprivation?" he raised his eyebrows, still not getting it. "And how exactly is that bad? I heard rich people used to employ that to relax in their spare time, before the war became a thing. I really don't see how this works" still seeing how he wasn't getting it, his more experienced companion had to elaborate even more.
Soldier 2: "Yes, it was used for recreational purposes in the past. However, when forcing people into it and, especially when doing it for extensive periods of time, say….an entire day, humans tend to experience hallucinations" that was a surprising fact to hear. "When exposed to prolonged visual, auditory, olfactory and gustatory deprivation, as we do with these chambers, humans tend to lose the cognitive distinction between thoughts and reality. Since there's no input to the brain to distinguish between what it perceives from the outside of the body and what it internally generates like thoughts, ideas and emotions, the neuronal signals begin to overlap and the mind loses track of what's outside and what's inside. Consequently, they start to perceive things that are in fact the byproduct of their emotions. The more intense the emotions, the more chaotic and palpable the hallucinations become. And when that gets coupled with a child's imagination…..these live surreal daydreams usually turn into living nightmares" finally the code was entered and the door to Enju's room finally opened. The two then looked inside to see any signs of anything that could still be alive.
The older soldier pulled out a flashlight and then began to enter the chamber slowly, only to find the girl deep within the room, lying on the floor motionless, almost like a corpse.
Soldier 1: "What's wrong with her? Is she….sleeping?" he asked with some panic in his voice, feeling very fidgety because he was now considering the possibility that that girl might have actually died. His partner, though, wasn't as worried as him since he had experience with these types of things and had been through that exact situation many more times in the past.
Soldier 2: "No….she's not" the other man reassured him calmly making his way inside and approaching the lying motionless girl. Despite all of this overflow of new sensory input, the girl still didn't seem to react to him approaching her, almost as if he wasn't even there. "Take a good look: this is what always happens to all the Cursed Children who spend a day in here. They eventually lose even spacial awareness of their surroundings" he then proceeded to grab the girl by the shoulders and pulled her in a vertical straight position. She didn't respond now either.
Soldier 1 : "You sure she isn't sleeping?" that was a ridiculous thing to ask. Clearly his partner didn't know exactly how any of these things worked. Then again, given his inexperience, that was obvious. To prove his point, his partner then moved his hand on her skull and then pulled her right eye's eyelid wide open, before flashing his flashlight on it. The pupil was extremely dilated, mainly because of the darkness that she had been in in there. When flashing the light into it, though, the pupil didn't contract at all, as it normally should have in response to that intense input.
Soldier 2: "See? It's not responding to my flashlight! Is this proof enough for you?" knowing that that was more of a natural response to a stimulus, it felt only natural to conclude that this was indeed an involuntary effect, not just her playing games on them to fool them. And since the eye was open like that and shaken, it clearly wasn't her just sleeping either.
Soldier 1: "Wow…..that's creepy as hell!" he commented a bit scared when approaching the girl a little to see the experiment a bit more. When getting a bit closer, his nostrils were immediately assaulted by a rather strong odor surrounding the poor girl. "Jesus, what's that smell?! Did she…..pee herself?" he asked what should have been an obvious question. His partner smirked at that.
Soldier 2: "Yes….they all do. Ironically, it's the ones who aren't afraid of the dark that get the most traumatized when being locked in here" he commented before removing the flashlight from her face to prevent damaging her retina. "They all piss themselves at some point because of their lucid nightmares, despite us forcing them to go to the toilet before. Once, there was this one girl who even crapped herself in here. By the time we came to retrieve her the next day, some of the feces got into her vagina and caused a yeast infection. For the next couple of weeks, everyone, even her friends, avoided the bitch because of the horrid smell that came from her genitals" he then let out a chuckle, feeling amused at that memory. "Good times…." he commented nonchalantly before suddenly raising his other hand and slapping the girl so hard that she fell back on the ground, half her face red from the impact and with an intense ringing in her left ear.
Finally, after receiving such a powerful shock, her brain finally released adrenaline in her bloodstream which forced her to snap out of her unconscious state. Her mind went into overdrive after that forceful awakening.
Soldier 2: "Good morning, kid! Time to get back into your cell. Your time here is up!" he greeted her. The girl's pupils began contracting again, normally. She pulled herself back up and stared at the man with a completely bewildered expression on her face. She looked…..confused, almost like she was staring at a complete stranger, despite having seen that same man the day before.
She didn't even respond to him, she just stared at him like he was one giant teddy bear that suddenly grew mushrooms on its surface. Her look on her face betrayed her state of disarray.
Soldier 1: "What's up with her? She looks…..lost" he remarked the obvious. Truthfully, this was also the very first time his partner had seen anything like that too.
Soldier 2: "Hey…..I'm talking to you!" to extended his left arm to grab her by the head, to see if he could force some sense into her. The girl, instinctively, moved her head to avoid getting captured again and, in just a couple of seconds, she charged at the man with an entirely new emotion on her face: that of complete rage.
She immediately came into close quarters to that soldier, surprising him due to her speed. She had the look of a wild animal on herself: with pure unadulterated feral ferocity on her face. It didn't even look like one would call anger, just cruel and soulless thirst for blood and mutilation.
She then immediately extended her left leg and smashed her foot into the guard's abdomen, sending him into the opposite wall, almost like he had been propelled by a human canonball. That was clearly beyond the mere strength that any girl her age would possess, which alerted the other guard.
Soldier 1: "WHAT THE HELL?! SHE ACTIVATED HER POWERS ALREADY?!" the other soldier dashed outside the room. He made a very jarring U-turn as soon as he got outside, trying to access the control panel for the door of that chamber, to command it to close and lock again, to keep the beast inside. However, in his frantic typing and because of his inexperience, he messed up very easily and was taking too long to make the mechanism respond.
Before he could finish with his plans, the girl bolted outside and smashed her other foot against him as well, breaking a couple of his ribs and sending him flying across the hallway.
The creature then began running through that same hallway, gaining speed and beginning to sprint in various directions, at random.
This, obviously, with all the security cameras in there, didn't go unnoticed and a facility-wide alarm began again, with all the soldiers being ordered to intercept her.
She didn't really have a plan in mind, nor a real intention even of escaping. In fact, she wasn't even thinking rationally at that point anymore.
She was, at that moment in time, the equivalent of an animal who had been very badly beaten for an extended period of time. Her brain wasn't thinking properly anymore like it should have. All of her actions were now being governed by instincts, an amalgam of very strong seemingly unrelated impulses driving her body without any reason or sense of intelligence or planning. She was, at that very moment, a wounded feral creature running randomly in a primitive attempt at self defense.
When she approached a junction of two corridors intersecting, she noticed how from both sides, big groups of armed personnel came and were both running towards her.
The girl, immediately turned around and began running back where she came from, only to quickly notice how other men were arriving from behind her as well.
She then charged at this new, smaller group, in hopes of getting past them. She assaulted them wildly by lunging at them. The men attempted to hit her with their batons, only to have her evade incredibly easily. She tripped one of them and then jumped at another, smashing her head into his mouth and causing him to fall backwards and hit his head against the wall behind.
Soldier: "DAMN YOU, YOU MONSTER!" he also tried to tackle her into the ground by embracing her from behind and forcing her into a hug to prevent her from using her arms. The girl responded by allowing him to hold her in the air because of his grip on her torso and placed her legs onto the wall in front of her, contorting her body a little. Then, she used her enhanced strength in her legs to propel herself into him by pushing her legs against the wall as much as possible, effectively smashing her head into his skull as well, causing him to let go and fall down.
Finally, someone from the first group that was still trying to catch up, arrived and shot a net at her, which landed and immediately zapped her with electricity, incapacitating her.
The girl still didn't go down without a fight, and kept on moving like a wolf which got its leg caught in a trap, flailing around violently to escape and also hurt anyone who would get close to it in the meantime. All the soldiers immediately ganged up on her, some smashing their batons against her body while others began hitting her with their legs, each aiming at different parts.
Nobody stopped from hitting her as the girl roared in pain from their constant abuse. That torment continued, with each beating her as much as possible to ensure she would stay down. They kept on going even after she stopped making any sounds, maintaining that for another couple of minutes for insurance. By the end of it all, the girl was filled with bruises, unconscious and with a pool of blood leaking from her mouth because of a displaced tooth, as well as another which was on the verge of falling.
Author's note: The Room used here in this story was inspired by the same story point in the Batman Beyond (also known as Batman of the Future) cartoon, specifically from "The Last Resort" episode. As a side note, I highly recommend you watch the show. It's pretty well written.