Chapter 29: Window To The Past
Alex awoke once again in the black void. As he stood up he sighed and headed towards the birdcage grumbling under his breath.
"Thought I was done with this shit."
"So did I." Alex froze hearing the voice once again. It wasn't in his head however. This time it was in the birdcage and coming from a version of himself. This time however the doppelganger was the same age as him wearing a standard Deadman Wonderland uniform. Alex narrowed his eyes and marched right up the the cage where his clone just seemed bored. He had had enough of this the recurring dreams he could handle but if this thing was talking to him during the day then something needed to be done NOW.
"No more games, who the hell are you?"
"You don't remember me partner? I'm hurt." The other Alex feigned a hurt look before rolling his eyes and reaching out with an open hand. "Here, let me show you." Now there was probably a better way to get the information he wanted but he figured the direct approach would be faster. So against all common sense Alex took the hand into his own and then his vision went white.
An eight year old Alex lay in the bed. His room was small plain and white with nothing on it. he fiddled with a small bracelet he wore with the word 'Zeus' on it. He didn't know what it meant but he, Jason and Shiro all had one. He let out a sigh and stared up at the ceiling, he was bored, there was just nothing to do in the mornings before one of the doctors let him out. Then the voice spoke up again.
"What are we doing today again?" The young Alex didn't even flinch at the voice and even answered its question.
"I think we have another test but I dunno what it is." He heard the door unlock and lazily looked over. A woman wearing a white lab coat over a purple set of hospital scrubs. She had curly light brown hair and emerald green eyes under a pair of round glasses. The young Alex perked up at seeing the woman and jumped out of bed. "Mom!" He ran over to the woman and hugged her almost knocking her over. The woman offered a smile to the boy and rustled his hair.
"Hello sweetie, how are you?" Her voice was tired sounding yet still had a kind tone to it.
"I'm boored can I go play with Jason?" The boy wined getting a sigh from his mom.
"No not yet we still have to do a few tests." Alex pouted so the woman knelt down and told him. "After that you can play with your brother for the rest of the day okay?" He seemed hesitant but nodded. She was happy, it would be less of a hassle this way.
"How are his vitals?" The woman asked as she went over her notes. The last few tests had gone smoothly, he had regenerated from the fire, grenade, firing squad and dismemberment without fail. This test however would be easier on the boy. They just needed some bone marrow samples to run a few chemical tests on. After that they would let the boy loose for the day and let him do as he pleased. One of the lab technicians answered her
"Stable." She nodded and pulled up a note board and paper to start documenting.
"Okay, start the test." As she started to write a voice from behind spoke up.
"Nanako." The woman turned to see her college and friend Sorae Igarashi, a similarly aged woman with black hair and grey eyes. She wore a lab coat over a dull green sweater and jeans. She was a woman Nanako had lost much respect for as of late. She used to have a good head on her shoulders but nowadays Nanako just didn't know anymore.
"Yes?" She answered looking annoyed.
"Are you sure you want to be in here for this? It's going to be a rough one." Nanako watched as the drills entered the screaming boys arms with an almost bored expression. Her mind was elsewhere, on her friend actually, specifically what had happened to her. After her child had been born it was almost like she had turned into a completely different person. Before she knew what needed to be done and did so without hesitation but now? She was too soft it was almost sickening.
"Zeus and Hades are my specimens Sorae. If something noteworthy happens I'm going to be right here to document it." Sorae didn't know what had changed about her friend but she was growing cold. The boys thought this woman was their mother and yet she put them through hell almost everyday. Then again she was no better with Shiro but at least she felt remorse, even hated herself over her actions but Nanako? She seemed to feel nothing about the pain and suffering she was causing the children under her care. And their actual father was no better, be barely ever spoke to them and that's if he was even around. Now that she thought about it she hadn't seen Yuri all day where was he?
Jason sat next to his older brother in the yard right next to an open gate. The facility wasn't worried about them leaving, after all even if they were to run the GPS trackers in their bodies would let the recapture team find them in no time. Alex lifted up the sleeve of his black t-shirt and circled the large drill scar on his shoulder. Jason seeing this new mark on his brother hesitantly asked.
"How was the test?" Alex glanced over to his brother with a twinge of jealousy. The younger of the two got a lot less tests performed on him. He knew why he had more done on him but still... Then again, it wasn't like he wanted his younger brother to have more tests done on him but he just wished that maybe there were less painful tests to be done. Like maybe a few shots or just a broken bone.
"It hurt a lot." He said lowering his sleeve with a frown. Jason's head dropped at this.
"That sucks." Alex nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, I wish we were like Shiro." The youngest of the siblings had recently lost the ability to feel pain, yet another thing to be jealous about.
"Well yeah but she gets more tests then either of us." The oldest brothers eyes widened at this. He had no idea about that. Why had no one told him?
"Really?" Jason nodded and started saying.
"Yeah, she told me they-" Suddenly Jason was cut off by a strange voice coming from outside the gate. The twins turned to see a young man, maybe twenty standing just outside the gate. He had blond hair, brown eyes, and was wearing a suit. Alex narrowed his eyes at the man who slowly approached the gate.
"Hey are you two okay?" Alex stood up and stepped in front of his brother watching the stranger like a hawk.
"Who are you?"
"My names Kabuto. Where are your parents?" He took a step into the gated area earning a glare and snarl from the young boy.
"Why do you care?" Kabuto ignored the hostile reaction. The poor boys must have been runaways.
"Are you lost." Jason quickly moved in front of his brother and started to plead knowing exactly what was going to happen.
"Alex lets just go back inside." The man reached down and gently placed his hand on Jason's shoulder. Alex couldn't hear what the man said next as the voice was practically screaming at him now.
"He's going to take Jason. Stop him!" Alex reacted in the blink of an eye, jumping up and forming a large three fingered claw before impaling Kabuto through the lower chest area. And with one solid pull it ripped right through his body.
Nanako was going over her notes for the test. The marrow samples had been sent to her husband in the viral testing labs. It was starting to feel like she didn't spend as much time with him like she had before. She shook her head dismissing it as just the larger workloads they had been getting recently. She was then startled by an assistant barging into the room.
"Nanako there's been an incident!" She immediately stood and asked.
"What, where?"
"The south east entrance." Nanako ran still holding her noteboard. Eventually after a few corridors she exited the building to find a group of guards at the entrance blocking any outside view. Off to the side she saw Alex, Jason and Sorae next to a tarp which Nanako assumed had a body under it, well assumed was probably the wrong word. There wasn't really any other excuse for all the blood. Besides the pool around the tarp Alex had a large blood splatter all over his face and chest. Jason was less bloody but still had a sizable splatter on him. The younger twin looked worried like as if he had been caught in a lie or stealing something, the older of the two just looked bored. Nanako strode over to the tarp before lifting it. She got the faint feeling that she had seen the newly deceased man somewhere before, maybe at the store or just along their respective daily commutes. Oh well it hardly mattered now, he was gone. The lower half of his left lung was ripped from his body along with a few entrails that hung out from the large wound in his lower chest. She didn't even turn to the older twin as she asked.
"Alex, what did you do?" The boy shrugged before explaining.
"He tried to grab Jason. So I killed him." There was no emotion in his voice. It was if he was stating simple facts rather than explaining why he had taken a life. The glasses wearing woman started writing down on her papers and muttering to herself.
"This makes thirty." She then stood and pulled out a cell phone preparing to call for the cleanup crew, this was going to attract attention if it wasn't taken care of.
A man with short dark brown hair and icy blue eyes watched from the second story window. He wore a black lab coat as opposed to his colleges white variation, there was no real reason for it he simply preferred the color. Underneath he wore a light blue button up shirt and black dress pants. He didn't know why they kept those damn gates open, the goal was never to keep the specimens in but rather to keep the idiots who thought they could wander anywhere they pleased out. He heard the door open but didn't turn as he continued to watch the scene below.
"Your boy certainly doesn't pull any punches." Letting out a sigh he man turned to see his Boss, A man with long black hair pulled into a messy ponytail. Like the other doctors he also wore a lab coat but underneath it was a bit more of a casual attire consisting of a black and white striped shirt, grey sweatpants and a pair of sandals. The there was that safety hazard of a necklace he wore, four scalpels had no place being that close to the neck of anyone who planned to live very long.
"I don't know why your acting surprised Hagire. Ever since Redlight manifested he's been the most violent specimen in the facility."
"Well to be fair Hera's new personality seems to be catching up." Yuri held in a growl, in his eyes his 'Wretched Egg' Sorae had created was nothing when compared to the power Zeus or even Hades for that matter. Just like her parasite was to his virus. "Speaking of which I'm thinking of putting those two to the test per say, would you be alright with that?" Yuri knew that there was no real choice in the matter, Hagire was just testing him, seeing if he had any hidden emotions for his offspring. It annoyed him really, he had never once gone against his boss's orders. The only reason the strange man was questioning him in the first place was because of his 'activities' with their biological mother, a woman who's name he never even took the effort to learn. He figured the raw data they got from his mistake more than made up for that however. Yuri briefly wondered what would happen if he objected. Would he simply be shot down by a group of armed guards in his lab? Or maybe some random junkie on the street would stab him a few dozen times in exchange for his next fix. Yuri brushed these thoughts aside, it wasn't like he needed to worry about it anyway. He didn't care about them and he didn't care about their useless lab rat of a mother.
"You're asking my permission?" The long haired man gave a coy smile before stating.
"Well it is your child Yuri. And their real mother isn't around to ask anymore." Yuri didn't even flinch at the remark, he was all to used to it by now.
"The child is Nanako's project. Ask her if you want to treat him like a gladiator." Hagire let out a soft chuckle at the mention of the younger man's wife.
"Ah, speaking of misses Watanabe how is she?" Yuri didn't even spare him a glance as he looked through some papers on his desk.
"I don't know, are we done here?" He really needed to get started on his work. He had a few ideas he wanted to try on those bone marrow samples.
Alex lay in his bed staring up at the ceiling. He was bored again but this time he at least had his thoughts to entertain him.
"You did good partner." Zeus praised his headmate. After all it was a nice quick kill. No unnecessary suffering or commotion, although it was a bit messy but that didn't really matter. What mattered was getting used to killing, and it seemed Alex had done just that.
"Thanks... Hey Zeus?"
"Yes?"
"I want to get them out of here." If Zeus had eyebrows one would have been raised. Why them? Zeus knew just how bad the experiments could get, after all sense of pain was one of the many things they experienced together. So why not focus on getting themselves out then worrying about the others?
"Them?" The question wasn't meant to sound accusatory, the voice just wanted clarification. Or so Alex thought.
"Shiro, Jason, and even Ganta if he wants to come." There was a silence between the two for what felt like minutes. When Zeus spoke back up Alex could hear the smile in its voice.
"Well, I have a few ideas." Alex nodded, he had no real reason to doubt his friend. The voice had always been there to help, and none of it's ideas ever ended too badly. Well, not for them anyway. "Just give me a day or two to figure it all out." Oh yes Zeus had plans alright. It just needed to convince Alex to let it have Control for a bit.