I presume you've come to hear a story? Unfortunately I don't have many that are worth telling.

Should I tell you about the first time they cut me open – when I was 7? If you want a horror story I could tell you how the anaesthetic they were testing out didn't completely work and how fighting back only made things worse. I could tell you how sixteen years later I still can't get the smell of blood out of my hair and that sometimes it's like I can still feel the knife cutting into me.

No? I don't blame you; if that memory wasn't etched into my skin then I wouldn't want to hear about it either.

Should we skip forward to 10?

That was a fun year. They had all kinds of stuff they wanted to put into me; drugs I mean. When they weren't forcing pills down my throat they were jabbing needles into my arms – sometimes my neck too. There was a huge range of them though their favourites were sleeping pills and addictive little things.

They would give me just enough to get me hooked, then watch me fall apart. I was 10 so I wasn't above begging – ah but you don't want to hear about that either, do you?

How about the first time I used Scrap and it didn't work? 14.

I was small for my age and physically I was a wreck. I couldn't fight back at all unless with Scarp and I'd saved it for occasions where I was sure I'd need it. But it didn't work and the fact that I'd tried it made them angry. Sometimes I can still smell smoke and the stench of burning flesh – the same smell I associate with betrayal.

No I'm guessing you wouldn't want to hear any of it – not of my 16 year old self sobbing in the shower after the first of many trysts – as some might call them – or of 17 year old me who couldn't stop throwing up and convinced themselves they were pregnant. How I had planned to end my own life before I could complete my term only to later have it drilled into me that I didn't have the organs required for carrying a child – though it wasn't a bad idea to try and implant them into me.

I wish they'd grafted wings onto me instead.

Luckily my body rejected their attempts to alter it to that extent. It meant a lot of sickness afterwards but anything was better than bringing a child into this sort of world.

So what do you think?

A brief history of my life here at Oval Tower. Would you like to hear more of my stories?

But I can't argue with my guests, not when you've come such a long way to see me. I guess I can work something out – despite my situation I do have a few happy memories.

See I lied before. When I said I'd been complacent my entire life, that was a lie.

I'm sorry! It wasn't a big lie but – well books can only entertain a person for so long before they start to wonder what else is out there; isn't there anything besides these white walls? I wondered that a lot when I was younger. Even now I still wonder.

Now for you to understand everything still to come I have to share the two times I managed to escape Oval Tower.

The first was when I was fifteen.

I had just confirmed that Aoba was alive and obviously I had to see him – no matter what. I had to get back that missing piece of me – back then I thought I would sacrifice anything, even if that meant condemning Aoba to the same hell.

That first time, I made it out into Platinum Jail but once I got into the crowds I froze. There were too many people. They were too close. It was hard to walk without people touching me and every inch of space was taken up.

I couldn't breathe over the sound of endless chatter, and people moving on every side of me fuelled the part of my brain which was afraid of being hurt. I tried to watch every person at the same time until my sight blurred with tears and my paranoid mind commanded my heart to stop.

It wasn't long before the authorities were notified.

Numerous claims of a deranged child having made it into Platinum Jail. Screaming, crying, and disturbing the peace.

They didn't want me to disrupt their perfect little world – nobody cared about me.

I was curled up in a corner for days afterwards; feeling that if I pressed hard enough against it the wall would come to life and swallow me whole.

Security was increased. For a while I had the Alphas as added company – they helped me deal with some of my issues while keeping an eye on me. I was told it was okay and I wasn't in trouble for trying to escape but the way people treated me started to change, like I was wrong for trying to be free.

After that I never wanted to leave again.

Oh but I did say two didn't I?

Two times I escaped.

Well, I was always quite sick growing up and it got worse because of what they did to me. But when I was 23 I figured out I would die by the end of the year if I stayed, and that gave me the courage to leave again.

Are you getting the picture now? You're sitting in a room listening to a dead person talking about the life they never had.

Wouldn't you rather be anywhere else?

No? Well I suppose if I must, I could tell you about the second time I escaped.


The first and only time I made it out of Platinum Jail I had a bit of help. Virus and Trip, two friendly not-twins, had been around the tower on and off for years. They weren't the best of people and nothing came without a price for them but they were my only choice.

Even with their help escaping still wasn't easy. I was Toue's most precious treasure after all. But they knew the system better than anyone else inside the building and although it was a complicated process they managed to sneak me past every inch of security in the place. I thought it was amazing how little they cared about the consequences; they just wanted to make trouble! And I let them.

We went the long way – so I was told – to the main part of Midorijima. They led me through a series of tunnels and it occurred several times that they could've kept me there rather than keeping their promises. It seemed like something they might do, but they didn't. And within a matter of hours we surfaced.

You should know, that in Platinum Jail it was always night. My entire life I'd never seen the sun.

It's silly – how something so simple could make my heart soar.

A true symbol of every unspoken rule I had just broken and every consequence which was to come but oh, it felt amazing. Even if it was only the tips of my fingers, stretching out into that warmth it was magic.

But enough about that – surely you're not interested by my first breath of real air or my first genuine shiver. Such things are mundane – the type of thing that was made to be taken for granted. It's human nature to be unappreciative of things that never change.

I was lead through Midorijima until we reached the old residential district. We had come up in such a desolate place where shadows were cast everywhere by wrecked buildings and the smell of sewage hung pungent in the air. But in this new area my whole body was submerged in sunlight and an array of different scents flooded through my nose associating themselves in my mind immediately as freedom, happiness, an overwhelming dread that this was all a dream.

The looks people gave me in this new world varied from questioning the company I kept, to the type of look that suggested the giver wanted to eat you. It was a look I knew all too well and it made me nauseous. Subconsciously I walked closer between Virus and Trip, trying to make myself disappear or at least discourage people from seeing me.

"Uh-uh, you can't cling to us forever," Virus teased. He'd always been slightly nicer to me but now his words were bleeding indifference. "You wanted to be free didn't you? Sooner or later you'll end up on your own. Then what will you do?"

I didn't know how to answer.

Trip spoke next, his voice lacking that practiced kindness his counterpart wore as a constant mask.

"We've got business to attend elsewhere and we can't have you hanging around," he said. It sounded more like an excuse to get rid of me. "If you need help I'm sure Toue will be happy to drag you back to your tower."

I wanted to beg them not to leave me there but past experience kept me from screaming out into the crowds they disappeared into.

They'd left me in front of a Junk Shop where the street was pretty clear. I didn't have a plan so I figured if I walked around aimlessly I might miraculously run in to him – or that connection I felt with him would lead me right to him.

Aoba was my whole world and he didn't even know I existed.

I was completely alone though I was no stranger to that feeling; whether in a crowd of strangers or in a crumpled mess on the floor of a white room – loneliness had the same sting as always.

I took every main street I could though I didn't get too far. As I went deeper into town I found more and more people, until the streets were so congested I couldn't even move.

The alpha's method for breathing control – and essentially staying calm – was to match my breathing to the rhythm of my footsteps. It was practical, since we moved very slowly in Oval Tower and there was no way I would be upset by the little things if I was consistent. But this part of the world was sofast that my usual pace got me in trouble – caused people to shove me out of the way and mutter profanities under their breath. It made me walk faster, my usual rhythm lost to a panic response – the exact thing it was designed to deflect.

But they couldn't have known – it wasn't for real world application after all.

So I started to walk fast and in turn my breathing sped up.

I couldn't control my own thoughts any longer and paranoia crept up my spine like a parasite. The human walls around me began to close up. My mind replaced the sun with bright fluorescent lights, the shadows with the natural darkness of Oval Tower. The everyday kind of people surrounding me suddenly donned white coats and big shiny smiles.

I was fifteen again, in Platinum Jail, outside my tower for the first time and on my knees in the middle of a large street, screaming for somebody to help me only to be reported and removed. I was the kid who was way over their head. The kid who didn't know what they were doing in life. The kid who couldn't survive on their own – who was only alive to be hurt and broken down and used.

I couldn't go back – not again.

I ducked into a side street and ran until I couldn't hear anything.

Slumping against the wall for support, I tilted my head towards the sky to hold back my tears.

I'd come real close to actually panic, and had to pause and catch my breath.

I wasn't alone for long; two men stumbled into my little nook in the alley. One had red hair and the other had green. They were talking loudly, filling the dark, dirty space with raucous laughter. Until they saw me, that is.

"Oi," one of them called out, "Don't you know it's dangerous to be in a place like this all by yourself?"

"Yeah," the other agreed, his voice still filled with hints of laughter, "You never know who might come along – or what they might do."

Their words held a warning of what would happen if I didn't run away right then. But my feet were stuck to the ground, a ball of lead weighing heavily in my stomach.

I know; damsel in distress is a cliché. It happens to be one that I enjoy a whole lot.

Unfortunately if that's the storyline you came here for you're going to be disappointed.

The two men looked me up and down with that same look I had seen so many times before. It made my skin crawl, as bad memories forced their way to the forefront of my mind.

But this time I wasn't going to let it happen – I wasn't going to let them get close to me.

The moment I caught their eyes it was over.

Back in Oval Tower I never had a choice. They could do whatever they wanted to me.

But not out here – not a chance. I was in control of what happened to my body –

Watching two guys hit the ground has never been so satisfying.

Then I heard feet scraping against the concrete behind me, and a voice asked, "Hey are you –" then they must've seen the bodies at my feet, "– okay?"