It's been a disorienting week for Subject C. Or maybe it's been a month. Six weeks, ten.

However long, his wounds are healing faster than they should. Within days he's able to walk normally, and the incision looks more like a scar than a wound. HIs doctors don't regard this as remarkable or surprising.

The hours he spends awake get longer, and he learns the rhythms of the facility. There's a door hidden in the stone wall of his room that opens to a massive, echoing space. It smells damp and rotten when the workers pass through, like an old well or a cave.

They come and leave as a group, all together at the same time. Morning clock in, evening clock out. Not counting the numerous guards, there's six of them in total: Bennet, Hojo, the night nurse, two researchers, and an administrative assistant.

The researchers are a mystery, never speaking to him directly or giving any indication of what they do. They come in regularly to ask him questions he can't answer. Does he feel Jenova? Does he know when the Reunion will come? Does the phrase "Promised Land" mean anything to him?

Like a puppet performing a play over and over, he shrugs and shakes his head. They never seem particularly upset. They nod, make notes, and disappear into the turret. One is tall and pudgy, the other is short and balding. He nicknames them Fat and Ugly.

The night nurse is a SOLDIER. He's got glowing eyes and a somber mouth. On the semi-frequent occasion that Subject C tries to escape after hours, it's the night nurse's job to end it quickly. Subject C likes him because his arm locks never threaten to break his bones. His touch is controlled and professional. When he puts on the leather straps he doesn't over-tighten them.

In honor of this, C names him Nice. In another life they might have gotten beers together, although he has a suspicion that Nice has a family. He's always checking his watch towards the end of his shift like he can't wait to get home to somebody.

Next there's Sniffles, the administrative assistant. He's a skinny Turk with poor posture whose wide amalgamation of allergies causes him to dig out a snotty hanky from his pocket once per hour to blow his nose.

His job appears to be making coffee, although he can occasionally be spotted delivering bags of takeout and ferrying paperwork between offices with loud complaints about his skills being underutilized.

Rounding out the team is Doctor Bennet, who Subject C spends most of his time with. She gets to work before everyone else and leaves last. His food tray comes each morning perched on her clipboard, and she tolerates him eating as slowly as possible to delay the start of their daily examination. That makes her alright in his book.

Exams usually end in mystery injections, which lead to him vomiting up his food and hallucinating through the afternoon, but occasionally he gets a break so that she can cut off bits of him to run tests on. He looks forward to those days, because they give his rotten stomach a break.

Once his wound is decently healed, afternoons start to include physical therapy, which he co-ops to question her about the other guy. Subject Z's name gets lost in the blackouts and nightmares, but his existence is a lodestone. It never wavers in C's mind, despite him losing everything else. The other guy is alive. He is nearby. He is important.

Every day, Bennet insists Z is dead. Every day, Subject C disbelieves. It becomes normal. Routine. Time slips by.

If not for the mako he could probably track the days through the boards in the window, but the injections throw him into a tumble. Memories float up—blurry faces, snippets of feeling, flashes of color and smell—all gone by morning.

The nightmares are not so fleeting. They burrow deep, visions so real that he's not sure he's sleeping. One minute he's watching stars fall and planets detonate, watching bubbles float through green ooze, watching doctors tap his knee to see if he kicks, and the next he's running for his life from snarling dogs with tails on their heads.

That one haunts him. The scratch of their claws and the teeth nipping at his heels, the blood on his hands, the pounding of his heart and the slapping of his feet on the ground; it's all vividly real.

Yet, when he wakes and kicks off the bedclothes, his fingers can't find any wounds. He spends a long time with his smock pulled up to his hips, tracing the shapes of cuts that aren't there.

Reality becomes fragile, easily fractured. One stray thought can pull him out of his body and trap him in the void. It can take days to come back, or weeks. He learns to step around the cracks.

Moments bleed into each other and he doesn't examine the gaps. He's afraid to stumble but unable to slow down, like that game kids play with numbered squares on the ground. Hop—hop—one foot, then two. The floor is lava, you can't fall down.

He must have fallen because his body's burning up.

It sneaks up on him while he's picking at his lunch, a ramping heat from his lower back to his neck. He thinks it's the food warming him, or maybe residual heat from the PT, but then it escalates.

Startled, he chokes down his last bite of macaroni and twists to touch his lower back. It beams unnatural warmth into his hand.

Bennet usually puts her clipboard away after PT. Not today. Today her pen is poised, waiting for something to happen.

"Something wrong, Subject C?"

"Nothing."

Her brows warp in an impersonation of concern. "You made a noise."

"Choked on a noodle," he lies.

Lying isn't an option later, when he's tossing and turning over sweat-soaked sheets. It's so intense that he can't lie on his back anymore, but every other position hurts his chest so he ends up rolling back and forth, never settling.

A red LED peers at him from the corner of the ceiling where the Turk installed a security camera after his first attempted escape. It whirs quietly whenever he moves, a little motor repositioning the lens to keep him centered in the frame. It's unnerving.

Normally he hides under the quilt while he's resting, but it's unthinkable right now. If not for the camera he'd have ripped the smock off too. The fabric sticking to his raw skin is excruciating.

It would be easy to blame the mako, but the shots make him a different kind of ill. Nausea, vomiting, cold hands and feet. He'd almost prefer that.

Sighing, he rolls from his side onto his front and buries his face in the quilt. It smells like body odor and lye with a hint of mothball. His last bit of dignity snaps and he groans, long and low.

The camera speaker crackles to life. Hojo, of course. The vulture always shows up right when C think's he's going to croak.

"Do you have new symptoms to report?"

"Mmm hot," he grunts.

There's a pause, the kind that Hojo takes often. Thoughtful, or just playing with his food. "Your vital signs are normal. Describe the sensation. Is it widespread or acute?"

A fresh wave rises up and he flops back onto his side, his knees drawing up to his chest. His answer doesn't contain identifiable words.

"Answer me," Hojo says sharply. "Where are you feeling this?"

"My back. And…" he concentrates, searching. "And my feet. The bottoms of my feet."

"What else?"

"Are you going to turn the air down?"

"What else?" Hojo repeats.

C drags his pillow over his face and screams. The shots and experiments don't bother him as much as the questions. Always more questions. When his chest was a fresh wound, they'd withhold his painkillers until he answered. He assumes Hojo will do the same now. Better to get it over with.

Scowling, he throws off the pillow and sits. The camera lens glares like Hojo's glasses, like it's trying to impersonate him, an extension of his will over the room.

He answers in clipped, flat words. "Nothing else. It's broad and deep, only on the back side. Like a burn. Now stop fucking with me and—"

The words truncate, squeezed down to a strangled grunt. A strange pressure blocks his airway, like there's something lodged in there, like he's been thrust underwater. He tries to suck down a breath but the pressure grows, tightens.

"Subject C?"

His hand comes up to feel his throat, but there's nothing there, only skin. His body fights for air, but that just makes him cough and choke like there's something flooding in.

Panic takes over quickly, his feet scrabbling over the quilt with the urge to get out, to escape, except that he isn't trapped. In the room, yes, but not in a lake. Not under anything that should block his access to air.

Whatever else might be said over the speaker is overpowered by the ringing in his ears. A thousand needles prick at the inside of his chest. Lightning flashes behind his eyelids.

He sees blood rise in inky swirls from mutilated skin, feels sludge in his throat and cold metal on his lips. A green-tinted Bennet pushes glasses up her nose.

As soon as it starts, it's over. The seal pops.

Subject C gasps, wrenching oxygen into his lungs. He sucks in so much that the stitches pull on his chest. Pain explodes behind his eye sockets and makes him double over, gripping his head.

There's something different about these visions that made him want to chase, to reach out his hands and pull , but he doesn't have the wherewithal. There's too much happening in his body, too much fear boiling his blood.

Gravity presses him firmly into the mattress and he hoards big gulps of air. The basement door grinds open.

It's Ugly, the balding researcher. He presses a plastic mask over C's nose. After images assault him, and he's too busy trying to parse them to put up much of a fight.

The leather cuffs go around his wrists too tight, and that gets his attention. Ugly struggles to unwind a tangled IV line, more from inattention than incompetence. His eyes aren't quite focused on the task, his mind clearly somewhere else.

Subject C blinks up at him, morbidly curious.

"I can't believe it," Ugly whispers to himself, his voice soft and reverent. "I can't fucking believe it."

The next morning he can't wait to see Bennet. He's hungrier than usual, and his fingers are unhappy about Ugly's overtight restraints.

He wants to needle her about what happened yesterday, maybe accuse her of poisoning his food and see what she says, but the stern female doctor never shows. Instead, it's Hojo who walks in with breakfast balanced on his palm.

C freezes, tracking the Professor's approach.

The scalpel incident hovers near the surface of his thoughts. The king of the laboratory paying a personal visit is never good news. Him paying a visit with that gleeful, unhinged smile is enough to make fear pool in his belly.

Subject keeps his fear hidden as Hojo removes the ventilator mask.

"Where's Bennet?" he asks, as soon as he's free to speak.

"What, you aren't happy to see me?" Hojo clicks his tongue and shakes his head in theatrical disappointment. "That's quite hurtful, Subject C. I dedicate a lot of hours to your study, you know. The least you could do is pretend to appreciate my genius."

A retort is sharp on his tongue, but the ghost of the blade on his cheek holds it back. He curls his fingers into fists and hides behind his hair, which has grown long enough to cover his eyes if he doesn't keep it pushed aside.

"I only meant—" He huffs. Politeness doesn't seem to be his strong suit. He searches for an inoffensive reason to be asking after her, and stumbles over a phrase that feels rote except that he has no memory of ever saying it before. "She didn't come in this morning. I thought she might be sick."

"Oh, dear boy, that's very thoughtful of you," Hojo croons. "Doctor Bennet is well. She's overseeing another matter for me."

The tray comes to rest on the bedside table, but Hojo doesn't loosen the straps. He laces his fingers behind his back like he's waiting for something. Subject C eyes him warily.

The food isn't gruel. It's fluffy, steaming eggs and toasted bread swirled with cinnamon. There's a pile of bacon the size of his fist that gleams with all the fat and salt he's been craving. It's humiliating, how much his will caves just from that smell.

"Aren't you going to untie me?" he asks.

One eyebrow lifts over Hojo's round, inscrutable glasses. He sits on the side of the bed and reaches over Subject C's lap to pick a slice of bacon from the pile.

The crunch of it between the old man's teeth sounds like a falling tree, like breaking bones. C's will cracks too, as it dawns on him that he's being toyed with. The second half of the strip goes into Hojo's mouth and he makes an exaggerated hum and bats his lip with a napkin.

"I suppose that depends on how you ask. You remember our conversation about manners, yes?"

Subject C wishes his mouth weren't watering. He wishes he were stronger than he is. Hojo watches him expectantly.

"Will you… please," he grits, fighting to keep his face blank, "untie my hands?"

"Certainly not!" Hojo chuckles. "Not with that death glare aimed at me. I like my neck un-snapped, thank you."

He loses control at that, the muscles in his arms coiling and pulling at the restraints. It only makes the old man's smile broaden.

"I can see why Bennet got attached. Those eyes… like a feral dog's."

"You're sick."

For once, Hojo doesn't smile or laugh. He gives him an assessing look. "You're far from the first to tell me, and yet… the way you say it reminds me of him."

Subject C lowers his chin, frowning. "Him, who?"

"You know who."

"I really don't."

Hojo runs a finger over his chin, lips turning down thoughtfully. Subject C fidgets. There's a green tinge encroaching on his vision that precludes another white-out.

It's becoming a kind of alarm system, a warning that he's venturing too close to the sun. Goosebumps rise on the back of his neck, and he feels Hojo's stare like a laser between his eyes.

"No… you don't," Hojo concludes. "How long has it been like this? Your memory."

"I don't know what you're—"

"Since the beginning?" Hojo's brows rise.

"No," C snaps, pulling at his hands hard enough to make the leather creak.

Hojo leans away, the cold grin returning. He lifts the slice of toast from the tray and hovers it under C's nose.

"There's only two ways to tame a beast, Subject C. The carrot and the stick." Thick ribbons of spice and caramel invade his nose. His mouth waters. Hojo taps his foot idly, like he could sit here waiting on him all day. "Which one will you make me use?"

He wants to fight so badly, but the message is clear. Hojo is in control here. He can do whatever he pleases with his test subjects. Food, clothing, warmth, none of these things are guaranteed. C's choice is no choice at all.

His lip quivers as he opens his mouth. His fingernails dig into the leather. He takes a bite.

It's crisp and sweet, hot from the oven. It tastes like fall in the mountains, like hot coffee, knit shawls, and late night radio shows.

It also shatters a pillar under his heart, one of the few still holding weight. That one in the very center that a poet might call 'dignity.'

He goes for another bite, but Hojo drops the bread on the tray.

"Ah, ah, don't spoil your breakfast. You'll get dessert if you behave."

He's given eggs instead, and then the bacon. It's like a religious experience, the salt, the meat, yet he longs to spit it in the bastard's face.

The impulse is there, right on the edge of his control, but he lets it go. He swallows. It's the first hot meal he's gotten in this place. He may never get another one. Hojo makes him clean the plate, even though it's more than he's used to and his stomach turns unhappily by the end. The professor eats the cinnamon toast himself.

He rewards C for his compliance with a condescending pat to his cheek. "Well done, pet. On to business."

"Business?" Subject C stares at his lap. He thought Hojo would leave after he had his fun.

"Yes, quite a bit of it. Your curious seizure yesterday opens up many lines of inquiry. I am moving you downstairs so we can investigate."

C flicks his gaze to the stone wall. He had wondered what was down there, but that didn't mean he wanted to see it firsthand. Ever since he first witness the workers going down, he'd found that whole side of the room disquieting.

"Is that… strictly necessary?"

"I thought you would approve." Hojo feigns surprise. "Last I heard, you were bound and determined to reunite with Subject Z."

C's head whips around before he can even think about keeping his composure. Hojo gives him his back, pulling on protective gloves and attaching the syringe to a long tube with a valve.

C stares, too wounded to believe but too hopeful to doubt.

"You're toying with me," he accuses. It doesn't stop his heart beating faster, or his imagination concocting a hundred horrible states that he could find the other guy in.

Hojo strides back to the bedside, pinching the inside of C's elbow to find a vein and then pricking him without preamble. Blood fills the tubes, and he turns the valves one at a time to fill the various vials.

"Subject Z has failed to yield satisfactory results as a primary specimen, but there is still potential for him to facilitate the success of yours. You will be cataloged together because it is the logical conclusion, and because it is in the best interest of the project."

C's blood fills the vials, and he watches with rising dread. "What does he have to do with it?"

Hojo removes the needle, and throws the entire contraption into the waste bin. Then, he lifts a ring of metal plates from the desktop that look suspiciously neck-sized. With the tap of a keychain on Hojo's belt, the clasp unlocks.

He isn't able to put up much of a struggle with his hands tied. It's just a snap, and then a click. The plates are connected by a series of cables which tighten immediately. It's not painful, not outright, but it's uncomfortable and cold. The gaps between the plates pinch his skin when he moves.

"What—"

Hojo taps the keychain, and the collar tightens further. He chokes, wheezing both from the constriction and the discomfort of the metal pressing in.

"Inelegant, but effective," the old man shrugs. "In case you're harboring notions of escape."

He clicks the button again, and the pressure fades back to neutral. They share another icy stare, and Hojo laughs as he unfastens the straps.

"They're developing more sophisticated methods at Headquarters, but I'm almost glad we don't have those here," the old man says, trailing a bony finger along the collar, his nail clicking over the grooves between the plates. "It's terribly fitting—a collar to keep my angry little mutt on-leash."

He almost lunges for him. It would have been worth it to feel his fingers wrap around his throat, to prove Hojo's not the god he pretends to be.

Hope stops him. Hope that he hasn't been lied to again, that Subject Z really is down in the basement waiting for him. Subject C stands, holding his arms stiff at his sides.

"Take me to him," he says, then, in grudging recognition of Hojo's fixation with manners, adds, "Please."

Hojo's keycard opens the door in the stone wall. He nudges C ahead, onto a wooden landing far more rickety than he'd expected. Cool, stagnant air blows his hair from his face and makes him cough at the sudden scent of mold and decay. The stairs ring around the turret, spiraling down and down into an abyss.

With a quiet rumble the door reseals itself, and then it's just the two of them shrouded in shadow.

"Go on, get. No time for dawdling," Hojo says.

It feels like a one-way ticket. A descent not just through the building or under the ground, but into the Lifestream itself—the world of spirits and souls where living beings aren't meant to tread.

He takes a shaky, shallow breath, and lowers his foot into the ether.