A/N:

Hi everyone! I'm so sorry for the sporadic updates but I have not neglected this story, dear readers!

Hope you enjoy,

Aydsa

Story: Let me hear your silence (pt.2)

Chapter 1

Spencer doesn't remember how long he has been in this room for. It could have been days or it could have been weeks. All he remembers are long, winding corridors and distant screams echoing against the walls, before being dragged kicking and screaming in hysterical terror into a large, spacious room.

...There was white everywhere.

He could not remember ever seeing something so pure looking and yet so sterile and unforgiving on his sensitive eyes, but Spencer's young but intelligent mind scanned the room first, making sure it was safe and checking for any possible escape routes before he settled down to observe.

Realistically he knew that there was no way he could ever hope to escape from this prison in such a short time. He needed to gather as much information as possible before even humoring the idea of attempting escape, so instead of panicking, he took a deep breath and started to analyze the room he was put in.

From his spot near the right corner of the room he could see the door, the small sink, and toilet located on the left corner of the room. Other than the essentials- the bed, toilet and sink -there was nothing else in the room. Not even a window, a table or a chair.

Spencer felt a lump form in his throat when the thought that he might never escape entered his mind. He had no one left; his father had abandoned him, he had no friends to speak of, and his mother was...god...she was gone. There was no one who would come for him, no one left to care whether he's dead or alive.

But before his mind was sucked into despair, he heard a clink. The clink ended with a loud clang when the steel doors of his room opened, sending his mind into wary alertness. When he saw a man in military uniform carrying a tray, he relaxed slightly but did not dare make a move until the tray was left in the middle of the room and the guard returned to his post outside.

Spencer sat there, waiting...and waiting.

He's not sure what he's supposed to be waiting for exactly, but his body was coiled so tightly it was hard to breathe, let alone move. Logically, he knew that he should eat the food because he's unsure when he would get the chance to eat again, but he couldn't even dredge up a tiny flame of hope. Instead, he felt numb like a part of his heart froze permanently when he witnessed his mother's death. His mind felt like a raw bleeding wound that would never heal, and he felt the stirrings of a panic attack pressing on the edges of his awareness when he looked down and saw the dried, flaking blood on his palms. Pitching forward, he gripped his shirt in desperation and screwed his eyes shut but he couldn't stop seem to stop hyperventilating and shivering in shock.

Behind his eyelids the only thing he could see was his mother's body hitting the ground over and over again. The moment when she realized what the men had come for, she had struggled against them to try and give Spencer a chance to get away. She...she died because she was trying to protect him, and the thought itself sent a wave of self-loathing and guilt through his chest.

She protected him even though he did not even realize that her symptoms of schizophrenia were caused by her inability to control her telepathy. His mom protected him even though he did not do anything to stop her suffering. He gasped in distress and reached a shaking arm to wipe away his tears, but the crimson stains on his sleeves made him flinch back violently. Frantically he looked away from his blood-stained body, trying to stop the nightmarish images pressing against his mind when his eyes landed on the bowl of porridge in the middle of the room. Spencer didn't even realize he was moving until he was crawling half-way there on his trembling knees and arms, and before he knew it he had the warm bowl of porridge in his hands.

Mechanically, he raised the bowl to his lips before downing the contents in a few gulps. The warmth of the food sat uncomfortably on his roiling stomach but he forced the rising feeling of bile down, before curling up on the bed.

As soon as he laid down, bone-deep exhaustion hit him and he felt himself involuntarily sinking into darkness.

Spencer startled awake when the door slammed open and men with guns and gas masks stormed in. He scrambled backwards and clutched the flimsy, coarse blanket to his chest to hide how his hands trembled in fear.

He was under no illusions about why he was taken here. Mutant development facility...he bitterly scoffed at irony of the name. These so-called facilities were nothing more than concentration camps where mutants were sent in the disguise of being educated when, in reality, they were sent to be controlled and experimented on for the sake of quenching humanity's hunger for power, and it seems like he was the next subject in this vile crusade.

This thought cemented his resolve to survive. To survive and to honour his mother's sacrifice. He felt his fear abate, and his trembling body still in cold determination just before rough hands unceremoniously grabbed him and harshly pulled him along. Passing through the white hallways he saw cells with gleaming steel bars lining the walls and glass rooms with nothing in them except metal tables. The padding on the walls kept all the sounds muffled and the only thing that he could hear was the ominous thudding of boots against the gleaming, white linoleum floors. He felt his shoulders tense, but before he could start struggling, a door opened and he was roughly pushed in.

Spencer landed on his hands on knees but his head snapped up when he heard an exuberant exclaim, "Welcome to this Mutant development facility, Spencer. I hope you have been enjoying your stay so far."

The Doctor he met on that day stood towering before him with a genial smile and an outstretched hand. However, the smile he wore froze Spencer completely. He felt his eleven year old heart beat jack-rabbit fast in cold terror, for some reason he could not explain, the amusement twinkling in those eyes and the small smile was nothing but dark and malicious to him. The Doctor -Nathaniel Essex, his mind supplied -must have seen the complete terror on his face, because the next thing he knew he was painfully hauled into a hard, unyielding chest.

He whimpered when a hand grabbed his chin in a bruising grip and he was forced to meet glittering-sharp eyes.

"I don't need to pretend. You see what I am already, haven't you?"

The bruising grip eased and his cheek was caressed in a facsimile gesture of comfort before he was yanked upwards by his hair. Spencer felt a finger trace down the tendons of his neck before a whisper was placed against his collarbone.

"Such a strong first presentation of empathy, my little mouse. It will be amusing to break you and see what other abilities you have hiding inside that beautiful mind…"

Those words struck a chord of absolute terror in him and he struggled with all the power his small body possessed. Spencer swung his fists and kicked out violently, clawing desperately to get away. He felt his fists strike flesh and was instantly dropped in an haphazard sprawl on the ground, but before he could scramble away, Spencer was hauled upwards by his hair and dragged towards the metal table in the middle of the room.

In his single-minded attempt to escape Spencer did not notice the guards rushing in until he felt multiple hands holding him down and heard the dreadful sound of buckles snapping shut. Futilely, he tugged against the leather straps of the metal table he was on, but his muscles spasmed with fatigue. All he could do was tug weakly against the straps digging into his ankles and wrists.

A wave of hopelessness and despair hit him and he screwed his eyes shut when he felt hot, salty tears rolling down his cheeks. His eyes snapped open and he flinched when he felt the Doctor lean in to whisper against his ear,

"You are a feisty one, dear Spencer…but you will regret ever defying me like that."

An involuntary whimper escaped his lips at the ice-cold fury in those words. The next few hours were going to be hell; he was proven right when the Doctor pressed a scalpel against his sternum.

"Let's see how much pain you can take before your survival instincts forces your dormant abilities awake."

That was the last thing he remembered before agonizing pain assaulted his senses and all he could do was scream as the blade dug deeper and deeper. Distantly, he could feel the slick feeling of blood smearing against the metal surface, the cold feeling of the blade against his flesh and the straps digging into his skin. The pain was so excruciating it felt like someone was pouring acid on his nerves and after what seemed like forever the pain finally, blessedly stopped.

Every heaving, sobbing breath sent fire racing through his chest and every twitch made his body feel like it had been run over by a truck; Blinking his dull tear-filled eyes open, Spencer blearily managed to make out the Doctor's looming figure above him.

A sudden agonizing pang of pain yanked his attention down to his mangled chest, and there, sticking out of his chest was the scalpel. Numbly his mind registered that all the skin and flesh around the scalpel was healed. All that was left of the gaping wound was newly-healed, pink and puckered scar tissue.

The edges of his vision started to gray out in distress and Spencer mercifully blacked out before the scalpel was completely yanked out of his newly healed wound.

Spencer lost count of the time he spent in this damn facility. The hours bled into days then months, and before he knew it he had been trapped in the same place for years. Whenever he was on the verge of attempting to escape the guards would automatically come and drag him to another one of the Doctor's sessions, and when the session ended his body would be too weak and in too much pain to move.

At the beginning of his stay, Spencer fervently held onto the hope that he would escape but that flare of hope withered and died when he realized that he couldn't even control the only choice he had left. The choice to decide his own death.

The first and last time he tried to kill himself was when he was twelve years old and a year into his imprisonment in the facility. Spencer had managed to pry a long thin piece of rusted metal from the sink, but instead of using it as a weapon, he found himself staring numbly at the piece of metal before plunging it into his neck.

When he woke up to white walls and the feel of cold metal seeping through a thin mattress, he knew that he had nothing. Not even the right to control his body. The other scientists and Doctor Essex would never let him go, and despair washed over his young mind. From then on, Spencer knew that it was futile, that it was useless to wish for escape. The only thing he had to live for was his ability to heal. To heal himself, but most importantly, to heal others. The only time he felt truly alive, that he felt truly worthwhile were times where he was allowed to heal the wounds of the other mutants there, ease their sufferings and provide some comfort to the dying.

That was all Spencer had to live for until he met someone...Someone who completely changed his world.