The Algorithm

Chapter twenty-four - Cold Truths

Everything happened in fragments.

She was only able to hold onto flashes of what happened that night. Like a puzzle missing half its pieces.

But the small details didn't matter much anyway, they were all forgotten when the first bomb hit.

Marinette woke up to cold sweat and the sound of snoring. Adrien had been making appearances in her nightmares for some time now.

She glanced at the clock on the far side of the barracks. It was 5 AM, training would start for another hour. She rejected the thought of going back to sleep, the dream would just pick up where it left off, with Adrien dying and Marinette unable to save him.

"It was just a dream." She reminded herself.

Still, it echoed in her mind...

She screamed as they dragged her through the darkness. Choked sobs echoed down the halls in a desperate cry for help. She thrashed and kicked but to no avail. She was only twelve and starving, what little strength she had did little to the soldiers surrounding her.

After what felt like hours, the Akuma troops finally got to their destination. A door opened with a metallic whine and they forced Marinette in despite her screams.

Cold pricked her skin. There was a dim light hanging from a cord which illuminated the room just enough for Marinette to see her breath fog. She was trembling, not just from the bone-chilling cold, but fear. Instead of her Akuma-issued uniform and leather boots, she wore nothing but a flimsy hospital gown. Her bare feet threaded across the concrete floor as she made her way to the single light bulb. She would do anything to get away from the dark.

As she put one foot in front of the other, she slipped. She fell to the floor in a puddle of liquid. It was warm and for a moment Marinette relished the feeling until she smelled the suffocating stench of blood.

Dozens of light bulbs on cords started to fall from the ceiling like bungee jumpers, forcing out the darkness and rescuing Marinette from the shadows. Little did she know what waited for her in the light was much worse.

Her hair was sticky with blood and the white cloth of the hospital gown was stained red. She searched the room for something, anything, to save her from whatever form of torture this was. But all she found was Adrien laying on the floor in a hospital gown, his back sliced down the middle and metal where there should have been bone.

Marinette was bathing in blood.

His blood.

Marinette shook off the dream. She wanted to sob, but she didn't. She got up, careful to not wake the others in the barracks, and showered off the imaginary blood. It wasn't the worst of her dreams, she once had one where his head was rolled across the floor to her like a bowling ball, or they were once chained together with his screaming how much he hated her while strangling her with the metal rope. When she woke she could hardly breathe as if the chain was still wrapped around her throat in a deadly noose, his words echoing in her mind like a sadistic cry.

"I HATE YOU"

"It was just a dream" She repeated.

A single tear fell but she wiped it away with a towel and got dressed. The training was a blur, it always was. Only flashes of what had happened that day accompanied her.

Alarms.

The whistling of bombs plummeting.

Adrien's hand in hers.