𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐀𝐆𝐄━━━━Five Hargreeves

1

❝ The escape from hell ❞

Red lights flashed overhead, bathing the entire corridor blood red. Alarms were sure to be ringing, but all he could hear was the blood rushing in his ears and his heart racing in his chest.

What had he done? What the fuck was he thinking?

His hands were slick with blood, it dripped down on the gray concrete floor and he almost slipped on it. The smell of it was clogging his nose, making his head spin.

What had he done?

His chest felt like someone was crushing him under a hydraulic pressure machine, squeezing him until all that remained was blood and bones.

His hands shook, his head felt too light for his body, like he wasn't even aware of what was happening. He felt like he was a helium balloon, the string clasped in a child's hand and then the child had accidentally let him go. But also... everything felt right for the first time.

It was a peculiar feeling, a welcome one— the adrenaline coursing through him as he ran for his life. He probably shouldn't be enjoying this as much as he was.

He felt alive. Yes, that's the word. 

Alive.

Thirty fucking years and this was the first time he truly felt alive.

Sure, he trained and fought and learned and ate and lived. But he never felt alive, more like a zombie— a robot, just following orders. And now? Freedom... almost.

"Subject is in sector 3, corridor 4, almost to the East entrance—" The PA system blared overhead. "Nearby units, converge on his location"

Shit.

But he held hope. Almost to the East entrance, huh?

He rounded the corner and ran into three guards. They all went sprawling like bowling pins, Alex landed on top of one of them and as soon as he realized what was happening, he scrambled until his back hit a wall.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

The guards reached for their guns and got to their feet.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

"Hello" He waved. Then his entire left side erupted in pain like a hot spike was embedded in his ribs. Ah yes, the stab wound, how could he forget that? "Lovely weather for this time of the year, right? I wouldn't know, I've never even seen the sun"

Rotting away in an underground bunker for thirty years is no one's idea of fun, especially not Alexander's.

He should have felt them before he saw them, but he had been too busy thinking of the blood coating him. He didn't want to do this, he really didn't.

Why couldn't they just understand that he wanted to be treated as a human, to live his life. Why would they do this? Thirty years and he still had no answers.

All three of the guards turned to him, guns trained on his chest.

"Subject, get back in your cell and we don't have to do something we don't want to" Said the woman— the middle one. She looked hesitant to kill him.

"I have a name, you know?"

"I regret telling you your mom wanted to call you that, Alexander" Jackson. Ah. Of fucking course the man on the left was Jackson.

He was older, had been with Alexander since he was born. Jackson. Was it a last name? A first name? No idea. He only knew that the other soldiers called him that.