Chapter 2.5

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Darius 'Tsien

"Mommy, why?" Tears threatened to fall from Darius' red rimmed eyes. His brown eyes were agape, meeting the woman's identical brown ones. She pried her gaze off him, pushing her child away. He furrowed his eyebrows, this situation  was all too foreign for him.

"You have to, Darius," the woman looked past him, not at her own son, but the men in the grey uniform. She nodded at them, and they replied by taking her son under his arms.

"No! Why do I need to do this? Are you leaving, mommy?" He tugged on his mom's shirt, sniffing with his red nose. The tears on the corners of his eyes streamed down his face in a cascade, his other hand wiping it.

But it won't stop.

His hands flailed as the uniformed men gave him a rough pull from under his arm. Darius let out an agonizing cry, elbowing them. He sprinted towards his mom, only to fall in the process. "Take me with you, mommy!" He begged on his knees, holding on her shoes.

"No," her voice came out as cold as ice, and it had the same effect on Darius. He froze, just  before he thawed completely into shattered pieces. "Don't be childish. Boys are not supposed to cry, Darius,"

**

Darius jolts at the memory.

His yellow eyes shoot open, red rimmed  with stray tears on each corner. He blinks a few times, but the previous images of the memory came in alternating short snippets. He looks around. White walls surround him, and they seem to enclose towards him wenever he diverts his attention away. The distinct smell of disinfectant tugs at his nose and he feels his pain receptors slowly responding to his open wounds.  The violent beep beep beep of the heart monitor alerts the other people in the white lab uniform.

"Subject is experiencing increasing levels of heart rate," A female computerized voice announces.

"Subject 16A is conscious, sir," one of the females in the white lab coats alerts.

Darius looks down. His trembling hands were a pale white color, his blue veins jutting out in contrast. He stares at his palm. They are wide and his fingers are long. The size of a teenager's.

"It's just a dream. It's just a dream. I am 16, not 11," He bites down his pale lip.

"We're not finished yet. Get him some anesthesia," a man says.

"Yes, doc," the woman proceeds with a needle on her hand, but Darius' eyes are glued on his lap. He raises his hand to wipe them, before the doctor stops him.

"Don't move. Lie down," he commands, and Darius does what he says. He twitches when a woman injects him with a syringe filled with a certain liquid. And he drifts off again.

The moment that he wakes up, the entire room is empty of other Subjects. "What kind of sick trick did they try on me?" Darius thinks to himself,  but shrugs the thought away. He doesn't want to know if the days he have left are exactly predictable by numbers. Even if it's that way, he doesn't want to live with the terror haunting him.

The people in the white lab uniform huddle in one corner over a holographic wall of text. They exchange nods and thoughts with each other, while Darius thinks it's hardly decipherable. Well, what does he know? He's just a Subject after all.

"Excuse me, I need to go back to my quarters," Darius breaks their trance, and a woman comes to his side to help him.

She lifts all of the tubes attached to his body and covers up several wounds on his body. He nods and gives her a curt 'thank you' as he leaves the Experiment Room. The place he hates the most.

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