Heart Rules All

The room was pitch black; not a speck of light was visible inside. A boy huddled in the fetal position against one of the walls. His mind was jumbled and broken from many deadly experiments. The boy could not concentrate on any single thought for more than a hands breadth of seconds. Each thought that passed through his mind was fleeting and simple.

A single night vision camera watched the boys every movement from its mounting high in one of the corners in the room. It connected to a monitoring system in a nearby room where an old man sat in a hard backed chair gazing at the monitor intently. An arthritic hand hovered over a large intercom button on the steel desk before him. With a sigh he let his hand fall and began to speak.

"This is Doctor Martin," the boy flinched but was otherwise still. "Today is your final Test. If you pass it then you shall be free to leave."

Severing the com link, the man then pressed a series of buttons beside on the console in front of him. one set unlocked the doors to the boys room and the other paged the doctors who executed most of the boys experiments. He then left the cold, sparse room, to prepare for this end of all tests. His dread over the task to be done was concealed behind a cold mask of indifference.

The two doctors, both burly men reaching over six foot tall, entered the boys' room and lifted the boy easily off the floor by his arms. They carried him out of his room into the blinding light of the pristine white hallway and carried him into a room fifty or so feet from his own. They dropped him unceremoniously on the floor and exited the room, locking it behind him. The ominous click of the lock falling into place was like a pin dropping in a room void of silence; deafening.

The boy shifted himself and sat up, aware of his new surroundings, but still didn't dwell on it. It was the same four-walled white room that he had seen every day for his fifteen years of existence. After a cursory inspection his mind drifted off again into its tide of unconnected jumbles. For how long this occurred he couldn't say, but eventually his nose caught the scent of pine needles and piqued his interest. There was something else in the room with him.

He glanced around the room and his eyes fell on a young woman sitting in a straight-backed wooden chair in the middle of the room. Her piercing green eyes watched him carefully from behind a tangled mass of long blonde hair. Her face was fair, though very pale. She wore a plain green dress that looked as if it hadn't been washed in many days. But still, as he looked at her his mind came up with a sentence that he felt matched her perfectly. She is beautiful.

"What is your name?" she asked disdainfully.

He jumped at the sound of her voice. "A-a- aiden."

"Do you always stutter like that?" she asked.

"N-no. I just don't t-talk a lot" he replied.

"Well quit it. Its getting on my nerves. And come untie these damned ropes around my wrists."

For the first time he noticed that her hands were indeed tied behind her back. He moved behind her and began struggling to pick the knots apart. Her scent was stronger being this close to her, but he liked it. He didn't know why, but the scent gave him a sense of longing that he couldn't place. Finally he got the knots undone and unwrapped the rope from her hands.

"I f-forgot to ask your name miss. What is it?" Aiden queried.

The girl stretched for a moment before turning around and tilting her head slightly, "My name is Neliel. You can call me Nel though if you'd prefer."

He liked the sound of her voice. To him it was a musical melody, though he had never heard even a single note of song. He stepped close to her and cupped her face in his hands. Her body went rigid but it felt right to him so he did not let go. He slowly leaned in and pressed his lips to hers. His lips tingled and he felt warmth spread through his body that he had never experienced before. Her body softened as she wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned into him.