No Pain: Book 1

Chapter 14: Star

          I can hear shuffling. The smell of chemical air fills my nose. My eyes are blurry when I peel them open.

"Look whose finally awake." The girl hovering over me is out of focus but I can already tell she's much bigger than me.

"Which facility?" I ask trying to make my body work, but it's sluggish.

"218." She says, we don't have to like each other. Similar abnormalities don't usually get along anyway but there's a code amongst us, the ones that get collected.

"What's your defect?" She asks me, I think she's leaning against the wall. I can't make much detail out yet.

"Fearless." I say "you?" She doesn't say anything yet. She's thinking about telling me the truth. She's considering how long she can hold out the lie.

"No Pain." She says. I look at her even if I can't quite see her. She doesn't fidget or shift around but something is wrong. She's not a no pain, she's something else, something classified as the same type.

"Wakey, wakey." A loud bang, metal against metal, scatters my thoughts. I look toward the sound. I can make out blurry silver bars. A man in the black and white uniform of the collections guards.

"How's the new defect doing?" I think he's looking at me.

"Slow." The other girl walks away from the bars, the bed creaks as she lays on it.

"Ready for your entrance exam?" The guard slides the door open, my eyes still don't work right. My arms still won't move, my legs are still jelly.

"I can't move." I growl at him. He grabs my arm and hauls me to my feet. My legs wobble under me. I order them to support me but they give out and I fall into the guard.

"Sorry, but I'm on the job." He sneers.

"Shut up." I snap trying to push him away but I can't. I feel the anger creeping in. The red will come over me if I don't rein it in now.

"Let's go." The guard drags me out, he doesn't care that I'm stumbling over my feet, that I can barely make out things a foot in front of me.

"Your kind always thinks you can hide." The guard chuckles.

"Made it this far." I quip.

"Yeah, this far." The guard smirks at me, "not any farther."

"We'll see about that." I rub at my eyes and let him drag me across the floor. I'm useless with no body and no eyes. Helpless, this time I really am helpless.

The lights make it worse. The table is not comfortable, the straps are tight, I can feel them digging into my skin. It's more of a relief than it is bothersome right now. It's what I need.

"A rare one indeed." The doctor walks in, he's excited, they enjoy my kind. We don't complain about the pain.

"Now, they have suggested that you're of the no pain variety." He leans over me, he's out of focus but I can make out his grey hair, his aged face. He wears a stethoscope around his neck as if he's a real doctor. He moves down the table and hovers over me, checking me over. His hands prodding at me. Grazing my skin. I hate doctors, I hate their touch. As if they're not touching a human, I suppose we're not human to them.

"Ah, yes." The doctor's hands trail up and down my forearms. I noticed for the first time that my sweater is gone. I feel even more exposed, even more vulnerable.

"I suppose the tight restraints are more helpful to you than anything else." He loosens the straps. I feel the warmth of my own blood slide down my wrists. I can feel it pooling around my hands on the table.

"There we go." The doctor has them just tight enough to hold me still. I want them tighter.

"Now, how have you stayed hidden for so long?" The doctor asks fumbling with his things. "We don't have a record of you anywhere, you've never been caught, you've never been registered."

"My parents love me a lot." I bite out. There is nothing they can do to make me tell them about the others, about the organization.

"Your parents are going to be in more trouble than you." The doctor chuckles as if that's funny. If they were alive, they wouldn't be for long after this.

"We'll just take some blood and track down your family." I feel the needle slide into my vein. That's the strangest thing about no pain. I can feel the actual thing piercing through and moving in. There's no pain to cover the detailed sensations.

"You won't find anything." I warn him, everything was wiped when they took me in. I am no one. I don't exist.

"Interesting that you say that." The doctor muses. "You see, we had another patient in here some years ago, the strangest thing about him was that there wasn't a trace of information on him." The doctor looks at me. My eyes are almost working again.

"Are we going to find the same thing with you?" The doctor rests his hands on the table beside me. I look up at him, I am not afraid of him, what can he do? Torture me? Threaten me?

"Let me know what you find." I say unconcerned. I'll get out eventually. This really isn't that bad. They already loosened the restraints. I can break my thumb, pull my hand out. I don't have to hide what I am, they can't take me down, unless they kill me, but they don't want me dead. They want to use me.

"Oh, I will. But first, let's finish with the samples." The doctor pulls hair, clips nails he even scrapes skin out of my thigh. I hate the feeling, I can feel pieces of me missing.

"That'll do for today, the guard will take you to the cafeteria for some dinner." The doctor wheels' parts of me away Dinner? How long have I been out? I watch the doctor disappear behind the door. I just watch, it's not the right time to escape yet. I don't know the lay out of the building I don't where I am, I don't even know the day. Be patient I tell myself, although those were more words that had been drilled into my head in training. Watch, wait, listen I nod as if they're saying it to me now. I can imagine them on the outside, waiting for me. This is another mission. My team has my back. After this we'll go back to the compound, we'll hang out in our room and watch movies.

The guard comes in a few minutes later and pulls me out. He wheels me to a secure room; straight out and left, the door clicks shut. A beep follows and he releases the restraints. I sit up and offer my wrists.

"Hurry up, would ya?" I'm taunting him. He glares at me and slaps the shackles on my wrists and ankles. They're long on me. I frown at the shackles when I hop down and the chains smack against the floor.

"Comfortable?" He asks as he swipes his card and the door opens. That's not smart I think it won't be too hard to steal a card.

I scoff "Yes, because my comfort is your priority."

"Of course, it is." He shoves me out, the chains catch under my foot and I stumble forward.

"Hurry up, would ya?" He smirks likes he so clever. I resist the urge to hurt him. I want to hurt him. He reminds me of Marco, but all guards are on the same power trip. The other guards are so stupid they can't even tell that their coworker is an abnorm. I smile to myself as I settle into mission mode.