"Let me go!" One yelled, pushing and pulling against the restraints that held her. She was strapped from head to toe on a hard plastic bed with the two guards and Dr. Brenner looming over her.

"I don't think so," Dr. Brenner said with an unnerving calmness to his voice. "And in case you get any ideas again, the bed is posted to the walls. Portals won't get you anywhere."

One stretched her neck as far as it would go and let out a defeated sigh when she saw that Dr. Brenner was telling the truth. Plastic poles extended from each side of the bed to the cement walls surrounding her. Dr. Brenner seemed to have prepared himself in advance for her attempted escape. She wondered if he had precautions like this for every subject.

Subject.

Seven.

Wherever he was she hoped his situation didn't look as bleak as hers.

"You've been a real disappointment to me, One." The strap running across her forehead limited her ability to see so she could only tell Dr. Brenner's location by his voice. He seemed to be pacing because his voice was coming from everywhere. "We were supposed to do great things together. We were supposed to save the world."

The hands of the guards came into view as they began to stick nodes around her face and on her arms and legs. Wires extended from them to an unknown source. A cold spot moved from her chest to her stomach as she tried to imagine where they went.

"What are those?" One's voice trembled.

"Something to help you learn discipline," Dr. Brenner answered. "This will return things to back to normal."

Dr. Brenner once again moved out of a sight and One could hear a click followed by the humming of a machine. A surge of electricity filled the room and made every hair on her body stand on end.

One of the guards wedged her mouth open and shoved a plastic mouth guard inside. Unable to move her mouth, all signs of fear now resonated in her eyes, which were opened so wide they felt like they'd burst. She had an idea of what those wires led to.

A volt of electricity ripped through her body and confirmed her fears. Her body convulsed so much that it nearly tore through the straps. A scream managed to make its way around the mouth guard and into the dense air.

There was a moment's reprieve as the electricity fulfilled its circuit. One managed to get a deep breath out before another jolt consumed her. The cycle repeated itself over and over for an indeterminate amount of time. Each time it felt like the currents were getting stronger. Dr. Brenner was probably turning up the voltage.

An anger burned in her that was almost as fierce as the electricity tearing her body apart. None of this was her fault. It was his. Dr. Brenner had abducted her, experimented on her, physically and verbally abused her, neglected her, abandoned her...This would end.

A tingling sensation of power began to fill her chest and dance along to the ends of her limbs. She tuned into it and began to imagine the brown house once more. Maybe she was strapped to a bed and that bed was attached to the walls but that wouldn't stop her. She'd take the whole damn room with her if she had to.

One's eyes were glued shut while she tried to envision every little detail about the brown house. She knew now that this must be home. It'd be up to her to determine if Dr. Brenner had been telling the truth about her family. As she was doing this the electricity in the room began to amplify, and it wasn't because Dr. Brenner was turning up the voltage.

Brown house.

White snow.

Wooden fence.

Family.

Her eyes still remained shut even when she heard cries of shock from Dr. Brenner and the two guards. She could still feel electricity rippling through her body and at first she assumed that Dr. Brenner had sent another volt through her but then she realized that this electricity felt different. It wasn't hurting her, it felt like more of a tickle. Had she become numb?

Curiosity drove One's eyes open and she repeated a similar cry of shock when she looked at her hands. There was bright blue electricity running up and down her fingers, jumping from tip to tip in an ever changing ball of energy. Was it her doing that?

She willed it to stop and it did so instantaneously. She then summoned it again and jumped back from the straps when it obeyed. She had a new power.

In both fear and fury, Dr. Brenner sent another volt through the machine, but once again One didn't feel it. It just made the electric webs in her hands grow larger.

A crack of electricity ran from her hands up the length of the bed and cut through the straps holding her. The singed material fell away as One lifted her body off the hard plastic. She ripped the nodes off her skin and threw them aside while maintaining fierce eye contact with Dr. Brenner.

"Stay where you are, One!" Dr. Brenner ordered. A tinge of fear rippled through his voice and in that moment One knew that he had no control over her anymore.

"No," One replied, relishing in the power of the word as it echoed around the room. She had forgotten how good that word felt.

She pushed herself off the bed and took a few purposeful steps towards the door. She could sense the guards behind her but when she spun on her heel to meet them they cowered back a step. The blue light coming from her hands was the only reflection she could see in their eyes.

"Idiots!" she heard Dr. Brenner mutter as he pushed through the guards. But he, too, maintained a safe distance from her. "You have nothing out there!"

"I have nothing in here," One responded coldly. One noticed a pang of pain in Dr. Brenner's eyes. Was he actually hurt that she considered him to be nothing to her?

"What about Seven?"

One's knees froze mid-step and the electricity generating from her hands faltered for a split second. A small smile snuck into the corner of Dr. Brenner's mouth when he saw that he had found her weak spot.

"I know about the friendship you two developed," Dr. Brenner said. He became braver and took a step towards her. "How you would visit him with your portals. Is he not important to you? Is he nothing?"

"What have you done with him?" One said quietly with a strong power underlying her words. The blue light flared in her hands and sent the hairs up her arms on end.

Dr. Brenner's smile turned from triumphant to sinister. "He's not going anywhere and neither are you."

One felt the electricity ball up in her chest and flow through her veins to the ends of her limbs. Her irises returned to their original bright blue color from the gray they had dulled into. If you looked close enough, they even seemed to glow like the lights from her hands.

"You."

Her face twisted into rage...

"Are."

She lifted her left hand and pointed it at Dr. Brenner...

"NOTHING!"

The ball of energy growing in her chest shot forth from her hand and struck Dr. Brenner, sending him to the ground in a fit of convulsions. The two guards were caught by stray bolts that jumped off Dr. Brenner. They too, fell.

One headed for the door, for her freedom, but before she left she glanced back at Dr. Brenner one last time. She no longer looked up to him, or felt the need to chase after his admiration. She felt nothing but pity for the man that she had once considered to be her Papa.

She sprinted out the door and down the hallways of the Lab calling for Seven. She knew that at any minute the rest of the Lab personnel would be hunting her down. She didn't have time to look behind each and every door.

"SEVEN!" One cried desperately after reaching the last hallway. "Seven, please."

When she still didn't hear a response she collapsed at the last door at the end of the hallway. She was physically exhausted from summoning her new power and mentally exhausted from all the new information she had learned. She just wanted familiarity and comfort. She just wanted her friend.

A knock rung by One's ear from the other side of the door and sent her skidding across to the opposite side of the hallway in surprise. One's knees shook as she slowly lifted herself to her feet. She stopped just before her eyes were even with the window and took a deep breath before peering in.

A pair of dark brown eyes met her on the other side. She would have screamed in shock but she recognized those eyes. She knew those eyes. It was Seven!

"Seven!" One shouted and slammed her hands against the door as if to break through the wood and reach his. Tears of relief flooded her cheeks and dripped past her smile.

"Who are you?" he asked curiously, sending One's sobs to a sudden halt. The syringe. They had done it. They had wiped his memories, including all the ones of her. Just like his family, she was gone.

"Seven, it's me! One!" Her eyes begged him to recognize her but his eyes only replied with confusion.

A shout came from down the hallway and One could hear the clap of shoes following after. It wouldn't be long before the hallway would be flooded with everyone who worked in the Lab. One opened a portal through the door and quickly jumped inside, her foot disappearing just before a group of guards rounded the corner.

"Do I know you?" Seven acted a little shocked when he watched her teleport from outside his door to right behind him, but One didn't have time to explain. She knew what she had to do.

"We need to go," One said determinedly. "Now."

"Go where?"

"Anywhere but here."

"But Papa..." Seven began before One cut him short with a cold glare.

"We don't have a Papa anymore." The severity of One's tone told Seven not to press the matter any further.

One tried to concentrate on opening a portal out of there. She pictured her brown house once more but her focus was thrown off by Seven's following remark, "I'm not going anywhere."

"She's gotta be down here!" a shout came from the hallway. They would find her any minute.

"You have to, Seven," One pleaded. "You're my friend!"

"I don't know you!" Seven shouted. Goosebumps filled One's arms and legs at the volume of his voice. She tried to shush him but he only got louder as she got closer to him. "Get away from me!"

"Down there, in that room!" the voices from the hallway yelled.

"I'm trying to save you!" One begged him to believe her but he kept backing away.

"I don't need saving!" Seven shouted angrily.

One's peripherals caught a man's face in the window. "There she is!"

She would not lose everything. Not again.

In exactly thirty heartbeats, the following occurred:

1. One focused everything she had on a way out, on the brown house.

2. She grabbed Seven's wrist with a strength she didn't recognize but didn't question. He was coming with whether he liked it or not.

3. The door to the room broke off its hinges as a crowd of men and women with assorted weaponry pushed their way through.

4. A portal finally opened behind One and Seven. She did not have time to look at what was in it before she pushed them through it.

5. They fell.

6. Darkness. Ash. Monsters.

★ ☆ ★  ☆ ★