⁰⁰     ▇ ¨. ༢ ͎۪۫ 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒖𝒆 ... ❜

━━  ❛  𝒈𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒍𝒆 𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒏. ❜  ‧˖˚. ☄︎ ͎۪۫ ◞⁺.
❪ part 00. location: unknown.
©kiiizones, all rights reserved ❫.

𝑰𝑻 𝑾𝑨𝑺 𝑹𝑨𝑰𝑵𝑰𝑵𝑮 on the day that Oliver's father died.

The rain had been unusually gentle. The weather usually came only in extreme forms, and rain this gentle hadn't been seen for almost a year. Come to think of it, it hadn't rained at all for almost a year.

At the time he remembered asking to go outside and play with the other children in the street. His father had said no. Oliver remembered feeling such a blinding-hot surge of hatred for him in that moment. And if he had a chance to go back he would have changed everything that he had said that day.

He had gone upstairs to his bedroom and slammed the door. He remembered his mother poking her head in to ask if he was alright; he remembered cursing out his father using words that made her lift a hand to her mouth in shock. He would always remember that look on her face.

He had been angry at his father for many, what seemed like justifiable, reasons. Angry because in a world where a complete family was as scarce and unusual as gentle rain, his father seemed to take no notice of the fact that he had a son. His attention, if ever diverted from the hard pull of his work, would only ever go to his daughter.

Oliver had gotten over his snap of anger towards his younger sister. She could barely walk, let alone impress his father more than he could. His father only loved her because he saw her as someone who needed to be protected. Oliver had always thought with a twinge of painful satisfaction that his father did not show him the same attention simply because he knew that his son was strong enough to fight on his own, and did not need his protection.

But Oliver had always wanted his protection. Even if he hadn't needed it.

At fourteen years old, he knew that he was tall for his age. He knew that he was handsome too, either that or massively deformed, from the way that the girls would giggle and wave at him in the hallways at school. Even if physical contact was punishable by expulsion. He liked it when they swooned over him. Sometimes he would wave back, and they would all herd together like an odd flock of birds to gush and giggle. At school, people treated him like he was worth something, even if it was only his looks they were interested in.

At home, his father treated him like he was worth nothing. He didn't even shout or strike his son, which would be comforting to Oliver if only to know that his father could actually see that he existed. But whenever he spoke to him, it was polite, and strict, and formal. As if he were having a conversation with someone he did not know at all.

He had been a doctor, his father. Years ago, he had worked for WCKD, and they had lived inside a city, safe from infection and safe from the storms, in a nice apartment. There had been a school there, for people like him, for children that weren't immune. He had made so many friends. Everything had been going perfect.

And then one day his father had come home in a thundering rage; he had told them both, he too young to remember it in much detail, and his mother heavily pregnant with his sister, to pack a bag with only necessities. No toys or books allowed at all. And they had left that night, under the cover of darkness, as if they were escaping a prison instead of a paradise.

But his father, despite his desperation to escape WCKD, had not given up his work. Oliver supposed that most doctors must have thought like him. Like they were going to be the one to find the cure. As if his father, in their piteous basement, with damp all up the walls and barely enough running electricity to power a lamp, could find what WCKD had been looking for for almost decades. With all their technology and their microscopes and their experiments.

He remembered hearing him shout at his mother once, for trying to get him to eat something. He had said something dramatic like, "I'll eat when I find this goddamned cure!" And then he had locked himself in the basement and stayed there for what felt like days.

His experiments were often wild and unsafe and dangerous. He would try and mediate his own version of the Flare virus in order to have something to cure properly, and that in itself was dangerous.

Oliver would discover that his father had been harbouring the body parts of the infected so that he could have something real and integral and worthy to experiment on. He would discover that his father had been forced to experiment on himself, so as to not draw attention to the fact that he was breaking the law. He would discover his father had been killing himself, not purposefully, but by trying to cure a disease that seemed all-too incurable. He would discover all this soon, but in that moment, when it happened, he had had no idea. No idea what his father would bring upon his family.

Oliver remembered hearing the screams first. It was awful, and he had thought that someone had broken in, a Crank, maybe, and was trying to kill his father.

At the time he had seized up the nearest thing to him, a baseball bat that had been snapped in half, with the jagged end taped over to try and stop him from getting splinters. He had thought that this could be his moment, that he would go down there and kill whatever was torturing his father, and save his life. And then, maybe, his father would finally see him. Maybe even hug him. The thought was so overwhelming that Oliver had raced downstairs without thinking.

His mother and sister were nowhere in sight, upstairs hiding, probably. With a swell of pride Oliver had silently declared himself the man of the house, the hero, the one to save his father. He had raced down the steps to the basement, wielding his baseball bat. But all thoughts of rescuing his father and saving the day were gone from his head as he kicked the door open.

The first thing that hit him was the smell. It smelled like burning, rancid flesh, and vomit, and blood, and decay. The second thing that hit him was that there was nobody else in the room, and that the screaming had stopped.

The third thing that hit him was the body of the man that he assumed must have been his father. He did not look like his father now; his skin was black and patchy as if it had been scorched, crawling with purple and red and blue veins. He lay slumped against the desk in front of him, the surface a mess of paper-stacks and test-tubes and what looked like string from a distance, but what, upon closer inspection, Oliver realised to be bits of human insides.

The final thing that hit him was the fact that his father's skull was split open in an explosion of bone-shards and blood that was almost black. And that the ceiling and the walls were splattered with his brains.

Oliver remembered the baseball bat dropping to the floor as he slumped to his knees. He remembered throwing up all that he possibly could, until all he could throw up was blood and spit. He remembered screaming, too, screaming so loudly that he wondered if the ground was shaking because of him.

But the ground was shaking because of the stampede of people that came flooding into the basement. Everything was loud and too-bright and chaos, all of a sudden, and Oliver remembered being too shocked to cry. He remembered someone's arms, a man's, lifting him up, hauling him up the stairs, chucking him onto the floor.

He remembered lying there for what felt like hours, with his face against the warm wood and sawdust.

He remembered a woman picking him up gently, but one that wasn't his mother. She had a kind face, and a kind voice, and she had put a hand on his shoulder.

"What's your name?" She'd asked.

"Oliver." He had heard himself reply.

She smiled at him, kindly and softly, and said, "I think we'll take him."

And then suddenly, a man was grabbing his arms again, and hauling him into the air, and Oliver remembered screaming, screaming for his mother and his sister, and he remembered seeing them in an unconscious heap on the floor, with men prodding them, his little sister with her hair fanned out against her face, with the ends of their guns.

He remembered wanting to throw up again, wanting to lash out, trying to kick at the man who was holding him. But it was no use.

He remembered the hot rain falling onto him as the man carried him outside. He remembered them throwing him into the back of the van, and the kind-faced woman climbing in after him, and then another man in all black.

The last thing Oliver saw before he passed out were the initials stamped into his uniform, thick and ugly and flaring like a signal fire against the darkness of the van.

WCKD.

     ⁰⁰ ❛ 𝒂𝒖𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒓'𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒆 . . .☄︎ ⋆࿐໋ ˖

          a very dramatic opening but i feel like if u've read the first book you'll know by now that most of my work is just dramatics. i'd love to hear your thoughts on the prologue, i feel bad for oliver even tho i'm literally the one torturing him muhahaha ... i rly hope you enjoyed! C1 is coming tomorrow!

love, 𝒓𝒊𝒓𝒊. *♡・.