Pain.

It's all I've ever known. All I'll ever know.

I'm never getting out of here. This is my life now. I'm not mad; I'm used to the suffering.

I don't know of a world outside of these walls; was it all cold and dark out there too?

Relentless.

That's what they were; I didn't even know who they were.

What had I done to deserve this? What had I done to make them hate me so much? To make them want to do all these terrible things to me.

Did everyone go through this?

Was this normal?

I prayed every day that there would be an escape. That hope existed outside of these walls.

Then I began to lose hope and faith. What kind of god would allow this torture to happen? What kind of god would create a world with such awful human beings?

There wasn't a god in my eyes. Yet I still prayed. I still held onto the tiny sliver of hope that remained.

A loud slam shook the room. I lifted my heavy head and painfully forced open my swollen eye to see a masked man in front of me.

No, I couldn't see his face, but I could tell he had a sinister grin on his face. They enjoyed this. They got off on the pain they inflicted.

Footsteps approached me and my jaw was taken into his hand as he lifted my chin up to his eye line.

I groan in pain as I am forced to stand. I try to hold my side to ease the ache, but my hands remain restricted behind my back.

The rope began to cut its way into the skin of my wrists. Each movement felt like razor-sharp knives running up my veins.

I was thrown to the corner of the room and then pinned to the wall. Punches were thrown to my stomach, striking a scar from a previous attack, causing me to collapse. The impact of hard metal impacting my face knocked me to my hands and knees.

Tilting up my head again, his thumb ran over my bottom lip, causing a sharp stinging sensation as he did. "You're bleeding all over my floor," he said, then delivered a hard kick to my ribs, followed by several more blows.

Now I lay flat on the floor, a metallic taste in my mouth that I had grown accustomed to; I was becoming numb to the pain they inflicted, and they were aware of it. So they proceeded to find new ways to punish me.

Knives and fire were their favourites. Burns and slashes are scattered in a variety of different places. Leaving scars all over my body, mind, and heart.

As if their tests and experiments weren't enough to please them. I wasn't perfect enough for them. I wasn't dangerous enough.

My skin didn't feel like mine anymore, at least not the skin I remembered.

I don't remember much of my life before I was here. Not much at all, actually. My name stuck with me; it was the only thing they let me keep. They told me I belonged to them. I am their property now.

I'm 18 years old, and I have blue and brown eyes, which are said to be quite rare but that I didn't inherit.

No, when I was born, I had the brightest of blue eyes. Their experiments tainted that blue; it was now a dim, almost grey colour, and my right eye now has the deepest brown washing over the once piercing blue colour.

My almost black-coloured hair fell down over my eyes; it was thick and knotted. They only ever cut it if it was necessary for experiments. They didn't mind my outward appearance as long as I was their perfect, obedient killing machine.

In some ways, I'm thankful. Thankful that none of their experiments have worked. Thankful for the pain and torcher because it told me I was still human. Still me.

That was what frightened me the most. It wasn't that I would be forced to hurt people if their tests were successful. It was that once they got their way, I would be theirs. I would be brainwashed. I'd lose myself, lose the slightest amount of control I had left.

I would endure this torture if it meant nobody else got hurt. I'd be thankful, as long as I was still me. Nobody else.

Yet I have yet to figure out who I really am. Who I'm meant to be.

~~~

Once again, I was back in their experimental lair. chained up and drugged to the brink of unconsciousness.

A sharp sting struck my neck, and my skin quickly became hot, unbearably hot. I couldn't move. I couldn't fight it. I had to endure it.

What feels like hours of writhing pain soon fades. I was unchained and thrown onto a table. I was chained down again, the cold, harsh metal hitting my back, slightly easing the burning sensation.

This was when a doctor came over. She looked over at me and shook her head. "It's almost certainly a broken rib or two. Internal bleeding will be an issue; he will require a few stitches here and there," she paused with a sigh. "He'll bleed out in a matter of hours," she said quietly.

A harsh and dominant tone rang through my ears, "Proceed with the check-up doctor."

"Did you have to be so rough? He complies with everything you ask him to. He doesn't need to be beaten every day. You're killing him!" She protests, and I feel a cold rod of metal being placed into my hand.

Not even seconds later, there was an ear-piercing bang followed by a thud to the floor, causing me to flinch harshly as the metal rod almost slipped from my hand before I caught it at the tip, slicing a small cut on my finger. "Why do people have to go and make such stupid decisions? Pathetic little bitch."

Rapid beeping came from above my head as my chest rose and fell uncontrollably. I opened my eyes once more and saw a man above me. He had no mask.

"This is what happens when you don't listen to orders," I felt a hand grip my shoulder, "now where were we?"

Despite being restrained, I gripped the metal rod's pointed end and forcefully stabbed the man who was leaning over me in the thigh.

He exclaimed and shouted a loud curse word: "You little shit!" Two hands wrapped around my throat, blocking my airways, and the rod was knocked from my grasp.

"You're going to regret that!" I squirmed in his grasp, attempting to break free before he was pushed off of me.

"Stop! You're going to ruin everything if you kill him."

"He is our greatest creation!"

Creation?

Is that what I was?

~~~

Chapter 1 is complete. It was a pretty heavy start there, but why not get straight into the action? Now you have all met Atlas and seen what he has had to go through. I bet you are all eager to meet the beautiful goddess Aphrodite.

These chapters will be released weekly to give me enough time to get them written, rewritten, edited and so on. I hope you all are excited for Chapter 2! :)