——Jacob——

These people are sick. They brought me to a room to kill a hamster for no reason. When I wouldn't do it, they hit me with a whip. Who does that?

Clearly, that was nothing compared to Jay though. A guard pushes me back in the room before he is, so I recovered from murdering the hamster by then.

When the guards toss him in, I'm at a loss for words.

His hair has blood in it, his face and arms covered with cuts and bruises, and his shirt has rips in it, blood seeping out. Yet, his expression makes it seem like this is an average day in the life of Jay.

As soon as the guard leaves, Jay takes the pills from the drawer out and takes two. He swallows them without any water.

He collapses to the ground, and I instinctively try to catch him, gently setting him down.

Lily gets thrown in, her eyes widening at the sight of Jay.

Sitting up, Jay puts his hand against his forehead.

"You okay there, mate?" Lily asks.

"Yeah, just dizzy."

"Oh, that's just dehydration and starvation, no big deal. Happens to me every day. Oh, wait... Starvation. We don't have food."

"Elliot will come soon."

"When?" I ask.

"I don't know, he has his own obstacles."

"Like?"

"Does it matter?"

"Man, you're even closed off about other people, not only yourself!"

He silently lays back down, ignoring me.

This goes on for the entire week. Each day that passes by gets worse. It's so bad, Jay is barely breathing, not a spot on his skin that isn't covered with blood, scrapes, and bruises. Despite his physical shape, he acts perfectly fine, drawing on his sketchbook most of the time. The scientists also started beating Lily, who has had a few breakdowns from it. I don't know why they haven't done anything to me. Yeah, I had to kill an innocent kitten, but I'm fine.

Two months go by, Elliot stopping by every so often to give us food and water and anything he can smuggle in. After a while, I got the hang of the acronyms Elliot yells in the morning. Cd is check door. Pk is a pain killer. N is nothing. E is education, where Elliot comes, pretending to educate. X is extreme and mostly used before other acronyms to make it more urgent, and so on.

Today is different.

It's another xpk day, and I'm thrown back into the room before Lily and Jay.

My stomach turns as Jay gets thrown in, as it has many times now. Yesterday was an e-day, and Elliot got Jay cleaned up, but he has blood all over himself again. This time, the blood is not the first thing I notice.

For the first time since I've met him, Jay's eyes are glistening, and he's struggling to keep control of himself.

By now, I know not to bother asking anything.

Lily gets thrown in after Jay, still in better shape than he is.

"Where is your humanity?" Jay yells at the guard before he walks out, making the guard turn towards him.

"Do you want to re-do all this again?"

"Why are you doing this? It's been over two months. You have what you want, why do you need us?"

"Elliot didn't tell you guys? The particle worked, good job Alex, but for some people, it's not a good thing. Some people are having weird mutations happen to them instead of powers. Sometimes even death."

"This is why you don't kidnap helpless three-year-olds and torture them. Don't experiment on them because of magic, or for any reasons."

"Blame Nico for that one," The guard says, walking out the door.

"Why," Jay whispers.

"Kidnap helpless three-year-olds and torture and experiment on them because of magic? What?" I ask.

He looks down, the wheels turning in his head.

"Are you ok?"

"What do you think? Is it not obvious enough for you?"

"No, it's not. You're getting hurt, but I don't know why. You won't tell us anything."

"Do you really want to know that badly? Because if I had the choice of not knowing, I would take it without hesitation."

"Yes, I want to know. I don't care how bad it is, I've been asking for two months now."

"Fine, you probably won't believe me. Back when I was three, I saw something."

"I saw something when I was three too, probably not the same thing though," I say, and he glares at me. I shut up.

"I saw a tiger. Not just any wild tiger, but a blue one. Not the tiger that's called blue, but is actually white-ish gray, I mean vibrant blue."

I nod silently.

"Now, I was only three, so what did I know? I followed this unknown animal, never to see my non-existent family again."

"That doesn't make them non-existent," Lily says.

"Stop interrupting. Anyway, so this tiger led me to some portal, which three-year-old me just had to go through. It did nothing, so I tried again. I kept trying until the portal couldn't take it and exploded in my face."

I snort. "Sorry, it's just the way you're describing it is funny."

"That's because, from my point of view, the beginning is funny. Like seriously, this tiny toddler will stop at nothing to go through this random portal which who knows, could lead to death."

I laugh quietly.

"Anyway, before this portal got sick of me and self-destructed, Nico fell out. It turns out, the portal gave me powers, which is what he wanted, so he kidnapped me, as you do. This is where what I thought would be the best day ever, turned into the day that ended my life."

"I like dramatic Jay," I say quietly.

"Being young, of course, I cried and made a fit, but these scientists don't want to deal with a little kids temper-tantrums. So, the genius' they are, they conclude the only option is to cut off one of my fingers and then beat me."

Lily raises her hand. "Then why aren't you missing a finger?"

"Ty fixed it later, but that's not important."

She puts her hand down.

"Anyway, skip a few years, I'm eleven. They have finally made a particle to give them powers, and mass produced it and released it into the air. In the excitement, they forgot to lock the door."

"Wow, they're smart."

"I casually walked out, waving to a few of them on the way out."

I fight back a small smile.

"The tiger helped me find civilization, I begged my way into the school, and a few years later, I'm back where I started."

"That was like a quick summary. I still have no clue what happened to you when you were here before."

  He looks down, and after a torturous minute, takes a deep breath. "They treated me like a slave, but that was ok. They had a reason for that. They knew a subject that never objected was the best subject and worked to make me into a cold monster."

"You're not a monster Jay," I say, but he ignores me.

"That wasn't what cut the deepest. It was their words. 'He's not ready yet,' 'he can't do it,' 'give him another test instead.' They didn't even regard me as human, they called me 'the thing.' Not him, not even it, thing. And they made fun of Elliot. They would walk by, purposely timing it so I would hear them say things like 'Don't you just hate Elliot? Why does he even bother to help the thing? We're going to kill it anyway.'"

I stare at him, my mouth agape.

"And Nico...He—He raped me...Many times."

"Jay..."

"Night after night, I wondered why I had to be the one to find the tiger. When I was five, one night, I was laying there telling myself I wasn't good enough, and that I never would be. I told myself there was no reason to endure the suffering, and there were only two ways out. Suffer for eternity, or to end it."

"Oh god, J—"

"That's when I snapped. I took the knife that was in that drawer, and still is there, and pointed it at myself. Standing there, I willed myself to just do it, but I couldn't. I broke down, but after a while, I stopped crying. Something inside me changed, and I didn't feel anything after that. I was just empty."

"Jay, s—" I start, but he continues.

"But someone heard me break down, and went to tell Nico. The next day, when they tortured me, I didn't feel it. No pain, no wanting to escape, n—"

"Jay, stop," I yell, startling Jay enough to make him stop. "Are you saying that you stopped feeling everything when you were five?"

"Y-yeah."

"Number one, that's a lie. Number two, thinking that will only make it true. And number three...There is no number three, sorry."

"How is that a lie? No, it's not. I tell you the more about myself than I ever have before, and you say I'm lying?"

"Frustration and anger are feelings."

"Oh, so it's better to live your life in frustration, anger, and fear? I still have that knife you know."

"Stop talking about suicide! I was just pointing out an example."

"There's only two ways through this place..."

"Jay, seriously, please stop with the suicide," I say, my throat tightening as a tear forms, but I blink it back.

"Why? It's the truth."

"Because you don't know what it's like to have someone you care about kill themselves," I yell, a tear getting past my defenses, my tone making Jay back away from me. I close my eyes, trying to calm myself down. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell. It—"

"Why did they do it?" Lily asks.

"Because they liked me. I mean, liked liked."

"And?"

"I didn't feel the same way, I couldn't. I'm gay, and she knew that, and it broke her every day, seeing me but not being able to be with me. So she killed herself, because of me."

"That's it?" Jay says.

"Yes." A few more tears find their way down my cheeks. "Not all of us have your type of problems, Jay. We don't know how bad it could be, and how lucky we are, ok? Someone killed themselves, and I could've stopped her. So you do not get to do that to me as well. I've had too many people leave me."

"Who else?" Lily asks.

"D-does it really m-matter?" I don't fight the tears anymore, and they come pouring out.

Jay sits up, his eyes dilating. Lily does the same thing, perking up. He pulls me towards him, putting a hand over my mouth. "Someone's coming."

I tug his hand away, biting my lip to keep myself quiet.

"Pretend to be asleep," Lily says, and Jay nods. We all lay down, my heart racing. I don't know if it's because of fear or because of Jay's warmth spreading to me. His heart also races, but it's definitely fear, not my presence.

"They're all sound asleep, sir," Mr. Wells says.

"You sure I can't check, Gareth?"

"Yes, I'm sure. You will wake them, sir."

"Ok then."

Footsteps fade away slowly, none of us moving a muscle until they're gone. Our previous conversation fades from my memory.

We all think the same thing: Gareth covered for us.

Jay pushes himself away from me, leaving me cold. I move back to him, burying my head against his chest. He exhales slowly, knowing I won't give up. Every movement he makes sends tingles down my spine. I don't care if he can feel my heartbeat that might burst out of me, I'm not going to try denying my feelings towards him.

He mindlessly twirls a strand of my hair around his fingers, electricity shooting across my body. My heart somersaults as he surprisingly relaxes, and soon falls asleep. For the first time since we were here, he doesn't toss and turn.

When I finally fall asleep, I have one of the best dreams I ever have, excluding the girl killing herself to finish it.