(Warning ⚠️: Mention/Description of blood.)

I wake up to the sound of banging to my room. I would call it a bedroom, but there is close to nothing in this room, only a bucket to do my business in. I have no bed or blanket. I sleep on the cold concrete floor. The whole room is just an empty and depressing looking gray colored room. I painfully grunt as I sit up from the floor that I was lying on. My whole body aches from cuts and bruises as I was beaten one or two days ago. I'm not sure. Time is irrelevant.

My body is healing quickly as I see some bruises starting to fade, but they feel quite numb, just like how most of my face feels numb from bruises. Cuts from a knife have closed off, no more small trails of blood spilling out, but the wounds are still visible. The banging on the door to my room stops. It opens to reveal one of the doctors who regularly come to see me. He looks with disgust and hatred straight in my eyes. If someone looked at me without knowing my bloodline, they would think that I have some sort of genetic disorder due to one of my eyes being brown while the other is a vibrant blue. (I would say heterochromia, but Skeppy doesn't know that word as he has never gotten a proper education. Whatever knowledge he knows, he has only gained because he has lots of time to think and listen to the doctors and scientists.)

The vibrant blue eye, which almost looks as bright as a diamond, probably looks quite dull now with the lack of emotions within me as I look at the doctor with an expressionless face. My blue eye is supposed to be a straight giveaway of my hidden power, genetics, and bloodline. Everyone in my community had a diamond blue eye. I wonder what my life would have been like if I wasn't born as one with a diamond blue eye. The doctor says, "Good, you're awake. We can quickly get to work, then."

It takes a moment for me to realize that it is Dr. Wastaken. He is the one in charge of this whole lab, someone who I have to see almost every day for whatever reason, and the one who was in charge of the destruction of my town. He comes into the room carrying a tray with little food and a cup of water in one hand, and the other is carrying a bucket. Ah, so it's eating day. About time. I feel like sometimes they forget to feed me, even though they purposefully starve me. They must sometimes think I'm immortal if they're so casual about forgetting to feed me even though I'm at my limit. Dr. Wastaken quickly puts the tray somewhere near me along with the bucket and quickly steps away, wanting to be as far away from me as possible. All he's thinking is probably how disgusting I am. He says, "Eat fast. We're going to have you use your power again today. We want to do this fast."

I simply nod without saying anything and scoot closer to the tray of food. I grab the food with my hands and try to eat as fast as I can even though my body feels drained of energy. It tastes disgusting, as it always does due to the poison. Oh, right. Did I mention they put poison in every meal and almost every drink they give me? Once I finish the little amount of food I have, I grab the cup of gulp down all the water, knowing that the poison will react quickly after. By instinct, I reach over to the bucket and hover my head over it just in time for me to start coughing out blood from my mouth.

I watch as I continue to cough, and all the blood falls into the bucket. This makes it easier for them to collect my blood. Once my coughing fit is over and all the blood is in the bucket, I wipe my mouth from the remaining blood that is lingering on it. I then scoot away, and Dr. Wastaken walks up to pick up the bucket and tray. Without saying a word, Dr. Wastaken goes out of the room, and I hear murmurs of a few exchange of words. Someone must have been waiting outside this time to quickly collect the blood so that I could be taken to another room. I don't know why they seem to be in a rush today, but it's none of my business. Soon, Dr. Wastaken peeks into the room and says harshly, "Get up. We are going to the diamond collecting room."

I just nod and slowly and painfully get up, trying to minimize the amount of grunts I make. They don't like it when I complain, so the fewer words i say and sounds I make, the better for me. I drag my feet so that I can get out of the room in nothing but the rags that are supposed to be my clothes. I haven't worn shoes in a long time. I follow behind the doctor as we make our way down the halls of the lab. I keep my head down, staying a few feet away from Dr. Wastaken. He doesn't look back to check on me once. There's no need to. It's not like I'll be able to go anywhere. There are multiple people in this lab, and once I get caught not following orders, I'll get punished. I don't need more punishment.

The few people that walk by us make sure to stay as far away from me as possible, some not even looking at me, others glance at me with hatred and disgust. All of a sudden, we make an abrupt stop in the middle of interlinked hallways. Another person has come by and stopped the one that was leading me to another room. They look like a lab assistant or some sort of helper to the higher ups. She says to Dr Wastaken, "Um, sir... we need your help with something. Can you come with me?"

"Can't it wait? Don't you see I'm busy right now?"

He gestures behind himself towards me. None of them bother to look at me. The lab assistant says, "You see... we have a problem with the machines that make the weapons."

"The weapons? Don't the scientists in charge of the weaponry know how to operate those?"

"Well, all the scientists that know how to operate the machines aren't available. They're either late, absent, or working on something else. You're the only doctor who knows how to properly operate the machines. We need to know if we need to call an engineer as soon as possible in case there really is a problem with the machines."

Dr. Wastaken does a frustrated grumble. After a hesitant second, he says, "Fine."

He then looks over at me and says, "Don't do you dare move from this spot, you little piece of sh*t. I'm going to check on something really quick, then come back, got it?"

I slowly nod. He turns back to the lab assistant and says, "Alright, let's go."

They walk away, leaving me standing alone in the middle of the halls. Looks like I'm gonna have to be alone for a while. In order to somewhat entertain myself, yet still follow the orders, I lift up my head a bit and start observing my surroundings. I see various workers at the lab in the distance walking around or busying themselves with a task. With tired eyes, I just continue to look around. Then, my eyes land on something.

I stare at the end of a hallway that there is... an emergency exit. A thought comes into my head. Is it possible for me to... escape through it? I take a look around me and notice that there isn't anyone paying attention to me. They are used to me obeying like a dog loyal to its master. But I am no dog, nor am I loyal. I'm just trying to minimize the pain that I receive here. But... if I want to, I could escape right now. Am I... truly prepared for the world outside this lab? I haven't gone out in the 20 years that I've been here. I don't know what it's like to live out there by yourself. Is the world any less cruel than this lab?

I look back at the emergency exit. Suddenly, the idea of the world outside being any crueler than this lab doesn't matter anymore. At least I wouldn't be trapped. I would be... free. Free to do what I want. Free from the same cycle that I've been repeating in here. Wouldn't it be nice to make a choice for myself for once? With my mind made up, I carefully look around me, making sure that I don't attract any attention towards me.

Once I make sure that no eyes are on me, I carefully take a few small, slow steps towards the emergency exit door. It is down a hallway, so it would take a while if I continue the pace that I'm going at. Who knows when someone decides to take a look at me and realize what I'm trying to do. I need to act fast. I take a deep breath, preparing myself to run faster than I ever have in my life. I block the thought of any sort of tiredness from my brain. I glance around to make sure there are no eyes on me and that nobody is anywhere close to where I'm about to go.

With as much courage as I can get, I take off running. Not caring if my footsteps are loud. I just need to be quick. I ignore whatever aching I feel throughout my body. The adrenaline of what I'm doing gets the better of me. It doesn't even feel like three seconds have passed the moment that I'm at the exit. I force my body onto the door, making it budge open. I almost jolt at the ear killing sound that comes from opening the door. I didn't know that these things had alarms. Well, the sound is for sure going to attract the attention of other people, meaning that they'll notice what I'm doing.

The door is quite heavy, so I push it with as much strength as I have in me to give me enough room to run away. Once I have opened the door, I start to hear yelling. I don't know who is yelling or what they're saying, but it for sure is not good. I bolt of running, the exit door banging closed behind me. It takes me a second to realize, due to the adrenaline, that I'm walking on grass. Grass. In the past 20 years, I've been walking on nothing but concrete. As much as I want to sit down on the grass and marvel at the thought that I'm breathing fresh air and touching grass, I can't afford to stop right now. I need to get as far away from this place as possible.

I run towards the first thing that my eyes land on. A forest. Perhaps if I run deep enough in the forest, they'll lose sight of me. As soon as I run past the first few trees, I hear the exit door open with people yelling. I don't look back. I barely have time to look carefully at my surroundings. I just run. My life depends on it right now. I don't know for how long I'm running or how deep in the forest I've gotten. But I don't stop as long as I hear even the faintest shout after me. I don't stop even when I don't hear someone else shouting. I don't notice. I'm just focused on running.

I run with all my might, not noticing how I'm starting to sweat or how my breaths have turned into gasping for air. I just want to get as far away as possible. There have been multiple times when I almost trip on something. A rock or a part of a trunk, I don't care. I don't stop to think or look back for a moment. I just keep running. For once, I'm doing something of my own choice. I'm going against what the people in the lab have told me to do. I'm doing something I never thought was possible. I'm living.

I'm doing something of my own accord. Doing something for myself, for my freedom, for my happiness. Can I be happy out here? Who knows. I'm not gonna think about that right now. I'll just run. I run for who knows how long. But soon, I finally trip on something. I let out a yelp at the sudden interruption of my running. Before I completely realize what's going on, my head hits something, and my mind goes blank.

Before falling though, I do remember that I saw a whole lot of sunlight in front of me, when it was pretty dark under the leaves of all the trees in the forest.