This is a flashback chapter! Please note that this is set in the fic's past and do not get confused with the present timeline!

I will not say who this chapter is about but, hopefully, it'll be easy to guess by the end of it. Trigger warnings involve kidnappings, murder, tube-feeding/forced feeding, experiments, blood, suicidal thoughts, gunshot mentions, and needles.

The first boy grew up in a penthouse apartment in a rich part of L'Manburg, with rich friends, rich clothes, a rich family and a rich lifestyle. The first boy grew up with love, affection and attention. He did well in school, he did well in sports. He was popular with the other boys and the girls in his classes. His father had a big secret that he knew and his mother was a very clever woman.

The first boy loved it all.

The first boy didn't know it couldn't last.

He was turning eleven with his brother, beaming and laughing with his parents. His brother had gone to his room, hiding after the noise of the previous birthday party, and all the boy wanted to do now was revel in the attention, giggling and gawking at his new toys and his new books and his new bike and his new-

Scream.

That was a scream.

His father jumped to his feet and the boy watched nervously as wings grew from his back and feathers from his face. He turned to his mother fearfully when she picked him up, black shadows curling around the both of them protectively. He clung to her with a scared whine as his father ran into his brothers' room. They didn't hear anything. Then a laugh. A short, relieved and happy laugh.

"It's okay!" His father said. "Come in, come in. It's okay!"

So the boy and his mother went in and the boy saw a stranger. The stranger was tall and broad-shouldered. He had a strange, twisted alarm clock in one hand and odd, pig-like hooves instead of feet. Not to mention, tusks and a snout instead of teeth and a nose. He was a stranger to the boy but his mother and father said that this was his brother. That his brother was special, just like his parents. The boy asked if he was special too.

His parents said to wait and see.

And, oh gods, did he wait.

He waited a week. Then a month. Then a season. He waited inside the hospital as doctors prodded and probed him, and his parents glanced at each other nervously when they thought he wasn't paying attention to the reflective window in front of him. He waited as he watched his special brother arm-wrestle his father and practise magic with his mother. He waited and waited and waited so he could be special too. Just like his family.

His brother was special. His parents had made a big announcement about it over dinner, reading out the results from his doctor's appointment. His father stood up in front of them, holding out an envelope. The boy didn't know what it was but he watched his brother sit up and his mother's smile brighten.

His father stood before them and opened it, clearing his throat. "Your results for glitched hybrid D-N-A patterns is negative," He began, smiling a little as he read the words, "but! Your results for dual-biomagic are positive."

The boy watched his mother scream excitedly in delight and his brother widen his eyes with an amazed smile. He only waited for his turn.

"It's positive?" His mother repeated. "He's got two?"

His father beamed. "That he does! He's a piglin hybrid and a metal mage." He ruffled the brother's hair with a proud grin. "You can be just like me, now, huh?"

"What about my report?" Asked the boy, impatiently. His family looked at him. "What's the doctor said about me?"

"I... don't think we have that one in, yet," His father answered, looking to his mother.

"No," Agreed his mother, slowly. "The doctors haven't sent that one through."

The boy knew they were lying. He had seen both letters that morning when the postman visited their floor. He didn't call them out. He just waited after dinner, until he and his brother were sent to their bedroom. He waited, eavesdropping on the casual conversation between his parents and the random, confusing mentions of their work. Then the report came up in conversation. His report, this time, not his twins'. He had been with his brother, listening excitedly with an ear pressed to their bedroom door. His brother wasn't as excited as him. He wasn't as optimistic.

"Well." It was Mother speaking, nerves spilling from her tone so much that the boy could picture how she must be wringing her hands together. "Open it."

There was a pause but no sound of a letter opening.

"Open it, I said!" His mother repeated and the boy frowned because she sounded more angry than nervous now.

"I can't," his father said weakly. "You have to. I just... I just can't."

His brother shivered and shuffled his feet. He wasn't in his shifted form yet, so he didn't make too much of a sound. The boy shushed him anyway.

They heard a letter being opened and a letter being unfolded.

"Results for glitched hybrid D-N-A patterns," His mother read aloud slowly. "Negative." The brothers flinched but it wasn't the worst result. He could still be one... Maybe not an exceptional one but there was a chance. He could still be a hybrid, just not a glitched one.

"And regular hybrid patterns?" His father asked, voice muffled.

His mother paused. She hesitated for a long time. Then sighed, very loudly and very sadly. The boy didn't feel so optimistic anymore. "Results for regular hybrid D-N-A, biomagic hormones and biomagic-based genetic exceptions are all..."

"Negative?" His father asked.

"Negative," His mother confirmed.

The boy felt his heart break.

His brother whispered an apology and hugged him. The boy didn't move to hug him back. He didn't move. He couldn't move. His brother dragged him back to his bed slowly and even crawled in next to him, to hug him tightly throughout the night. Even with his twin next to him, holding him fiercely as if nothing had changed and as if it were all a nightmare, the boy knew better. It wasn't a nightmare. It had all changed.

He didn't get to be like his father or his mother or even his brother. He was their family's strange one. And that meant it all changed.

His brother was taken from their school to a different school - a school just for those who got to be special and got to be clever. A school for those who had biomagic or got to shift. His brother got to be special even to those already different from the rest because he got to be in both of the categories. The boy stayed in a school full of people like him. The disappointments. The ones who never got to be different. The ones that birth decided to screw over.

The boy didn't talk to his brother anymore. In fact, he pointedly ignored him whenever his twin was home for the holidays. The boy didn't talk to his parents either, even when they started picking him up and dropping him off from school.

"I know it must be hard for you," His father said.

"I know you really wanted to go with your twin," His mother said.

They said they 'knew'. Like they had felt this before. The crushing disappointment. The suffocating hatred. What had he done that his twin didn't? What did his twin do that he didn't? He curled up in his bed and would cry at night, wishing that he was still on the eve of that eleventh birthday. Still on the cusp of it, unaware of the dark, horrid present that he would receive. He wished more than anything that he was still playing with his twin on the eve of their birthday, in the beautiful field by the train lines. He wished they were still making faces at the passengers that flew past and that they were still rolling the mud, screaming and cackling as grass got in their hair and dirt-stained their clothes.

He wasn't even twelve yet, and he had still lost it all.

The boy stopped making friends at school. He was no longer so popular with the other boys and girls in his classes. In fact, they thought he was moody. Grouchy. A stick-in-the-mud. No fun. A bitch. A weirdo. Something abnormal. He didn't really care. Actually, he couldn't give a damn what regulars like them thought about a regular like him. They were all disillusioned, just like he had been. They didn't understand that the Corporation wouldn't want them, but he did. They didn't understand that the world didn't need them, but he did.

All the world needed was the ones like his brother. His special, perfect, gifted brother, who got to be all the boy wanted to be. That was supposed to be his future, he realised, when his brother came home for their twelfth birthday. It was supposed to be his future, walking next to him to the waiting arms of their father and mother, looking healthy and strong, with a large beam on his face and a lovely, posh uniform. Why was he the one standing in worn clothes and behind his parents? Why was he the one waiting for his brother to get all the attention that he wanted?

Why was he the twin who had to have his future robbed from him?

Why was the world going against him and him alone?

The boy didn't hang around to celebrate his twelfth birthday with his twin. He didn't even bother to count how many presents they'd both been given to see if their parents had finally decided on a favourite child. The boy packed a bag that afternoon, while his brother told their parents all about his awesome school and awesome friends, and then showed their parents how awesome he was with his biomagic and his shifting abilities. The boy didn't want to listen to any of that, which is why he managed to slip out of the house, unnoticed while his twin and his father played 'hybrids' for his mother.

He wouldn't be able to play 'hybrids' - never for real.

The boy left the apartment, tugging the rucksack over his shoulder more and more as he kept walking. He didn't think that his brother had snuck to his room to surprise him with a present, nor did he think how hard that brother of his was searching the apartment. The boy kept walking, not stopping to ponder how terrified his parents were feeling when his brother told them he wasn't there anymore, nor did he ponder how distressed those parents of his were when they called their work to send someone, anyone, out to find him. All he did was keep walking, scared that stopping at any moment would mean to turn back, tail between his legs, to somewhere he didn't belong.

A couple of hours passed and his family had already called him a thousand times each. The boy had ignored each call, even if every single ring made him tear up. He was trying to let them have their perfect, special family - why couldn't they understand that this was for them? The boy walked past classmates and even a handful of teachers. One stopped him and he remembered looking up at her as she tried a smile.

"Hey, you," She said, attempting to beam at the blank expression staring back at her.

"Hello," The boy replied evenly.

"Where are you off to? It's pretty late."

The boy shrugged. "I'm on a walk."

"I like walking. Would you... may I join you?"

"No," The boy answered, bowing his head. "I'd like to be left alone, please."

She still seemed adamant about not letting him go - he wished now that he had listened to her. "But it's your birthday. The birthday boy shouldn't be alone."

"And the 'birthday boy' shouldn't be patronised. I'm turning twelve, not six."

"Look, it's getting late. You should go back home. I'll walk you back if you want-"

The boy pushed her away and sprinted. That was something he could do very well, it seemed. Running away. The teacher yelled for help, calling for bystanders to try and catch him for her. Many tried but the boy slipped out of their reach or shoved them off. He couldn't go back now. He was two and a half hours away from home. It would be best if he just kept running.

And running.

And running.

And running even faster and farther than before. For so long that those chasing him gave up and the teacher lost sight of him. The bag was hitting against his back heavily, feeling like it would bruise him if it hit him one more time, and his phone battery died when his twin tried to call him. That was the last contact he had with him for years, in the end. He just ignored it. God, how he wanted to take that back.

But the boy didn't know yet and the boy kept walking. He kept walking when the streetlights above him flickered on and he kept on walking when it started to rain. The boy looked up at the rain, squinting. He had forgotten to pack a coat. Someone held out an umbrella over him.

"Hey, kid," They said.

At least, the boy thought they were a 'they'. He couldn't tell because there was something unnatural about the way they moved and the way they smiled at him. They smiled at him like he was a puppy they were about to kick in the ribs.

"Hi," The boy answered and went to walk pointedly away. Don't give strange people the time of day, his father had always told him, and scream to high heaven if they bother you.

Someone stood in front of him, though, and the boy felt his heart in his throat. "What's your name, buddy?"

The boy glared venomously, curling his lip at them. "None of your business, 'buddy'. Get out of my way."

"Why? Are you going home?"

"Yes," he lied. "My mother's waiting for me." Lie to strangers if they want to know where you're going, his mother had always told him, and always let them think that someone's expecting you.

The two 'people' sagged sadly. "Aw. But we wanted to get to know you," The first one said, putting their hand on his shoulder.

The boy shrugged them off. "Don't touch me. I'll leave you rotting in an alleyway if you even fucking think about it-"

A third one grabbed him, out of nowhere. He went to shriek but the second one covered his mouth. The boy kicked his legs but the first grabbed them and held them closed. He could barely even wriggle by the time they threw him into the back of a lorry. He hit the floor, sprawling, and tried to sit up but they threw the doors closed before he could. There were at least twenty other children with the boy inside. He screamed at the top of his lungs and threw himself at the locked doors with all his might. Even when the lorry started driving again, he didn't give up.

He was cold and wet and he wanted to go back home. He wanted to be curled up on the sofa, smelling his mother's shampoo while he hid his face sleepily in her hair. He wanted to be sneaking out onto the balcony with his twin, pretending they were spies or assassins or whatever they fancied that night. He wanted to be on top of his father's shoulder, having climbed up one of his strong wings to be there, and pull at his feathers to complain that they weren't going out for dinner that night. He wanted to be with his family, even if he was ruining their perfect, special bubble.

His determination made other children get up and stopped the other kids from wallowing in their tragedy. They were in an uproar, all of them, screaming and shouting; kicking and howling; scratching and spitting. But then the lorry stopped and the doors opened again. The boy didn't recognise this person but he knew that he'd never forget their face when they pulled out a gun and shot a boy standing next to him. That boy had been older than him, maybe around fourteen, and he fell over. He was dead. The boy wouldn't forget his face, either.

The children stopped rioting after that. In fact, they stopped talking at all. Even the boy found himself huddling against a wall, as far away from the corpse as possible. It smelt like a nightmare. It smelt repugnant. The lorry kept on driving and that made the pool of blood shift around on the floor, spreading back and forth like the tide toying with sand on a beach. The boy could only stare at the lifeless face lying on the floor. He couldn't look anywhere else, apparently. Maybe because, in that boy's face, he saw his own and his own face looked like his twin's face. With a single bullet, that person had killed three people in the boy's eyes: a stranger; himself; his brother. And the boy hated those thoughts dwelling in his head.

The lorry stopped and they were filed out, one by one. The boy didn't know where he was or where they were going. They were marched in the pitch black of midnight and they went into a small house. Once inside the house, they were led to the basement, then a staircase going down, then through a locked door and another locked door. They walked through a maze and corridors of dead ends and white, empty rooms. The boy tried to keep track of it all, trying to note when they turned a corner and how many paces he had taken to get there, but he was so exhausted that the numbers kept slipping from his head and he simply didn't know. All he did know was that it wasn't his birthday anymore.

Every child was peeled away one by one and, when they were taken, everyone had to stop and everyone had to hear the screaming and begging. He was probably the sixth to be taken from the line and put into a room that was at the end of the corridor, on his right-hand side. There was a bench in the centre of a white room and tables lining the far left wall. The boy felt some of the people grab his wrists and it was suffocating. He started screaming and wailing, trying to struggle against them.

They didn't let go of his wrists and they forced him towards the bench. They put straps over his ankles and then over his calves and knees. They put straps around his thighs and hips, and straps around his waist and chest. They put straps across his shoulders and biceps, his elbows and forearms, his wrists and his fingers. They put straps around his neck and his forehead, keeping him utterly immobilised. All he could do was scream and cry and yell at the top of his lungs. How dare they do this to him. Why would they do this to him? He kept screaming and screaming, thrashing against the restraints and blinking away the stinging tears in his eyes. He kept screaming even when a train sounded nearby, drowning out his wails and making the lights flicker.

It wouldn't be the last time that the trains running nearby drowned out his screams that night. It wouldn't be the last night he heard them, either. The boy had probably fallen asleep within his screaming and crying because one of the trains startled him more than the last one. His throat burned and scorched; he was ravenous and thirsty; he needed the bathroom; he needed his family.

There were people standing around him, he noticed, and they were holding things. Needles, bottles, boiling tubes, plates. Strange and twisted equipment that the boy didn't like to look at for too long.

"Experiment six," One of them was saying. "Testing now."

"Testing-?" The boy tried to say but a hand covered his mouth without hesitation. He screamed and only managed to move his toes and fingers in fear. With a knife, someone cut open the blue sleeve of his jumper and the black sleeve of his shirt. He didn't know how they didn't cut his skin - their hand was steady and experienced.

Then the needle stabbed into him. There was no warning, no preparation. They forced the needle into his arm hard and fast, not caring for the muffled shriek of pain. The boy tried to kick his legs but the straps were tight, far too tight for even the smallest, slightest movement. He couldn't turn his head, he couldn't roll away. Even the air he sucked into his lungs to howl with was restricted by the heavy leather strap that lay over him. The needle was pulled from his arm with just as much carelessness as it had been inserted.

The boy felt numb, tears streaking down his face, but it changed nothing. They only went around to his other arm and did the same. He felt the urge to wail and shriek but the hand covering his mouth was rough and unforgiving. It clenched his jaw closed to the point it hurt his teeth and wouldn't let a sound escape. Whatever the needle had taken from his body, they dropped it into a dish that was waiting. Blood dripped from the needlepoint like a clock counting down. The boy could hear each drop hitting the glass beneath it.

They left him there for hours. When they came back, they came back with a tube and put it up his nose and then down his throat. Something of a pale brown colour churned through and he could feel it pulsing down his body. It made him cry, it made him want to cough and it made him want to vomit. But he couldn't. No matter how much he tried to squirm away, the boy was held fast onto the bench. When the tube was taken out, they wasted no time in sticking needles in his legs and putting whatever findings they had into a dish.

Twenty-three trains went past that day.

The day after that, there had been eleven.

But, after that, there were thirty trains that whistled by, shaking the floor and making the light above the boy's head flicker. He could still hear the whistle of air, the screech of rails and the rumbling echo of every single one that flew by. On the sixth day, he knew that the train tracks must be running on the other side of the wall with all the tables lined along it.

The boy counted over twenty-thousand trains in the first year alone. At least one train would go by each day and he would hear it in his head when he screamed at the needles and the palette knives. They were a constant. He could feel them echoing in his bones even hours after they had gone by. So many trains. Trains every month, every week, every day, every time.

The first year had been the worst. All he could smell was his blood and chemicals. All he could say was "Please," and "no," when he begged his captors, or scream until his throat was ruined. All he could see was the white ceiling above him with the flickering light or the kidnappers looming over him, needles in hand. All he could hear were the shrieks and sobs of other children or the trains. So, so many trains...

It was when he reached his second year did he stop hoping for rescue. He had been there for too long. His family would've stopped looking for him - he wasn't special to them like his twin. Surely they wouldn't care. If they cared, where were they? He didn't want to live after that realisation. He stopped struggling against the people around him. He just lay there. When they put the tube back in his nose and throat, he didn't wriggle. He lay there, accepting this.

Did he deserve it? No. He knew that much. Was he going to be set free? No. That was the one thing he knew for certain.

A few months into the second year, he was woken up when the table he lay on moved. He was now upright and nausea hit fast. People standing around him were undoing the buckles that tied him down and he fell onto the floor, a weak ball that hurled and vomited and gagged on the cold tiles. Hands pulled him upwards and he stumbled. Everything was shaking; everything was so weak. A train whizzed past the wall as the people shoved into his limp hands a pair of crutches. The boy was dizzy and light-headed. He felt so empty and exhausted already.

"Please," he whispered hoarsely but no one responded to him. The door to the room opened and he saw the corridor they had marched him through so long ago. The boy looked down at his hands to see his skin was bone white. He hadn't seen the sunlight in so long and it showed. Once upon a time, he had random splatterings of freckles, spread out thin and far across his body. If they remained, he couldn't see them. He couldn't see much except the dull, colourless skin and bones for fingers.

"Walk," a voice said behind him.

Obediently, he moved one crutch. He couldn't push it any further than one centimetre on the ground, having to slowly heave himself after it. His bones felt brittle and his joints seemed snappable. The young child in him cried and complained that he'd never get to run around with his brother ever again if he was like this. The boy chided that voice in his head for its silly thinking. He'd never even get to see his brother again. He had admitted defeat long ago.

He slowly shuffled out of the room standing in the corridor. The air was cold and slightly windier. It moved the curls on his head for the first time in ages.

"You're here as an example," the voice was telling him. "Stay quiet."

So he stood in silence as seconds ticked and passed by. Then he heard the sound of feet. Dozens and dozens of feet, most shuffling slowly. It was a horde of children. They were healthy, wide-eyed and fearful. A girl his age looked at him and he looked back at her. Her lip was shaking and her eyes welled with tears as she stared this ghost of a boy up and down. He stared back at her. At her head of healthy, black hair, her vibrant brown eyes, and her dark, glistening skin. Then he looked away, jealousy churning in his stomach. Why couldn't he look like that? Why couldn't he look healthy?

"Walk," the voice ordered once more and so the boy slowly moved the crutches forward. His mouth tasted like acidic vomit and his muscles moved so slowly. He headed in a straight line across the corridor, the group slowly approaching him. The boy's progress was pain-staking. Every time he put his slight weight on the crutches, his head wanted to explode and his body wailed in torment. He hadn't supported his own weight in years. He felt ill to the very marrow of his bones.

Someone stopped him and turned him around so he faced the horde that came to a grinding halt. "Hello, children," The person said, hand weighing heavy on the boy's crippled shoulder. "You're about to be turned into something new."

Some kids began crying loudly and others just stared at the boy in horror.

"This here is experiment six. Our pride and joy in the hospital."

The boy looked at all the children impassively. Part of him wanted to croak out his name to correct the person. The other part of him wanted to curl up and die.

"He's been helping us in broadening the future for a year and four months, ever since he came to the cause. He's been so, so useful." The hand tightened and the boy whined a little in pain. "And so, so promising."

He was shoved forwards by the hand on his shoulder toward the crowd of children. A few flocked to catch him as the boy was too weak to even flail. He fell into them and they didn't even sag under his feather-like weight. He looked up slowly and saw the girl he had made eye contact with minutes before. "I want," he began to whisper, "to die."

Her eyes widened in horror and the simplicity of his wish but the boy wasn't done yet.

"I want them to kill me so I don't have to go back to that fucking table. There are so many trains. I can't listen to the trains any longer. I just want to die."

Those who would usually hold the needles pulled him back and the boy went without protest. They held him rigid in front of the now petrified crowd, all smiling like they were truly at peace with what they did. They probably were.

"You are all here to help, just like experiment six!" The hand was back on his shoulder, squeezing it tight. "I believe in you all. You're not like his old batch. You're here to replace those who lost in our valiant struggle to bring equality and, unlike the last poor souls, you're going to survive it." It wasn't words of encouragement this person was saying. It was more of a threat. The boy wanted to leave already. The person lifted their hand and gestured. "Take them away."

People poured into the crowd of children who quickly began to scream and struggle. They dragged them off into rooms and the boy was taken back into his own. His vomit still lay on the floor and it was horrid in colour - it was not the sick of a human. He doubted he was all that human anymore. Back to the table, he went and they strapped him down again. They strapped down his head, his neck, his shoulders, his arms, his chest, his wrists, his hips, his hands, his legs and his ankles. They rotated the table back to its typical horizontal setting and he stayed there, the crutches missing from his hands. As they left the room, another train whistled past and the boy added the tally in his head.

So, so many trains...

When the children in other rooms had stopped crying, the boy heard one of them. It was a girl's voice. She was singing so shakily and so fearfully. It was a pop song, from one of the many girl bands. A classic that every station had played. Innocent but cheeky, high-pitched but reachable. She was singing loudly despite her quaking voice. No one had sung when the boy arrived. He had always loved singing.

He joined in. He knew the lyrics. He opened his mouth and started singing too, in a hoarse, deep voice. His voice had changed a lot over the past year and four months. It was less high-pitched and also far more worn and scratchy. But his voice was too quiet at first. It took a while to warm up, to learn how to form the words he needed again. He sang and sang and sang even once the girl had stopped. He sang even when the trains whistled past. He sang when he had run out of words and when all he could do was sing the same line over and over again. He sang until he realised he had stopped and he was being woken up by people with needles.

Around him were the sounds of screams and begging. The new children weren't used to it yet. The people around him were muttering and talking. According to the conversations they spoke so freely, eighteen had died already out of the fifty they had brought inside. They'd need to get eighteen more children soon, to replace the ones who had died.

The boy envied the children who had been killed by all the needles and all the starving. He wanted to be amongst their numbers, more than anything. Then they'd bring in another child to put in his place so he didn't have to go through with it. Someone else would be lying here if he died and that person would have to go through what he didn't want to.

And that child would have a family. And that child would have friends. And that child would leave behind everything the boy so desperately wanted back. He was wishing that onto someone. He was wishing that pain and torture on an innocent child with the world before them. If he died, he wouldn't just be wishing for it: he'd be making it happen.

Those children of L'Manburg. One of them would be taken to fill the void he'd leave. One of them at random would be grabbed off the streets away from their home and loved ones. Here he was, hoping it to happen. He could try to make sure it didn't happen, though. He could save one child; one poor, poor soul. Someone out there was walking home safely because this breath hadn't been his last. Someone out there was seeing their friends because his heart didn't stop beating. Someone out there was running away from home without the three people waiting to ambush them in an alleyway because he stayed here, heart beating and lungs breathing.

He was saving one random soul. He was saving the children of L'Manburg from the domino effect of his death and the replacement's death and then the replacement's death. He was protecting the children of L'Manburg.

The needle in the boy's neck burnt like hellfire and, for the first time, he managed to ignore the pain. He was saving so many people. So, so many people. Even the speeding trains that breezed past the wall didn't deter him. He was protecting the children of L'Manburg; the families of L'Manburg; the people of L'Manburg. He could protect all he could just by staying alive until he couldn't anymore.

The boy's eyes moved in his head, locking onto the one holding his mouth shut. They looked back and he watched their face morph from neutrality to confusion. He stared at them, calmly and defiantly. When they drew back their hand, he was smiling at them. It was not a happy smile or a proud one. It was not a smile of confidence or mocking. It was a smile of purpose. He knew what he was here to do. The boy smiled with purpose in his life once more. He had been lost without it for over two years.

His family were heroes and he could be too, in this dark, grimy hellhole. He would not die here. He would not die until he had defended those in L'Manburg, oblivious to his existence, until his dying defiant breath. When the people with needles left the room, he started singing again. He would not be broken yet. Not for a long time.

Two more years and eight months passed. The boy was in his fourth year and his spirit remained unbroken. He sang, he smiled, he'd laugh when the people came into his room with the needles in hand. He had found peace in his soul and he was going to use it to ruin their days. When they unstrapped him from the table and they gave him the crutches, he'd hobble out despite the vomit dripping on his chin from nausea and he'd refuse to flinch when they put their hands on his shoulders. He started trying to catch himself when they pushed him at the horde of children they kidnapped. He started thinking for himself.

For two years and eight months, he spent his imprisonment and torment like this. Defiant, purposeful and calm.

But it was too good to be true. They broke him in the end.

When they unstrapped him and gave him crutches, he threw up as he left his room, head spinning. He looked around and he saw all the other children being herded from their rooms. Some of them were crying, and some of them were like hollow shells. He recognised none of them. The girl from the first batch he had greeted was not there. She was probably dead.

Many looked at him, eyes widening. They all recognised him, it seemed.

"Experiment six," a little boy whispered. He looked like he was twelve. The boy had been twelve when he had arrived. He must have been fifteen or sixteen now. He started singing again, his voice deep and low as he hobbled along, somewhat leading the pack of terrified children. One of the people standing with him hit the upside of his head but he didn't flinch. His hair was long and fell far past his shoulders. He could feel the curled locks framing his ribcage, making him probably appear even skinnier. The boy kept singing quietly, an old pop song now probably long out of date.

He was pushed and shoved, coat-clad people shouting at him to shut up. He did not. He kept singing with peace in his mind. They were ushered, at least eighty of them, into a large room. As they moved them along, the boy heard a train whistling far off in the distance. It made him shudder, having it be so quiet. He moved his crutches one after the other, swinging and heaving his body after them. There was a stage. in the room's centre.

Although people made the other children stop, he was pushed forwards. Singing still, the boy didn't care. They took away his crutches and scooped him up before he could collapse. They sat him in a chair and tied down his calves, shoulders, head and, eventually, his wrists. He could see just how pale his skin had become in the white light they shined upon him. He looked like a ghost. A phantom of who he used to be. When he looked out at the sea of children so much younger than him, he saw them staring at him sadly. None could be older than thirteen. He was the eldest. He had been here for four years and these children were from the last batch seven months ago. They had no idea what he had gone through.

Someone, someone new, was walking over. Their hair was brown and cut around their neck, and they wore big, black glasses over their eyes. They were putting bone-white gloves over their hands as they stared at him. The boy watched them indifferently, still singing to himself. Since the pop song had finished before he got onto the stage, he was singing a lullaby.

"You are my sunshine," He sang gently at the person who picked up a needle. "My only sunshine." They filled with a blue, inky liquid and the boy wasn't phased. "You make me happy when skies are grey." His twin's beaming face appeared in his mind. His twin would be sixteen or fifteen too, now. They'd spent so long apart. "You'll never know, dear, how much I love you." The boy closed his eyes, picturing his brother now, saving the world and being the hero they had always wanted to be together. The first tear in years fell from his eyes as the lyrics changed in his mind. "Why did you take my sunshine away?"

And, like that, the song was over. He fell quiet. This person walked up to him and grabbed a clump of his hair. They had a needle, poised and waiting in front of his face. "You're experiment six, are you not?"

"I am not," He whispered back, but his voice carried.

The person turned around and saw someone nodding at them, as if in confirmation that the boy was experiment six. They turned back to him, unbothered. "Do you know what we are doing to you at this hospital, experiment six?" They asked, in a deep, calming voice.

"You are torturing me," He answered quietly.

"We are saving you. We are saving all of you," Insisted the person.

"You are torturing all of us," corrected the boy. "Are you going to kill me now?"

The person shook their head, aiming the needle at the bridge of the boy's nose. "No. You are about to be improved."

For the first time, he felt panic. He tried to twist his head but the belt held it in place on the chair. He tried to kick his legs but his calves were strapped to the chair legs. He tried to lift his arms, to slap away the hand and to push everyone out of his way as he ran, but there were bonds on his wrists. The bonds rubbed his wrists. He could remember that so clearly as the person with the needle loomed in ever closer. He struggled and even spat at the person with the needle. He could hear children bursting into tears and people shouting at them to watch.

They wanted them to watch.

The needle pierced his skin and pushed in deep. It pushed past the small bit of flesh and hit bone. It pushed into the bone. The boy shrieked in horror and pain. His voice strained and wailed under the sudden use. He howled in horror, tears falling down his face. The person pulled and let the liquid flood into the bone of his skull. His vision blacked out but he was still conscious and his eyes were still open. He tried to flail, the chair rocking where it sat on the stage. He tried to thrash his head, he tried to kick his legs and he tried to move his hands. His wrists were bound. He couldn't move.

The needle moved out of the bone and pulled out from his face. He was screeching and screaming in horror, unable to see anything but a blur of lights, tears and colour. He could hardly make out anything. He saw no shapes, no faces, no features of the room. The chair rocked too far and fell to the ground. The boy couldn't hinder the fall but didn't even flinch when he hit it. All he could recognise was the floor below him, made from sanded wood. Everything else was unrecognisable.

"Take experiment six to his room!" The person with the needle yelled in their deep, calming voice. "Take everyone back to their rooms!"

People descended into the crowd of petrified children. They scooped them up and carried them away, despite the screaming and pleading. Either one or a dozen voices cried out, "Six! Experiment six!" as they were dragged away. The boy didn't stop shrieking from where he lay on the ground. People grabbed the chair and hoisted it upright. People unbound his legs and his head and his wrists. They forced him to stagger upwards, dragging him from the stage slowly.

They were whispering to him. They were congratulating him.

The boy saw the person with the needle, putting it down on a tray. It was clear of the blue, inky liquid - they had injected it inside him. He felt rage boil inside him; pure, loathing rage. He shrieked again and this time, somewhere close by, he heard a train whistling past. The boy lunged out of the tight grasping hands holding him like they weren't even there, and he grabbed at the neck of the person with the needle. He was screaming at him for there were no words to express this hatred. Just screams that echoed like an empty tube platform.

Black, heavy droplets were falling onto the person's face and the boy felt something cold trickling down his cheeks as he sobbed and spat and screamed. Hands wafted at him but he didn't feel them if they touched him. All he felt was his hands wrapped around the person's neck and, eventually, the cold clasp of metal around him. They were trapping his wrists in netherite manacles, dragging him away.

"I'll kill you!" The boy promised the person with the needle. "I will never forget you!"

The person stared at him as he was pulled away. Then they smiled and waved. The boy spat at them and screamed.

He screamed at the top of his lungs as they dragged him to a new room, not his usual one. Trains were running in his skull again and again and again; non-stop, never slowing down, and overlapping each other in a crazed frenzy. They had a new table waiting for him, with netherite-coated straps this time. They pinned him down with netherite and bound him there with it. He screamed and screamed. The boy didn't fall asleep this time. He didn't sing when everyone else stopped crying. He just bellowed and howled in pain and hatred.

A month passed where he'd only scream from the moment he woke up till the moment he fell asleep. When they put tubes down his nose and in his mouth, he would shriek at them. When they put needles in his skin, he'd screech at them. Eventually, he gave up. They had broken him. He didn't sing for the other children and he didn't hum to himself. He stopped counting the trains that went by and didn't notice when they eventually stopped coming.

The boy wanted to die again.

"You've killed me," he'd whisper when people walked in. "You've killed me and I can never rise from my grave again."

They didn't listen and he could no longer see their faces clearly. When they leaned in close, he could make out noses and eyes and mouths. That was it. He could hardly see anymore. Another year passed like this. The trains had stopped ages ago and they no longer brought him out to see new batches as their "pride and joy". They were finished with him. They didn't even put needles in him anymore. If the door opened, it was only because they were going to force-feed him with the tube again.

A year spent like that. The boy didn't care. It became a miserable routine and he accepted it. As long as no one else had to lie on this table. As long as he was still protecting everyone. He could keep living for that, at least.

One time, he woke up to the sound of gunshots. Shouting and gunshots. He could hear the air whipping around like the wind in the corridor. He was so far away from it all, though. It was distant shouting and distant crying. He lay there listening in bewilderment for hours as guns fired and people bellowed. Eventually, the guns stopped. All he could hear was crying and running footsteps. The crying got closer and the footsteps grew louder. Children were sobbing out "thank you, thank you" or just wailing uncontrollably. The boy blinked. He thought about it. Then he realised.

They were being rescued.

Someone rushed in, a blur of white lab coat standing out against the miserable grey door. They approached him and he saw their face. They were bleeding and looked panicked. He opened his mouth but they covered it tightly.

"Is that the last of them?" A monotone voice asked.

"I think so, mate." Another voice said. "I can't see any more doors."

He knew the second voice. He recognised it. It stirred up a cascade of memories, beautiful and free, long before he knew of this place. His heart leapt in his chest and he tried to sit up despite the binds.

"I thought he'd be here," the first voice said, gentle but loud. "I really, really hoped we'd find him."

"We all hoped so," said his father's voice. "But... I'll be honest with you, he's been gone for five years. I doubt, even if he was here, that he'd survive it."

No! No, he lived! He was here! The boy thrashed against his binds, trying to find the words to let them know. His throat was closing up with tears. They couldn't hear him beyond the hand covering his mouth. They didn't know about him.

"Do you... do you think he's in one of those pits? The mass graves?"

"I hope not. We'll find out, one way or another. No matter the answer."

"I just want to know what happened to him," said the first voice. The boy recognised it now. It was his twin; his brother. He tried to scream but all he managed was a hoarse, scratchy whine, through the palm clenching his jaws shut. "I just want to know where he ended up, wherever it is."

"We all do," his father said gently. "We all do."

They were walking away. He could hear their footsteps beginning down the corridor. The person he was with waited. Then, slowly, they moved their hand and smiled. "Well... At least you're still here-"

He screamed. He screamed at the top of his lungs and wouldn't stop. Footsteps came running back down the corridor and the person swore loudly. They grabbed his bound throat and squeezed, trying to kill him but the boy didn't stop, even when he began to gargle, gag and spit. The walls were being hit and whacked amidst the desperate search for his door. Eventually, those outside found it and it flew open.

Someone, a blur of red, pink and black, rushed forwards, swinging something dark and metallic at the person in the coat. They collapsed to the ground, the smell of blood quickly filling the room and the boy sucked in a large breath of air. He was screaming still and couldn't stop. Hands were gently touching his face - hands with birdlike claws on the end.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," a voice - his father's voice - was softly promising. "We found you. You're going to be safe." The boy tried to focus on the face above him, watching as it leaned in closer. Blond hair, green eyes and black crow feathers. He had seen this face so many times before, both shifted and not. The face was smiling down at him comfortingly. "You're safe now, okay? We're gonna take you home. What's your name?"

He opened his mouth, trying to form the words in his throat. "You know my name," he managed to croak out and watched his father's eyes widen. "You gave it to me."

"It- it's not possible," He heard his twin whisper.

His father looked up at someone, with a glare to be quiet before turning back down to the boy. His eyes were wide with hope, with desperation, and with the fear of all he imagined it to be was wrong. The thumb gently stroked his cheek and a tear slipped from the boy's eye.

"Wilbur?" Whispered his father softly.

The boy's face crumpled and tears began to spill freely. "I wanna go home," Wilbur pleaded gently.

And that was that.