Chapter Text
How do one escape a thing such as reality? There are different methods. Some people read to escape; other people drown themselves in work. It can be the small things that helps you let go. 01 dreams. Or hopes. They hope for the day where they would finally leave them alone. They hope to feel the nice feelings that whirl around inside them, every time the faceless people tell them, they are good enough. They hope to feel whole. It’s like a part of them is missing, like they’re not a whole being, yet.
They might never feel complete though. They didn’t have a name; they didn’t have an age and a gender. They were just existing. They liked when the weird beings around them told them they did good. It made them feel like they had a purpose. The liked being of use to the humans.
The only thing 01 knew, was the transparent yellow walls of their box.
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Project-X was an experiment, which purpose was to create an obedient soldier. A soldier that would be strong enough to take down villains, and quick enough to be able to assassinate if necessary. The scientists in charge of the project needed a child, preferably a baby or toddler, with good genes. They wanted to raise a child, for the soldier could not know of the world they could never have - not before it was too late for them.
The scientists needed to be able to control the soldier. That’s why they only needed one child. Two children would be too much. It was a big bet to only have one child. If the child was a failure they would need to start from scratch. But if they had too many children, the possibility of foolish friendships and rebellion would be bigger. Rather one dumb child than 20 of them.
The parents should have serviceable quirks that could be used to the different tasks for the future soldier. They should be compatible and useful together as well as separately.
That’s were Hisashi and Inko Midoriya came into the picture. Hisashi Midoriya had a fire breathing quirk, that would be effective against larger crowds. Inko Midoriya had a telekinesis quirk, that made her able to pull smaller objects towards herself, a more subtle quirk, that was better to one-on-one fights. The two were young and very much in love. Inko Midoriya was pregnant with a little baby boy, but before she even got to meet her child, she died. And as her eyes had closed, the eyes of the baby boy had opened, and Hisashi Midoriya had never hated someone as much as he hated the baby that was held by the nurse in the cold hospital room.
Hisashi did not want the child that had killed his beloved wife, therefor he did not hesitate to sell the child to the scientists, when they asked permission to take it. Did he later on regret it? Maybe.
The child was taught basic speech, the scientists found no reason for the child to be fluent - they just needed it to be able to fight and understand simple orders. Too much knowledge, and they could risk creating a rebel. When the child turned five, and still showed no signs of a quirk, the scientists gave up. For two years, they neglected the child. They fed the child and kept it alive but had no other contact with it whatsoever - they didn’t know what to do with it. That made the young child starved for attention and affection. The lack there of, made the child willing to do anything to gain the much-needed love.
One man saw this as an opportunity. They had a child that was willing to do anything for some attention. That could be dangerous in the future, if they weren’t careful. But what if they made use of the situation. He proposed his idea, to the people in charge of the project.
A child starved for attention would do anything to gain attention; negative or positive. But if you controlled the child’s actions by complimenting and praising it, when they did something good. They would strive after the attention given to them, and willingly do it again. They should have to keep in mind though, not to give to many compliments or the child would become either cocky or the compliments would lose their effect.
It was proven that people could obtain quirks, if they were pressured under extreme circumstances.
If they put the neglected, attention-starved child in stressful situations, and complimented it if it did well, and scolded it when it didn’t, they would have the perfect test-subject.
The proposal was approved, and the responsibility of the project was transferred to the man that came up with the idea.
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01 was sitting in silence in their box, no sounds ever reaching their ears. There weren’t much to do in the room, so they had come up with their own activities. They liked observing the humans walking past the room. They were good at reading the white-coated humans, they just had a hard time describing them. The first one that caught the eyes of 01 was a tall human, with short, grey hair. 01 couldn’t see its eyes clearly, partly because of the glasses, but they looked light, maybe they were grey? The human was wearing a white coat, like almost everyone else outside the “main”-box did. 01 always felt out of place because they didn’t wear one. The human had the shoulders pushed back, and their back was straight. A lot of the white-coated humans did that.
The second human that caught their eyes, looked less wrinkled and used than the first, and most of the other white-coated humans. They had dark eyes, that shone with an emotion that was unknown to 01. The human was opening their mouth very wide and moved it very quickly while standing in front of another white-coated human.
The third human that caught their attention looked like the opposite of the second. This one did not show any emotion. 01 knew that, because the human looked the way, they felt. The human was walking faster than the others. It was on their way to the big thing that could move, a door if they recall correctly, in the main-box where 01’s box-room was placed.
A fourth human was making its way to 01’s box. It opened the door to the room and made its way over to 01. They always felt so small when humans were near them. That’s how they knew that they probably weren’t one.
The human stared at them with a look 01 knew all too well, because it was the same look the small looking human that stared back at them when they sometimes looked out of their box, had. The human looked through some white sheets clipped onto a plate, and opened its mouth, and 01 prepared for sounds that they weren’t used to hearing.
“Subject number 01, gender: male, age: 7, follow me.”
01 didn’t know what the first part of the sounds meant, but the last two words they knew. That meant they had to walk after the human. On the journey away from the box to the new destination, 01 began thinking. That was a thing they did sometimes. What was an age, and why did they have it? How do you gender? What is the use of gender, and why did they have it? What was “male”?
Questions filled their mind, and suddenly, without 01 noticed it, the human had stopped. Which meant 01 accidently walked into the long walking-sticks owned by the human. The human gave them a look, before it opened the door with its open-door-thing. The door made a click-sound before the human pushed it open. Inside the room was a shining steel table, with broad black straps attached to it. There were shelves filled with interesting coloured liquids and scary looking tools. The human asked 01 to keep following it, and they walked over to the table, where the human asked them to lay down, and 01 obeyed.
The human walked over to a small table where it took a bottle with a transparent liquid, and a long sharp object. The human pressed the long object onto bottle, while walking over to 01, who was still sitting on the table.
“Well then, let us begin”
The human said, with the same empty eyes they had borne the whole time, not a thing in its expression changing.
01 did not know what the words meant, but soon they would come to hate them.
01 felt pain shoot through their body, starting in their arm. They could feel themselves shaking. They felt hot and cold at the same time. They felt pain, but at the same time the felt numb.
It felt like everything and nothing at the same time.
They hated it.
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After what felt like an eternity, 01 was led back to their room. They had been close, to closing their eyes a lot of times, but the white coat always woke them up before they could. They were following the human again. When they reached 01’s box, the human turned around. They went down to 01’s eyelevel and lifted their hand.
01 did not react, as the hand found its way to their hair. The hand patted their head before retreating to its owner.
“You did well today, 01”
The white coat gave them a small smile, before opening the door to the box.
The only thing 01 could think about was the sounds that came out of the human’s mouth. They didn’t know what it meant, but they liked how the human had lifted its mouth a bit for them, and the tone the human had used. It made them feel happy, like they had done something good.
01 smiled as they sat down on their box’s floor.