Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

If Ranboo could go back and change anything, he would've cried, told his mom how much he loved her, and maybe even beg her to say it back. 

If Ranboo could go back and change anything, he would've run.

If Ranboo could go back and change anything, maybe he wouldn't have told Hannah or at least tested the waters to avoid something like this.

But he didn't.

And now he's being thrown onto the ground and cuffed by a group of guards as his classmates watch on in fear. As he was practically dragged to his feet, his eyes met those of his peers. Some of them looked absolutely terrified, and Ranboo didn't blame them. It's not every day that you're just sitting in science class and your classroom gets ambushed by guards and officers from the defense district and take a student who everyone thought was the golden child rather violently into custody. Some people were looking away. But then he met eyes with her.  She didn't look scared. She looked sad, disappointed even. And everything clicked in Ranboo's head. Hannah snitched. 

"How could you?!"  He yelled, his words bleeding with raw emotion, as he was being dragged out of the classroom. All he got back was Hannah mouthing an  "I'm sorry."   Or maybe she said it, he didn't know. He couldn't hear anything over the sound of the blood rushing in his ears, but he allowed himself to be pulled out of the classroom and into an awaiting black van to be taken to a tall, dull gray building near the Nation's Capital. 

He was pushed into a room that sat at the end of a long hallway. The walls were concrete and the air was unnervingly cold. There were only three things in the entire room. A stainless steel table and two chairs on either side. He was handcuffed to the table and shoved into the seat. There he sat alone for hours with nothing but his thoughts and the sound of his own breath until the door creaked open, he didn't dare turn around. He didn't want to get in any more trouble than he was already in, even though technically none of this was his fault.

"Is it true?"  A broken voice sounded from behind him. His mother. 

He whipped around, straining as far as the cuffs allowed him to turn in his sear,  "Mom,"  He breathed,  "I-"

"Answer the question, Is it true?"  She said, more forcefully. She looked almost unrecognizable to Ranboo. Her hair was unbrushed, her face was blotchy, her eyes were red from crying, there were even still tear tracks on her cheeks that she had yet to wipe away. 

"I don't know why I'm here, nobody's told me anything. I was-I was just pulled out of class and-and I don't know what's going on. I'm scared, Mom."  Ranboo said with his voice breaking. 

"You know damn well why you're here, Ranboo."  She spat, he flinched at the use of his full name,  "How could you put Hannah in a situation like that?"

He wished, at this moment, that he had never been as trusting.

"I didn't- I just thought-"  Ranboo started, but was once again interrupted by his mother. 

"No. You didn't think. You never think. Look where we are Ranboo. If you can truly make me stand here and suffer as a mother. At least have to courage to say what you are." 

Ranboo turned back around, looking down at his cuffed hands. He didn't realize he was shaking. 

"I-I can't,"  He said as the tears started falling. 

His mother's hand grabbed his face roughly, smooshing his cheeks in a way that was far from comforting, forcing him to look into her eyes as she spoke,  "Say it. Say it for what you have done to Hannah."

Ranboo's eyes searched his mother's face. He searched for a sign that this was some kind of cruel joke. He was waiting for her to start laughing and someone to come in with a camera and a guard to uncuff him from the table, maybe Hannah would have a change of heart and come save him, but the way his mother's eyes burned into him and overflowed with an emotion he couldn't quite place, and the tear tracks on her cheeks seemed a little too fresh. Now his wrists burned from being rubbed raw, it was all too real. He knew what he had done and this wasn't a joke. 

At one point he thought he could trust Hannah with anything. They'd grown up together. Best friends since they could walk. But that's just what happens when your mothers are friends and you happen to be neighbors. They'd told each other everything, always raw with emotion never holding back giving each other the honest truth even if it's not something they want to hear. Ranboo had told Hannah when their crops weren't growing the best he told her how he feared they wouldn't meet the season's quota, so his family would get fined. Money was always tight in the Agricultural district, it was that way for everyone. It was the farthest district from the Capital, the least cared about, and yet most important so it was expected. Hannah helped with what she could, she'd slip him a few extra ears of corn even some money. She knew it wouldn't be enough to meet the quota, but it was enough that when the fine came it'd be lesser than what they expected and they'd have some money to help pay it too. Hannah had told Ranboo about when her dad was getting sick, and the recent wind storm had done some damage to their house and now every time it rained, the roof leaked into her room but her dad was too sick to fix it, so Ranboo went and patched up the roof himself. They trusted each other with everything, there were each other's safe places. At least that is what Ranboo had thought.

He suspected he was powered the day he went out to take inventory of the animals. He tried his best to chase after pigs and chickens, trying not to count any twice. He was in the cow pasture when he saw it for the first time. He had just happened to glance down, noticing a small spider-webbing of cracks. They were barely deep enough to penetrate the surface but the longest might've been about a foot long. Upon closer inspection, he seemed to be standing on what was the center of the cracks, so he took a step to the side, but more cracks appeared. He took a step back this time, still more cracks splintering from underneath his feet. He took a few quick steps away from the cracks, fearing that there must be some kind of hollow area underneath him and the ground was about to cave in, but the cracks seemed to follow wherever he stepped. He took off, sprinting back towards his house, jumping the gate to the pasture. On a whim, he decided to turn to see if the ground was still cracking, only to lose his balance and fall to the ground. 

The second Ranboo's body hit the dirt, there was an almost deafening boom. In less than the time it takes to blink, Ranboo was completely winded, his mouth felt as though it was filled with cotton, his joints started aching, his head pounded, black dots danced in his vision, and his ears were still ringing from the boom. He shouldn't have been this affected by such a shortfall, right? He laid there gasping for breath, closing his eyes tightly, waiting for the world to stop spinning. 

When he decided he felt well enough to sit up again he was met with a much deeper crack, no,  a gash in the earth near him. He followed the gash with his eyes to see a tree about 10 or 15 feet away from him. It was completely uprooted and on its side. He trailed the gash back to just a few inches in from of him. Right where he had fallen. He looked back at where the smaller cracks had been forming, and sure enough, they led up to the just before where he had fallen. Ranboo started putting two and two together and it made him feel sick. He placed his hand firmly into the dirt, willing anything, anything, to happen. Everything around him remained still for a few seconds and Ranboo started to feel relieved. Maybe he was just going crazy. Then just as he was about to lift his hand from the dirt, there was an explosion of cracks spider-webbing from all directions of his palm. The cracks traveled at least 50 feet in every direction. He recoiled at the sight. 

No no no no no.  Ranboo wasn't powered. He couldn't be. People who are powered are barbarians who enjoy violence and war and those are the absolute last things Ranboo enjoys, but he had to tell someone. He couldn't just let this sit on his conscience, especially when he couldn't control it. He looked back up to the tree, then to his house. He looked back and forth a few times between the two before his eyes settled on the house next to his. Hannah's house. 

He trusted Hannah with his life. He could tell her anything, so he stood slowly and started walking.

But that seemed to have been the wrong choice. He should've noticed the way she was unusually quiet on their walk to school, she would've told him if he had asked what was wrong. She would've said  "I told my mom about what you told me, that you were powered. I didn't want to get in trouble for keeping your secret, I'm sorry. It's just what I had to do."  Maybe if she had told him, he would've run. He would've run as far as he could, or ran to the gates of the Nation, escaped, and saw how well he fared in the outlands, see if he made it to the Arctic empire, see how well they treated him. But he couldn't do that, because they didn't have the conversation, and he was cuffed to a metal table.

"Say it, Ranboo"

"I-I..."  He stuttered, stopping to take a shaky breath.

"Is that you admitting it because if you weren't, you'd just say so."  She was right. Ranboo wasn't a liar. He couldn't lie to save his life.

"I'm powered."  He admitted. His mother slapped him across the face. It stung more mentally than physically. And with that, she was gone, and Ranboo was left alone in the cold concrete room, yet again. But this time the alone only lasted for a few minutes. The door opened again, Ranboo was too mentally drained to turn around. A woman appeared in his field of view. She looked pretty well off. She had on a blazer and a matching tight skirt that ended at her knees, her hair was up in a neatly done bun, her face was full in the cheeks, so it was obvious she got enough food, unlike Ranboo, whose shirt hung loosely around his thin frame. 

Her heels clicked against the concrete floor, she looked like she was from one of the central districts since the district worked like this:

At the center, there was the Capital. It was the royal district. It was mainly just a palace that housed the government, which was in no way a monarchy, yet they were still called "royals" and their leader was "King Dream", the only powered man said to have any sanity, making him one of the most powerful people in the world, according to himself. Next was what was known as the central districts. There were three of them and they were placed in a triangle shape around the Capitol. There was the Defense district, The Technology district, and the Trade district. All of those districts were more or less upper class, it was very hard for you to move there unless you had quite a bit of money, so it was more than likely you were born there and that's where you'd stay. Next, you'd have the 5 Secondary districts, the Lumber and Mining district which sounds like two districts but don't get confused because it's only one, then there's the Nuclear Power district, the Transportation district, the Fishing district, and the Textile and Fabric district, which was also only one district. Those 5 districts were are all middle class. Finally, you have the district Ranboo lived in. The Agricultural district. It is the largest district, completely spanning the border of the nation and surrounded all other districts. The Agricultural district was the lowest class. 

The woman took a seat in front of Ranboo. 

"Hello, Ranboo. I'm an ambassador from the Defense district. I'm going to make this short and simple. Since you have admitted to being powered, you have two choices. You can either come with us willing to a research facility where you'll become a test subject to better understand the powered and how they work or if you are not willing, you'll be set to the outer gates and shot. Your choice, choose wisely."  She said with her hands folded neatly in front of her. She smiled at him, but there was nothing kind about it. It was a knowing smile, a smile that knew he didn't have any choice because he was young so why would he want to lose his life so early when he could at least have something.

"I'll go. Yeah, I'll go to the facility." 

Arriving at the facility wasn't bad. The ride was quiet, he had time to think. He thought about what that woman did after she carted off kids to become science projects and wondered if she ever felt bad or had any trouble sleeping at night. He thought about Hannah and hoped she was weighted down by guilt at the thought of having to live with knowing she might've killed her best friend, yet couldn't stop himself from also feeling guilty for just thinking about that, but he was mainly thinking about how he wished he told his mother 'I love you' even though she probably wouldn't have said it back. 

The facility seemed nice on the outside, the inside wasn't too shabby either. The only off-putting thing about it was the sheer amount of cells and screams.

The bar code tattoo that was now imprinted on his wrist to identify him as an experiment made his hand feel heavy. The tests he was subject to weren't that bad, but there was one specific test that always struck fear into Ranboo's heart. The kind of fear that made his stomach cold with anxiety and made his body tremble. He'd been burned, poked, prodded, cut but the tank was a different story. 

The researchers at the facility were trying to figure out the extent of each subject's powers, and since Ranboo didn't have the most control over his powers, he was the perfect subject. 

They'd put him in a big metal tank and strip him of his boring navy blue uniform and make him stand in his underwear, they'd lock the latch on the door and all he could do was watch. Then the water would start flowing. It always came from a grated opening on the floor near where he was standing. The water would rise higher and higher until he'd have to push himself against the walls, shimmying himself up, so he could stay higher than the water level. Once he was basically pressed against the roof of the chamber, he'd beg and plead that they let him out, they never did, of course, that'd ruin the experiment. He'd take one last big gulp of air before he was completely submerged. He pounded against the glass planes, they were too thick for him to shatter. He looked around frantically, eyes burning from the water that was most likely not the cleanest of waters they could've used. Only if he could control the glass and make it shatter but of course he couldn't. Yes, you could make the argument that it was sand but there were too many additives. It wasn't pure enough for him to manipulate. 

A feeling tugged in the back of his brain near the base of his skull. He couldn't control the glass, but what was holding the glass together? Iron. Pure iron. They wanted to test the limits of his powers, see if they extended to metals. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to float relaxed in the water on he focused on the iron the was holding the four glass panels of this chamber together. The was an audible creak and the walls exploded. The iron bindings that had once previously held together with the box, had shattered and shot the fragments in all directions like bullets. 

Ranboo fell to the ground, gagging and gasping for air, occasionally coughing up and spitting out water, hot tears pouring down his face but you couldn't see them with how drenched he was already. He looked up, hoping to see his main researcher looking down upon him proudly but what he saw terrified him.

The main researcher that had been assigned to him, the only sense of any normalcy and repetition he had in this hell hole disguised as a building, was lying lifeless on the floor, blood slowly oozing from the bullet-like holes that encompassed his torso and upper body.

Ranboo screamed, horrified at what he had done. He expected to be punished, tortured even, hell, he almost wanted it at this point. He had just killed a researcher. But instead, he was given an extra serving of mashed potatoes and sent back to his cell early. He looks out, past the bars, and into the hallway. He saw two guards walking side-by-side, guns were drawn. Then, he saw a boy with a mop of curly blonde hair that didn't look much older than Ranboo himself. He was not only handcuffed but also shackled, shuffling slowly along. He had a guard on either side of him, holding his arms at the elbows, probably making sure he didn't try to run.

Ranboo and the boy locked eyes, a pit started forming in Ranboo'somach as the boy breathed in, let his eyes close momentarily, then let a soft smirk grow across his lips as he nodded in Ranboo's direction. A soft click sounded through Ranboo's cell.

The door had just came unlocked.

This was Ranboo's chance.

Chapter Text

Tommy was smart, top of his class, and that was an achievement for someone from the Technology district. His family was fairly well off so they had the money for private tutors when needed,  but it also helped that Tommy was an only child. If everything went well, he was set to receive a high-ranking job in the Capital. Yeah, that's right. The Capital. He had been interning for the past year so he’d go into the job with more experience, but he probably should've felt a little out of his league than he did consider all of the other interns, who were supposed to be his "peers" were in their mid-to-late twenties while Tommy was a measly 17 years old. He still had a few months before he even graduated high school. But that didn't matter because he had always been good with computers. He'd solve any virus within minutes, he'd create any program, access literally anything. He was just naturally gifted, some would say. Others would say he was a hacker, and he took that as a compliment because he knew he could do absolutely whatever he wanted.

He had done some dirty work, of course. Definitely not the kind of dirty work you'd think of when someone mentions dirty work, but something that could get him in trouble nonetheless. He'd been paid off by different classmates, or even people he didn't even know from different schools and different districts all just to change their grades in the system and hope that their teachers didn't care enough to check them twice, simple things like that. Nobody snitched because they all knew Tommy didn't have friends and he wasn't necessarily close with his family, so they wouldn’t care if he got in trouble and it wasn't like he had much to lose. There would be nothing gained from snitching. All that could happen is he’d get some community service hours, and even that’s a stretch. So he got away with it. He always did.

One day, he decided to test his limits. See how far he could go. Just for fun, you know? Maybe he'd find dirt on one of the royals, maybe even on King Dream, maybe he'd learn some ancient secrets, or see what the government's hiding on powered people. He didn't know, but there was honestly nothing for him to do at the moment, seeing that he'd finished all his other assignments, and he wasn't willing to just sit there until his shift ended, he needed something to keep him even remotely sane. 

He jiggled the mouse, waking the computer up, and within seconds of seeing the screen light up his world exploded, surrounding him with ones and zeros and lines of code and things that probably would've caused a normal person to faint or at the very least become very concerned for their mental health, but this never crossed Tommy's mind as not being normal. A normal person shouldn't be seeing the things he's seeing, or have the ability to pick and move and change things to get where he wants, find out what he wants, or see where he can go. He saw it as a puzzle, or maybe a maze. People did those puzzle books to kill time, and this is basically the same thing. This is normal. As previously mentioned, he wasn't close with his family and he didn't have many friends so he never really brought up the ability to anyone, he just assumed everyone could do it, or maybe everyone could do it to an extent but he was just really fucking good at it. Maybe if he had brought it up with someone he would've realized he was powered before it was too late. 

Tommy looked around through the code, picking and choosing which paths to take, did he want to find dirt on a royal? Not really, he wasn’t in a particularly ‘ready to expose a royal’ kind of mood. Did he want to find ancient secrets? While that sounded cool, it would probably take too much time or he’d trip some alarm system and Tommy didn’t want to risk that. Did he want to find out what they’re hiding about the powered? Sure... that doesn’t sound too bad. With the blink of an eye, it was almost like he ctrl+F’ed and put in the keyword “powered” because the computer screen in front of him lit up with classified articles and research papers on powered people, how they lived, how they came to be, what makes them powered, experiments perfor- wait. What makes them powered sounded extremely interesting. He opened the article, skimming a few paragraphs.

In conclusion, our research found that the cause of the superpower is not a curse, nor a phenomenon, nor even a mutation, as previously considered. The ability to access these powers comes from a gene that would be present in us all if not for selective breeding in the past hundreds of generations. Every living human technically has the gene, but it is in a sense “locked.” If a child has one parent with a locked gene and the other with an unlocked gene they will become a carrier, when two carriers have a child the gene will remain locked for 4 generations but will become unlocked in the 5th and the child will become powered. If the person were to have a child with another powered person, their child would have an equal chance to inherit either of the abilities, but never both. If a powered person were to have a child with a carrier, the child would inherit the powered parent's ability. If the powered person were to have a child with a non-carrier, the child would become a carrier and have to wait for at least 5 generations (if they were to procreate with another carrier or with a powered being) before seeing the powers again.

There are only a fixed number of abilities a child can receive, each one linking back to an ancient force. These ancient forces can be traced back in a powered person’s DNA but do not cause blood relation to people with the same abilities. A good comparison or example may be; just because you and your wife both have brown eyes does not mean you’re married to your sister. It is just a gene that you share in common. 

After communicating with the outermost civilians, who live before the lines of the Arctic Empire, although the exact locations will be kept undisclosed, they are completely docile and act just like you or me. The stigma held of powered people being violent and barbaric is completely outrageous. Of course, there are bad peoples who just so happen to be powered, but there are also had people who are not powered. You wouldn’t want your child around either, not just the one who is powered. There is no correlation between violence and the activation of the powered ge-

The sound of a door slamming open brought Tommy out of his trance-like state. He jumped, spinning his chair around, hands flying up instinctively. His eyes met the faces of four guards, guns drawn and pointing at him, 

"Oh shit." Tommy breathed,

"Get on the ground." One of the guards demanded. 

"Hey, hey, hey!" Tommy defended, trying to keep up his cool guy facade, "You can't just detain me, I know my rights."

"You're being arrested for hacking into a government mainframe. Don't play dumb, kid." Another guard spat while approaching him. A third guard tried to reach for his arm, but Tommy quickly yanked it away, standing up. 

"I wasn't hacking, I'm an intern here. I'm just doing my job." He pressed. 

"Your job doesn't require accessing classified files. You set off an alarm. We got called. Now get on the ground before we put you there."

Tommy raised an eyebrow and scoffed, "Make me." The guard obviously hadn't expected such defiance seeing as it made him falter slightly, the barrel of his gun dropping to a nonlethal height.

Tommy took this as his moment to look between the guards, the door, and the window, trying to make a split-second decision. And that was when he bolted towards the door, feeling a tranquilizer dart whiz by, barely missing his neck. 

He'd been interning here for almost a year, meaning he knew this whole building like the back of his hand. He knew if he took one left turn, then not the first but the second right turn, the go down the B stairs he would end up in the lobby which was always fairly busy, he might be able to lose the guards there too. So that's what he tried to do but as soon as he opened the door to the lobby, he saw the flashing alarm lights that illuminated the room in red, and everyone was gone. It dawned on Tommy that they may have cleared the scene so if they needed a clear shot, there would be no room for civilian causalities. 

He ran to the main doors, but his stomach dropped when the doors didn't open. He pushed, banged, and checked all of them and they were all locked. His eyes quickly scanned the room for another escape route but there were none. Well, none if he didn't want to go back up but there were probably guards in every stairwell, and the elevators were most likely stopped and out of service for the time being because of the alarms. He didn't have much time. 

His heart sank and he could feel his pulse beginning to quicken, his hands were shaking as he decided to try and pry the doors open again. Nothing. He pulled and pulled, begging silently that they would just magically fly open when his world flashed, illuminating his vision with the ever so familiar binary and code, but just as quickly as it appeared it was gone. But this time it felt different. The code and numbers weren't just gone, they were erased. The locking mechanisms above all the doors suddenly exploded, sending sparks flying in all directions. The doors all swung open and the flashing red lights and alarms stopped. Tommy ran. He ran as far as his legs would take him. He ran until he was gasping for air, the muscles in his abdomen spazzing and begging I'm to take a break. He ran until his legs refused to move. He collapsed to the ground. Tears threatened to spill as he gasped for breath. Tears threatened to spill as he laid against the cool concrete of the sidewalk and realized that a normal person wouldn’t have been able to make the locks explode like that, if they could, locks like that wouldn't be used in a government building. Tears threatened to spill as he realized that his life would never be the same and he should've just gone with the guards. Tears threatened to spill but he wouldn't let them fall. He didn't let them fall when he was roughly handcuffed and thrown into the back of a black van. Be didn't cry when he realized there were guns trained on him at all times. He didn't even cry when they threw him onto the floor of an interrogation room and chained him to a metal table. 

"What the hell were you thinking?!" A guard in a different uniform yelled at him, "Do you know how many innocent people could've gotten hurt?"

"How many people got hurt?" Tommy asked, the question was genuine even if it did sound sarcastic, and it must've come off as such because Tommy has seen the guard's eye twitched.

"It's not about that. It's about what could've happened." The guard spat. 

"So, if no one got hurt, why are we dwelling on the past?" Tommy asked, adjusting to lean further back in his metal chair, the guard slammed his hand down on the table, Tommy flinched in response but somehow maintained a straight face. 

"You're getting on my last nerve kid." The guard warned. 

"It's what I do best." Tommy smiled. Another guard walked in, this one was a woman. Her face was stern but her eyes were soft. 

"We need a name. Gotta contact your parents." She said, pencil and paper ready. 

"Tommy. Well, it's Thomas Simons. I go by Tommy though." He spoke.

She tsk’d as the name. “Simons? Isn’t your father the representative for the technology district?” She asked. Tommy nodded. “Such a shame you’re powered then, I’d heard such good things about you.” She sighed, scribbling something else down on her clipboard.
“I just found out today too," Tommy mumbled.

The lady paused, “Found out...?” She said, waiting for him to fill in the blank.

”That I was powered. I just found out today too.” Her eyes studied Tommy's face, looking for a lie hidden in his demeanor. She grew uncomfortable when she didn’t find it.
“Alright, Thomas," She started, “You’re either going to comply and be taken to a research facility in the capital, or be taken to the outer gates and shot. Your choice.” 

The lady officer was dressed nicely, a tight skirt the ended just above her knees and a blazer to match. This was probably gonna be the end of the life he had known, so he might as well raise some hell on his way out,

“What district are you from?” He asked.

“I don’t see why that’s-“ she started, but Tommy interrupted her 

“It’s just a harmless question, here I’ll answer yours then you can answer mine. I’ll go willingly. Now, what district are you from?”

“Defense. Now, why was that so important?”

"So you defend?” Tommy questioned, seeing the guard who was watching the interaction from afar begin to grow impatient.

"I used to, now I’m the representative.” She said proudly.

"So why don’t your people know about the civilizations of powered people in the outer forests?” Tommy poked, the lady grew tense, lips narrowing into a thin line, "From what I’ve read on them, they’ve been almost completely harmless for the entire time that we’ve known about their existence,” Tommy said.

"That is entirely untrue. There have been cases of powered citizens breaking into district lines for nothing more than to just wreak havoc and cause chaos and-“ once again, Tommy cut her off. 

“Of course there are bad people who just so happen to be powered, but there are also had people who are not powered. You wouldn’t want your child around either, not just the one who is powered. The only thing you're protecting people from is their racist stigmas.” Tommy recited. With that the lady left, leaving him with no response. He was escorted back into the van but this time his ankles were chained together.

Everything from that moment on was a blur. The ride, the arrival, shuffling through hallways. Everything up until he turned and his world illuminated in the blue light of code and binary. He felt the ghost of a smile creep onto his lips. Luckily with the slow pace, the ankle shackles rendered him to, he had time to find the source. His eyes led him to the door of a cell about 15 feet away. He made eye contact with the boy in the cell. He looked about the same age as Tommy, but his eyes were red from crying and he looked drained. Physically and mentally. He was tall, almost a little too tall. He had split-colored hair and light patches on his skin, Tommy remembered reading about a condition that looked like that at some point in a biology class. Vitiligo if he remembered correctly. Tommy decided then that if he was going to be kept in this concrete torture box, then he was going to fuck up as much shit as he could. He had eye contact with the boy, smirking slightly nodding in his direction, careful to not make the lock explode but just open. The boy's eyes widened, but by then, he was out of Tommy's field of view. 

The first cell they put him in he was able to escape from within 30 seconds of the guards locking the doors. He didn’t try to run though, it was more of a threat. To show his power. To show them he wasn't going to just be thrown into a room and waste away for the rest of his life, he was going to entertain himself. The second cell was a little more difficult, he had to give them credit, but it only took him 5 minutes. The third cell was probably at the same caliber as the second, but he humored them by staying put for 3 minutes, then it took him another 5 to unlock it all. By then he was feeling tired, his head pounded with a migraine that seemingly came out of nowhere. He knew he wouldn’t try to escape the fourth cell he was violently thrown into, but he didn’t have to. Because he couldn’t. The walls were made of thick lead.

He laid on the cold lead floor, head pounding. He felt empty. He couldn’t reach any kind of technology through the thickness of the walls. What felt like an eternity, which was probably only about 20 minutes, was cut off by a blaring alarm, which was unfortunately not muffled at all by the walls. The ground shook slightly, maybe there was an earthquake happening, maybe if he was lucky, it would take him out. Oh well, they’d just have to wait and see. Suddenly the walls of his cell exploded as if there was too much pressure inside the small chamber. He sat up quickly, probably too quickly seeing as the action made the world around him spin slightly. His eyes darted around, trying to find the person who caused the explosion, but he was met with no one. Just an open hole in the wall leading to freedom.