Chapter Text
Another day wasting away in this prison, this despicable existence pushed into a box by P-Dr. Martin Brenner. He hated it, but stop it anymore than he could stop the heart of an animal.
Well, in this case that wasn't completely correct. He was an exception to this fact. The power flowing through his veins, filling his whole body, allowed him to do so. Or, they had until Brenner had trapped them with Soteria.
Implanted in his neck, the device stopped and suppressed any form of special abilities from making themselves known. As far as anyone else was concerned, there were the numbers 2 to 18. These were the only children who had things worth noting about them. No others.
One, whoever that might be, was a banished topic, forbidden to be spoken of. But little did the curious ones know, the object of said curiosity was right in front of their faces. They were just too blind to see the truth for what it really was.
He stood in the small, gray room that served as his quarters. The term would be more accurate, but the cameras always watched. It was never safe to say anything that might have been even the slightest bit out of place.
All the tiny space contained was a mattress on the ground. No frame, just the cushion. An underwhelming space, for sure. But the individual who it belonged to was nothing less than extraordinary.
Henry Creel.
Peter Ballard.
One.
Henry was in the miniscule room, laying on the mattress. His hair was tousled and disheveled, eyes staring straight at the camera in the corner. He knew it was watching him, his every move being recorded to some stranger who had no idea who he was.
The need for his powers suddenly struck him as strong as time itself. Henry longed for the powers. Feeling weak and defenseless was a horrible sensation, one that he wished to go away. He needed to kill. To strike something down, to remove the last sensation of life from their body, to send the strength flowing back into his body.
But this mind numbing Soteria! He despised it, along with every lie that Pa-Dr.Brenner had ever told him. This implant was a sign of weakness. Henry had tried before to remove it, but had failed every time. The pain was worse every time he assaulted the bug with something; a knife, scissors, and on occasion, his own fingernails. While the skin had been left a shade of angry red, the device beneath had remained embedded in his flesh; a sign of failure, taunting Henry every time touched it.
There was only one way to get out of this situation. He had to get one of the children to take it out for him. There was only one of them he tolerated enough to keep in his presence. The outsider. The one all the rest teased and taunted, because they thought she was the favorite of their Eleven.
Henry had observed her carefully, judging and measuring her moves, deciding over several months that she was the right choice, and that this girl would be the one to finally set him free.
Only 2 things mattered after this essential event. That he escaped, (Perhaps with Eleven, perhaps not) and that he took as many of goons and maybe the man himself to see Death. But before this happened, there were many more strings to pull, more lies to tell. But one thing was certain. Henry would have at least a chance of escaping, and would take advantage of it to the maximum.
Bringing his thoughts back to the present, he heard a knock on his door. Three hard, sharp raps. Confident, commanding, and arrogant.
It had to be Brenner.
Standing up, Henry crossed over to the door and opened it. There, just as predicted, stood Dr. Martin Brenner. If there was a living incarnation of Satan, this man was it.
“Ah, Peter. Just the one I was looking for.”
Needless mind games, an attempt to lure the listener into a false state of security. There was a reason the doctor had come here, not an event of chance.
“Walk with me, will you?” Brenner said. Not a request.
A command. “Of course,” Henry replied in that emotionless tone of voice, the lack of feeling reserved solely for this monster in front of him.
The pair walked slowly through the facility, the white walls continuous everywhere in the lab. Other orderlies passed through the hallways beside them, none speaking to either Henry or the doctor.
There was a child in the room, one of the subjects that Brenner called his children.
Along with the kid, there was a computer cart that confused him for a few seconds. Then he saw the trap, and his blood ran cold.
There was a piece of candy, a Tootsie Roll straight in the middle of an absolute mass of tangled wires. The ends were exposed, and sparking with a bright light that went out and then returned full force. Glancing back at Brenner, Henry saw one more thing that he barely recognized, but instinctively knew what it was.
A shock unit. Using wires the same colors as the ones in the computer cart.
“I have found that electroshock is very useful in provoking stimulation of the mind,” Dr.Brenner spoke. Henry barely heard him, all his focus lasered in on the sparking wires.
-Sticks like cattle prods punched him in the chest, knocking all the air out of his lungs and sending an almost unbearable shock up his whole body-
And now this experiment was going to undergo the same pain as him, and Henry would be forced to watch. Oh, how he needed his powers. He could have snapped the wires right out of the machine, or even better, snapped Brenner’s neck. But he would instead be forced to experience this torture, and could do nothing about it.
A quick look at the boy's wrist, and Henry could see the number 005. Five seemed reluctant to reach into the cart, and for good reason. But once he saw that even his powers couldn’t manipulate the sweet into getting past the cords, the child had no choice but to reach. He didn’t know how much it would hurt.
Henry did. So Five grabbed the candy, and while he was pulling his hand out, it brushed one of the wires.
And Five screamed.
Henry flinched so hard he nearly fell over. Next to him, the doctor only watched the occurrence if it was simply a puppet show. The monster did nothing to stop the writhing of Five, who was currently on the ground crying out in pain. “Go back to your room, Peter.” Brenner said dismissively, having got the reaction he wanted out of Henry. As if he hadn’t just tortured a child.
Henry, whose breaths were coming fast and uneven, all but ran out of the room. Before he exited, he saw the doctor still watching Five shake from the electricity. When the orderly got back to his room, (After receiving many concerned looks from others in the hallway) he collapsed onto the thin mattress that laid on the floor. Flashbacks and nightmares mixed with reality and created one horribly twisted vision. He could hear crackling from the wires of the computer cart, and the tasers that Brenner had used on him time and time again.
Henry couldn’t breathe. He tried to inhale, but failed.
Then, there was a knock on his door. Not Dr.Brenner, or one of the other orderlies, but a smaller, quieter sound.
A voice came out from the other side of the door, one that Henry knew and recognized. It was Eleven.
“Peter?”