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The angry sounding intercom blared to life as P6 retreated to the back to the shadows of his containment. It was pointless, of course, he was only boxing himself in further. Like a rabbit caught in a snare.
“I can’t.” Dylan insisted, pleaded, as his voice quivered. His pale skin was clammy with sweat, mind whirling and fuzzy from whatever chemical cocktail his daily ‘vitamins’ contained. “I just... need a break. Please.”
He was trying. Really. He had tried. Given it his all. This thing, this flesh, he wore as a body no longer felt like it belonged to him. It was heavy and awkward. His limbs lanky. His skin bruised. All of his movements frustratingly stilted and rebellious in his attempt to make them do anything the FBC requested.
Disappointment.
Somewhere along the way he’d lost what little heart he had to put real effort into his tests. Now, he just tried to survive them. To stomach the pain and reprimands so he could skip ahead to the quiet hours where he was left to sleep.
Two sweat hours. His uniform was soaked and sticking to his skin.
Three in the isolation helmet. Even now he felt like couldn’t get enough air into his lungs.
Extra combat drills. He hated fighting.
Another test, Darling had announced in his genial manner. Like it was all just a fun game. The punishments were merely there to help him see that he needed to be ready. To give him a gentle push. A future Director needed to understand duty, responsibility. To be of the utmost fitness to serve the Bureau in every capacity.
The FBC needed him. Needed P6.
The testing regimen Dr. Darling had shifted to had exponentially escalated in brutality since Dylan’s last failed escape attempt. He had been so close to freedom. It was the farthest in the Oldest House he had ever come since he arrived. Way past the cafeteria where he’d been snuck ice cream once or twice.
He hadn’t considered at all what he’d do once outside, just that he had to make it out of here.
Jesse would find him, right? Or... would she? It had already been a couple years. Had he misread their bond? Where was she now, out there in the world— basking in the sunlight? Running through grass? Going to school?
… Had she found a new family? Forgotten about him?
Somewhere from the depths of his mind an unhelpful voice spoke up.
She’s not coming.
Jesse would have escaped by now. She had always been better than him at this stuff – being brave, jumping into action, standing up to their parents. He didn’t like confrontation, he didn’t even like being perceived. There were countless eyes here, always watching. Staring.
The mechanical sounds of lenses zooming to record and study and analyze every minutiae of his existence. Sleep. Food. Exercise.
Dylan didn’t want this.
He was weak. Weak, weak, weak. A disappointment. A failure. He had grown to understand that much. He shouldn’t have been so surprised, shouldn’t have let it hurt him so much when he had already heard the same sentiments back in Ordinary. He was never strong enough, was never like the other boys in his class, as much as he desperately tried to fit in.
Jesse had always been there to—
No. She’s NOT coming!
Dylan’s stomach roiled as he saw a tall, shadowy figure approach, back lit by the blindingly bright spotlights they pointed at him for study. He knew that silhouette, knew well by now that it meant a harsher sort of punishment, things not written on the board.
Roberts was Darling’s trump card for when P6 was particularly reluctant to participate. The times he visited Dylan were one of the few moments those whirring lenses fell silent. Went still.
Were they still watching?
The rapid jackhammer of fear pounding in his chest was morphing into something strange. Something heated and dark that he didn’t recognize. It… unsettled him. He pressed himself back further into the wall, wishing he could meld with the glass and become truly invisible.
He didn’t want this.
“Please.” he repeated. He felt so small.
Faintly, Dylan felt the cool, radiating fractals of Polaris prod gently at his psyche. Trying to show him… something. He could never understand what she— it, wanted. If it could do something, then it would have happened by now. It felt like it was mocking him, making him think of Jesse again in a moment like this.
SHE’S NOT COMING.
That thing— that terrible feeling was coming hotter, faster. Clawing up his throat.
Roberts slowly stepped through the doorway, enough light reflecting back onto him that Dylan could faintly see the whites of his eyes. His face was a cold mask of hard lines. Disappointment.
P6 raised a shaking hand in front of him, as if it could somehow keep his warden from getting any closer. “I’m just taking a break– I’m tired, please…!”
An unearthly chill trickled down his spine as he heard the characteristic electric ‘click!’ from somewhere above that signified the camera observing him had powered down. The spotlights pointed at him dimmed and he blinked rapidly, urging his eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness.
The room was lit only by the lone blinking of a security light in the top corner, indicating the room was still secure. He couldn’t see through the observation windows, where Darling often stood. It was too dark.
Was he still there? Still watching?
Not again.
He couldn’t see Roberts, but he could sense him– feel him getting closer. Smell his cheap aftershave and disgusting coffee breath.
The lone light blinked again.
Weak, that cruel voice in his mind reminded him. He felt sick.
That feeling was everywhere now, smothering, a red hot vice entangling all of his senses. He could feel the hair on his arms stand on end and his muscles locking in anticipation. He never did anything to stop it. He always let people hurt him. Tom and his crew. Darling.
Roberts.
Jesse was strong, Jesse was brave. Could he be like that?
Another flicker of light. Roberts was so close.
“Stay away...!” Dylan half warned, half begged. His voice cracked. The wall behind him was cold and unyielding, he couldn’t retreat any further.
No one was coming to save him. Not Polaris, not Jesse. The intercom was deathly silent, the cameras still off. He was alone.
As Roberts thick hand wrapped around his upper arm, the grip suffocating, Dylan felt something inside him abruptly snap into place. It was like cracking your knuckles for the first time. Or… popping a limb you didn’t know you had back into its socket. A feeling both foreign yet so familiar he didn’t know how it could have been hiding inside him all this time.
His frame went rigid with the intensity of the sensation ripping through his veins, the flesh he wore no longer feeling like dead weight.
“Don’t touch me.” P6 snarled, his normally weak voice fueled by righteous anger.
He was so tired.
Dylan’s movements were both his own yet somehow not, like he was both a participant and a bystander residing in one body. He flexed his outstretched hand, a casual movement, and Roberts was wrenched off him and slammed against the doorway. The room shook.
The security light blinked again, providing brief visibility.
His warden’s eyes bulged in his skull looking wild and terrified, the man choking and spluttering as he tried to call for help. A stark contrast to the effortless cruelty he usually displayed. Was he not used to getting hurt? Did he not know how it felt?
The wall started to audibly fracture under the force, web-like cracks blossoming as the hinges of the door groaned loudly, but Dylan couldn’t stop. Some faucet in his brain had been irrevocably opened and it would not turn itself off until it was satisfied. It had never been free before, it needed more.
Jesse wasn’t coming for him and he had to—
Tired, the dark voice in his head agreed.
Polaris prodded at him again, barely a whisper in his mind. He couldn’t understand. Could never understand. They left him. The sensation of it only fueled the faucet’s flow.
Leave me ALONE.
He curled his fingers and Roberts’ rib cage compressed with distinctly audible pops. The man coughed wetly, spraying blood. It seeped slowly into the white lab coat he wore, though he was no scientist. He was a wolf, trying to blend in with the flock. They were all wolves.
“P-please…” the man before him wheezed, begged. He looked weak.
The spotlights above Dylan erupted back to life in a blaze, the intercom a deafening burst of static, but the ringing in his ears was so loud. He thought maybe somewhere in the distance someone was screaming. Or, was that his voice?
With a resounding crash and earsplitting grind of steel and rebar the wall behind Roberts crumpled, fully giving way. His spine folded with a sickly ‘crack!’ as he rocketed out of the room and slammed into the observation windows across from them, smearing the glass crimson.
Splinters of wood and plaster showered over Dylan where he stood, coating him in a bitter-tasting dust. Slowly, he pulled his arm back and stared at his palm. His hand looked normal but it was quivering, and it was... red. Was he bleeding?
The lights above had gone red too, flashing wildly. He didn’t know they could do that.
P6 fell to his knees, his senses getting bombarded as the cacophony around him came back into focus. He was transfixed with his hand, the blood pooling between his nails. What it had just done. The feeling had abandoned him, slinking away like a snake satisfied with its meal. He didn’t know if it would come back.
He... didn’t think he wanted it to come back.
Nausea flooded over him, his mouth filling with saliva. Was this… being brave? Jesse wouldn’t have done this. He reluctantly lifted his gaze to Roberts’ twisted, broken body across the room. There was a blur of activity around him, people running, yelling, but the corpse was all he could see.
Something sharp pricked his neck and a cool sensation washed over him, the corners of his vision growing dark and fuzzy. This time he eagerly welcomed the oblivion it offered.
“I’m… sorry…” he whispered, barely audible over the noise, as the darkness claimed him.
Sometime, somewhere else, somewhere not here he would have been starting 7th grade. Jesse would find some way to sneak a treat into the meager lunches they brought with them to school.
He’d take art class, he thought. His mom loved to paint, and he missed it. The teacher might compliment him on his drawings.
They’d stay out after dark, making up adventures and laughing so hard his stomach hurt.
Sometime, somewhere else, he’d just get to be Dylan.