Part One

Deth's parents thought that he was going to the right place. The mental institution was the safest decision for everyone. They made the mistake in not realizing what they would be putting their own son through for the rest of his life.

At school they made fun of him, his name, his voice, and most of his behavior. He snapped easily. When he snapped the kids would flee. He flipped over desks, punched glass, threw chairs and gave plenty of bruises to his classmates. The kids were even more afraid because he reached puberty faster and he was huge, but not fat, just well built. Many times he would be sent to the Principal's Office. The principal called his parents. He hated it so much when she called his parents having them come to school and jabbering about how disappointed they were in him. When the Principal refused to listen to Deth's quiet pleas of "don't call", he cried. The Principal ignored him. He grabbed the sharp scissors on the desk and pushed the principal down. Muttering over and over again "I'll kill you, bitch!"

The police took him away from his hometown, never to return home.

Deth was never tested for whatever mental illness he may had. They just threw him away in one of the cells. A few days after his parents came to see him for the last time. He was taken inside a gray van. He remained in there for several hours and found himself in a place unrecognizable. There were gray fences and gray buildings being heavily guarded. It was a government base. Inside, it looked like hell, more like a jail than a mental institution.

He was thrown in a cell that had the makings of a cage on the inside…more like a cage in a dog pound. There was no light, only what came from the high window that was beyond his reach. The corners of the room were dark. The floor was sticky and the only drain was in the far corner of the cell. It reeked horribly.

The men who carried Deth there kept assuring him that he was just being transferred to another hospital, but with the little sanity that he still had left, he knew this was not a mental institution. They began to strip him of his clothes until he was completely naked. He could feel the chill breeze all over his skin. He kicked and screamed to keep them from whatever they were gonna do. A part of him swore these "doctors" meant to rape him. He knew how sick people could be even at his frail age of 13. He began to scream until he could be heard outside the room. Guards had to come in to keep Deth at bay. Finally he was pushed back into a wall and fell to the floor extreme pain. The men quickly got away and locked the door. He no longer cared about being naked. He ran back to the door and banged on it. This was done for 5 hours until he lost his voice, his strength, his sanity.

The cell was undisturbed for an entire day. Deth was unaware of the small door that opened to reveal a tray being place on the ground beside him. When Deth woke up he found the tray of food cold and rotten. This was prison food indeed but still edible. He didn't feel like eating though. There was also a pair of clean briefs with them. They were of a dirty white color with a printed number marked on the elastic, as if he were in a prison. A water pipe sticking out of the wall would give Deth only a few scoops per day.

For days he remained in there without knowing why he was taken to such a place. Perhaps to punish him more, even though he did remain very calm at the first mental institution he was at. He thought he would find peace but he was wrong. Eventually he began to have nightmares about this new place and what they might be doing to him.

Deth waited in fear and then about a week later, the main door opened and he scooted to the back of the cell. As "they" came in and picked him up, he screamed and kicked again but it was not as strong as his first day there.

"They" dragged him down the halls to a large operating room. Oh god, he didn’t have any reason for them to operate on him. They were experimenting. Anesthesia and whippings were the only methods the men could find to control Deth's rage and resistance.

Once again they were deafened by his screams of agony as Deth realized that they were tearing open his flesh.

Even the substances in the shots they injected in him burned with extreme pain.

For a week he returned to his cell, he didn't want to eat his food but he knew "they" would make him. He didn’t seem to lose any weight especially since he was only given one meal a day. It must've been the experiments. His muscles would hurt. His breathing was sometimes weak. He felt heavy. Were the experiments meant to make him stronger? He was still angry. Every moment in that cell made him want to kill more. When the door for the food tray opened he would try attacked the hands that were placing the food tray inside. But then they would whip his hands until they bleed. Deth began to self mutilate himself until it happened again. "They" were taking him away, back to the experimenting room.

He returned to his cell later, in the same pain and the same things began to happen to his body.

As the weeks went on the experiments were endless and the torture had worsened especially in his mind.

As the tears finally came, he wanted to pray to God for mercy. He wanted to apologize for all of the wrong he had done but it was too late, he was already in hell.

All sanity was sucked out of him as a couple of more months passed. He was unaware of the door opening until he realized that the days he kept track of informed him that this was the middle of the week. He was experimented mostly on the weekend.

He heard a small whimper that turn into an endless chain of sobs. He turned his head over and found a small shadow scurrying into the darkness. The door closed and the sobbing continued from that lone corner.

One light came back into the room he found in the corner of his cell a small girl who was completely naked except for only a pair of dirty-white panties with a prison number on them.

The girl's sobbing was loud and endless. Deth never realized how annoying it was. It went on for almost an entire day. The sobbing was getting louder. He could see the girl's face turn completely red. Finally, the big door opened. And a man came in, he had a whip with him and Deth saw the whip being raised over the sobbing child.

The noise of the whip overpowered the sobbing. Deth could see the mark that was left on her reveal itself very quickly but then he raised the whip again. A new mark covered the old one and now it was reddening. The girl was bleeding and the whip was being raised again and struck more quickly. The girl's pain kept her from stopping the tears.

What compelled him to do it, he did not know from this day. Perhaps it was the understanding of the torture he saw the girl going through. But here was a normal looking girl who was being whipped almost naked for no reason. Maybe his urge to kill had not faded.

He charged for the guard in an attempt to grab the whip. He hoped for his strong fingers to crush the guard's sides, but then the other men came in and began to restrain him. The bleeding girl was ignored. This time Deth was being whipped with several whips at once. It was the fires of hell burning his flesh and he screamed in agony. "They" knew Deth had been weakened once he feel to the ground limped and dead-like. He thought for a moment that this must've been what it felt like to be lifeless.

Deth was traumatized by the parts of flesh that were exposed. The cuts from the whips were far deeper can the girl's. From the ground, he could see the numerous red and purple lines that burn the small girl's skin but he failed to see the grotesque cuts with blood flowing out that consumed his own. His vision became blurry. He was going to black out. But he could see the girl coming closer to him. Her small arms were wrapped around his damaged form and when he felt her skin against his he stung with pain but another part of him felt warmth he had never felt since his arrival there.

"Are you okay?" she asked still shaking from her own pain.

She was crying again, but it was only small tears and he began to squirm in a position to provide HER comfort. He allowed her tears to sting his painful wounds. Was she crying for him?

He still had tears from the whipping but now new tears began to form. For the first time in his life he was given kindness that he had never felt. Not even his own parents could have ever shown him this much sympathy in such a dark time. Deth could feel mercy embracing her small arms around him.

Weakly, he asked for her name.

May was way too young to know what love truly was, and Deth already knew too much about it. But for her, he felt something that he swore with his own life it was far greater than the love of a man and a woman. Maybe it was because they were both still children. Anger flushed back into his system. Maybe he did, but May…nothing on Earth could've possibly given her reason to be here right now frightened and dirty. She was only eight. He felt for the first time that he had a responsibility to care for his cellmate that he was willing to accept. They needed each other right now if the two of them were to survive. He didn't want May to lose his sanity the way he lost his.

Rarely were they fed now. Deth had to be fed at least one meal per day, which he would secretly share with his starving cellmate. They shared the only blanket that would protect them from the upcoming winter frost. Sometimes they talked but only of things that would ease and comfort May. They were forced to keep their energies very low.

Throughout all of this time, they were unaware of "they" watching them with fascination. Their experiments have created an unexpected bond.