The boy that referred to himself only as Darren Winecrief sat alone in his room, staring at the white satin sheets that the men had installed so that he could separate himself the window that hid itself behind them. He was skinny, unhealthily so, and was pale from the lack of sunlight. He looked older than he was, because underneath that hard face and bruised bones he was barely more than ten. Still, he was old enough to understand that things weren't magically going to get better. The boy had long given up his old dreams of smiling people that would unlock his door and take him away. He had dreamed of that for four years, once he was old enough to understand exactly what smiling was. He remembered Harriet, the doctor's assistant that had hugged him tightly when he had fallen down and ripped some skin off his arms and legs; he had never seen Harriet again after that moment, as she was supposedly transferred to another facility. Darren refused to believe that, suspecting something darker now that he could look back and analyze the situation as a whole.
Comfort and kindness were foreign, things he had heard of but never truly understood. From what he could gather about them, he had never been exposed to either for a long enough time for them to imprint on him in a way that the Directors would find dangerous. Harriet was the one thing he refused to forget, the way she brought him up to her chest and held him tightly, whispering quietly that everything would be okay. Darren only had heard whispering as a way to keep secrets from him, the way the doctors and scientists always did whenever the boy said something that they either disliked or surprised them. Whenever people had whispered, it was always about him, never to him. He didn't have secrets, there was nothing to keep that the people around him didn't already know.
Darren didn't know what they wanted from him, but he knew they wanted something. The constant stabbing with needles and mind-numbing amount of questions that they bombarded at him was enough to throw a better man from his sanity. Darren had never known sanity, only the questions and pain. There was a reason he was able to survive the instillation that he had never left in his entire life: he knew nothing but the pain. He had grown with the detachment and isolation that the Directors wanted for him, never knowing anything but the life that he had been given. Slowly, they would simply withdraw him farther and farther into their world, removing anything that he had grown to know that wasn't the facility, that wasn't the doctors or the pain or the loneliness. He found himself caring only on a minimal level. He looked at the curtains that he now had to push aside to see the gardens outside, the white satin that acted as the first of many barriers that were sure to come in the following weeks.
The boy learned how the men worked. They removed freedom slowly, almost as if they suspected he wouldn't notice. They thought he was stupid, though. He knew that. He let them think it. It wasn't a secret, though. It was a lie. They had lied to him his whole life, and he had decided to return the favor. Let them think he was stupid. Maybe they'd eventually realize that he couldn't give them whatever they needed. Maybe that would be all it would take to put them in their place. Maybe they would finally remove Darren from the project, let him go. Or kill him. He minded neither option, though he obviously preferred the former.
In the quite solace of his room, he could feel the footsteps as the men came for more tests. The soft thuds resounded in Darren's body; there was nothing else to focus on but his quiet breathing. The lone boy closed his eyes and imagined what would be coming for him. It was always the same. Nothing changed. Fredrickson would enter the room alongside two armed guards, the doors closing behind him. The room was soundproof, made so that the workers wouldn't hear the screams, either of pain or fear. The doctor would look at Darren and tell him "17, it's time for your exercise."
Darren would walk down the hallway with the men, and Dr. Fredrickson would give him that fake smile that was more terrifying than any hateful look could be. The doctor would talk in quiet tones about nothing important, acting as if he was the boy's friend; he was the enemy. If there were going to be shots, they would turn left at the end of the first hallway. If there was going to be experiments, they would turn right. The labs where they performed the experiments were no better or safer than the hospital ward, because whichever way they took the boy, Darren would be bleeding by the time he went back to his room. His cell.
Darren always preferred the hospital ward, though, because on the way there, he could see down the hallway that ended with a window to the outside. Pure blue sky was what greeted him beyond that window. The remembered all the stories he heard from the guards when they thought the boy was too hyped up on drugs and medication to understand a word they said. They spoke of the outside world, away from the compound, and no matter what was coursing through Darren's systems, he would listen and remember. He dreamed of the outside world; it wasn't the facility, and that meant it was a better place.
Nobody had noticed the newest addition to Darren's room when they brought him back three days ago. Everyone was still buzzing about the satin sheet, about "17's" slow removal from outside stimuli. Darren knew that today would be his only chance. They were coming for him, but they didn't know of his newest toy. Every day the boy didn't act, there was a chance that they would figure out something was wrong. When under the control of the drugs, there were things he would let slip. That was how they found out about Harriet. He couldn't wait. It was now. There was no other chance. And Darren knew how to do it.
11:45 am exactly. The footsteps stopped. Darren knew there was a locked keypad on both sides of the door. An eleven number code to open up the door. It was being pressed, though Darren had no way of seeing or hearing this. Then the door opened without fanfare. Three men walked in. One was Alphonse Fredrickson: 42, father of two little girls that he had pictures of in his wallet. His wallet was tucked into his left pocket of his lab coat, a small bulge revealing its location to the young boy that sat on the floor in the middle of his whitewash room. Two days ago, the wallet contained fourteen bills, at least three of which were hundreds. Most were likely ones. Nothing much in the facility that needed more than a dollar. Hundreds were likely for any emergency. They would soon find use.
Fredrickson was followed by Sgt. Rice, who had been working at the facility ever since Darren could remember. The other was a new guard. Darren didn't know the man's name. He wasn't as experienced. Both men carried pistols, along with tasers tucked somewhere that the boy couldn't see. The new guard's pistol had its safety on. Foolish mistake. The plan fluttered into Darren's head in an instant. Everything needed to be perfect. Three steps from the door and it would shut behind the three intruders. He needed them to take those three steps. And they would. They thought they were safe; a ten year old idiot sitting on his butt staring at new drapes wasn't much of a threat in these people's minds.
"17, it's time for your exercise."
The man had no idea how true that statement was. Darren refused to move, to turn any more toward them. His quick glances at them may have been too much of a risk already, but he needed to be able to gather information as fast as possible. No, he had to appear focused on the drapes, on the satin that they had put up to limit his view of the indoor gardens that he had treasured for so long.
"17, respond to me. Failure to do so will incite immediate force."
Fredrickson wouldn't learn. He seemed to think that every problem that came up could be resolved by strength or fear. Darren only knew pain and terror. Neither worked much against him any more. He knew they wouldn't go to far, though. They weren't stupid. Darren had pulled this act multiple times over the last few months. They had never acted violently after the first time. Rice moved forward.
"Hey kid, that means you'll be dragged on your ass down this hallway if you don't get up right now. Do you hear me?"
Darren did, but immobility was crucial. His eyes had blinked twenty-one times since the men had entered the room. He had taken nine breaths. The boy took his tenth. Those were the only actions he allowed. He focused squarely on a blank white point on the satin, and used his peripheral vision to gather whatever information he would need. The newest guard looked toward the doctor, confused.
"Is something wrong with him, Doctor?"
Fredrickson eyed the boy down, a glare of loathing breaking through into Darren's vision. It makes the boy want to shiver, but they can't see him move. After a moment, the man's evil gaze turns to the newest guard.
"We suspect that the drug therapies are causing serious issues to his psyche. If this keeps up, we'll have to remove him from the project."
Twenty-ninth blink coincided with thirteenth breath. The doctor began to move. The guards followed. Second step. Third. The door closes shut behind them. Darren feels his body tense. It wants to act. It knows it can act without worry now. What it doesn't understand is the need for patience. His mind knows the need for delicacy and timing now. Acting at the wrong time would lead to needless injury, worst case: death.
Rice was an impatient man. Darren had counted on this. The man began to fidget with his hands, a soft tapping on the side of his pistol with his right index finger being a clear audible sign of more to come. His left hand was rubbing against itself. It would be moments until the man snapped. Darren guessed the man's patience would break around the moment the boy took his Sixteenth breath. The prediction was half a second too early.
"Okay kid, that's it. I'm dragging you the rest of the way. Get over here."
It would take two strides before the man could reach Darren, and the boy used the time to prepare himself. He felt the cold metal of his newest toy hiding underneath his right hand. His body wanted so badly to use it, but he refrained for another few moments. One good chance was coming, the perfect moment to strike. The waiting was almost over. Darren could feel his heart beating quickly inside his chest. The excitement wasn't something he was used to. He liked it. It took every ounce of the boy's focus not to smile.
Rice was within reach. In the crossing, the Sergeant had holstered his pistol. Hard hands grabbed at the boy's shirt collar and lifted him up off the floor. Finally realizing the time had come, the smile snuck out onto Darren's face. The boy thought he saw a trace of realization cross the man's face just before the metal rod forced its way up into the muscle of the man's neck and shattered into his brain. Darren knew that nobody would miss a probing rod from hospital ward. They would find it once they discovered the body. By then, it would be too late.
The new guard, surprised, lifted his pistol and tried to fire. Nothing. Darren's smile only grew as he reached quickly down into Rice's holster and retrieved the pistol as the man's body began to crumple to the floor. The new guard looked down at his pistol to see what had happened. Darren fired a single shot; the bullet pierced the guard's left lung, causing him to fall backwards. Another bullet into the forehead killed the guard. Having not known what kind of person the new guard was, Darren felt bad for killing him. At this point in time, though, nothing could be left to go wrong.
Fredrickson wasted no time in running for the guard's gun. As he reached toward it, Darren let another bullet fly, colliding with the doctor's outreached hand. Bone cracked and splintered. The man crumpled to the floor, letting out a scream and cradling his hand with his chest. The boy had wanted to hurt Fredrickson for so long. It felt good to do so. Teach the man what pain felt like. He wanted to cause the man the same kind of pain that the boy had suffered through, but he didn't have the time for that. He had three minutes at best before things fell apart.
The doctor used his other hand to make another grab at the weapon just a foot away from where he landed on the ground. Another bullet left Darren's gun, and it collided with the body of the pistol lying on the floor. It was useless now. Darren smiled again. Fredrickson hadn't lost some of his smugness, though. Despite the pain, he still smiled and laughed.
"You aren't escaping here, 17. The door's locked. You can't open it up without the code, and nothing you can do will get it out of me. You'll be trapped in this room, and when the scientists realize that you aren't there on time, they'll get suspicious. You can't escape. You're going to die for this."
Darren wanted so badly to just shoot him there, but instead decided to give him one last blow, this time to the man's ego. As the boy walked toward the keypad to unlock the door, he began to speak, the first words he had said all day.
"6, 4, 3, 8, 8, 0, 7, 1, 4, 2..."
Just as the boy reached the keypad, he turned toward Fredrickson, enjoying the fear that had filled the man's face. It was delicious.
"9."
Fredrickson's life was cut short at the moment Darren spoke by a single bullet that burst into the doctor's rib cage, sending fragments of his bone into his cold heart. Darren punched in the eleven number code and watched the door open. He knew he had time before the doors closed again, and walked over to Fredrickson's body. Darren felt pity that he had to kill the man so quickly. As the boy grabbed the doctor's wallet out from the lab coat pocket, he uttered his last words to the man: "In your next life, maybe you should try and put your body between me and the keypad when you enter the code, you dead asshole."
Darren walked out of the room while going over how well everything that gone. His soundproof walls would hide any audible clues of what had just happened, but the next time someone checked his room's camera, they would be faced with a grizzly sight. If he couldn't escape the facility before then, he stood no chance. The boy finally began to run.
Darren had fired five shots total. The pistol had a clip size of twelve. Seven shots. If all went well, there would be no need for any one of them, but he doubted things would work out that way. The hallways were long, and any person in the facility would know that something was wrong if they saw the boy alone. Seven people that could be taken out easily. It wasn't something that could afford to be wasted. Of course, the first shot taken would be the start of the hell.
He turned left at the end of the hallway, heading down toward the hospital ward. He only knew one possible way out of the facility: the window. It looked like he would only have six bullets to waste on the fools that got in his way: the last would need to be saved for the window to burst it open. He couldn't wait for the blue skies, for the grass and plants and such that he had heard about. Something other than those small flowers he saw in the garden, something natural and wild.
Two guards were waiting not far away. They were talking, and one, a girl, had her back turned on Darren. Everything seemed to slow as the boy began to sprint down the hallway. The front facing guard saw the boy almost immediately, but was greeted with a bullet to his face just as quickly. The other guard tried to turn, but Darren caught her in time, throwing one quick attack at her carotid artery. The girl crumpled to the ground in a heap, and Darren kept moving. People would have heard the gunshot. This was going to get much more difficult.
A hallway was about to branch out the right, and the boy caught quick movements on the floor, a moving shadow illuminated from down the hall. It was a person. Darren thought he could hear the breathing. He knew whoever it was could hear his running. He would be upon the hallway in less than a second. What would they try? Were they waiting with guns? Were they scientists trying to hide? It didn't matter. Gun aimed to his right, Darren dropped himself into a quick slide just as he gained sight of what was around the corner.
The guard hesitated, and he rifle was aimed three feet too high when the bullet fired out of it and collided with the opposite wall. Darren's bullet was more true, and the guard fell. The bullet collided with the man's shoulder, so there was no way to know just how bad it would be. All that mattered was that the man was incapacitated and no longer a threat. Darren took a moment to get himself back onto his feet and continued his escape.
The boy was tired. He hadn't run this much in his life. It wasn't much farther to the window, but his body begged for a rest.
"The experiments this way!"
Voices. Behind. Darren turned and saw four guards come around a distant corner. Four guns raised all at once. Three rifles. One pistol. Bullets flew down the hallway. Darren scrunched down into a smaller target, still trying to move as fast as he could. He could see the hallway that would lead to the window. It wasn't far. A few more yards. And then a sharp pain hit him and ripped up through his left leg until it seemed to flare up into his mind. All strength in his leg was gone. The boy lost all balance and fell, barely able to stop his head from colliding with the cold floor with the quick work of his left arm.
He needed to move. He was so close. Without regard to the pain, Darren stood back up. His left leg felt like dead weight, but he needed its help if he was going to make it. He willed his core to work past the pain for just a bit longer. Darren turned and fired two shots of his gun behind him randomly, hoping it would do something. He wasn't sure if he hit any of the four guards behind him, but he let himself believe that he did. It made things easier.
Darren rounded into the last hallway, ready to see the window. Instead, he found himself face to face with the largest guard the boy had ever seen. Darren tried to fire at the man, but the guard grabbed the pistol and crushed it out of the boy's hand, tossing it out of reach in the process. Darren threw two punches at the man, but each did nothing more than faze him for less than a moment. The man sent a punch of his own, which Darren managed to jump out of the way of, landing on bad leg. The pain was intense. Darren knew he had to take the man out as quickly as possible. The only question was how.
Another punch from the guard, another dodge. Darren watched the guard's arm as he punched. He remembered his studies. The path became clear. He just needed the man to attack once more. The man obliged almost immediately. Darren took his chance, and with a quick strike hit the Golgi organ behind the man's elbow. He saw the arm slacken, and with a quick movement, the man found himself with his right arm torn out of its socket, resting at a right angle against the natural direction of his elbow. Using the distraction, Darren kicked behind the man's knee, dropping him off his feet and onto his knees. The boy finished his attack by driving his elbow into the man's throat, combining his weight with the downward momentum of the attack to crush the man's windpipe. The fight was over.
The pistol had found its way behind Darren, and he couldn't afford to go back to it. Instead, he hurried as fast as he could to the window. He was almost there when her heard the men round the corner. They were right behind him. He looked back. There were six now. All had their guns aimed at him as they advanced. Darren kept moving kept moving. It was all he could do. He was willing to use his own body to shatter the glass at this point. It was his only way out. When he reached the glass, though, his heart dropped.
Darren had never been down this hallway before, but he knew the sky when he saw it. And his theory was right. This was a way out. The problem was, there was nowhere to go. All there was was sky, a 100 foot cliff, and what he the ocean below. The instillation... it was on an island. His whole life, he had been living on an island and he never knew. If only he had known... but it was too late for that now. He pounded on the glass weakly with one hand. He was trapped. It was over. The boy turned to face the men. He knew it was time. There was only one thing left for him.
The ten-year-old Experiment 17 stood and watched as the guards advanced on him slowly, guns raised. Then they stopped moving. He could see the looks in their eyes. It was over. It was all over. But, oddly enough, the young boy couldn't help but smile. At least he was finally going to be free of the pain. And he had even managed to get a good look at the sky. He had seen the ocean. He was going to know what freedom was like, just in a way he had never imagined. He smiled wider, and some of the men looked either confused or disturbed. All at once, though, Darren understood the determination in their eyes. Unspoken between everyone in that hallway, they knew this battle was over.
When the bullets ripped into the boy, he felt no pain. He only heard the sound of shattering glass from behind him. He fell backwards out of the window and off the cliff. He took a breath of real air, and could smell the sea around him. All his senses were in overload, and he started crying. One guard walked forward and watched as the body of a ten-year-old boy, riddled with bullets, smashed into the ocean and rocks below. He turned to look at the rest of the guards behind him.
"Subject terminated."
So, I'm finally back after months of hiatus from Fictionpress. I hope you all like the new story. I decided to pound out the first chapter before I lost interest in it or forgot about it. I hope you all like it, and I plan on updating it from time to time. For all my readers worried about Path of Ruin, don't worry. I haven't stopped working on it. In fact, I have a few chapters already written out, but I have a reason for not uploading them yet. If all goes well, the next four chapters of it will be up by early February. Thank you for reading, everyone. Please review, especially if you didn't like it. I need your guy's help to keep improving. Remember, you guys are one of my main reasons for writing. I like to hear about what you guys think of my work. Please. Thanks for reading.