My eyes shot open as if my body wanted to wake up. I didn't know how long we were in that... Hospital. But I internally begged myself to find an escape the moment I gained consciousness.

"Thomas!"

As usual, once was never enough. Although after the first few times I started to worry. I got up and walked towards the barricade with a sigh and snatched the largest thing I saw from the bottom, before everything came crashing town onto the floor, jolting Thomas awake.

He sent me a disapproving glare, which I tried to ignore as I leaned out of the doorway and scanned the area.

"Clear." I said, waving for him to follow.

We crept through the dark halls, scanning for a stairway, an elevator, or anything with an EXIT sign.

As we walked through the halls I spotted a brightness, something that resembled daylight and felt my heart begin to flutter with joy.

I ran towards the light source beaming with hope...

... Until I saw that the light was from a screen. I had found myself in a room full of DVD's instead. I hung my head at the realization, sighing to myself as Thomas nonchalantly followed after.

The rotting beige room was small and full of official-looking papers scattered all over the place. A chair sat by a desk, on the latter was a small TV screen.

I approached the screen out of curiosity, scanning the disheveled area before I read the disks.

The selective salvaging of organs.

Eugenics: The future of humanity.

...?

I played one.

When I inserted it a man with a clipboard and a dingy white lab coat appeared on the screen after some noisy static.

"Experiment number forty-seven, day sixteen." he said "As we well know, Eugenics has been used for decades with the purpose of breeding humans that surpass all expectations, but why? Why would we go through the trouble of finding and mass producing humans of the most desirable traits?

Why would we attempt to produce humans of an elite class?

We do it for war, we do it for the future." he paused.

"As this time of constant conflict continues, we've managed to stay one step ahead of the rest of the world without any difficulty because of Eugenics, or selective breeding as I refer to it. We've created soldiers that use every bit of potential they possess. No, they surpass average human capabilities beyond a reasonable scope... So much so that a normal soldier wouldn't stand a chance against one our weakest subjects.

However, that's not enough. There can never be enough. While selective breeding and transhumanism can give us a generous array of benefits, we must employ ALL available options.

And that includes the salvaging of organs, regardless of who they belong to.

Here we'll be using this young Tikaran girl."

I began to doubt my eyes.

She's...

"While she is a young girl, this holds many benefits. For one, her organs are new and full of life, while they may not be completely developed they give us the ability to test the capabilities of our youth. If we can accomplish this we could produce the world's most capable fighters with skills honed from childhood."

The girl screamed through her gagged mouth, tossing and wriggling helplessly against the heavy leather strapping her into place as I slowly began to tremble in frigid horror.

"In this video we will be performing a live dissection, that way we can study the organs as they function."

The girl tearfully shrieked. I recognized her voice.

"To do this I have enlisted the help of five young assistants."

My jaw dropped as they entered the room.

The man turned around, "Joshua, can you tighten the straps on her arms?"

Thomas' mouth hung open. "WHAT THE F-!"

Thomas stupidly gawked at the screen as Joshua silently obeyed, a dead cruel look in his eyes.

"Without further ado we will begin the live dissection." he proceeded to put on his surgical mask. "Moreece, D'Shawn, ready the tools." D,Shawn handed Tequan a large circular saw.

I barked. "OH MY-!"

"Tequan, if you will."

Tequan powered on the circular saw as he eyed the girl. As she shook her head and bawled wildly he flashed a small grin, before slowly tearing the saw down the middle of her stomach and across to form a large bloody T shaped gash.

The girl's arms trembled in shock and her fingers curled themselves at the pain.

Instantly Jeremiah ripped through her flesh with a large rusty blade, tearing open the flaps of her skin like pages of a book to reveal a gruesome display of innards.

"T-That's..."

In an instant a flurry of memories from my early childhood flashed before my eyes.

"NO! Stay away from me!"

"Thank you so much. You really did me a favor..."

"Arigato gozaimasu!"

"... M-Mizuki Hanajima." I said.

Thomas stood there, his hands just barely shielding a look full of terror and dread. "W-Why is Joshua-"

Another hand seemed to grope at his face, then another snatched his hand away, while another ripped at his shirt.

And another, and another, and even more until the entire upper half of his body was covered in disgusting, deformed hands. I watched in terror as he was paralyzed by fear, his horrified expression slowly disappearing behind the grotesquely contorted appendages.

"LET 'IM GO!"

I snatched a gun from my pocket and pistol whipped the mutilated limbs as they convulsed and groped at us. As figures large and small began approaching me I swung my gun left and right, wailing away at the seemingly endless wave of bodies.

Suddenly I heard Thomas let out a guttural roar. With nothing but his sheer strength he overpowered the limbs and smashed his fists into their bodies with enough power to shatter bones on impact.

Like a machine he beat the deformed masses like raw eggs, thrusting his heavy boot into their many faces as teeth, and already bulging eyes fell to the ground.

As I continued to swing my weapon at the squirming bodies Thomas' swings seemed to become more and more powerful as each of the experiments flung themselves at him.

He continued to swing, knocking them across the room until the space around him began to look like a vicious storm of flying sweat and bloodied hands.

As he clobbered them one of his fists came rocketing out of nowhere and smashing into my face with an excruciatingly painful force. Blood spilled from my nostrils as he continued to fight in a blinding whirl of emotion, completely oblivious to the fact that my nose was more than likely broken.

I dragged myself in his direction as he bolted through the door and disappeared down the hall before my vision began to fail. My head started pounding and before I could realize it I had fallen to my knees.

I blacked out.

Later

I woke up on a cold operating table, this time I noticed that I was tightly strapped down.

I was in a moderately large room but it didn't look like the rest of the hospital at all, it reminded me of an old warehouse. There were white curtains sectioning off the space, a counter with a few computers; papers scattered in the same area.

A strong looking man standing at the far end of the room turned around. He looked dirty; aftershave, thin lips, beady eyes that sunk deep into his head.

That's when I remembered the guy who noticed us after storing that corpse, and cringed when I saw and remembered the large ring of keys tied to his wrist.

"Alive?" He said, limping over to me. "By the time I found you I thought those experiments did you in, but most of them were dead."

I grunted in slight aggravation at how it was Thomas that knocked me out...

I swear the more I thought about it the more my nose began to hurt.

Suddenly he was inches away from me, "Silver grey eyes?" he said. "Those are rare... And they're so vibrant too. Studying these might be fun."

He started poking my eyelids.

"DON'T TOUCH ME!"

"Why?" He asked, "You're really unique, you could help us make great progress. Don't you care about the future of us humans?"

"That's BS! I saw what you did to that Tikaran girl." I shouted at the top of my lungs. "I KNEW her, her name was Mizuki!"

He gave me a curious frown, "Oh! You saw those videos, huh?" he smiled a little. "Wasn't the dissection great?! I got some amazing organs from her! With kidneys like that we'd never have to worry about getting crap stuck in our system!"

I grimaced. "You're insane! You stole organs from a little GIRL! She didn't tell you to rip her open! You, Joshua, Tequan, Jeremiah and those other two forced it and killed her!"

He stood there, twirling the brown hairs on his chin. "You seem to know those names pretty well..."

"Because I know those people! That's why I'm so pissed at you!"

"Woah, really? Small world..."

I groaned, rolling my eyes.

He shrugged his shoulders, "Well... No pain no gain right? That reminds me." He cupped his hands around his mouth. "Thomas, oh THOMAS!"

I furrowed my brows.

"Oh yeah! He's in here." He walked over to a thick steel door and raised the hatch.

Inside was Thomas, his face completely drained of color, eyes wide open and teeth gritted as his hands trembled in terror.

I gagged at the pungent odor, "... Why does it stink in here?"

"Because I opened that door." he said, "I keep all my 'parts' in there."

I disgustingly scowled at him, "YOU LOCKED THOMAS IN THERE WITH A BUNCH OF SEVERED CORPSES?!"

He folded his arms. "Well I figured you'd be used to it. You didn't have a hard time killing all my experiments..." he seemed to pout about it. "I know they're scary but they're pretty harmless. I mean, if they're in a bad mood they may hit you or try to wrap their 'arms' around your neck... But it's not like they know what they're doing. They just get mad and attack stuff."

"What the hell is WRONG with you?!"

He ignored me and squeezed one of Thomas' large arms.

"Man, he's strong... How old are you?"

Thomas expression didn't change.

"He's twelve..." I grumbled.

The man's eyes shot open, "WOAH! You're amazing! I expected something to be weird about you." he turned towards me, "Y'know it wasn't easy getting him in here, I had to tranquilize him like four times before he calmed down! But since his last name's Colton I'm pretty sure that should have been obvious."

I tilted my head as he began to speak to Thomas, who stood there completely silent.

"I mean there's lot of Colton's out there but you're the REAL thing! It's in your blood! I ran tests and everything!" he beamed, "I gotta hurry and see what's inside you!"

That's when my eyes wandered to the ceiling, where huge rusty blades hung menacingly.

My heart sunk.

Oh god.

He ran over and ripped open some large dingy white curtains, revealing a large operating table that was still dirty with the dried blood and fluids of previous victims.

He shot Thomas an enthusiastic glare, "Then we'll see if history really has repeated itself."

He walked over and grabbed Thomas's hand. A look of dazed shock came over the man's face when Thomas didn't move.

"C'mon, I can't waste time on you! I've gotta open up this guy too! Then I gotta go out and find more people and everything! Don't be so difficult..."

Thomas's expression changed to a nasty scowl and he snatched his arm away with a tug.

The man's face went blank, and I could've swore his eye twitched before he limped over.

"Hey... I know you're strong but you're still twelve. You're close, but you haven't developed that well just yet." he grabbed Thomas by his throat and shot him an eerie glare. "I can still give you an ass whoopin' worse than your mommy, little boy."

Thomas slammed his fist into the man's face over and over again until a crushing blow to his nose loosened the man's grip. With that Thomas took hold of the man's skull and bashed his forehead into his mouth. The man let go, wiping the blood from his face with the sleeves of his coat.

He turned around as Thomas stood there before him, chuckled and gave a bloody open mouth smile. "Look at me!" He grinned, "Underestimating the same thing I marvel at!"

He took a large pipe and whipped it across Thomas's face, knocking him into the operating table I was strapped to.

Before Thomas could react he swung the pipe upwards and whacked his jaw. Thomas's head flew back along with the rest of him as blood flew from his mouth.

"There's no way I'm not ripping you open."

As the man readied for another blow Thomas forced himself up and took a defensive position. The man took a swing with the large pipe, as it whipped through the air Thomas caught it mid-motion.

He cracked a grin and thrusted, smashing the pipe into Thomas' gut, knocking out his wind. As Thomas held his stomach the man ripped the pipe from his hands and went slamming it across his head.

"You're still alive?! Exactly what the hell ARE you?! I gots to kno-"

Thomas forced the pipe to the side and sprinted towards him, launching his knee into the man's gut before bashing him in the neck with an elbow. A scowl of nearly demonic rage came over his face before he ripped the man from his feet with the roar of a lion.

Man's nostrils flared with anger just before I saw a sharp object glisten in the low lighting and peirce Thomas' side, ripping through and saturating his clothes with a spreading redness.

Thomas let out a hoarse scream and lost his grip allowing the man to fall to his feet, forcing his weight on Thomas and forcing him towards the large operating table as he held back a tearful sob.

He wasn't gonna let that man turn us into a statistic, he wasn't gonna stop, even through blood and tears he'd keep fighting.

I could see that much in his eyes.

"You are so goddamn DIFFICULT! You know how hard it is to sneak bodies around?! I couldn't even get you two here without losing that girl!"

Thomas shoved the man off of him and he stumbled across the room, knocking carts and tables of equipment over.

As the man struggled to keep his balance Thomas smashed his knuckles into the side of the man's neck and took hold of his shirt. They kept pressing their weight on each other, not moving from that spot.

The man's voice became hoarse, "You're not WINNING this shit kid! I see in your eyes! You're at your limit!"

A booming cry of determination echoed through my body as Thomas pounded his boot into the man's shins, crippling both of his legs.

Suddenly I heard a loud pop and the growing sound crackling followed after. As I blinked my eyes and squinted at the two, small glowing blue dots slowly appeared before a violent flash of electricity erupted between the two.

The man went tumbling across the room and crashing into a wall with a loud boom and enough force to shake it.

As he collided the heavy blades shook and plummeted from the ceiling, cleanly slicing through his neck as red spurted from his neck like a bloody fountain.

I shivered at the chills shooting up my body as his severed head rolled to Thomas's feet. He disgustedly kicked it aside and fell down, supporting himself on a knee.

With one arm free I loosened the straps and rushed over to help.

"Thomas that was AMAZING! Are you oka-"

*ZAP!*

"OW!" A strong shock coursed through my body as I tired to lift him.

Thomas rose to his feet and dusted himself off, still unable to move freely due to soreness "There." he pointed to the far end of the room where a freight elevator was positioned.

We walked over and looked for a button, instead we found some sort of cage mounted onto the wall next to it which was secured with a lock.

I pulled on it, "This thing's locked."

I looked back at the man's decapitated corpse, mainly his wrist.

I walked over, cringing as a sickness formed in my gut at the sight of his body. I quickly took the ring off of his wrist, gagging as I ran back towards the elevator.

I tried nearly every key before I selected the one that fit. I opened the cage and pressed down.

We stepped into the large steel box and silently waited on the ride down. As we slowly descended I looked at Thomas, my stomach knotting itself as that man's words plagued my mind.

... What IS he?

The rusty steel doors forced themselves open and down the long hallway was a door labeled "Exit".

We both dragged ourselves down the corridor and shoved past the door, thanking god that we were finally free again.

Just as suddenly as I'm overwhelmed by the sun's blinding light, sirens and shouting fills the air. Although I couldn't see anything I could feel myself being tackled onto the ground and beaten profusely.

As my face is pressed against the rough, hot pavement I turn and squint my eyes to see Thomas on the ground in handcuffs.