Echoes from the Past
Entry One - Final Entry

"Please," Vilcība insisted, his voice breaking as he nudged Aegis again, but the latter didn't respond. He didn't move, he didn't smile, and he barely ate. There was no point.

No point at all.

Aegis stared blankly at the white floor, his eyes as unfocused as he felt. The hurt and the anger and the pain had all but passed in these last two weeks. Dr Sten was a liar. All the grownups were. There was no such thing as a kind grownup. He'd learned that the hard way.

Yet instead of anger, Aegis felt nothing. No pain, no rage ... absolutely nothing. He had decided there was no point to his feelings. Feelings belonged to children who had people that loved them. But no one loved Aegis.

No one.

Vilcība nudged Aegis once more, "Stop this!" he pleaded, uselessly, "Look at me! Please!"

So Aegis looked up at Vilcība and saw his friend sitting beside him on the bed, holding a wooden sword. Not too long ago this toy was his most favourite thing in the world. He looked back down, the weight in his chest tightening itself until he lost the world around him. All he could hear was a distant ringing, only interrupted by Vilcība's sobs.

"Okay, time's up!"

Aegis was jolted out of his world by Dr Sten's voice. He could always hear his heart beating faster when the man was nearby. Dr Sten wasn't kind. He wasn't a friend. He was a monster.

"You stay away from us!" Vilcība snarled, and he jumped out of the bed and onto the floor. His bare feet landed on the white tiles with an audible 'clap.'  Like Aegis, he was still in nothing but white robes, with only a pair of pants underneath.

"Us?" Dr Sten gave a cold laugh, "I have no interest in you, son of Eleazar."

"Don't take his name!"

The room was starting to feel a little chilly, Aegis looked up at his friend again to find his own breath condensing in front of him. And his curly-haired friend stood quite still, between him and Dr Sten, one arm raised.

"If you come near us again," Vilcība warned, balling his hands into little fists, "I'll kill you!" and the air turned into little crystals. Aegis stretched his arm to try and touch one, but they were too far away.

Dr Sten laughed yet again, "You?" he demanded taking another careless step forward, "you're barely potty trained. You think you can—"

He was stopped short by something that sounded like a gurgle. Aegis turned to the doctor, the crystals had embedded themselves in his throat and chest, like lots of tiny bullets. Dr Sten attempted to speak again but blood bubbled at his throat. It smelled funny.

It smelled good.

Aegis made his way quietly to Dr Sten just as the man dropped down to his knees. If V was saying something, he didn't really care. He couldn't hear anything other than the faint ringing again anyway.

Aegis ran a finger down the man's throat and looked at it, bright red.

And then he was falling.

Into a room with no walls and no ceiling and no floor. Four large pillars stretched to infinity on both ends as he fell. And he could see moments of his life between them, like a video on a giant television. He was playing with V in almost all of them. But sometimes, Tofha-otè would flicker in between, with his terrifying eye.

Aegis shut his eyes, if this was death ... it wasn't so bad.

When he opened them again, he was back in the White Room, except he was on the floor. Aegis could hear his best friend sniffing and was vaguely aware of a pair of arms around him.

"V?" Aegis croaked, his voice raspy from not having used it in weeks. He looked down, suddenly noticing the blood smeared on his white robe. Had he gotten hurt?

Ever since the experiments had first begun, cuts seemed to vanish. Dr Sten hadn't just cut Aegis a little though, the cruel doctor had hurt him much more, no matter how hard he had begged. Yet everything grew back. Everything from his fingers to his limbs. And this only meant one thing.

Somehow, Aegis now had two Gifts.

So if he had been injured, he wouldn't really know it anymore. It didn't even feel like he had gotten injured. If anything, he felt calmer than he ever had. Fresher. Fuller.

Aegis looked around. There was a lot of blood in the White Room,. The floor seemed to be coated with it, and just behind the bed, he could see someone covered by a white sheet in one corner too. A white sheet that was now soaked in blood.

Had he fallen asleep?

That would be the first time he had slept since the experiments had begun. Whether it was because of what they did to him or what they gave him, Aegis had stopped sleeping altogether. He had really tried to, but sleep just never came anymore.

If he had, therefore, slept; it was weird. He didn't remember dreaming ... only falling. And the falling hadn't felt like a dream.

But where did all this blood come from then?

"V, did I get hurt?" Aegis asked, turning to his sniffing friend. Vilcība was crying a lot today, it was unlike him. But as he turned to face his friend, he was taken aback.

Aegis expected to see his friend sitting, crying and even shaking. He had expected that. What he hadn't expected was finding his strongest, coolest friend covered in just as much blood as he was. Maybe even more.

Bright red blood stained Vilcība's white gown, but it was also splashed on his chin and neck. The mass of black curls on his head were drenched in both sweat and blood and had lost their volume.

Vilcība shook his head with another sniffle.

"Did you get hurt?" Aegis then wondered.

Another head shake.

Aegis turned to the white sheet, it had to be the person under it then. But why was his blood on the two of them? It made no sense.

"Dr Sten w-was going t-to hurt you," Vilcība finally said amidst heaving sobs, "so I was—I was going to hurt him back." He wiped his eyes with the back of his hands, smearing more blood on his pale face. "Y-you transformed Aegis!" He let out a hysterical sob, "I thought—I thought you'd converted!"

Transformations and conversions ... no he was too young. Tofha-otè had said he had time till he was forty. He wasn't even ten yet. Aegis turned back to the man under the white cloth.

"I did that?" Aegis looked down at his hands next, they were slick with blood like the rest of him. He slowly brought his hand to his mouth next ... more blood. He was going to go to jail now. Tofha-otè had never allowed people to kill each other in his army. The enemy was the Surface.

But Aegis had broken that rule. It didn't matter that he was Tofha-otè's grandson, he would be punished. He cast one last look at his best friend and then walked out of the White Room.

"Wait!" Vilcība called, and Aegis heard the 'pat pat' of wet feet as his best friend ran after him. "Where are you going?"

"To tell Tofha-otè what I did," Aegis declared, continuing his march down the long, white hall.

Vilcība's footsteps halted at once behind Aegis and he thought he heard a flustered "But!" for a moment, before the footsteps echoed behind him again, faster this time. "I'm coming too!" Vilcība announced.

"You didn't do anything," Aegis said, his annoyance rising at his friend's stubbornness. If Tofha-otè was going to punish anyone, it had to be Aegis. He was the one that hurt Dr Sten.

"I hit him first!" Vilcība argued, "I started it! You only transformed because of me!"

Aegis nearly snapped at Vilcība, but the sight of black military boots made him freeze in place. He looked up to come face to face with the pale owner of the terrifying red and gold eye that was black where it should have been white.

"Tofha-otè," Aegis muttered, uncertain if he was supposed to bow or salute. He raised his right hand to his heart regardless. And a thump behind him had assured him that his friend had done the same. "I have to tell you something!" Aegis blurted before Vilcība could.

"I know," Tofha-otè responded, his was voice calm and soft but the man's eyes seemed to bore holes inside Aegis. "That was ... a good kill."

"It was?!" Vilcība snapped from behind, his voice rising a pitch to display the same surprise Aegis felt.

"It was," he agreed, softly still, "in fact, I think the two of you are better suited for a different role."

But Aegis was still stuck on the reason he was looking for his grandfather in the first place, "I'm not in trouble?" he wondered aloud.

Tofha-otè shook his head and placed a hand on the top of Aegis' head, "No," he said, patting Aegis' waves, "it was a good kill."

A strange warmth spread through Aegis, more than it had after he had fallen and woken up. This was the first time Tofha-otè had been nice to him. To both of them.

"Now run along you two," he said, "back to your old rooms. Tomorrow morning you start a different lesson." And Tofha-otè walked away from the pair of them.

Aegis turned to a beaming Vilcība unable to believe his luck. Dr Sten was gone and he wasn't in trouble, this was the best day ever!

And the two boys made their way further down the hall, leaving a trail of bloody footprints in the otherwise spotless, white corridor.