Chapter 21 - The Past

A/N: Some news I wanted to tell yall about, basically I got an offer to be a contracted author with WN. And I'm not gon take the offer, as of now. Writing is a hobby, if I was to be paid for it I'd end up looking at it as work and I just wouldn't enjoy that. So, yeah, rest assured that my novel will remain free to read until further notice. If I do decide to become a contracted author I will let you guys know! Sorry for the long waits between chs, I kinda got interested in 3d modelling and spent an embarrassingly long amount of time trying to figure the stuff out.

I grasped my head and I forced myself to stand up. I could here hundreds of voices, my mind was on the verge of splitting apart. I couldn't make sense of what anything was. I could barely understand my own thoughts, but I persevered and finally stood up. I looked at the mirror, the reflection was no longer smiling, it was simply a reflection. I sighed and got myself ready for a shower, when I finished I washed up and went to bed.

***

Narrator POV:

A young boy was wearing plain, white robes. He was standing within a completely featureless white room. The boy was completely expressionless, he had plain black hair and dark eyes. The white room he was in wasn't a plain old room, it was like an artist's canvas, it could become whatever one needed it to be.

The boy was 7 or 8 at the very most, the look in his eyes made it seem like he was alive, but not truly experiencing what it meant to live.

His eyes bore no emotion, he was dead on the inside. Whatever he had experienced, had 'killed' him. A two meter line appeared in the middle of one of the walls and an older man wearing a white lab coat walked in. He dragged the boy out of the room and had the boy be placed into a capsule after getting rid of his clothing, leaving the boy in a pair of shorts. The capsule had a monitor that had information on his vital signs.

The boy was being tested, they were planning to test the upper limits of his pain threshold after he had endured a year of pain within this hell. This was a place designed to create weapons for their nation. Children were handpicked for this, sometimes they were kidnapped and other times they were sold. But they were all gathered here, no matter the cost.

The child being tested was a top ranker within the Paragon Project. The Paragon Project was created to birth elite warriors who were nothing but tools from the moment of their conception to the end of their existences.

The old man pressed a few 'buttons' on a light blue hologram that had appeared before him. Soon, several mechanical tendrils that had syringes attatched to them penetrated the boy's skin. The boy's skin was scarred all over, he seemed to have suffered some rather painful wounds.

Many fluids were injected into the boy, things to make him more aware, to increase his sensitivity to stimuli. The capsule was soon filled with a green liquid, the liquid seemed to have no special properties, on it's own that is. Then, the boy convulsed, his body twitched in a erratic manner as electricity was flown through the liquid. But although the boy's body moved as if it were in utter agony, the boy himself didn't seem to care. He still had that deadpan expression plastered onto his face.

"Good, he's at least able to survive the warmup."

The old man stroked his short, grey beard in satisfaction as he lightly chuckled to himself.

Then, a clear liquid was released into the capsule and futuristic mask that had a tube on it was attached to his face.

The tendrils sharpened and became something similar to knives, they slowly but surely sliced the boy in different places. The tendrils then stabbed themselves into the many wounds, then they removed themselves from the boy's body and blood flowed from his body. Then, something was sprayed into the capsule, it was a gray gas. The gas split up and moved towards the boy's wounds. The 'gas' entered his wounds, the boy started convulsing.

The gas wasn't really a gas, the 'gas' was millions of nanobots that were constantly releasing chemicals that increased the pain he felt. They were also designed to 'devour' any flesh they saw. They were 'devouring' the boy's body from the inside out, and the electric current was still being released. However despite this pain, the boy's expression had not changed.

"Well, I suppose I should be able to expect at least this from our rank two. I'll have to step it up a bit."

The mechanical tendrils started applying a gel on to the boy's body, this gel was something that on contact, could start making you feel as if each and every cell on your body was burning. You would feel your trillions of cells burning, the burning sensation would make even the hotest flame seem like a cool breeze. It was at this point that the boy winced, he started moving around, fanatically grabbing his body but every movement he made simply caused more pain. More electricity was poured into the capsule and the nanites started to release more of the pain enhancing chemicals.

Tears and blood flowed out of the boy's eyes as he struggled, but alas, it was to no avail. The boy clawed away at his mask, seemingly trying to kill himself by cutting off his oxygen supply. But all it resulted in was the boy leaving large gashes on his own face. And soon, the boy's consciousness departed his body and he went limp...