House of Memories

Pain. That was all Null could think about.

A while ago, a lab coat-wearer woke them up in the middle of the night, guards with him. The guards grabbed the kids up and dragged them off to the room they were in now, full of terrifying machines with long, thin metal hands covered in needles and scalpels and saws and other scary things.

If Null hadn't been through so much already, he might have lost control of his bladder just then. As it was, he laid onto the slab the lab coater pointed out with his shirt off, belly-down, and accepted his fate.

He regretted not putting up a fight not long later.

When the six kids were all laying on the slab, after Hera tried to struggle and a guard smacked her in the face with the butt of his gun, the lab coater pressed a button on some light show-y console in the corner of the room, and thick iron bands slinked out of the slabs, bolting the kids down to it by their wrists, ankles, and waists.

Then the whirring started. Null realized that they were going to do some kind of surgery like his mom often went through, but where were the painkillers? His mom once told him that surgery almost always used painkillers.

Then four knives touched his back at once, and he screamed. He could feel them making some sort of 'X' on his back, cutting skin and muscle and tissue like butter and exposing his spine and the back of his ribs to the now-painful breeze coming from the ventilation in the ceiling.

He thought he heard the other kids screaming as well, but his own was too loud to tell. Tears ran down his cheeks. Then the saws cut into his spine, and he screamed more.

When he thought he was about to black out, and finally be able to escape the pain, a needle was injected into his neck and whatever fluid was inside was pumped in, sharpening his mind… and the pain. He screamed louder.

Now, a certain amount of time later – he couldn't keep track through the pain – his voice had gone out from all the screaming, so all he could do was groan. Two of the other kids were still screaming, though. Null was pretty sure he might have bit his tongue because he could taste something coppery.

He felt needles being injected into his spine, each of the fluids inside causing a searing pain to spread throughout his nervous system, followed by seemingly random aftereffects. One made his entire body twitch like a decapitated cockroach, another made him feel like he was underwater, and yet another made him certain that the world was made of cheese.

The needles like that last one he awaited the most, as those strange thoughts gave him a release, however small, against the constant pain.

After what felt like days, but could have easily been hours or even minutes, he felt one last injection, and then his back started to itch like he had fallen in an anthill. He could somehow *feel* his flesh reforming, flowing like some kind of liquid, and it made him hungry and tired as if the process drew straight from his body's energy reserves.

Then he felt the machines grasp flaps of skin they had opened and fold them over the new flesh, stitching them together. He felt more pain, but he had grown somewhat used to pain by now.

His shackles opened, and the lab coater walked over to stare down at him. "Get up," he said.

Null complied. The scientist looked him over, then reached out his hand. "Arm."

Null gave him his arm, and the man grabbed something from within his lab coat. It was some kind of thick tablet, with a wire attached to the bottom that ended in three needles. He stuck those needles into the crook of Null's elbow, and Null didn't flinch. The scientist looked at his tablet for a few seconds, then nodded and took the needles out, walking over to Hades to do the same.

Null looked behind him, at the machines that had caused him so much pain. They were still dripping with his blood, some of them even having scraps of his flesh caught on the blades. He reached behind him and traced the 'X' on his back, feeling the stitches and the small lines in his skin.

He found himself angry, angry at the scientists for putting him through whatever that was, angry at the machines for cutting and burning and hurting him, angry at the dull white he saw wherever he looked. He looked at the scientist, who was currently examining Maya, and imagined crushing his heart into a paste like in those horror movies his mom let him see as a child – the mom these people had taken from him.

Just as the scientist had taken the needles out of Maya, who was the last one in line, they heard a sudden tearing sound. The scientist screamed, a loud pain-filled scream, the same scream the children had made as the machines dug into them.

Then the man dropped to the ground to the sound of a *pop*, blood leaking out of his orifices. The children looked at the corpse, a flicker of satisfaction appearing in their eyes. Guards rushed into the room, sweeping the room with their eyes before they alighted on the scientist's remains. The only guard without a helmet adopted a serious expression, and he pointed his gun at the children.

"Alright, let's get you back into your rooms." The children didn't move. "C'mon, move it!"

They stared at him for a while with their dull, lifeless eyes, then walked to the door, waiting in single file. The helmetless guard exchanged a glance with another guard, then they all walked to the door, the helmetless one opening it. He and three others took the front, and the rest surrounded the children. Before the door closed, the helmetless guard looked back at the corpse of the scientist.

'Looks like it worked…' the guard thought, gulping audibly.