elimination

The ground is cold and hard but I love the cold, I need the cold. My back is burning. I don’t know if I even have a back. I just know that the entire back side of my body has been replaced by the pure essence of pain. I can smell smoke, but scent is dead, like the fire burned centuries ago. I don’t want to open my eyes. I have learned that the world looks best through blind colored glasses. I feel an incredible searing in my right arm and my eyes fly open unbidden. My foggy vision begins to make out a shape, almond eyes, chocolate curls, amber glazed worry. 12? A tear crawls down my face as I shut my eyes, indifferent to the pain. “12,” I croak, disappearing into a fit of coughing. For an awful moment I am met with silence. A sigh, “Yes Seven, I’m here.”

I can’t tell if I have simply blinked or slept for a millennium. I am lying on the cold tile ground of the post-Practical Training shower room. To my right are four rows of empty shower stalls with shiny metal knobs and shiny metal drains. There are no doors to the stalls, just two slabs of thin stone attached to the wall on either side so that the shower head can stare through the room at its leisure.

My hand reluctantly moves to my right ear, I rub my fingers together desperate to hear any sound. I can hear, but it feels muffled. Cautiously I reach for my ear feeling my hand come away wet. I assume blood, but it isn’t blood, it’s medical gel, an enormous glob of it. In an instant I realize that my arms are no longer charred and have begun to sport the soft new skin look. Yet my shackles are somehow still there, two slightly thicker bands of regrown skin marking where I was bound to my bed in the mutant eye room.

“So you are alive.” 12′s voice comes from somewhere behind me making me jump out of my skin and gravitate to my feet within a fragment of a second. She stands about two meters away from me leaning against the gray wall with arms crossed. Her eyes are cold and dark. Every centimeter of her body seems to be accusing me of some vile, awful, despicable crime against all of humanity. It hurts to look at her. It hurts more than any Practical Training trial.

A vast unmovable silence seems to occupy the room as thoughts swim through my head. I want to say something; I want her to say something. I don’t know what to say. I will say something intelligent, something reasonable, something to wipe away this mess. I open my mouth. “Why do you hate me?” My words are pitiful and childish. I start to cry. My eyes close as I silently will my tears to slither back up and away. I feel a gentle hand on my arm and another one brushing a tear off my face. 12 is standing in front of me, the old 12, the real 12. Her eyes are now soft and full of concern. She takes my arm and leads me over to the wall where we sit. I hug my legs and bury my face in my knees.

For a while we just sit there before she finally begins to speak. “Seven could you please explain to me in your own words what happened in Practical Training the day you were taken away?” Her words are careful and measured. I lift my head and lean it against the wall, my eyes still closed. “I remember Doomsday gave us those things to eat, those awful tasting spheres. Everyone was fine at first, then about half the room got really sick, some kind of allergic reaction I assume. I saw 14 fall and I just, I just had to do something I guess. I ran to him and did this thing I saw once, these compressions. Remember 12, I told you that story? The one about the older girl and the younger girl where the older girl tried to save the younger one by doing these compressions to her chest?” I am about to continue when 12 interrupts me with a single word. “Yes.”

It’s as though she has come to some profound realization. There are tears in her eyes and she seems to be staring at me from far, far away. Somewhat uneasy I ask: “Are you quite alright 12?” My voice seems to wake her from a state of deep thought. She smiles sadly. “Oh, yes Seven, I’m fine, perfectly fine, please continue. I’m sorry to interrupt.” I nod slowly and resume my story. “I was so incredibly scared 12. I don’t have the words. I kept pushing, waiting for his eyes to open. Then One kicked me away from him because she wanted me to help Dagger and for some reason I did. I don’t know why I did, or what I was thinking to tell you the truth. I just felt like I had to in that moment. But then Apocalypse grabbed me from behind and when I fought back we both fell on top of her, and her ribs they just cracked, and like that she was gone. She was dead, right underneath my fingertips.” My voice cracks.

“I don’t know why I am crying, I hated Dagger, I really did. It’s just the feeling you know, the feeling that it happened under my hands, that it’s my fault, or something like that. Then Apocalypse carried me away, I got an injection in my neck and I fell asleep.” I am about to tell 12 about the room and the test subjects when she stops me. “Seven.” She looks at me like I have grown a third head, like I just told her the Earth is flat and the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. Slowly she continues. “Seven this is what we saw: 14 fell to the ground and out of nowhere you ran at him and started attacking him. You had this look in your eye, this wild, awful look in your eye. Then One kicked you away from him and you went after Dagger and that look, it got even worse. You went, you went rabid. There was foam Seven, actual foam dripping from your mouth, more than there ever was in your few episodes as a child. When Doomsday gave you the injection you went still for a moment. Then you woke up and it was like you were this...creature. You knocked Apocalypse to the ground and started mauling his eyes out with your nails, your short little nails. Finally Doomsday gave you another injection and carried you away. You were gone for two months.”

I can feel my heartbeat in my chest, my lungs refuse to draw in breath. My voice stutters, “B-But 12, you know, you have to know, I didn’t I, I can’t, I...” She cuts me off again. “Seven I know now. After what I saw you do today, the way you tried to save me, I was fairly sure we were mistaken. I just had to hear it from you.” “Thank you,” I whisper, closing my eyes in gratitude. She continues. “I fear for you Seven. It appears as though when you have these episodes you completely lose control. You turn into a different person, a different species almost. I fear what you are capable of.” I nod. “12, I have to tell you the rest.” “Yes,” she says slowly.

I take a deep breath and begin. “After I was taken away they brought me to this huge white room. I overheard Doomsday and Apocalypse talking. I am part of some kind of experiment—The Methylation Project they called it—there is something wrong with my gene expression that results in sudden bouts of insanity. Methyl groups are somehow turning on genes that are not supposed to be expressed.”

“The officials have been trying to create this, this whatever I am, for a hundred and something years. The room was filled with all the failed attempts being kept alive by machines. Around age 18 they all went crazy and started growing these weird body parts, their eyes were awful 12, just like you described with me. And One! One is part of the experiment too, just like me! Except she hasn’t gone crazy yet. Apocalypse wanted to get rid of me and just keep her, but Doomsday says that they have to keep me alive and I have to go on to Level Three. Its because I have this special mutation set that the others don’t have that will allow them to fix my gene expression.” 12 looks taken aback; I don’t blame her. For a while she remains silent, processing.

Finally she opens her mouth. “I don’t understand. Why would the government put so much effort into creating people with messed up gene expression. I suppose the messed up gene expression must be a glitch, a bump in the road to whatever they are really trying to create. And this mutation is supposed to allow them to fix your gene expression? Why haven’t they yet? I just feel like we are missing something, there has to be a reason they are putting so much effort into whatever this project is.” I soak in her words. She makes a good point. “There is one other thing they said 12; it doesn’t make much sense though.” She nods eagerly, “Yes?”

“They mentioned something about the other continent. Somehow I’m supposed to help do something that has something to do with the other continent.” 12′s eyebrows are confused. I look up at the window and see that it’s nearly dark, almost time for Completion of Assigned Work. 12 follows my gaze and gets up. She helps me to my feet giving my hand a reassuring squeeze. “Seven I promise you that today during Bump Nose’s group I will clear your name. I won’t tell them about the whole methylation thing though; better to keep that between us. It’s probably best for now if you go to Completion of Assigned Work. Tomorrow, once everyone understands, you can come back to Bump Nose’s group.” She smiles one last time and leaves. For the first time in a long time I exhale.