2 A New Dream

In a room with multiple bunk beds, Logan was sleeping peacefully until someone woke him up.

"Wake up Logan. Patron Weathers looks very mad. Any mistake would bring us to the cold or sound room."

The one talking was Logan's friend Gina.

Logan and Gina's friendship were as close as siblings. Even though they are not related, Gina and Logan called each other as brother and sister. Because of his shy personality, Gina talked to Logan as if he was her younger brother. She always helped him with his homework and also cheered him up when he was depressed. Though they are both three years old, he treated her as a big sister for all the things she has done for him.

Before Logan became a genius, Gina was the smartest one in the whole orphanage making her a precious product. They believed that Logan being with Gina ruined her studies so Logan was put into the cold room multiple times so he would stay away from her. Even though this should have been enough to prevent them from meeting, Logan already thought of Gina as family so any pain he received is nothing compared to not being with her. Due to his stubbornness and Gina's begging, the matrons and patrons gave up and allowed it to shut them up.

Whispering, Gina said, "Hurry up. I hear him coming."

The door opened loudly

Patron Weathers was never the most stable person. He was lustful, greedy, but his most distinctive emotion was anger. In an average day, he was already strict with the children and was even joyful of their demise. When he was really angry, he would lash out against the children instead of his problems.

Patron Weathers shouted, "Get your asses up! I'll only give you twenty minutes to eat your meal. I don't care if you have any food left on your plate. I'll throw it out."

Like in the army, all of the children woke up and exited their rooms in single file lines. The children were obedient because they knew that whoever disagreed would go to the cold or sound room. There were many children who disobeyed orders only to come out of the cold or sound room frightened and obedient.

Though the torture was effective, the children became isolated from the group. The orphans would never interact with each other because it is easier to get into trouble if another person is involved.

Logan and Gina were the anomalies in this situation.

They entered a small dining hall that was only meant to fit fifty people even though there was two hundred of them. Even though the orphanage made a lot of money, they kept the crappy decor to increase the visitors' donations.

Gina and Logan were part of the earliest group to wake up so they got to choose their seats and sat next to each other.

Because Gina had high grades, she was able to get higher quality food and receive bigger portions. This system is used to make the orphans' grades higher so they can be smarter for their adopted parents.

Gina sat near Logan and said, "Have some of my food. The ones you are eating is not as healthy as mine."

Sharing food was a big offense because it removed the incentive of studying harder for better food. They believed that if the talented orphans shared their food, the rest of the orphans would study less.

She whispered "Hurry up before he can see us."

At that particular moment, Patron Weathers shouted, "Who do you think you are for eating someone else's food? Logan. Stealing Gina's food is a great offense and that requires punishment. Someone help me bring him to the cold room and sound room right after."

He knew that Gina was giving the food to Logan but because Gina was important to the orphanage, he needed someone to vent his anger on so Logan became his only option.

As the other matrons was coming, Logan looked and started whimpering. As tears was about to come out from his eyes, Gina shouted.

"It was me. It was me who gave him the food. If you had to punish someone then punish me."

An orphan speaking out of turn would usually be punished by going to the cold room but Patron Weathers was really in a bad mood.

He screamed, "You dare!"

He suddenly slapped Gina so hard that she fell from her chair and a knife sliced her cheek.

Many of the punishments were mainly psychological. The sound room never physically harmed the orphans while the cold room, though is capable of creating frostbites, can easily be cured.

With currently Patron Weathers's bad mood, he became extremely furious.

"Look at what you did. The punishment is way beyond the cold and sound room. Welcome to dark room little girl." He said laughingly.

The dark room is the room where all the executions happened. Every time the dark room was needed to be used, every orphan was forced to enter the room to witness the execution. The execution was always violent to the point where vomit was a common occurrence. The room was the main cause of trauma that the children would try forget once they were adopted.

Though she just fell and was filled with blood, instead of crying and begging like most orphans would, Gina smiled and looked at Patron Weathers.

He was wondering why she was smiling and then he froze. He suddenly realized that he ultimately broke the one rule that none of the matrons and patrons would ever dare to break.

The orphanage had one rule that the patrons and matrons had to follow which was to avoid physical injury. Children who are injured are undesirable to parents so the orphanage tried to prevent as many injuries as they can. This rule was feared because of its one punishment.

Death.

Even though the orphanage could just forgive him because Gina was going to be killed in the dark room anyway, for the sake of secrecy and business, killing him is the better choice. For injuring a child, especially as special as Gina, he is now considered to be a threat to the merchandise no matter how much he contributed to the orphanage. This rule is what kept the orphanage's secret for many decades.

He ran to door hoping to escape death, but before he could even reach the door his neck was slit by a security guard. To prevent any information from being spread, security guards are at every corner, exit, windows, and doors throughout the whole orphanage.

Gina walked to Logan, hugged him, and said, "This is not your fault and you should never feel that it is. Though you will see my death in the dark room, you should feel no guilt and smile for me. My death is simply just an escape from this hell of an orphanage."

To prevent herself from crying, she looked away and walked to a matron and said,

"Please lead me to the dark room."

Even though she was still intelligent, her face was enough to bring her to the dark room. In fact, the cut was so large that it cannot heal without having a giant scar on her face. In another words, in front of potential parents, she was deformed.

She knew that she would be violently killed but she did this to direct all the attention to her. Though Logan was similarly supposed to be punished, by smiling at Patron Weathers's demise and obediently asking for death, her attitude was enough to directly focus on her and made others forget about Logan.

As he was about to plead for her life, he saw her signalling to stop. Though she was nearing death, she wanted Logan to live so her sacrifice would not be in vain. She loved her little brother and wanted him to live a healthy life outside the orphanage.

Even though the orphanage was horrible to the orphans, the result was undoubted. Even though Logan wasn't the smartest, he can still be considered as a genius to an average family. They both dreamed of living with a happy family, but because she was about to die, she wanted her dream to be fulfilled by Logan.

As she walked to the dark room, if she only turned around to see him, she would see Logan's dark eyes and squinted eyebrows that only murderers had.

She never realized that her death would change his dream of bliss into a dream of revenge.