1 Start of it all

Leonidas Aeolus was a normal child with a normal life. He always tried to please his parents and was happy with his family.

It was just him, his mother, and his father in his family as he had no siblings and had never met any of his other family members. They lived in a small house with their food coming from farming and their water from a well. Albeit a not very wealthy life, he was fulfilled, and he believed his parents to be also.

That was until his fifth birthday, his 'parents' had revealed themselves to not actually be his parents at all.

"What do you mean? Mom is Mom and Dad is Dad, stop being silly."

Instead of receiving a warm response like normal though, his words were answered with a sharp but quick pain in his left arm and then darkness.

He woke up in the pitch black of a small room that let no light in or out and sound was unable to penetrate it. He was in an unnatural and very uncomfortable pose in which he would have liked to change, but due to the tiny amount of space in the box, he was unable to.

This led to a more painful experience than Leonidas had ever had to go through before. Not just physically, but also mentally. His body was in pain due to his body contorting into a terrible shape and he was sobbing as the people that he had believed to be his parents had betrayed him and left him alone and sent him to wherever he was going to now.

After a seemingly un-endless time that Leonidas was unable to measure, he felt the vehicle that he was inside of stop moving. Soon after, the box he was in rose and started moving. It was then seemingly thrown down and left for a few minutes until the sides of the box collapsed.

This revealed that Leonidas was in a large room with twenty nine other children who were all around the same age as him. They varied in race and gender but they were all there because of the same reason.

Their 'parents' were only there to look after them for five years until they were sent to this facility where they were currently gathered.

All of the children were confused and most were crying for their 'parents' despite them abandoning them to be left in this predicament, Of course Leonidas was no exception to this as, after all, he was only five years old.

This was not allowed to last for long though, as a screen lowered from the ceiling. A woman's face appeared and the children all looked over to what was happening.

"Hello children, from today on you will be our test subjects. Most, if not all of you will die. But if even one of you manages to survive, then it will all be worth it. This may sound harsh and confusing to you as you are undeveloped little brats, but soon enough, you-will-learn." Throughout her entire speech, the woman was very cold and showed no remorse in her words but her last words were emphasised and sent shivers down the children's spines. They had no idea what she meant, but instinctively they knew it was not good.

A door slid open and a man in a white lab coat stood with a stern gaze. He looked as though he had something to say, and then called out for Leonidas. He did not use his name but instead his appearance's description. "You, child with the blonde hair and blue eyes, come here now."

It took a while for Leonidas to realise that the man was referring to him, but he soon got up and approached the man. He ordered him to follow behind him and Leonidas had to follow his orders as there was nothing else that he could do.

He was taken to a separate room, it was smaller than the previous one and it had a chair in the centre, It had straps on the arm-rests and was surrounded by scientists. Of course, Leonidas had no clue who they were, or what they were going to do, but he sat in the chair when he was told to. His arms were strapped down, and a machine was lowered in front of his chest. Once one of the people ordered for his shirt to be removed and it was taken, the machine started to emit heat. A blinding light flashed and Leonidas felt immense pain on the left side of his chest. A beam was being fired towards him and he screamed out in agony while the scientists held him down.

Once the procedure was done with, Leonidas had no more tears to cry but he was instead just staring into nothingness as he was still in an incredible amount of terrible pain. He looked down and saw what the laser had done to his body. It had burned out the numbers 0000 onto his body in a perfectly uniform fashion, There was no blood or any other sign of an injury, but the perfect numbers were unnerving to see burned into anything, let alone a child's body.

He was led back to the previous room, still in a daze, but aware enough of his surroundings to witness the other children being taken one by one until they had all come back with the same mark but they were not 0000 but instead 0001 to 0030.

The screen came down again and the same woman appeared, "You have now officially become one of our experiments, you will now be referred to by your number, any disobedience will be responded to with punishment. You should trust me when I say, you do not want to be punished, so make sure to comply with all of our demands and orders. You can start now, there are numbers marked on the ground, go to your number and sit down."

Once all of the children had sat in their areas, transparent walls were erected around them seemingly out of nowhere. A bunny rabbit was then placed inside each of their inescapable boxes.

"You all have an animal in front of you, in this facility you and the animal are one and the same. You have to survive, and the only one that can help you with that is yourself. So, for your first task, kill the rabbit or you will be punished."

The children were mortified, they did not want to have to kill anything especially not a bunny and even more so because it was for no reason. However, they had felt the pain of the laser from before, and if the punishment was worse than that, then they never wanted to experience that ever again. They all had to oblige and they used different methods to kill the rabbit. Some chose to just beat it to death, while others tried to snap its neck. Leonidas went with the option of attempting to rip its head off while it tried to wriggle free. Despite his weak body, he managed to kill it after a while but was covered in blood in the process.

The screen came back down once again, "Congratulations children, all of you managed to pass. Well, all of you except one. The punishment this time will be more harsh than the future ones, but somebody needs to be made an example of."

The children saw a large man with an axe enter the room, he walked over to the square marked '0016', it had a small girl with brown hair inside of it and a completely alive bunny rabbit. She was the one who had failed to comply and she would be punished.

The man entered her square and lifted his axe, in one swoop he smashed it down and took off the girls head entirely. He then left the dead girl on the ground, and left the room as swiftly as he had entered.

The children were terrified but also never wanted to be in her place.

"Now children, you need to sleep as experimentation will begin tomorrow."