How it went (this boy was definitely an Ipad-kid)

The texture was smooth under the tips of my fingers and cold against my barely warm skin as my digits ran across it. I could feel the warm puffs of air form clouds that clung to my cheeks due to the frigid temperature of the room; several degrees lower than the ones on the levels we had access to.

Pulling down one of the corners of the sheet, I smoothed out the fold and repeated the same action on the other side, creating a symmetrical image because of the accuracy of how equal the proportions were on each side.

In front of me, Squishy was still engaging the boy in a one-sided conversation about how—for some reason—the nutrition bars distributed on Wednesdays tasted better than the ones given out on Fridays. It was pretty amusing how bored the boy was despite the theatrics displayed by my brother over such a mundane topic. All he did ( and could do) was sit against the bars of his cage and stare at the wall. At least, that's as much as I could infer from his unmoving position. There weren't any violent reactions though, so I wasn't complaining.

After two more folds, I turned the sheet—now resembling some sort of shape—over and continued. So caught up in my activity, I almost missed the boy's words to us.

[Oi, Mushi, what are you doing?]

Ah, he finally spoke. Not that I was surprised much. No one can last in a room with my older brother without giving at least one reaction.

My head mentally jotted down that he was Japanese, wondering how he got all the way here. Aside from that note, calling someone an insect was rather strange for a child near our age. At least, I think it is. Those child-rearing books I browsed through mentioned that toddlers can pick up strange habits if left unchecked.

^^^^^^^^^^^^

Thwack! Thwack!

Two knives sunk into the pages of a book, effectively pinning it to the wall.

"Oh." Two voices said in unison, surprised by the suddenness of the falling object. The book was precariously perched on the very edge of the shelf, causing it to be in a liable position for freefall.

Due to their sensitive ears, the two—heavily trained—boys caught the sound of the textbook sliding off. So in the face of hearing sudden movement and coming straight from a training session, the two reached down on reflex to pull out their knives from their sheaths, strapped to the back of their waists and effortlessly flung it to the direction where they heard the disturbance.

Now, as the book hung pathetically on the wall, they realized their mistake.

"Shit." Squishy eloquently commented.

That wall was never going to be the same again.

Neither was the textbook, but it was a history book so it was chock-full of propaganda. We didn't care much.

^^^^^^^^^^^^

[Oi, Mushi with the blindfold. I'm talking to you.]

My fingers froze on the last crease of the paper, surprised at the sudden address. I could feel Squishy's emotions still in our bond, having already translated the Japanese spoken. There was a chilling pause at the sudden interruption before he suddenly moved on to change the subject.

"You speak Japanese! That's so cool!" He gushed, moving closer to the cage and effectively blocking the sight of me from the boy's field of vision. "I can too—but," he rubbed the back of his neck in faux embarrassment. "I'm still learning, so I'm not too good at it." Despite how nervous he was, my brother tried to divert the attention from me. His voice was full of excitement— as if he were glad they shared something in common.

I could hear the researchers from behind the observation glass flutter around in interest, pens scribbling down notes on whatever they seemed to have noticed. Something about cloud interactions with one another not being what they expected....

Interesting.

I continued as if nothing had happened, slowly pulling some folds out to form a shape. Taking care not to rip anything important, I worked on the more delicate steps.

It was unusual that this kid could 'see' me, much less have enough interest to speak to me. It was both intriguing and unsettling. Here was a child who could be perceptive enough to notice me. That alone puts his capabilities on a level far higher than a majority of the people in this building.

I could feel his gaze burning a hole in my face, not at all distracted by the babble that came out of Squishy's mouth. The room was deathly silent save for my brother's voice and the crinkle of paper under my hands. The object slowly formed into something discernable as time went on as I neared completion.

Just as it seemed as if the caged child was going to say something again, he stopped in his tracks as the sight of what I was making registered in his head. Tugging on our bond, I mentally waved Squishy to come over.

He stopped in his one-sided conversation and walked over to me, curious about what I needed from him. Kneeling, he got closer and leaned his head in to listen. After receiving my message, he tapped his finger unnoticeably against my knee.

'Are you sure?'

I tapped his arm twice.

'Positive.'

Feeling my resolve, he stood up and walked toward the cage like his usual self, looking excited about something. [Hey, you want to hear a story I practiced for Japanese?] At the familiar words of his mother tongue coming out of Squishy's mouth, the boy's focus immediately switched to him. His heartbeat increased by a second, barely giving me the impression that he was surprised before quickly going back to its normal tempo.

[You speak Japanese,] he stated more than asked. His frigid but young voice held no room for mistakes. The cold way he spoke reminded me of those young masters in historical dramas that were used to being served by others. Not caring about matters that didn't involve themselves.

I could practically feel Squishy rolling his eyes at the astute observation. He huffed out an exasperated breath. [I just said I did. The name's One, and since I'm so nice, I'll even unlock that uncomfy door if you behave. We can even color together.] My brother put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the key the man gave us, waving it playfully at him.

Seeing the kid reluctantly nod, he kneeled in front of the cage where the lock was. The researchers shared a paused breath of anticipation as my brother fitted the metal through the keyhole. Metal clinking against metal was the only sound made in the room.

The next passing seconds happened in a way that was predictable for me to respond to.

I inched closer. The lock opened with a click. The researchers readied their pens.

The boy lunged.

Swiftly, I tugged Squishy out of danger by the back of his collar. Careful to not choke him in the process. He narrowly avoided getting his eyes scratched out by sharp nails and followed the pull of my hand, leaning out as far back as he could.

Tightly gripping the wrist reached out for my brother, I forced the boy to pull back into the cage and pushed him down on his back. It was an extremely taxing feat; he had an unusual amount of strength that even I had trouble overtaking, making me momentarily worry about what the reports might say about the uncharacteristic display of force from me. Leaning forward, I quickly whispered something into his ear before receiving an aggressive and sharp swipe to the face.

I quickly stepped out of the cage and slammed it closed, swiftly locking the metal up again. The boy was obviously agitated, although he seemed to be thinking about something. He was breathing heavily from how much energy he exerted from trying to resist me. If I wasn't examining his body, I would've glossed over how his wrist was slightly shaking.

Ah, I put too much pressure on that grab.

Now I feel a little guilty.

However, that guilt was quickly glossed over when Squishy grabbed my attention through our mental link. His cord was manic with worry, and despite not shouting for me, I could feel his waves of anxiousness. That anxiousness, however, was overpowered by the want to kill. As my adrenaline wore off, I regained full control of my senses. At first, I was confused as to why he was so worried and angry, but then I felt something on my left cheek.

Small trails of blood slid down my cheek from the light gashes the boy inflicted on me from his swipe. It stung slightly, but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle. I'm more worried about how much effort I have to use to slow down the healing process my body naturally undergoes. It takes more time and concentration to stop wounds as light as these from immediately fading away.

Reflexively, I swiped a tongue over the warm blood that dripped near my bottom lip, its strong iron tang invaded my tastebuds. It wasn't often I would get hit in the facial area, so I had never really tasted my blood before; it made me kind of curious. All in all, it was an interesting taste; not particularly displeasing either.

Before I knew what was happening, a familiar hand held my wrist in a gentle, but tight grip. Stopping my hand from collecting more blood to taste. My twin's frown was extremely telling on how off I was being.

"Bratishka, stop it. You'll make it worse," he whispered to me as the sound of footsteps nearing the door came. Turning back to the boy, he acted as if nothing wrong had happened; the only difference now was the narrowing of his eyes and the way his fingers slightly trembled. His body strained itself from jumping the boy in anger. [Well, that wasn't very nice, was it? You've hurt Two, and now we have to stop our chit-chat time,] he whined, tugging my hand down with his in a reassuring grip.

The other boy just sniffed and turned his head, officially done with the meeting.

The door opened with a whoosh, and in came the researcher that handed the crayons and paper to Squishy. There was no reaction to the bloody gashes on my face staining bits of my shirt as he herded us out of the room with a cursory glance to the cage, not noticing a small object hidden away by the boy.

^^^^^^^^^^^^

We were told that our schedules would be slightly changed to accommodate our new duties. Every other day, after lessons were completed, we were required to come to the observation room and interact with the boy—subject Zero. They dismissed us without a second look, distracted by writing down notes about the details they picked up from his actions. As if he was an animal to be tested on. Which, in a sense, he technically was.

Back in our room, Squishy was fussing over my cheek like the Mother Hen he was.

"The nerve, Bratishka." he furiously uttered, borderline a growl. The intensity of his voice was starkly different from how gently he brought the wet cloth to my cheek, wiping off the still dripping blood. The sting from the cuts already dulled into a small throb; pain quickly weaning away now that my regeneration was no longer being held back. "I know you wanted to do this, Bratishka. But, still.....why do you always put me first." He cupped my cheeks with his hands, pouting at me with an adorable quirk of his lips. "I'm your big brother, so it should be the other way around ya know."

My emotions were a flurry of feelings: a large part of me felt guilty about worrying him; the smaller part felt excited at the possibility of escape. At the present, however, I felt touched. We would always be able to read each other's actions; our lives were too intertwined to be unable to. Where one would be, the other would follow. The two sides of a coin making one hole.

My hand reached up and held his hands closer against my cheeks. "Yes yes, Brat." I blew some air into my cheeks, making them round and irresistibly squishy looking. "How ever will you forgive your brother for saving his one and only precious older brother from injury by the wicked claws of a foe."

Squishy could only keep his stubborn pout up for a couple of more seconds before he eventually folded like a piece of wet paper. Squishing my cheeks between his hands, he peppered affectionate kisses across my face. "Oh stop it. You know I can't go against that face, my precious Bratishka." He planted a big and wet kiss against the cheek that was quickly mending itself up; the skin stitched itself together leaving behind no abrasions of raised skin.

"Pain, pain, fly away!"

In the next second, Squishy caught me off guard from how quickly his mouth moved next to my ear. Lips tickled the rim of my ear from how close he was as his warm skin pressed against mine.

"But if this ever happens again," he warned lightly, causing chills to run up my spine from how cold his voice was, leaving no room for exceptions. "I won't let you go for a month. Remember, I still have the rope from before, and I won't hesitate to bind you up." And he would too.

In the past, when I was still getting used to writing in an orderly format, I would stay up late practicing. One night, I had practiced so intensely that I had sprained my wrist from constant use. Squishy was furious when that had happened and forced me to stop immediately. Knowing how stubborn I was, he took one of our shirts and tied me up while I was still tired, and tucked me into bed with him. This continued until I had agreed to stop pushing myself to a destructive degree.

Beneath his words that would raise flags to anyone else, I knew that he loved me. Enough to take any actions, of any dangerous level, that would keep me safe. My twin knows that I would do the same, so it was a mutual feeling. And although it might be twisted, it was how we expressed our love for each other. He was the sun to my moon; the day to my night; the other side of the coin that we were. Nothing could separate us.

I tapped my head against Squishy's, knocking him out of his spiraling train of unpleasant thoughts. "Come on," I pointed my chin over to the gauze lying on the bed I was sitting on. "Let's get this over with, and then we can get started on work."

As if nothing wrong had happened, he shot a smile at me. "Okay!" Taking the safety scissors, he took the piece of gauze and began to cut it for my cheek. Even if no one would notice me, that doesn't mean cameras won't. It'd be strange if I turned up the next day without a bandage for the wounds on the cameras. If there was a one-in-a-million chance that someone would need to observe my actions.

There would be too much on the line to risk it.

^^^^^^^^^^^^

The next morning, we woke up and got ready for another day of lessons. Not much had changed in that routine: brushing our teeth and washing our faces; brushing each others' short hair with the comb we shared; helping each other dress. I still couldn't open my eyes whenever I took my blindfold off; my body was strangely reluctant to open my lids.

We had actually tried to open them forcefully once; Squishy tied my arms behind my back in case I suddenly resisted and carefully tried to pry my eyes open. Unfortunately, each attempt lead to failure seeing as I would subconsciously dodge his fingers. We would have to find the root of why my actions were influenced by the strange need to prevent myself from opening my eyes later in the future.

The hallways were silent except for the sound of footsteps of children making their way to their respective classes after a brief visit to the dining hall for our standard breakfast, a single nutrient bar with a glass of water. We kept to the same speed and walked to our first class of the day, hand-to-hand combat. The Program's schedule was split up into days for classes that taxed the body and days for academic work. Ballet was an exception, being a mandatory class at least once a day to make sure that our bodies stored muscle memory so as not to fall behind.

Ah.

They're looking at us again.

Sneakily walking behind us were a pair of boys; their steps were softened in an attempt to blend in with the background of other walking children. If it were anyone else, the two would have been successful in tailing unnoticed. Unfortunately, this isn't the case.

Subject Fifteen from the second division. A brunette with green eyes who was tall for his young age of nine, Fifteen was a genius in our academic lessons, particularly mathematics and chemistry. Despite his academic prowess, Fifteen was low in the rankings for our combat lessons due to his reluctance to fight; something only my brother and I have noticed whenever we were paired up with him as our training partner.

He was the one with the sprained ankle from before. The day before that lesson, Fifteen had actually been paired up against one of the vicious children of our class and had his ass handed to him. Of course, that was when his ankle was twisted by the little demon in an attempt to throw him off; the sudden grab worked and he was promptly kicked out of the ring.

My face didn't so much as twitch when I heard the creak of his bones under the hands of his opponent.

After being reprimanded by our instructor, he had said his thanks and walked to his designated observation spot; Fifteen had admirably kept his limp from showing, only letting a pained expression show on his face when he thought there weren't any eyes on his form.

Next to Fifteen was subject Eight, who was from the same division. This was the same boy who would stare at Squishy and me during our shared ballet lessons. He was the only person, aside from the newly named Zero, who could see me. Well.....see wasn't the exact word, it was more like he could catch glimpses of my figure if his squinted eyes aimed at my back meant anything.

Aside from that, the only information I have on him was from Squishy's interactions. Age eleven and about a head taller than us, Eight had blonde hair and pale skin with blue eyes. He only talked to a small group of friends and, unlike Fifteen, didn't hesitate to give his all in his physical lessons; Eight always placed at a comfortable position in the top portion of our class ranks for combat and weapons handling. Academic-wise, he was around the middle ranks like we were.

For the past few weeks, I had been getting the feeling that they were observing us for some reason. Fifteen's head was always turned towards Squishy's way, while Eight's wandering gaze—whenever he spotted me—would try their best to keep sight of me before eventually losing focus, turning his head another way. Right now, they were debating with each other on how to approach us in a non-hostile way.

"Can't we just, I don't know, walk up to them?" Eight whispered to Fifteen, unaware of our listening ears. His friend let out a sigh of annoyance as if they had already gone over this topic.

"No, you idiot," he hissed out, emphasizing the word idiot. "We can't just walk up on them, it'll give off the wrong idea. The whole purpose was to talk, not make them paranoid."

Jokes on him, we were paranoid since day one.

Unbeknownst to them, by the time they had finished bickering, we had already made our quick getaway, losing them as we turned a sharp left to our first lesson of the day.

There were no hard feelings towards the others who didn't join in on the targeting but don't expect us to help them. My only priority was to get my brother and me out of this hellhole alive. If it meant sacrificing the lives of other children, so be it. Making friends was not on my to-do list. Survival was.