The downwards spiral that is our life (I just wanted sweets, is that so hard?)

The sound of my window drapes wakes me up from slumber as the feeling of sunlight alls upon my face. It normally would feel soothing in the usual situation of me sitting on the windowsill, however, presently that little piece of sunshine just had to fall on my eyes.

"Mmmmmmmnnnn."

The sound of little feet pitter pattering makes its way towards my side of the bed. A small dip on the bed makes itself known, and a second later small hands run their way through my purple locks of hair.

Moving expertly through my hair, they move through the front and smoothly to the nape of my neck, rubbing soothing circles into the skin. After a little message, those hands move to cup my face and tilt my head up a bit.

"Haaah." With a relaxed sigh, I bring myself closer and touch my forehead against my twins. We breathe in each other's presence in the quiet of the morning. No words need to be said when our bonds told everything for us. The tranquility of the atmosphere with just me and my brother felt heavenly.

Knowing I was going to fall asleep again, Squishy cheerfully called out with a grin. " Dobroye utro Solnyshko ! It's time for breakfast."

"Mn."

Getting up, he walks to the nightstand and picks up our hairbrush and toothbrushes, along with my blindfold and our shared towel. "How were your dreams last night? Were they interesting?"

Sitting up I swayed a bit in place, eyes closed since waking up, waiting until Squishy had gently put on my blindfold and pulled me up. Holding hands, we began our walk towards the bathrooms with him in the lead, making our way to the hallway door. As soon as he opened the door, I was hit by the sudden spike in sound. After a few seconds, I tugged on his hand and we continued onwards.

"Mmm." Rubbing my eyes a bit, I slowly began to get used to the onslaught of noise made by the bustling staff and children. Used to my half-asleep answers, Squishy continued the conversation (if it could be called that).

"Wow! It must have been really good then." Turning his head excitedly to look back at me—I would have ditched him a long time ago if I didn't love him—he asked, "Was I there with you?"

Seeing me nod my head, his face brightened up even further and he began to ask questions about the details of said dream.

"Where were we? What did we do this time? Was it the city? I bet it was. We were in two villages before so third time's a charm! "Ooh, did I have wings or fangs, or—" My arm pulled him back to me at the last moment before he walked into a random kid. He chuckled out an apology. "Hehehe, sorry Fedir. I wasn't watching where I was going."

Hmm

So that was his name.

The rand—Fedir (I should remember Squishy's friends) had simply waved it off. "It's 'kay." With a smile, he greeted Squishy with a good morning and caught up with his line led by one of the caretakers.

"Thanks for the save."

"Mn."

With a tug, we continued on our walk. There was a line already outside so we sat on the bench outside the room. I laid my head on his shoulder and after a few minutes of silence, I spoke up.

"We were in the sky."

As usual, he waited patiently. "Really?"

"Mn." I nodded my head, completely serious. "We were on an airship."

"We had an airship!" he exclaimed. Squishy always looked forward to hearing about my dreams. They were pretty interesting.

"Mn. It was purple and white and—" I narrowed my eyes in confusion. My twin had noticed my pause and asked me what was wrong.

"On the side of it was an...octopus."

"Wow. That's so weird." Seeing my still furrowed brow, he asked, "What's up?"

Remembering the design I shook my head in thought. "It was so ugly. Whoever made that design should be fired. I could've done it better."

My twin laughed himself half to death when he saw my face. "I'm—hah—I'm sure you would've—hehe."

We stayed like that for a while; Squishy laughing himself silly and me just sitting there lying on his shoulder, trying not to fall asleep.

Sensing that no one except the advisor was left in the bathroom, I sat up on the bench and tugged him up. When we entered the bathroom and got to the sinks, I reached out to grab the toothpaste and squeezed some onto our toothbrushes. Like usual, under the watchful eye of the caretaker, I close my eyes when I pull off my blindfold and I brush my teeth while Squishy brushes my hair and vice versa when I was done. After washing our faces with water, we dry them off with the towel and I put my blindfold back on. When finished, we head back to our room to dress.

Opening the door for him, we get inside and walk to our drawers. Pulling them open the heavy drawers with our combined strength, we get our clothes.

"Y'know," Squishy said nonchalantly while helping me button up my usual white button up shirt with me doing the same for his matching one, "I wouldn't mind living in an airship with you."

Hmm?

"What?" I asked a bit confused. Was he serious? I mean—don't get me wrong, but.....why?

Squishy continued to help me dress up and carried on. "Living on an airship doesn't sound so bad." Looping the belt through the loops of my black shorts he tugged on the strap before letting go and passing his belt to me.

"Wouldn't that be—"

"Arms up."

"Sorry—fun? Just imagine it," his eyes began to sparkle if the way his voice became breathless said anything, "you and me in our own airship. We'd be able to go anywhere we want!"

"If the law lets us of course." I retorted, finishing with his belt. A bit sheepish, he chuckled, scratching his cheek while looking away. "Hehe, yeah, of course, of course."

My head cocked in amusement. This child I swear.

Passing him his sweater he would no doubt get dirty with dirt at the end of the day, I pulled on my own. My feet took me toward the wardrobe after we were done. I picked up our black ribbons hanging out from one of the drawers and passed one to him. I faced him and we began the process of tying each other's bows. My hands were slow and steady, aiming for precision and while he fumbled quite a bit he had the right order of the knot. All in all, extremely well done for a 2-year-old. Done with the finished product we ended up with a neat and even bow on Squishy's collar and a wide and droopy bow on mine as usual.

In the end, Squishy ended up looking like a well-mannered child, with his neat and tucked-in appearance, and I, a sloppily dressed trouble-maker; my appearance looked as if I had just woken up from bed and hurriedly put the clothes on. Such was the usual as he was still a little clumsy due to his age.

(I don't mind it one bit, I thought it was precious how he tried his best every morning.)

Our bodily developments were a big surprise to me. It wasn't normal for two-year-olds to be able to dress or talk so much, not to mention have as much mobility in regards to our altercation with Fedir earlier this morning. Squishy has much more dexterity than the average four-year-old and a larger capacity for words for our discussions. (That would probably be due to my influence though.) The fact that we could walk in a straight line was a large difference between us and the others around our age. The other children were still crawling around on their hands and knees and could barely hold a conversation with their small attention spans.

We're just built different I guess.

Looking over each other to see if anything was missing, we made sure everything was in the right place. Upon finding nothing wrong, we made our way to the dining room.

Since it was a weekend there was no school so I had planned to laze all day long. Squishy was probably going to go check on his flowers. My mind notes down that I should join him at around 10 o'clock. The ticking clock on the wall notified me it was 7:20 assuring me that I had plenty of time for reading after breakfast.

I wonder what's for breakfast?

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

Chewing on my spoonful of Kasha, I nodded my thanks to Squishy for putting some fruits in my bowl. I then reached over to pick up the condensed milk container, my hand drizzled some in his own bowl.

Hearing his happy moans over the "sweet seductiveness of the condensed milk" made me inwardly giggle at his silliness. The chatter of children and the sounds of utensils fill my ears as I eat as well as from the kitchen. They seem to be more busy than usual.

Ms. Ivanova, looking rather happy, well—happier than usual, began to walk to the front of the rows of tables. Wonder what she's doing.

The sound of a familiar clapping pattern fills the air, everyone else, in turn, repeated the claps upon hearing it. All of our attention was on Ms. Petrova as a line of the kitchen staff stood behind her.

Smiling, she greeted us. "Good morning Deti!" A chorus of good mornings answered back. Since our seats were in the corner we didn't bother with a greeting and continued eating our food.

"Today we have a fun activity for all of you to do!" At the word fun, all the kids perked up and were chattering excitedly. When the noise had died down a bit she continued. "For today, we'll be in the kitchen helping out our lovely staff with the cooking for tonight's dinner. You'll also be taught how to make Chak-chak for dessert, and if you're good girls and boys, you might have one before dinner."

At that my attention was caught.

Chak-chak huh. Not bad of a deal.

For you uncultured folks who don't know, Chak-chak is basically Sachima. What is Sachima you ask? Well, it's this creation of fried batter strands that are layered on top of each other in any shape you wish. Layered in a type of sweet syrup to keep them bound together, it's like the Chinese version of rice crispies. (Although as to how this orphanage can afford to spend money on things like this, I have no idea.)

It's also heavenly. I used to buy packs of it whenever I have my weekly me time and snack on them. My mouth waters when I imagine how much we'll make. I think I might be drooling.

A giggle next to me caught my attention. Turning my head, I saw my twin giggling.

"You really love Chak-chak don't you."

I nodded my head while wiping my drool off. "Yes. Yes, I do."

I'm already feeling excited for today. Noticing some porridge on Squishy's face, I pick up my napkin and wiped it off. He was already used to this ministration so he simply stayed still and let me. After I was finished he did the same for me on a spot of syrup I had missed earlier.

When we had finished our meal we picked up our things and walked towards the sink in the corner of the room to clean them up. Talking for a bit, we made our way to the cubbies where some of our things were held.

Walking to the kitchen to join the others was a quick trip and we placed ourselves in the usual corner of the crowd. We had waited patiently for the others to arrive which wasn't long and had started on the lesson.

Tonight's dinner would be Golubtsi, a cabbage roll dish. I'm not looking forward to it. While my brother and I may be the youngest ones here at 2-years-old, the other children were around ages 5 and 10. Meaning they are prone to accidents.

Squishy may have some trouble doing things, but he has me and he knows it. The others have to wait on a small number of adults that they greatly dwarf in numbers.

Something's bound to go wrong in this small kitchen.

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

I was right.

It was an absolute disaster.

(Although it was funny. I won't lie. I'm still disappointed that the children took away the time for making Chak-chak though.)

Observing the kitchen I took note of the damages created. There were burnt marks on the floors and walls of the kitchen. Some places were on fire somehow. Not to mention the ingredients that were somehow everywhere . Well—everywhere except for the corner Squishy and I stayed in. Our corner was practically untouched by the madness.

Everyone had been running around like headless chickens when multiple fires had started up from the stations. By the time the mess was taken care of, it was long past breakfast time.

In the end, they just decided to have the Pelmeni soup from last night—not that I'm complaining.

It was a huge mess so we needed more than tissues or rags. My brother had volunteered us to retrieve the supplies since it was nearest to our room, and upon receiving permission, he dragged me with him. You would have thought she would have waved his offer away due to our young age, but nooo. They deemed us more responsible than the fucking middle-aged staff they had on hand.

The audacity.

"Come on! If we finish we can go to my garden!" he whispered excitedly to me with an impish grin. Knowing how impatient he was I quickened my pace so as not to be dragged by his stupidly strong hold.

"Okay," I grumbled. "That's not the shortcut, it's to your left." After a quick tug, we got back on track to the janitor's closet. My hands quickly move to open the door. "What do we need?" About the size of a bathroom, there wasn't any discomfort when walking in. It was filled with shelves nailed on every wall and full of cleaning supplies.

He thought a little bit about it as he walked in and started to rummage around the shelves. "A lot of cleaning solution probably."

A little nonplussed at that suggestion, I balked at the idea of our tiny bodies carrying such a dangerous chemical. However, the quick quip of a getaway to the garden stopped my protests

After whispering a quick apple, I walked in after him to help. "Don't forget the mop and rags."

"And mops and rags. Oh, and the container for the cleaning solution is about half the size of you so we'll have to carry it together." And with that, he went back to his search.

Listening to him hum while he worked I started on my own task. Tapping each shelf, I searched for objects matching those descriptions. Visualizing the objects on the shelf was easy after a few repeated taps and my brother's humming. When I was halfway through the shelves with an armful of rags—like, how many does one need to have?—it suddenly started to rain.

Pausing in my search I stood still and listened unmovingly. The sound of each drop, soothing. The drips coming off of leaves in the trees near the window and the rattling of the pavement outside. The soft swish of each blade of grass and the soft beats against the roo—

Ah

Must've lost myself to the rain again.

Shaking my head out of a daze, I brought myself to the present. The image of my brother's turned head pops up in my vision. I go to raise my hand to wave him off when an idea popped into my head. "Squishy." I called out.

"Yes?"

"Practice with the rain." After receiving an okay from him I turn back to what I was doing.

I had begun to train him how to use his hearing after I realized how useful the ability was. It would be extremely helpful in trying to find things or checking your surroundings.

Being able to use it would also come in handy if we had to impersonate each other. That way he wouldn't have trouble with the blindfold.

A cry of triumph from my brother caught my attention.

"Found the solution!" Standing up with his eyes closed he pointed to the middle shelf of the wall to our left. "It's over there." I patted his cheek in congratulations while looking for a stool we could use. Ah! There it is.

"Come on. Since you're taller you have to use the stool to reach. I'll be below you so you can pass it down" Agreeing with the plan, he carefully stepped on the stool. My hands held him steady as he reached up for the container. The sound of the lid shifting a bit notified me that it wasn't properly closed making me instantly worried. "Be careful, the lid's loose."

Squishy tried to assure me that it was alright. "Don't worry. I got this. Just need to be really steady. Carefully make sure his grip was strong enough on the sides of the cleaning solution container he began to pull it to the edge of the shelf. When he finally lifted it he turned to look down on me with a grin.

"See? We're fine. Now come on and—Booooooom!—Eeeeeeeeeeek!"

Mid-sentence, the sudden sound of thunder exploded through our eardrums as we were still concentrating on using them. The loud clap of thunder had surprised my twin causing him to let go of the cleaning solution.

At that moment, time slowed down.

As the container fell out of his hands, it bounced against the shelf, removing the lid completely and thereby taking away the only semblance of safety we had.

Eyes wide underneath and too slow to react, a large portion of the liquid had landed on my face and blindfold. With it being made out of thin cloth, the fabric had allowed the chemical to soak in and come in contact with my eyes.

It burned.

Dropping down in pain immediately I screamed for the first time in a while.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

"Bratishka!"

The instant the solution had made contact with my skin, I could feel the immense pain. The areas where the cleaning solution had touched my skin felt like they were burned. My eyes on the other hand had felt like they were on fire. My body couldn't help but curl into a small ball in agony.

I could barely hear my brother as he immediately jumped down from the stool and quickly crouched next to me. Small hands frantically touched my body as he pulls me away from the large puddle made from the chemical, not caring as his skin gets burned too.

I muffle my screams at each movement my body made. The surface of my skin too sensitive and bare. Not being able to handle the pain any longer I forced out my voice with as much strength as I could muster.

"Take- take it o-off."

Squishy's body immediately tensed up with wariness. "Bu-but w-what a-about—" I understood his fear but this was no time for hesitation.

"Counts- emergency, don't worry!" I rasped.

Shakily nodding he quickly peeled off my blindfold from my eyes. Thankfully, removing the cloth had stopped any further damage but we still had to deal with the current ones. They would get worse if not taken care of.

Remembering his twin's lesson about lab safety, he dragged his younger brother further to the water faucet in the corner of the room. "Come on, we gotta wash it off!" Thankfully it was connected to the floor so the drain would take the access fluid away.

I moved as much I could while being supported by him. It was difficult because of our small 2-year-old bodies. When we had finally gotten to the sink I plopped down on the side while Squishy turned on the knobs for lukewarm water. Helping me up again he leaned me against the sink and let the running water through his tiny hands.

Holding his shaky hands out to move my eyes under the water his voice trembled with tears. "H-here! Re-remember to keep y-your eyes open. I'll g-go and get someone to help." And not a moment later he rushed off leaving me alone in the room.

The moment the water touched my eyes I felt instant relief from the mind-numbing pain. The next few minutes were of me staying in that exact position despite the pain in my neck and the burns on my hands.

Thank God I taught him lab safety. I don't know what would have happened otherwise.

("Achoo!"

Shaking his head the young boy goes back to his experiment. "Must be allergies. Now," he pushes his bottle-cap glasses up as he checked his notes, "where were was I." )

Sighing, I ruminate the consequence of taking off the blindfold. When they had given me that blindfold there had been a sensor built in somehow to notify them where my location was or if I had taken it off.

They had pulled me into the nurse's office around the time we had gotten our own room and gave it to me, saying that it had been for my safety because of my birth defect. It felt more akin to a restriction than a safety measure, to be honest. The caretakers had warned me to never show my eyes to anyone, not even my brother, which was puzzling.

My head throbbed at that memory.

I was against that and immediately said so. There was a moment of silence when the matron had a silent conversation with her eyes to the nurse. Upon reaching a silent agreement the nurse had gone out of the office.

I remember her bringing a man into the room for some reason. Around that time my memories became a little fuzzy so I don't remember what he looked like, but I'm pretty sure he asked me a couple of questions. The nature of which I can't seem to recall.

My memories began to clear up after he had left and I was feeling drained for some reason. I felt as if something light was placed on my mind. It was a weird and uncomfortable feeling.

After he had left the matron had said that they would allow me to show him when I turned 10. They were adamant about that age, if I didn't, we would be in separate bedrooms.

For some reason, I had followed their conditions. It didn't make sense now that I thought about it. We had plenty of time in our bedroom where I could've shown him and yet.....I never did.

Something was wrong

The sound of rushing feet comes into my hearing range.

"He's h-here Ms. Ivanova, hurry!" The sound of my brother's choked voice echoes through the hallways.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!"

For now.....I suppose my injuries take priority.

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

I had been taken to a doctor and put in the emergency room. My brother had been taken with me since he also had burns from touching me.

The treatment had taken quite a while and when they finished, the doctor in charge explained to me that since such a large amount of cleaning solution had been in my eyes, they were permanently damaged, thus rendering me completely blind. (I bet the staff was celebrating the accident. They always were looking for reasons to explain the blindfold for others when asked.)

With my upper body from the waist up to my head wrapped up with bandages, I was placed in the west wing on the 3rd floor. It wasn't bad since there was a leafy tree nearby that made pretty sounds when the wind blew. I was told had to stay at the hospital for about 3 days before I could return to the orphanage. Fortunately, my twin was able to visit me every day.

Eyes teary and red with trembling shoulders, he never fails to start each visit with a multitude of apologies. I would have started cooing at his cuteness except my body was still very much in pain.

Apparently, the burns we had weren't that serious and would fade away with time but our skin would still be extremely sensitive and would itch at times. I was just thankful that my eyelids hadn't melted together.

There was no need to worry about my eyesight either. It'll just come back.

....

....

....

I....realize the problem with that wording.

Let me explain.

It was just some time ago, during one of our breaks, that there had been a little accident. It had been when all the adults and children were out on a little field trip so no one was there to catch us.

There had been a tree that everyone had played on at the orphanage. The multitude of branches adorning it had made it an optimal spot to climb. It was a truly beautiful tree with an extremely thick trunk and branches full of green healthy leaves and as tall as the orphanage, which is pretty impressive. Seeing as the said tree was right next to our bedroom window, I had the perfect view of it.

Since there was no one around, my twin had asked me to climb the tree with him knowing my tendencies to be near pretty sounds. I couldn't refuse since it was an opportunity that wouldn't come around often and agreed to go.

We had gone outside and started to climb to the top of the tree since that was where the best view was when the last branch we were on had caved under both of our weights.

There was a resounding crack as the branch broke and we were plummeting to the ground. By the time we had finally hit the ground, our bodies were covered with cuts and bruises from the jutting branches we hit and both of us had broken some bones.

Neither of us wanted to die. I'm pretty sure I punctured my lung too so there was a low chance of my holding out for that long. The only thing I could feel was regret. Regret for not being cautious. Regret for not being able to keep my brother safe. Regret that there was no chance for us to be saved. Regret that I couldn't keep my brother safe.

Something deep inside me had changed at that moment. It was slow at first. Something warm flowing through my body, similar to a wave on a beach.

I could feel the string between us tug and thicken into a strong chord. His body in a similar state as mine. The warmth I felt from him coursing through his body at a steady flow. While this flow of something was happening to us, our bodies began to undergo some changes.

We couldn't say anything for a while, too much in pain, when we had realized something was off. It was only after a few minutes that we had been able to move and by that time the cuts had faded as well as the bruises. The only thing left was the blood that matted our bodies and clothes. A little puzzled, we started worrying about our bones, we had decided to wait for the others to come back when we heard a subtle clicking. At that sound, it had felt like our bones were being pushed back together and nothing had hurt anymore. Only a low hum echoed through our bodies as it disappeared

It was quite an odd day for us indeed.

We had a mutual agreement without needing words to never tell anyone of what happened that day when we had gone back to our room to change out of our ripped clothes.

For Squishy, it was because it was a secret that only they knew, and for the younger, it wouldn't due to catch anyone's interest in their kind of situation after all.

There was no doubt in our minds that our lives would be in danger if it was brought up.

If five of my broken bones could heal in under ten minutes, then I have no doubt my melted eyes would too.

Currently, I was sharing a plate of peeled apples—kindly given to us by the nurses—with Squishy beside me on my bed. He knew I would heal but was still sorry for causing me pain. Our ability may heal us but that doesn't take away the pain.

"Say aaaaah ~"

"Aaaaaaaahh."

Holding out a pierced apple, Squishy places it in my mouth. He smiled as I bit it off and petted my head like he would a dog. It felt pretty good. Not shying away I leaned into the sensation of his warm hand and sighed.

Giggling, he continued to pet my head as he took another apple to feed me. "I'm so glad you're coming back today. It's been so boring without you."

I nodded my head agreeing with him. "Mn." It's been pretty boring for me too. The well-placed room had been nice.....but I rather much prefer my loud twin.

Bringing my attention back to the book he had brought with him, my fingers lightly brushed against the braille. Remembering how the caretaker had reacted to its existence, I chuckled a bit.

It was priceless .

She had probably thought that Squishy would be reading to me and when she saw him pass the book over it seemed like she was having trouble trying to figure out what was happening. Flabbergasted, she tried to remind us that I couldn't see—as if we had forgotten—and tried to scold my twin.

I put a stop to that immediately.

Fingering the spine of the book, I coughed to get her attention. Turning her head, she caught sight of the pages held open by me and saw the raised dots on them. Squishy had kindly explained to her what it was. "It's a Braile book, Miss. I heard that blind people can read by learning Braile so I thought he could learn!"

Stuttering a bit she tried to compose herself. "W-well, if that's what it's for then." Failing to save face, she walked back into the halls—no doubt going back to gossiping with the other nurses.

Of course, he didn't just bring one book. That was just for show. (I had already learned Braille quite some time ago to fit my needs.) He had also brought back some of my medicine books since I had been bored. I would be brought back home by this afternoon and I can't wait. Sitting in an unfamiliar place for too long makes me quite nervous.

After another examination, I was deemed healed enough to go back and had given our caretakers some tips to get me accustomed to the sudden disability, having no idea that I had been forced to be blind for the entirety of my stay at the orphanage.

When we had gotten back to the building it was already late afternoon since the drive was quite long. We had gone to the dining room where our bowls were already set up and waiting for us. Ms. Ivanova was there watching and urging us to eat all of our food: "To grow big and healthy!" which was extremely disturbing. I could barely swallow the last spoonful, too unused to having that much attention placed on me. Each mouthful tasted like sawdust and scraped down my esophagus.

For some reason, all of my instincts were telling me to run. (I should have listened.)

Putting it at the back of my mind—for now—I went to go clean my bowl when she had suddenly snatched it out of my hands insisting that I should wash up and rest as soon as possible. Pausing for a moment to dig through her pockets, she gave Squishy and I little wrapped up candies and told us to keep it a secret from the other children.

A bit wary, I nodded my head and went to get our towels. Waiting on the bench for Squishy to finish, I had contemplated her strange behavior today. She had been rather pushy and smiled too much when facing me, not trying to hide her happy face (Why would she? It's not like I could see or anything) at all.

After another thorough rubdown from an attentive Ms. Katina, I had settled to bed with my brother. I curled into his familiar warmth and pressed my ear against his chest. Relief coursed through me as the comforting tempo makes its way to my ears.

Pulling back after a minute, he softly grumbled, "Let me hear yours too."

Huffing out a laugh, I let him have free reign as he shimmied down a bit to press his ear against my chest. I held him in my arms as I fell asleep to the sounds of his soft breaths as he listened to the reassuring thumps of my heartbeat. Kissing my forehead, he snuggled into my chest and whispered to my sleeping form before falling asleep himself.

"Sladkikh snov Bratishka."

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

"—nd the—*Yawn*—apple fell from the tree"

"You've been yawning a lot today. Did you not sleep enough?" I asked, a little worried after his twentieth yawn in the past five minutes. We were in the little space in the gardens where his flowers are, with me currently teaching his English lesson.

He usually sleeps early so this was a curious predicament. It might be from the stress of the previous days, but if so, there would be bags underlining his eyes. He only just started these yawns after lunch had finished so it might be that he's just full. It doesn't help that the other caretakers had been secretly passing along more of the wrapped candies that Ms. Ivanova had given us last night throughout the day. My brother had actually like them so I just passed them on to him. They were strange, so I kept on covertly throwing them away. However, they just kept on giving them to him whenever I wasn't around to throw them out. I just prayed that we didn't do anything weird to warrant giving out candies to us.

"No, I'm—"

"Ahem."

"—I mean—no, I'm feeling alright, just really sleepy. Don't know why though." A sheepish look crossed his face as I nodded my head at his vocabulary. My language lessons are paying off. He seems to be getting more fluent and his accent is better than it was compared to our first lesson.

"Hey," An amazing idea popped into my head. "Do you want to take a nap?" At my question, signaling the end of the lesson, he tilted his head down, mauve hair falling into his eyes as he sighed in relief now that we would go back to standard Russian.

"That'd be great!" His eyes could barely stay open as he scooted over and collapsed on top of me. My mouth let out an oomph at the sudden weight as I was knocked down. I shimmied my body a little bit to get comfortable, carding my fingers through his hair where his head laid on my abdomen. It was August, meaning the perfect time for breezes. We were in the shadow of the tree we had fallen out of with the warm air brushing against our laid out bodies on the blanket-covered grass, books from our earlier lessons surrounding us.

There was nothing but us, the garden, and the wind.

Looking back on today's events, we had been late for lunch since our teacher had wanted to talk with us about paying more attention in class or something. (I didn't care enough to listen.) By the time we had gotten to the dining room, we were ushered past our supply cubbies to sit down right in front of where the lunch aides were standing. Our plates and eating utensils were laid out and ready for us, already filled with salad and sandwiches.

Just like last night, the adults focused their attention on only us, their gazes felt like knife stabs and the food tasted just like sawdust. It seems Squishy picked up my nervousness and had clutched my hand in a tight reassuring grip. He had been quite reluctant to part from me after that and had stayed by my side even closer than usual.

If this was going to a common thing now I dread for the future. The staring, of course, I wouldn't mind my twin's clinginess at all.

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

It's currently dinnertime and something's immensely bothering me about what's been going on. Each smile and gesture had some type of motive, I just need to find out what.

Ms. Ivanova had once again shoved us into our seats in front of our already set plates and filled cups. I had actually been more exhausted than usual which is a feat all on its own. Shoving the last spoonful of mashed potato into my full mouth I took a moment to check at how my twin was doing. He had seemed like he was on the verge of collapsing by the time we had to eat.

The outline of his mop full of head fills my head first, face set on the table as he snoozed away without a care. How strange. He's usually still energetic no matter what time it is. Taking care to observe everyone else, there seems to be nothing wrong except for the jitteriness of the staff. One of the helpers had walked up to where we were eating and had carried Squishy out to the bathroom so that he could be washed. I couldn't stop him since he just walked away as if saying that was just a formality.

My head blanked out after I had drunk some water and the next thing I knew, I had been washed and put to bed. I couldn't move and my tongue felt like cotton in my mouth. My mind had started to feel fuzzy after that sip of water and was now reduced to a soft and hazy mess.

Wh...what's going....on....Why am.....so.....tired.....

Turning my head to where Squishy curled up next to me under the covers, fuzzy outlines of his arms outstretched as if to reach me. I used all of my strength and pushed out my hand and brought it towards his. Moving my arm as much as I can, I gripped his hand in as tight of a hold as I could. Before I caved in from the sudden wave of exhaustion I felt something hard encircling each of our entwined hands.

Brace.....let?....

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"I...money....no problem....finally have....interesting subjects to...."

Voices filtered in my sleep-trenched mind as I woke up from a deep sleep.

W—

What happened?

Trying to think was like running through water, never mind trying to move. My arms and legs feel like heavy weights and moving them was like lifting a truck. Thankfully my hearing was getting sharper as I slowly got used to the sudden change of scenery.

Taking an inventory check on myself I had noticed that although I still had my blindfold, my pajamas were replaced by something that felt like flimsy cotton. As my senses slowly came back I had realized it was comparable to a hospital gown.

A sharp sting on my right arm distracts me as it continues to throb. A syringe? Was I at a hospital? And if so, why?

Panicked gripped my heart in a tight grip as one glaring piece of information stood out.

Where was my brother.

A cold chill spread throughout my body as worry for my twin's welfare flared up. My mind created scenarios of what could have happened, new ones increasingly worse than the last.

I had made sure my awareness of our room was second nature so there was no way they could have broken in without alerting me the second they stepped one foot at the beginning of the corridor. It's also not as if they drugged our food either since we were all fed from the same pot....

The staff.

They must have laced the bowls with some type of sedative since they were already filled with food whenever we arrived. It wouldn't have been out of place since each orphan has a bowl and utensils placed in their individual cubby found in the dining room. There were no locks so it would have been accessible to anyone. Not to mention the strange candy they kept on giving out. My eyebrows faintly twist in disgust at the implications of what they had been doing to us. No wonder Squishy had passed out, he must've had at least two buckets full worth of drugs.

My intestines twist in worry. He could have overdosed! They wouldn't do anything about it either.

My body was always in a state of sleepiness so I hadn't noticed the effects when the sleepiness hit harder than usual at dinner.

Ms. Katina's behavior should have rung alarms in my mind. Her strange appraising gazes and meticulousness were extremely out of character for her.

The heaviness in my body starts to fade as time passes and I realized that metal cuffs strap my prone form on a bed (a bed that should have been of better quality in my opinion). Not to mention, I wasn't just seeing things before I blacked out. There really was a bracelet on my wrist. There was a lit dot and it had emitted some type of buzzing sound alerting me of its running circuit board. There was something else too, seeing as how thick they were. I'll need to find out soon. Who knows what these were capable of. Judging by how much my body aches, I had been strapped to it for quite some time.

Something deep inside flared up in anger at the feeling of being bound and forced still. It was primal, almost sentient. akin to chaining a wild animal against its will.

Saving that thought for later, I push that rage at the back of my mind and focused on the present.

My throat felt parched and scratchy so I settled to focus on my breathing for some vibrations, observing the general layout of the room I seem to be in.

Four walls surround where I was laid down on a bed placed in a corner. A desk and chair sit by the side of the bed, complete with some type of window across the wall before me. On the other side of the desk was another bed that held my unconscious brother in the same position as me. I inwardly let out a sigh of relief as I make sure to check his vitals. His heartbeat was steady as he let out steady breaths deep in his sleep and he didn't have any injuries on his person. Confirming that he too had a bracelet, I contemplated the use for them.

They were reinforced so they were obviously expected to go through hard conditions. It was only the unfamiliar buzzing that reminded me of its mysterious feature. Mentally shaking myself out of my thoughts, I checked his status one more time. He was just heavily sedated so I continued with my observations.

On the wall to the left, there was a door that unfortunately was locked so there was a very low chance of escaping without a pick of some kind. Remembering the voices from earlier I focused on where they came from.

There was a speaker on the top corner of one of the walls that had a strange window. It was extremely long and spanned from one end of the wall to the other. Judging by its thickness, it seemed to be reinforced. Luckily, I had been training my hearing since babyhood, so I got through the barrier. Focusing on the image sent back to me, it seems that there were two men in some type of observation room you would see in a lab.

Observing them in the peripheral of my mind, I increased my breaths to spread out my area. There were more rooms outside of mine that seem to have the same layout which worries me. My senses hit a room bigger than the rest that seemed to have..... a shooting range?

Hold up.

My breathing deepened as I tried to get more details to make sure what I was seeing was correct. Racks of what seem like guns and aisles show up in a corner of the large room. I wasn't just imagining things, there really was a shooting range.

As I delved deeper into the room I realized there was a myriad of other bizarre things in there. A swimming pool popped up on my radar, some type of parkour room was situated next to it and there seemed to be a workout room. This was all on the floor I was at, and seeing how I was on the 3rd of 8 floors, there likely were more.

Wondering if there was a basement to this mysterious building, I stretched my hearing as far as I possibly could. There were some floors underground, about 4 levels actually.

Sound broke through the speaker as a voice with a dubious lilt questioned a rather unsettling voice.

"Are you sure about them?"

"Of course I'm sure! Though they may not seem like it, the scanner proves they have an immense amount! And they're of equal levels too!"

The two men in the observation room seem to have forgotten that the speaker was left on, allowing me to listen; however, I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Slowing down my breaths to a sedate pace it was supposed to be, I feigned sleep as I listened on.

"Subject One seems to be more advance than the other. Why not just take him and leave Two?" He seems to be paging through some papers on a clipboard.

"I mean, just look at the reports "High agility and a propensity on picking up things at an extremely fast rate. He had been able to befriend quite some friends despite the staffs' insistence." At his age? Practically impossible! Not to mention the rate of his healing. His companion sighed as he turned away from his papers to face him.

"Don't overlook Subject 02 so quickly Vrach Kozar. Despite the matron's reports of his blind and near-mute state, he seems to keep up with his studies particularly well and has no problem taking care of himself. While Subject 02 doesn't seem to have as many qualities as his brother does now, I'm sure we'll find out as time passes. " The other seemed to have a pensive look on his face.

"Actually, about that Vrach Rudov, are they sure he's blind? They were rather adamant that we don't remove his blindfold unless it was to change it." He inquired in a rather dubious manner.

"Ah." As if just reminded, he elaborated to his partner. "Yes, about that. There was an accident three days ago, involving his brother. Apparently, they were trying to retrieve a bucket of cleaning solution to help clean when 01 had been frightened by the sound of thunder and had dropped the bucket. Ending up with a large portion of it falling into 02's eyes. I had checked his eyes myself at the bol'nitsa and while they had been rather disturbing it is confirmed that he is blind."

The man called Kozar made a confused sound.

"What do you mean by disturbing? Were they deformed or something?"

"Or something." The other had hummed nonchalantly, making it clear he wouldn't elaborate on the subject. "Remember, no matter what happens you must not look him in the eye. It must stay on at all times as much as possible.

Kozar, knowing it was useless to resist, sighed. "Fine, do what you will. As long as I have the blood samples I'm satisfied. I suppose we should go now, it's almost time to clock out and I want to finish my rounds."

Footsteps echo through the speaker as I hear them leave. As each step grows fainter and fainter, I check if there were any cameras in the room I was in and the observation room.

Strangely, there were none. How fortunate.

I gradually relax my body as it was before. The sedatives had worn out during the middle of the conversation so I now had full control of my body.

Now, let's go over what had just occurred: I woke up strapped to a (rather uncomfortable) bed in a room that people with OCD would love; My brother is with me, also strapped to a bed; I was drugged(pretty wild, I know); And, last but definitely not the least, someone had seen my eyes—I'm curious about what he saw—and declared I was blind.

....

....

....

It's been a strange day I suppose.

Being kidnapped—more like moved if what I heard about the orphanage was correct—by strangers and being strapped down was not what I had expected for my third—

Of course.

The wack doctor.

Why didn't I remember sooner. No wonder my instincts were going off. He must have brought us here.

My mind goes into turmoil as I remember how crazy he had sounded back in the nursery. I had been too distracted by all the things going on at the orphanage to remember his visit and what it would mean.

A strange feeling wells up inside of me. My body laxes as a wave of something frigid rushes through.

The air drops to an immense amount, chilling the objects in the room, unknown to me as I lay on the bed.

"Ahh." I sighed, voice empty of emotions.

A breath in.

A breath out.

"How unfortunate."

They kidnapped us on our birthday and had the gall to drug and bind us like wild animals. Not only did they dare touch my precious older brother with their unworthy hands, judging by the nature of their conversation it seems like we're going to be lab rat—

A rustle from my brother's bed catches my attention immediately causing me to feel relieved.

He seems to be waking up. Good, it seems that the sedative had about as much of an effect on him as it had on me.

"Mmm?" As each second passed by he gained some coherency. "Wh-Where-? Bratishka? " A pause, " Bratishka ? Bratishka where are you!"

Weak arms struggle against the tough bindings of cloth. His body pulling aggressively away from the bed he was strapped to. All of this made my blood boil with rage .

However, no matter how irate my emotions were, Squishy came first.

"To your left."

Quick as a whip, his head spun towards my voice. Body tense with worry, he fired off questions at me in such a low tone that a mic couldn't even pick them up. Thanks to some practice Squishy had been able to get to about to my level of hearing so it was no problem. "Are you okay? What happened? Did they do anything to you? Are you hurt? Who did this?—"

It's best if he lets out some of that stress first before we talk. It wouldn't do to interrupt his worry, after all, that would just make it increase. So I just lied there listening as his worried questions changed into malicious curses for those who brought us here. It was pretty impressive how many unique curses he could spit out rapid-fire.

Hmm. He must have picked them up from the granny across the street. She always screamed death threats of various forms and threw rocks at the little boys and girls who would steal flowers from her garden.

They were the size of her fist. Somehow there was an endless supply of them at her disposal. Every. Single. Day.

(It was kind of admirable how she never got arrested. Smart Granny.)

"—hope they get choked to death with a boxload of jigsaw puzzles down their throat on their wedding day." He finished off his rant with a venomous tone.

Taking his foul mouth in stride I answered with a simple "fine".

"How are you feeling? Do you feel any discomfort? My body is a little heavy but it's just about gone. How about yours?"

"Same, I guess." He sheepishly answered. " I wish I could get up or at least turn. It's hard to see you."

Aww

Don't ever change.

A sneeze from him brought back my attention. Right. Back to the problem.

Our bond hasn't given me any feelings of pain aside from the tiredness due to the drugs administered to us so that was a fixed issue.

There might be bugs here so I can't tell him everything. I'll have to find somewhere safe later. Although, when I'll be able to find it is undetermined.

"Squishy." Making sure I caught his attention Icontinued, "Theree were 2 men here earlier. They said something about files and talked about blood samples. It seems like we're going to be lab rats so becareful." Takingg a breath in and then releasing I took a moment to think. Judging the nature of how long they will need us and what they'll do, the best thing we can do is—

"Code Alice"

Catching on to the plan, he nodded his head. "Un."

Code Alice was something we made together after one of the caretakers at the orphanage had told stories of strangers taking children who wander after dark. I had almost forgotten to put human trafficking on my list of things to plan against. With our strange and exotic appearance, we were extremely likely to become targets.

Orphanages were prime spots for traffickers to go to for some easy money. While most of the staff weren't bad, I wouldn't exactly call my neighborhood safe . Anyone could probably come in as a new worker through the matron's poor vetting process and steal a kid or two.

It was that pathetic.

Surprisingly, it was my brother out of the two of us who brought it up first. A week after that kidnapping story he nervously blurted out during our scheduled nap time if there was a chance that people would take us away. It was in the middle of my nap and I was already so gone, forming any thoughts was incredibly difficult.

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"Bwaaa?"

Taking too long to make a sentence was a mistake.

He started to bawl.

Tears flowed down his face from out of nowhere and familiar tremors made themselves known.

It was so sudden and out of nowhere that I had no idea what to do. The only thing that came out of my mouth was—

"Should we make a contingency plan?"

.....

.....

.....

I mean, come on , what do you expect me to do? Say "Shush, it's alright." and give my brother a little kiss? He caught me at nap time.

After crying and holding onto me like a stuffed animal for a total of 5 minutes his tears finally stopped. With a little sniffle, he peaked his head out of our mound of blankets and pillows. "W-wass a-a con-confi-consistency p-plan?"

"Contingency plan."

"Contintingency plan."

Breathe in

Breathe out

Okay. You can do this.

Taking some time to hype myself up, I slowly got up from our extremely comfortable bed and walked to the other side of the room to get a small whiteboard I had knicked from the supply closet about a month ago.

Knowing what I was doing, Squishy had sat himself up, blankets still covering his body. A small hole allowing me to see his red chubby cheeks and teary eyes.

Adora —no, get yourself in check. This is a learning experience for your big brother, don't get distracted.

Retrieving a yellow dry erase marker from my little pack in one of my various pockets—What? I like the colors.—I sat down in from of him and write down Contingency in English. (It'd be good practice for his English lesson tomorrow.)

"Contingency," I spoke using my teacher's voice, "a noun meaning a future event or circumstance which is possible but cannot be predicted with certainty. Do you understand?"

Seeing him nod along, I continued and added the word "plan" to the board. "A contingency plan is a course of action made to respond against the mentioned contingency. Also called a backup plan or Plan B."

As he continued to listen, he seemed more excited about what we were going to do. Seeing him so jittery and cute powered me through my nap time and by the time we were finished, it was dinner time and we had a couple of contingency plans.

The situations we kept putting ourselves in were so ridiculous I had to control my facial expressions as best as I could to stop myself from laughing out loud.

At some point we had run out of letters to use so Squishy had taken reign over the naming. He had actually decided to use elements from the bedtime stories I tell him. I had done bedtime stories with him because they were useful in training his memory and it was soothing to do so I always had one ready to go.

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Code Alice had been inspired by Alice in Wonderland. It was made with the mind that we were relocated to a place with absolutely zero outside connections. Meaning: no public areas; no reliable way for communication; no outside help; and no tools available.

It was an area full of unknown variables that could kill us at any turn. So, in order to prepare as much as we can, we had to change our history of any abnormality as much as the situation can let us. We would have to act like any other child, albeit a little smarter than most to satisfy the captors. Playing it low would have been our top priority to divert any attention away from us, so when the time was right, we could find a way to escape.

However.

In this case, their eyes and ears are focusing solely on us since we showcase some promise. Luckily, there are others like us so while we'll have to be better we can still be in the average.

I chuckled softly. "We should get some rest. I don't know about you, but I'm still pretty tired. The men just left and said they were clocking out. It'd be best if we sleep now to get some energy. I already mapped out the place and everyone here is either asleep or leaving." At my assurance, he began to relax back into his bed as he succumbed to his fatigue.

"Yeah—*yawn*—you're right. I am pretty sleepy." Squishy's eyes struggle to stay open. Inwardly cooing at this display, I try to make myself as comfortable as I can on the bed. As I start to drift, my twin's voice calls out to me.

"Hey, Kolokol'chik?"

"Hmm?" Despite being a little out of it I paid attention to his tired voice. "What is it Solnyshka?"

"You know I'll always protect you right? No matter what happens I'll always be there for you." Although his voice was muffled by his pillow, I heard every word.

How sweet. "Of course I do. I'd do the same for you too. Remember," a yawn escapes me "together forever—"

Our whispers barely echoed in the quiet room as we finished the repeated promise together

"Forever together ."

Smiling to myself, I bid him goodnight and went to sleep, unaware of the dystopia that would be my life the next few years.