Chapter Text
The world had been reduced to a never ending cycle of dullness and suffering.
Each day, indistinguishable from the last, was a blend of pain and helplessness, marked by the recurring routine enforced by captors. The dim, flickering light in the concrete cell offered no comfort, with everything stark and unfeeling; it was as if the grey blandness had become both a prison and a stage of torment.
The teenage boy opened his eyes, staring at the unforgiving cement ceiling. The air was thick and heavy with the scent of stagnation, so dense it felt like it was clogging his throat, suffocating him slowly. Each breath scraped against his lungs, a painful reminder that he was still alive. But was this truly life? Or merely an existence carved out by those who held him captive?
When he blinked, the movement sluggish. It was like stepping through a gateway of consciousness, and with the awareness came the knowledge that he didn't remember how he got there.
His fingers brushed against his jaw, and he felt the tender ache there, a dull pain that seemed to resonate with the emptiness inside his head.
He couldn’t remember.
There was a smudge of black where his memories should have been, a cold, empty and gaping chasm, and it made his nerves prickle and snap.
Who was he?
The question hung in the air unanswered, a heavy weight that threatened to crush him under its enormity. He had no name, no history, no memory of his past. His mind was a whirlpool of confusion and fear, a void where he knew memories should be.
He didn't know his name. Why? Where had he come from? If anywhere.
The more he tried to grasp at the threads of his identity, the more they slipped through his fingers, leaving him even more lost and broken. The absence of these fundamental truths left a gaping hole within him, a black hole that threatened to swallow him entirely.
He didn't know where he was or why he was there.
His eyes darted around the room, desperate to find something, anything, that might anchor him to reality. But there was nothing — no window, no trace of another presence, only the cold, unyielding walls that seemed to close in on him.
Or had he always been there?
Hugging his knees to his chest, the action was a feeble attempt to ground himself in the present, to stave off the rising panic, as he sat against the cold, bare wall. But the darkness within his mind was relentless, an abyss devoid of light and certainty. Every attempt to recall his past was met with a suffocating emptiness, a sense of being adrift in an endless void.
It felt like being a hollow shell of a person who once existed but had been cruelly erased. The fragments of his identity were scattered beyond his reach, leaving him lost and incomplete. He yearned for something, anything, to fill that void, to remind him that he was real, that he had once been someone before this nightmare began.
A single tear traced a path down his cheek, a silent testament to the overwhelming despair that gripped him. He didn't know who he was, but he felt the weight of that absence like a physical burden. The room around him was a prison, but there was also a cage within his own mind, trapping him in a relentless cycle of fear and confusion, unable to break free.
He squeezed his eyes shut, his hands clutching his head as if willing himself to remember, to shatter that cage and through the wall of darkness that held his memories.
But there was nothing.
No flicker of recognition.
No hint of familiarity.
Just an unkind, unyielding emptiness.
Everything was lost to him.
The only reality he knew was the harsh, unforgiving routine his captors had imposed on him.
The collar around his neck was another constant, heavy reminder.
It had been with him for as long as he could remember, a constant, unyielding presence. Its metallic weight dug into his skin, leaving raw, angry marks where it rested. He had grown used to the pressure, the way it bit into his flesh when he moved or slept. It buzzed faintly, a persistent hum that blended with the distant, ominous sounds of machinery. The sound grew louder, more insistent, vibrating against his throat like a living thing. It was a relentless buzz, a mechanical, artificial sound that grated against his ears.
He touched the cold, heavy metal collar absentmindedly, tracing its smooth, unyielding surface. It was a prison within a prison, a barrier that suppressed his powers and kept him trapped in this endless cycle of pain and exhaustion.
This agonising cycle began with him being dragged from his cell, legs barely able to support his weight, to a freezing room. He had learnt that the clinical space was a place of nightmares. He was hauled there with his weakened body, barely able to resist. The room was sterile, lined with exposed wires, metal tubes, and devices that seemed to pulse with an undercurrent of malevolent energy.
And in the centre of it all, the harsh metal chair he dreaded most awaited.
The chair was a grotesque creation, a twisted blend of metal designed to trap him in place. He was strapped to it with thick leather belts and various gadgets that restrained him in place. The wires were attached to him, biting into his skin, each connection sending a shiver down his spine.
The Boy's heart would race, hammering in his chest as he braced himself for the inevitable, knowing what was coming.
The collar was deactivated just before the process began.
Then, machines around him whirred to life, and the pain began.
It was excruciating, an unbearable torrent of agony that surged through his body like molten fire.
His powers were a conduit for his suffering. The electricity coursing through him was both exhilarating and terrifying, a raw, untamed force unleashed, tearing him apart from the inside out.
This chair seemed to be the heart of their operation—an unnatural mixture of machinery and restraints designed to harness his abilities.
His captors had exploited that power with a ruthless precision that he was not only capable of generating electricity but could do so with a force and intensity that surpassed ordinary human limits with just the right amount of push.
That right push was the horrifying needles that contained a chemical cocktail drug that, when injected, made him more compliant and more susceptible to losing control. And then came the burning and searing shocks that were inflicted until the energy erupted in a violent, uncontrollable storm that unleashed the hidden potential within him.
For three days straight, he was subjected to and endured this torment. His body was wracked with pain as he was forced to generate power. The electricity surged through him in waves, each one more intense than the last, leaving him gasping for breath, his muscles twitching and his body convulsed.
Blood trickled from his nose, the crimson streaks a stark contrast against his pale, ashen face. The blood would drip onto his clothes, soaking through the thin white fabric now stained in a coppery red.
The chair was his prison, the wires his chains.
Time lost all meaning in that room, the agony blurring the hours into a continuous haze.
An array of equipment hummed and buzzed around him as it harnessed his energy. The walls of this room were covered with large, metal conduits and thick cables leading to various machines and control panels. The air was filled with the acrid reek of ozone and metal and the oppressive hum of machinery working in tandem.
During these gruelling sessions, the Boy's mind often drifted between moments of agony and sheer willpower, fighting to hold on to some semblance of sanity through the pain and the overwhelming sensation of being drained.
The intense currents surged through his body, making him feel like a mere conduit for an endless stream of electricity. A vessel for an endless stream of power that was being siphoned away, leaving him hollow and broken. Each jolt drained him further, leaving him exhausted and disoriented, robbing him of the strength to resist, to fight back against the pain.
After the sessions finally ended, the Boy was left in a state of exhaustion, barely able to move. His body trembled from the aftereffects of being depleted. He was often left slumped in the chair, barely conscious, as his captors dressed in whitecoats moved around him with methodical efficiency, their faces masks of cold detachment as they reactivated the collar. The Whitecoats always ignored his pleas for mercy and his cries of agony, treating him as nothing more than a power source. Their cruelty was evident in every action, from the rough handling to the disdainful glances.
When they unstrapped him, his body was limp, his mind numb. The guards in grey dragged him back to his cell, where he collapsed onto the cold floor, too exhausted to move. The transition from the high-tech, clinical torture room to the stark simplicity of his concrete cell was jarring. It offered no real comfort, only the bleak reality that this was his life, his existence.
The day of rest that followed was hardly a reprieve. That single day in his cell was a brief respite but far from rejuvenating.
His body ached, every muscle sore and weak from the relentless strain of the sessions.
His mind, a whirl of fear and confusion, haunted by the knowledge that soon, the cycle would begin again.
His spirit was worn down. There was no escape from it, no respite from the torment that awaited him.
The cell was a place of isolation but also his only sanctuary. It offered no real comfort, only to find solace in the rare moments of silence. It was simply a place to exist, to survive.
Isolation weighed heavily.
Knowledge of his surroundings was confined to these two rooms—the cell and the power-generating room. The lack of windows and the absence of anything external from the outside world kept him disoriented, a victim of both physical and mental confinement.
Sometimes, in the quiet moments between the torment, he would fantasise about escape. He would imagine being free, running far away from this hell, reclaiming who he once was. But these dreams were always fleeting, quickly crushed by his harsh reality.
The Boy felt like a pawn in a larger, unseen game he couldn’t understand.
Overhearing the white and grey blurry blobs murmurs and whispering in the shadows of his transition in and out of consciousness, their words slipping through the haze of his exhaustion.
They spoke about him like he was a thing, an object, something to be used and discarded when it was no longer useful.
His energy was like some kind of lifeline for them, their means of operating undetected. They boasted about how lucky they were to have found him, to have a living, breathing battery at their disposal. They used him to stay off the grid and avoid detection by the authorities. While they did, he didn’t know what, and he remained the central source of their power.
They didn’t care about the toll it took on him, the way it drained him until he was a husk. All they cared about was the power he could give them, the energy they could siphon from his body to fuel their machines and their ambitions.
And then there was the Chair.
The dreaded Chair, with its harsh restraints, the place where he was stripped of his humanity and reduced to a tool, a source of power to be exploited. The Chair was the symbol of his torment and suffering, where the pain was sharpest and where his hope was most fragile. It was the place where he was transformed into a living battery and his powers exploited for someone else's gain.
In the darkest moments, he clung to a small, fragile hope. Maybe, somehow, someone might come to rescue him or that he might find a way to escape. Hope flickered weakly within him, a tiny ember amidst the darkness of his confinement. But each passing day reminded him of his vulnerability and the cruel nature of his situation.
He couldn't help but wonder who he had been before this. Was he always this powerless, this helpless? Had he once been strong, confident, and maybe just …maybe… free? The questions tormented him, but there were never any answers. The past was a mystery, a shadow that eluded at every turn.
As the hours passed, he tried to gather his strength. Sleep was scarce here, a luxury he couldn’t afford. The few moments of rest he managed to snatch were haunted by nightmares.
He knew that soon, too soon, the cycle would begin again, and he would be back in the clinical room, strapped to the Chair, enduring the pain, the drain on his energy, and the slow erosion of his will. The thought filled him with dread, a cold, creeping fear that settled in his gut and refused to leave. But what choice did he have?
This was his reality, and he had to survive it.
Somehow.
The Boy had only a fragile hope.
Perhaps one day, he would remember who he was.
Maybe one day, he could find a way to escape this hell.
Right?
Until then, he would endure the endless cycle.
He had to.
It was the only way to survive being a prisoner of both his own abilities and the merciless machinery that exploited him.