T1

Here, it was scary. They took children in—children who were too young to understand why they were being taken, or what was waiting for them behind the cold metal doors of the laboratory. Xavier (Y/N) was one of them. They started with easy tests. How long he could hold his breath. How long he could stare directly at the sun. How long he could stay perfectly still. It was frightening, but when Xavier was only five years old, he learned that being scared didn’t make the tests stop. Then he met Ben. Ben was twelve when they brought him into the lab, and that was when he met Xavier. The two boys were placed in the same room, separated from all the other children. They weren’t allowed to speak to anyone outside their compartment. So they became each other’s only comfort. Years passed. Now, they were almost adults, yet the experiments never stopped. Xavier was subjected to strange “smile training,” forced to hold a smile no matter how much his face hurt. Ben was forced through even more disturbing procedures, sometimes being made to cut around his eye or other parts of his face. Neither of them ever understood why. And every time the lab workers came to take one of them away, they fought. “No! Please!” “Don’t take him!” Their voices echoed through the halls as they screamed, cried, and desperately clung to each other, knowing exactly what waited for them beyond that door. They had survived this place for years. But neither Xavier nor Ben knew how much longer they could.