A coughing fit was what brought Aiden back to his senses. He tried sitting up, but fell into another painful set of coughs. Once he had stopped, the boy tried in sitting up, but was so worn out that his chest hurt when he moved, so he remained lying down.

Four harsh lights shone down on Aiden. He looked around the room he didn’t recognize. Its walls were stoned in a checkerboard tile design, and the floor mimicked the walls. It was a spaciously large room, the walls far enough away that the darkness created a single large spotlight over Aiden and whatever he was lying on.

“Hello…?” Aiden asked, his voice severely hoarse. He felt cold, and went to pull something up and over him, but he touched nothing. He sat up slowly. He felt odd. Strange. He didn’t feel like he normally did; when he moved, Aiden felt even more weighed down, like he was moving through the thick, smoggy air of Eagleshaw in the summertime. Swinging his legs over the side of, whatever he was lying on, Aiden stepped slowly, trying hard not to bring himself pain. He moved into the darkness and found himself face-to-face with a figure wrapped in bandages.

“What?” Aiden saw the figure mouth, his lips split and dried blood filling some of the cracks. As he saw the figure speak, the cracks reappeared, a single droplet of blood moving down its face. Moving gradually towards each other, the two figures finally met at an opening in the wall. Aiden reached out for the other figure before the small shock of a needle in Aiden’s arm stopped him. He turned around to see the person responsible, but dropped to the floor, unable to distinguish the shadowed person.

Aiden’s eyes bled tears as his vision disintegrated. At that moment, he considered himself already dead.

~ ~ ~

Aiden opened his eyes again, this time much easier. He was still tired, but he felt the need to get up. Aiden rubbed his eyes carefully but found his face wrapped up tightly in bandages and his wrists wrapped in handcuffs, except the chain went into the darkness before simply looking like they had disappeared.

Aiden panicked. He began screaming but found his voice so hoarse that he couldn’t make a sound.

“Do shut up,” came a voice. From the shadows stepped a woman dressed in all white. She wore some thin-rimmed glasses and her brown hair had been pulled back into a tight bun, a black mesh covering it. She held some books, which supported paperwork.

“What’s going on?” he asked softly, attempting to get up, but finding his ankles wrapped similarly to his wrists.

“Mr. Whitebell, do you know why you’re here?” she asked, walking so slowly that the heels of her shoes had plenty of time to echo around the room. Aiden didn’t remember much; he remembered delivering the wireless message to his mother, there was a vague, fleeting thought of him talking to someone about the winter holidays, but everything was lost in Aiden’s hazy memory.

“I…” He cleared his throat, but that caused him even more pain, coughing. Each forceful exhale of air brought out blood, which splattered on the floor. He placed his hand on his neck and felt a small series of needle insertions right near the top of his throat. A frightened, struggled scream escaped Aiden’s lips, but he clasped his neck even tighter than before, shaking.

“You’re here for a little…experiment,” the woman told him. She wrote something down. “’Subject reaction to XS1 Compound: After several injections, subject has been subsequently…silenced’.” She dropped her notes from her face and continued, “Don’t worry, Mr. Whitebell. You’ll only be here until the bandages are removed.”

“Why am I here?” he asked, every word an intense amount of pain.

She paced slowly around the room, writing something down in her paperwork. “I’ve heard stories about you from…my daughter,” she stopped, turned on her heels and glared at him, “And they haven’t been all that pleasant either, Mr. Whitebell. This is simply a request for you to cease and desist.” The double doors to the room opened and Meredith walked through. The very plain-looking girl glared at him, making Aiden shake a little more.

“Would you like to meet your public, Aiden?” Meredith asked.

Aiden slowly got up from the table and struggled forward, the chains heavier than he had expected. “Please, just, just let me go. What did you do to me?” he asked, putting his hands around his neck. “M-my parents will pay anything you want.”

“You hurt my feelings, Mr. Whitebell,” Meredith mocked. “No. I don’t want anything from you." She hummed in contemplation. "Except, maybe...I would like to see you squirm a little.”

Something caught Aiden’s eyes. In the corner of the room was Aiden’s mirror, the ornate mirror that his parents had sent him for his dorm room. As he walked towards it he came face-to-face with the bandaged figure. As he touched the mirror very gently, it slid down off the wall and shattered right at his feet. He turned, still shaking, to Meredith and asked, “Where am I? How did I get here?”

Meredith walked straight out the double doors and brought back in Danielle. She gestured to Danielle, who began, “I created a aerosol.” Meredith nodded, as if encouraging her to continue. Danielle did, a small smile now on her lips. “A combination of hydroglycogin, some Common Dynarus, Sarconic acid, and Isotopic Tantalogen. It’s meant to paralyze the muscles in someone’s body and, before the subject passes out, causes them to hallucinate.”

“What about memory?” Aiden asked, “I can’t remember some things.”

Danielle looked surprised. She turned to Meredith and said, “Wow, I’ve never tested the fragility of the human mind with the compound. Thanks for the input, Aiden.” And with that, she walked back out through the doors.

“W…what…?”

“You’re a very special case, Mr. Whitebell.” Meredith stepped closer. “Danielle, who you mock for not being “pretty enough”, is first in physical and chemical sciences at school. She created what knocked you out for fun,” Meredith explained. “Then…Michelle and Adelaide transported you here under hardly any suspicion.”

“W…what…?” he repeated.

“It helps when Adelaide’s father owns Scoty & Smythe, and Michelle’s mother runs a delivery system,” she explained. “Then my lovely mother here was the one who mutated you.”

“What?” Aiden asked, his voice returning. He returned to the shattered mirror and picked through the pieces, creating an incomplete reflection on the floor. His hands, bleeding from the shattered splinters, began ripping apart the bandaging that covered his whole body, and, still shaking, saw a creature of unimaginable proportions staring back at him.

His eyes were covered by a fleshy masquerade mask, which ran across his head from one ear to the other, leaving only holes for his eyes and ears, with his nostrils still exposed. There must’ve been something over his left eye because he was unable to open it completely. His right arm had a mound of flesh grafted around the lower part of his arm. Aiden’s legs were wrapped the same way as his right arm, which made his legs look like an oddly shaped acute triangle. To top it all off, a clump of skin, looking like it was almost done being rolled, rested on his back, resulting in Aiden having a thin glob of skin across his shoulders that developed into a hump on his neck. His hair had been shaven, making his overall appearance even more deformed. The extra weight of skin on his back created a hunched-over posture; his right leg caught in a metal brace that didn’t allow his knee to bend. Aiden began crying, but he couldn’t see the tears run down his face because of his mask of skin. He turned away from his shattered mirror and back to Mrs. Hollway and Meredith. “Why are you doing this?” he asked, sobbing.

Meredith walked, swinging her feet with each step. “Mr. Whitebell, you’re going to be subjected to this for one simple reason.” She shrugged easily. “I told you you’d have more enemies than friends one day.”

“I…I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Aiden told her, still crying and shaking, his voice still hoarse but stronger. “Please, forgive me, please, please, please forgive me.”

“Do I hear the stubborn Mr. Aiden Whitebell begging for mercy?” she asked, almost sounding surprised.

Aiden reached out and wrapped his arms around her legs. He was still sobbing and now was shaking; for the first time in his life, Aiden found himself terrified and uncertain of his future. Along with his not knowing how much time had passed, Aiden tried to find footing in the unknown.

Meredith leaned over, throwing Aiden off her legs, and took out a knife. “You don’t look right,” she sighed. “I want to make sure you really remember who did this.” She cut a chunk of his fleshy mask off and into his original face. Aiden screamed, but she kept cutting off skin until a scoop shape had been formed, the grafted skin ending underneath his eye. A crescent-shaped cut now adorned his left cheek. “Look at you,” she said, “Now you can see my mark.” She pushed her blade into his face, cutting a small half-circle shape into his cheek.

“Stop! Stop! Please!”

“There,” she said, pulling back and tossing the knife into the darkness, “I’ve made sure your bruise will be there forever.” She straightened up and watched him, as if contemplating her actions.

“No. No, please. You, you don’t understand. Please, restore me and you’ll never hear a sour word from me ever again.”

“I believe you’re a little late for forgiveness,” Meredith told him. “You and your ideals will be tested. We have such plans for you, and we haven’t even started yet.” Aiden felt angry, but he was still immensely frightened. But he suddenly found himself lunging forward, but held back by his ankle cuffs, which wrapped several times around the hospital bed that had been bolted to the floor. He still had plenty of slack on his handcuffs, but Meredith was over a foot away, her mother being at least five feet. “Calm down, you’ll leave marks on your wrist and ankles.” She turned and, followed by Doctor Hollway, left Aiden in the room.

Aiden paced around the room for a few minutes before he felt the darkness become darker. He moved into the spotlight, jumped onto the bed and watched as the darkness began encroaching his bed, like the sight of the rising tide.

Aiden took in a breath.