The Light's Shadow (Young Justice Fan Fic)

Chapter 1

(A/N: PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING --------

Hi my wonderful readers! Man, it really took me a long time to get to chapter one, huh? Well, never to fear, my writer's block has ended, and I'm back in the saddle (Er, so to speak...)! Anywya, some of this stuff is gonna get pretty trippy, which, in most cases that I've seen are often occurences when one experiences near death.

Ahem, anyway... I researched a bit on electricity, shocks, and what not, but I will say this, and only once: DO. NOT. TRY. ANY. OF. THIS. AT. HOME! Only 2,000 amps or more will kill you, and yes, amps are different than watts or volts, but I won't go into this - it really takes too long. So, that's all!)

~Kazuko's POV~

 After that fateful day, every day that followed is the same d*mn story. I crack open my eyes, eat the food that's set out for me, and try to prepare myself for what's next.

Pain.

Unimaginable pain.

Brutus often comes in after I'm done eating, but hardly does at the same time each day. My guess is that he wants to keep me tense and guessing when the torture is coming...

Basically, he tries out the inhibitor collar's shock capabilities on me. Sometimes he cranks it up all of the way, other times he does short random bursts out of nowhere. But most of the time he shocks me while standing in front of me, taunting me as I gasp and writhe in excruciating pain.  

But one thing always remains the same: Every time and the only time he leaves me alone, it's cause I've been rendered unconscious by his so called 'treatment'. 

Even me, a little six year old, can tell that this is torture, and not a 'treatment'. Even now, it's all I can do to stay alive each and every day.

And yet, I often wonder how hard life would be on the other side... What I would do there, if I did happen to die. 

Today I received a huge surprise. After Brutus came in, Mercy, Lex Luthor's right hand, strolled into the room. She took one look at me, and started chewing Brutus out. She clearly wasn't happy about my condition, that much was apparent. 

But by this time, I didn't really care, nor did I listen in. At the time, I was using most of the energy I had to just try and stay awake from another one of Brutus's shock treatments. So all I could do was just lay there, staring at the sky shown through a skylight above, waiting for the inevitable torture with an air of weary acceptance.

After they stood there arguing, Brutus huffed something and led the way to one of the many control panels lining the room... The exact one that controlled the amps surging through my collar when he decided to hurt me.

I flinched, and struggled to raise my head, even through my body was screaming at me to just lie there. I HAD to see what they were up to, and managed to watch them with listless eyes. Mercy was messing with the controls, and occasionally asked Brutus a few questions.

Sometimes he'd just shrug at her. Other times he gave her a short answer, but he rarely gave her a full answer. However, I didn't know what they were saying, since I was already far away from them, teetering on the brink of darkness once more.

Just then, Brutus snapped something at Mercy, and swings around. When he does, he catches sight of me watching the two of them, and he bares his teeth in a silent snarl as he whips out his remote.