Relinquished (OliverxReader)

Chapter Seventy-One

(y/n)

Jocelyn has been calling me to help her out with the two miracles. She still doesn't know their real names, she refers to them as Experiment 00080 and Experiment 00081. Thankfully, I haven't been brought into the experimentation room these past two days. This is good news because the experiments have been successful so far. Neither of them has died. They've been kept together in a separate room from the one that all the other demons Jocelyn has in stock reside in.

I've been fortunate enough to spend most of my day with them. They're both very different from each other. On the times when neither of them is busy getting their brains analyzed by Jocelyn, they stay in the little concrete room with all sorts of toys and children's books. Miracle– I call him that because I don't know his name. He's the one who has the brain of an infant, meaning he practically lost his memories because of the experimentation he underwent. He likes watching me play with blocks and watching me draw on the concrete floors with chalk. He's also the one who naps the most. Cameron, on the other hand, is the one who kept most of her intelligence. What I mean by that is her brain wasn't reduced to mush. She has the intelligence of a kid. She knows what happened and how she became human. She likes listening to the storybooks I read– my story of the moon when it's time for the two to take their naps.

One thing I do find strange is how familiar this all feels to me. I feel as if I've done all this before. How I've taken care of children, read them their bedtime stories, fed them, helped put drugs in them, helped them take their medicine, treated their wounds when Jocelyn didn't, held them while they slept.

Jocelyn has stocked up on my blood and since she has found the right formula she has not only been analyzing the serum like crazy, but the kids' brains as well. She's focusing on these two more than anything else as if they mean the world to her. I mean, they practically do. If she succeeds in creating a perfect formula that will turn any demon into a human, she could recreate history.

History repeats itself.

But I cannot let that happen.

Every bone in my body is screaming at me, telling me to stop it by any means necessary. I understand how wrong it is, I understand that it's wrong to replace a species and turn them into something to the point where not even they could recognize themselves. I understand that Jocelyn's motive is horrible, she just wants control, the control she never got to obtain. Yet I can't help but feel a sort of relief when I think about it. Humans could be alive in this world again. Even just the thought of it makes me feel a certain warmth inside of me. The thought makes me feel less lonely. I love Mujika, I love Sonju, and I love Renee, but there are just some things that they do not understand that I think a human would. And although these demons were sold off, it doesn't make it right. It doesn't feel right, because they are still their own beings and they deserve that much respect.

Cameron sits beside me, her head on my shoulder, her soft breaths filling the quietness of the little concrete room covered in all sorts of colorful words and drawings. If Miracle were to be here, his snores would be the loudest. He's with Jocelyn right now, getting his brain looked at, his arm subjected to getting blood drawn, probably under some anesthetic as if he wouldn't be, he'd be screaming his heart out from the sting of the needle. Even spending two days with these two children has sparked energy in me. I have the energy to get up every day, hoping to see these two and spend the day with them. Although Cameron has a little less energy and is a bit depressed, she still always manages a smile every time Miracle invites her to play with her. After all, Cameron is only a child. She's barely 6 years old. Miracle is 16 with the brain of an infant.

Miracle has been the target of Jocelyn since he awoke from his sleep two days ago. Jocelyn wants to know why his brain was turned to mush and why Experiment 00081's wasn't.