Project 43

A couple of tests

Elias woke up with a pounding headache. It was like someone had been repeatedly smashing his head against the wall while hitting it with a sledgehammer. He groaned and raised his hand to rub the back of his head only to find himself unable to do so. Elias shot his eyes open in panic to see himself strapped to a metal chair. His hands and legs were tied against the cold surface with thick leather cuffs that burned against Elias' skin as he desperately tried to fight his way through them. 

The sixteen-year-old trashed around aimlessly in an attempt to break the cuffs as the panic only rose in his chest. He looked around frantically, already out of breath only to find himself in the middle of an empty concrete room with a single lightbulb hanging from the roof. The door to the room had to be behind Elias' back out of sight since all the boy could see was the rough gray wall. 

The trashing and fighting seized to a halt and Elias found himself unable to move. He just stared down at the dry patches of blood decorating seemingly every corner of the room. Elias tried to look around the room to find any information, a clue of some kind, even a goddamn hair on the floor, something to give him a hint at where he was. 

Soon enough Elias heard a door opening behind him. He stopped moving immediately and stared straight ahead in terror.

"Captain Smith," a man with a heavy German accent stated. It wasn't a question but somehow he phrased it like one.

Elias listened to the man's footsteps as they got closer to him and started circling him from the right. Soon enough a man came into his vision but he wasn't the scary soldier Elias was expecting, but a short man with a receiving hairline and big round glasses, wearing a long coat and a bowtie. 

"I can see you're confused but don't worry, I'm not here to hurt you," The man said looking up from his clipboard for a moment before turning his attention back to his papers.

"At least not directly," he continued causing Elias to widen his eyes as he stared at the short man. In reality, the two were about the same height but something about the man's appearance felt small, like a snale or a very weird mouse.

"The fuck's that supposed to mean?" Elias blurted out not caring too much about what the man would do to him. At that point, he had already realized that he wouldn't be walking out of the room.

"We have decided to do a couple of tests. I simply wanted to come see the subject myself. Project 43 is something that could change the world as we know it," the weasel man said as a shy grin grew on his face. The mad scientist was able to make Elias very uncomfortable before he left the room.

As Elias heard the door click closed he let his head fall back and took a deep breath. He must have been in Germany, probably further away from the border than last time. He had no idea how long he had been out cold or what time of day it was but something told him he was far away from anything familiar. His thoughts were interrupted when he heard footsteps behind him, ominously banging against the concrete floor. His heart sped up as the person came into his line of sight.

Herr Becker's insanely blue eyes shined with his sick smile as he neared the boy unable to move from his chair. Elias started trashing once more. He tried to kick his legs off and tried to push himself up off the chair but nothing worked.

The door clicked shut as Elias coughed up blood, spitting it onto the floor. He was beaten numb like he had been countless times before. This time, however, it wasn't his father and he couldn't run off to war to escape it.

Elias was fighting to stay conscious even tho he could barely see through his swollen eyes. His nose was broken and he had to spit out at least two of his teeth. The man had punched him repeatedly in his still-healing ribs most probably breaking them once more.