Worse Than Prison

Chapter Twenty-Four

Time Before Time

Silence sat in his room on the bed, staring at the children's book with interactive buttons that read aloud whatever they were apart of. He kept hitting the blue button on the blue farm house in the picture, listening to the child's voice say "house". He frowned.

"Haaah.... Haaa-uuu.... Hah-ou.... Sss... Haouse.... House." He finished, then cocked his head and went to hit another button when he heard the locks on his door being undone. He blinked and looked up, dropping the book on the floor as he slowly rose onto the balls of his feet.

Mercy came in first, smiling at him warmly behind a pair of framed glasses and her hair pulled back from her face. She was wearing a black sweatervest over a white button up shirt, black slacks, and her white lab coat. She looked far more friendly than R.J., who stood behind her with a scowl, his shirt and jeans rumpled under his wrinkled lab coat.

"Let's hurry this up," R.J. muttered, glancing down the hallway, "Silas is so pissy today."

"Because you made a big deal about the garbage yesterday," Mercy pointed out, then promptly ignored him to smile brightly at Silence, "Hey, sweetheart, we're here to take you to your appointment. I'm sorry we weren't able to feed you, but food before surgery isn't recommended."

That made Silence frown, but he didn't argue.

He just came forward quietly, peering at the way R.J. kept glancing at his watch. R.J. looked up and caught him staring before he cleared his throat and led the way out of the room and down the hallway, back toward the labatory.

Silence wasn't particularly in the mood to be poked and prodded, but what choice did he have? They'd either kill him or never let him see Jared again. The thought was agonizing. And even worse was the fact that he wanted to prove that he was just as human as the others.

He had to be... Jared told him so.

They walked into the labatory where the other assistants were rushing about to finish their jobs and Silas stood near an operating table, studying a clipboard before looking up and smiling in greeting. Silence didn't bother to hide his grimace.

He hated the man. He was arrogant and selfish. If Silence wasn't working so hard to impress these people with his humanity, he'd of torn the man's face off by now.

Pushing any negative thoughts out of his head, Silence approached him with R.J. and Mercy beside him.

"He's all prepped for surgery," Mercy informed calmly, "We'll just need to put him in a gown and get him on the table. Is the anesthetic prepared?" Silas nodded as he looked over at a couple other assistants, who nodded in confirmation. Silas turned back to write something down before looking at Silence.

"R.J. will get you in a gown. It'll allow us to do the procedure easily." He explained, but Silence didn't quite understand what that meant and only nodded. R.J. took him to a smaller room off to the side, handing him a white cotton gown to change into. Silence obeyed, although, he really didn't enjoy it, but he preferred it over the pants.

He came back out and R.J. led him to the table, helping him get onto it and lay down. Silence grimaced at the bright light that they swung over his head to point down at him. He started to get up, but Silas easily pushed him back down and looked at R.J.

"Secure Experiment 4.0, anesthetic ready." He ordered. Silence winced, feeling a rush a panic surge through his veins as R.J. nodded and got the buckles that hung off the side of the table. He took Silence's wrist and set it down, neatly wrapping the buckles around it. Silence whined, looking up at R.J. in confusion. R.J. caught the pitiful stare from the boy and flinched for a moment, glancing up as the others hurried to do their jobs.