Cybil (2018) #projectsuper

Chapter 6: Lost

Theme of Cybil: "Abel's Theme" (Street Fighter IV)

James woke up in so much pain that he feared he might pass back out.

He immediately glared at Fuller, who just shrugged.

"W-why?" The broken man stammered through clenched teeth and tears.

"Sorry. Wester's orders. I had to make it look good."

Just the last name of Laurence Wester made him want to vomit. The man was more or less his owner, by debt, and Wester knew it. James had earned the "privilege of working for him", or in reality, suffer under his hand.

Who says slavery is abolished? He thought bitterly.

Before he could spit back the retort he'd been holding back, a familiar voice that echoed dispassionately confirmed, "Mission Complete."

Forcing himself to a sitting position, he found a soaked Cybil, staring blankly at him. Or could it have been through him?

That's when he noticed it. Wet as she was, one sight of her puffy eyes told him that not all of it was from the rain.

The air had gone out of the room. The discomfort echoed throughout even Fuller's voice as he congratulated her on a job well done and assigned her the task of dressing and putting bandages on James's wounds.

Cybil worked through her creator's muffled groans.

"You know... You're really good at this."

James didn't even realize he'd said anything until his impromptu nurse maid looked at him. It was brief, but he thought he noticed a glimmer of confusion in her otherwise stoic face. It left as soon as it had come. Did he imagine it?

Fear crept through his voice as he whispered, "What have you had to do?"

Cybil looked away, but apparently it wasn't just to focus on her work. She trembled as she put the finishing touches on her rig. James's arm from the shoulder down had been numbed through antibiotics now, but he could've ignored that pain regardless. At that point, he was somewhere else entirely....

Every one of James's creations, his children, were made strictly to follow the orders of Lawrence Wester. This was under duress, of course, but that didn't really matter at that point. Fuller, with all of them, had arranged to get them adopted by various families and foster homes. They just had to wait for an avenue of escape. In a sense, it might have been a good thing that each had a visible defect that seemed to annoy Wester and cause trouble for his organization. He'd wanted them immediately destroyed when they became a burden to him. James was never going to let that happen, and apparently, neither would Fuller.

Regardless, his words had been the same to all his children from their formation in the same giant test tube that Cybil had been born in.

"I don't care what they make you do. Don't you dare blame yourself! You're a wonderful child, and any true mother or father would be lucky to have you! I'll ensure you never have to remember anything about this horrible place nor that vile man at the head of it. You'll be able to live life... breathe air. I'll seal this promise with my own blood if I have to! It's the least I could do...."

Presently, looking at his wife's splitting image in front of him, he wondered whether he would be able to keep that promise. He didn't care so much about dying, as he would consider that a service to the rest of the world. He didn't need to be around to disrupt it further. He didn't know, however, if Cybil or her siblings would or even could truly escape their shared past.