The Dark Blood

10

On their plates was a single peice of bread each with a little bit of butter. Namjoon shook his head at took a bite. It tasted bland, like always. Breakfasts had been slim for a while now and you could notice the affect it had on the kids, especially the younger ones. They had too little energy to focus on classes or anything else really. They were so used to going on about their day hungry, that noody seemed to even complain anymore. Of course the adults were eating just fine, but the children who were still developing and needed energy and nourition were left trying to manage.

He had always paid attention to the way they were treated poorly, but he seemed to be one of the only ones who wanted to do something about it. Him and Ali. They were brought in the same time, seven whole years ago. Although Namjoon was about a year older than her, they were similiar in many ways and he had been pleased to be sat on the same table as her. Ali and him had talked about what needed to be changed and everything that was wrong with the place multiple times, but it was just talk and usually just complaining. Two teenagers couldn't do anything in a place where their voices were silenced.

Jimin leaning closer catched his attention. He was trying to say something to Taehyung with a serious but a caring look on his face but Namjoon couldn't understand what he was saying. Jimin was on the other side of the table, far away from him and Taehyung, who didn't seem to understand anything either. Taehyung had seemed more quiet than usual this morning and Namjoon had an idea it was because of something having to do with treatment, since it was common for new kids to react that way. He was avoiding eye contact with everyone and had his shoulders hunched forwards, looking quite nervous.

"Namjoon," Ali suddenly spoke to him.

"mmh?"

"I found an old book yesterday in the library," she told him, while gently hitting her plate with the piece of bread.

"Okay?" Namjoon said, guestioning if she had something more to add.

"I thought you'd like to look through a medical book," She finished and looked at him.

Namjoon raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"Wait, like an actual scientific one?"

Ali nodded and smiled, "It was behind the shelves."

Namjoon leaned back and looked around the big room, thinking. He had no idea books like that existed in their reach. They could possibly get in trouble for reading it, but for the sake of actual education, it was worth it.

"Behind what shelf?" He asked again.

They had spent a good amount of their time in the library. For Ali, it was an escape mechanism from the cruel reality. She would hoard books in specific shelves where she could just pick everything up again when she retunred. Ali had always talked about leaving Aldermere and books gave her a substitude of that. Getting out of here wasn't exactly an uncommon topic for the kids, but everyone knew it wasn't realistically possible. When they were brought in, they'd stay in until the place took their lives.

But for Namjoon, he wasn't trying to escape the place itself, just the people who were in charge of it. In the library he could gather as much information he could in the small amount of actual fact based book they had, but he had never came a cross of anything to do with real medical information. 

"It's not there anymore, I took it." Ali confessed.

Namjoon eyes widened and he leaned closer to her across the table. "You what? Are you insane, what if you get caught?" 

"We won't, do you want it?"

"We? I- ugh...Of course I do." Namjoon whispered . "But how?"

Ali took a bite of the bread she had been playing with and was silent for a few seconds. "How about I sneak it to you before Treatment?" She planned and added, "We don't have much time."

"Yeah..." Namjoon agreed.

***

The classrooms door was opened and the kids started slowly flooding in. Yoongi had always thought of the classes being useless. They were nothing but adults blaming children for things they knew they had no control over, literally.

The second floor where the classes and a library were had huge glass mirrors, which the students loved looking though to distract themselves from the anxiety of being put down by the teachers. Sadly, many of them had noticed this habit and made sure they paid attention to their teaching, which was the case in Yoongis class.

It was year nine for Yoongi. For nine whole years he had listened to the same bs with the same people on his class and now eighteen year old him was getting extremely tired of it, but atleast he was still here. Maybe sitting down and listening wasn't the worst, considering that he wouldn't be here for so long anymore. 

Their group of friends were slowly but surely getting dangerously old and even thinking about it made Yoongis stomach turn and his head hurt with the worst anxiety he had felt in his relatively short but miserable life. The restless feeling was hard to let go of and it haunted him regularly.

He looked through the window. Today was a windy day and you could see that from trees outside, their tops were swinging around and the river a little further away from the fences was flowing rapidly. His stomach felt uncomfortable again and Yoongi turned his head back to look at the teacher, who was mapping out the end goal of their treatment. Spoler alert, statistically, it wasn't very successfull or great for the people getting treated. 

a/n: leave a quess of what you think happens when the time runs out ;;) I'm curious.