May, 2016
Progressively over time, Legai started to take care of himself. He got back on a work out regimen, the same one he had back at The Facility, and ate more and more, though not usually through the most legal means. He kept it simple, an item swiped from the store or a local market and stuffed into the old and slightly moldy pockets of his hoodie. Nothing too big, cause he couldn't spend too much time trying to stuff it in his coat, but not too small either, or else he nor Tyler would be able to survive. Due to the fact that his space was limited, and he had to reduce noise levels as much as possible, boxes of cookies and bags of chips were out of the question. His limited diet of small fruits and vegetables only boosted his healthy living style, so he was happy either way. It's not like they could catch him either, cause outside of wearing his hood up everywhere he went outside of his alley home with Tyler, over the months he learned secret entrances and exits in shops, stores ect. to keep from being caught by any sensors that would usually detect a stolen item, even to the point of learning how to access the rooftops of certain buildings. Tyler didn't exactly approve of this brazenly illegal conduct, but this is the most he's eaten and the most consistently he's eaten in a long time. And for a man who was slowly aging with every day, he needed all he could get, so if it brought food then it brought food.
One night Legai returned, climbing down the fire escape that hung above their spot that was attached to the abandoned apartment building beside them, the rusted bars and steps shaking and clanking with every step as he hopped down from level to level. He dropped to the ground, his old shoes creasing as he hit the pavement with a large thud that was sprinkled with the crunchy sound of tiny pebbles scraping the bottom of his shoe. He bent his knees as he braced the fall, causing an apple to fall out of his pocket as it folded open, and rolled on the ground away from him. "You gotta leave that one for the birds now." Tyler said with a raspy voice and a light smile, softly pointing at the apple that was now speckled with dirt and debris. Legai rose up from his crouched stance, glancing over at the apple and placing his hands in his hoodie pockets to hold the rest of the food still, "Yeah," He said walking towards Tyler, "Guess that means more for me." He smiled, looking back at Tyler as his face glowed in the flickering light of the fire that he had lit earlier. He walked over and sat down in a crouched position across from Tyler, placing the rudimentary fire built out of a barrel that was cut down to a third of its height so it would be the right height for sitting between the both of them. "Hey, I saved your life Legai, you owe me." Tyler rebuts, pointing at Legai mockingly. Legai shakes his head, "My lord, how many times are you gonna throw that in my face?" He asked, laughing. "As many times as it takes for you to pass the dang potato." Tyler answers, reaching out for the food around the fire. Legai takes out the potato in his pocket, tossing it over the fire, and landing it in Tyler's hand as it hits his palm with a soft thud.
Tyler grabbed an old rod, holding it out over the fire to some-what sterilize it, before impaling it into the potato and roasting it over the open fire. Legai watched silently, pulling an orange out of his pocket, peeling it, and placing the peels into a jar that was halfway filled with other fruit peels such as lemons or apples, and halfway filled with water, forming a make-shift juice out of them. He ate the orange slices as Tyler roasted the potato, laying it so close over the fire that the embers floating with each crack mostly collided with it. "Remember, we still wanna be able to eat the potato." Legai jokes, wiping orange juice from his bottom lip as he talks through chews. Tyler chuckled, "You know I've been roasting potatoes long before you came along, right?" He replied. "Before me? Before me you couldn't even afford a potato." Legai responded with a wide toothed grin. They both shared a short laugh as Tyler finished roasting and they shared the potato, splitting down the middle with a rough hand-made tear.
After dinner Tyler went to bed, and Legai climbed back up the fire escape to sit on the roof and look at the stars for a while. He was getting better with being able to tell what time it was, getting as far as being able to tell the time within the range of about an hour. Though it was a little difficult whenever it was a cloudy night, which was almost every night this time of year, but oh well, as long as it wasn't raining it was ok. He looked up at the moon, as it peaked in and out of the blurry holes in the clouds, and thought back on something Jennifer used to tell him. The main thing that has helped keep himself together throughout this whole ordeal. "The moon is a beacon," She used to say, "A spot of light in the biggest darkness." That sentence has been ringing in his head for over a year now. It gave him a bittersweet comfort, imagining her sweet soft voice hugging his ear as her pillowy palm caressed his cheek. "It gives us hope. Cause sometimes that's all you can do. When the dark surrounds you, and you have nowhere left to go, nothing left to do, no one to talk to, the one thing you can always do is hope.". His emotions began to swell, grief from losing his mother, anger at her loss, anger at them for not coming to find him. To save him, to be a family again. She said they would keep him safe. She said this was best for them. His fists balled up, stretching the skin over his knuckles as his brows furrowed and tears built up in his eyes. Why had they abandonned him? Why had they lied him? Where had his hope gone?
As he was sitting criss crossed on the roof, thinking back on the warmth of his mother's arms, he heard an echoed rustling sound out to his left. He looked, and when he heard a louder metallic clang, he rushed to look over the edge of the building, wiping his tears and peeking his head and shoulders over the side of the ledge. The light from the street lights illuminated his face, and he saw 5 men, kicking and punching at Tyler as he raised his hands and defended himself desperately. Legai rushed down the fire escape as lightly as he could so as to not be detected, plopping down onto the pavement in a loud thud as he scrambled to his feet to help him. "Let him go!!" He brazenly ordered the men, taking a battle ready stance against them. The men, with their figures shrouded in darkness, turn to him with angered and yellow eyes, as the man holding Tyler by the torn collar of his shirt pointed to Legai, "Bring him over here." He told the men. 2 men walked towards Legai with balled up fists, and Legai prepared himself for a fight. The first man jumped at him, wrapping his arms around Legai and tackling him to the ground. Legai squirmed his way out, only to be met by the second man. Legai raised his arms to shield his head as the first punch was thrown, colliding with his stomach and knocking him back. Legai evaded punch after punch, weaving and blocking with the best he could offer, until one fist landed right against his cheek. Tyler closed his eyes, not wanting to watch as his friend was beaten, as Legai, hit the ground in a daze. "This one's got no fight in him!" One of the men exclaimed, raising his arms up to the middle of his sides triumphantly. Legai struggled to get up, on his arms and knees, when the second man kicked him in his side. Legai tumbled onto his right side, holding his chest in pain, too busy squinting to see the foot barreling towards his head. A hit that caused his head to fly back into the wall behind him.
Legai, his body screaming for air, fought his way to his hands and knees, suddenly felt a cool sensation on the back of his head. He reached back with his right arm, brushing his index and middle finger across his head, only to be met with a...liquid? He brought his fingers back, and looked down at his hand. It was his blood. The image of his fingers stained with red, the throbbing pain throughout his body, his heart beating faster and faster, his blood boiling. These men had caught him at the wrong time, they were beating on Tyler, and made him bleed. He was furious, and these men were about to pay for it. He began breathing heavily, standing up, teeth clenched so hard his head began shaking, his body bursting with adrenaline. His breath hissed between his teeth, and his eyes were empty. His training kicked in, and his mind focused on doing one thing, survive. He threw one punch to the first man's head as a distraction, then viciously brought up his foot and back down directly into the man's left knee, breaking the leg with a gruesome crack. Legai used the opportunity of the man's vulnerability and hit him with a left hook, flooring him. The fight had begun, and his instincts took over.
The second man, astonished by the skill of the random child, whips out a switchblade from his coat pocket, "Big mistake kid." He growled with his bad breath, lunging towards Legai. Legai, thinking swiftly and his rage building, steps to the side to evade the attack, grabbing the man's wrist. He twisted his hand in a way so that at the speed he was going, he was going to break it himself, and all Legai had to do was hold the hand still in its awkward position. 'Funny,' Legai thought to himself, 'This doesn't feel like a mistake'. The man screams out in pain as the snap of his wrist causes him to drop the knife, which Legai reflexively catches. His emotions were gone, his ability to reason was gone, and his judgment was clouded, like stained glass. Red stained glass that painted them all in a way that made them look...weak. This man was weak, they both were, they all are. They thought they could handle Legai. They thought they had the right to pick on somebody else, who they thought was weaker. As if they were anything to begin with. They can't even deal with a simple kid. Now one of them has a broken leg, one a broken wrist, both doubled over in pain, and two more were charging at him.....This was gonna be fun. The fight went so quickly, nobody but Legai could really tell what's going on. A jab to the chin, a kick to ribs, a swipe to the thigh, a chop to the throat, not to mention the various slashes and slices that Legai delivered with his newly acquired weapon. The man that was still holding Tyler just watched in amazement as this... boy.... was fending off grown men effortlessly. Legai grabbed one of the men's forearms, pulling it over his shoulder and breaking it at the elbow. He was completely consumed in rage, not fully aware of what he was doing, but enjoying it all the same. The look on his face was more than human, more than monstrous it was.... "My God..." Tyler silently exclaimed as he witnessed the massacre. Legai flipped the helpless one armed man onto the ground with a loud slam that echoed throughout the alley, and turned to the last man. Still clutching the switch-blade in his hand, he charged at him, his main focus being to disarm his guard, each strike more violent than the last. The man's green shirt was stained from streaks of red where Legai had slashed him. It stopped being a fight and started being the man desperately defending his life until....it wasn't. All of the movement, shuffling, punching and groans of pain stopped, with the blade lodged between his ribs. The man gasped for air as blood began to fill his lungs, his eyes filled with fear...no, not fear, terror.
That same look, reflected back through Legai's eyes, as he snapped out of his trance and looked around at what he had done. 3 men laid on the ground holding one injury after another, all terrified that they would be next as they shuffled away from Legai. Then Legai looked down at his hand...that blood wasn't his. He couldn't believe what he had done. The first official fight that he had ever been in, the first time anyone has looked at him with...such horror. His first kill. He turned to the man holding Tyler, not saying anything, just giving him a look. The look of a feral predator deciding on whether or not to make an animal his prey. It wasn't a look of hate, rather a love of violence. The man could see it in his eyes, and it terrified him. He let go of Tyler, the wrinkles in his shirt resting, as the man put his hands up in surrender, hiding his fear behind a cocky one sided grin, "You win." He says to Legai, then looks back to Tyler, who was still wrapping his head around all of what just happened, "But this isn't over." He points at Tyler as he backsteps out of the alley. The rest of the men shuffle and grunt their way out, almost too terrified to pass Legai. Legai just stood there, one hand in a clenched fist, the other hand clenching the knife. He looked at the body he left in horror, not horrified that there's a dead man in front of him, horrified that he's the one who put him there. He broke his promise to his mother, the last thing that tethered him to her in his eyes, the last thing he had, hope. Hope that died with the man he killed. He didn't know what to do next, too paralyzed to think, but he knew one thing for sure, he was no longer Legai. He ran over to Tyler, who was bloody and bruised, dropping the knife and helping him to his feet. Tyler could only question, "What did that place do to you?" He asked in a raspy voice, spitting blood out of his mouth. "Nothing that can be undone." Legai replied dismissively, unable to take his eyes off of that body, the twitching had stopped.
An hour later, Legai is tending to Tyler's wounds in the deafening silence of the night, pausing occasionally to fix the make-shift bandage he had wrapped around his head to stop the bleeding, the crackling of the barrel fire only occasionally breaking the silence. It didn't even seem like the sound of midnight traffic in New York could penetrate the thick atmosphere they were in. Legai had ended up throwing the body into the river, he just....couldn't look at it anymore. Avoiding eye contact, Legai finally spoke up while wrapping a tourniquet around Tyler's arm, "Who are they?" He softly asked through a heavy sigh. Tyler looked at him, "That's where you wanna start? With who they were?" He asked, surprised at how Legai just moved past everything else. Legai stopped wrapping, sitting back in his crouched position, irritated that he wouldn't just answer the question, "Fine." He exclaimed in a silent defeated sigh, "You have something on your mind, say it. Nobody else has been holding back lately." He shrugs, going back to the makeshift bandages he made for Tyler. "Was that supposed to offend me? Or you?" Tyler said, trying to bait Legai into talking for himself so he wouldn't have to bring it out of him. "...I killed that guy, Tyler." Legai finally snaps, "I know I shouldn't have, two days ago I probably wouldn't have! But I was so..." He struggles to find the words as he couldn't even bring himself to look Tyler back in the eye, "I was so angry. I hated them. I don't even know where it came from or where it went, or if it'll ever come back. I made a promise to my mom, I told her I would never-" He said hysterically. He began to hyper-ventilate, but Tyler used his good arm to hug Legai, letting him lay there on his chest, trying to relax. His heartbeat slowed back down eventually and he stood up, just to breathe the air. Impure as it may have been, tainted by memories and emotions, fresh air has a way of calming the brain that not even Ikemi could explain...well, she probably could but still.
Legai took a deep breath, "Thanks." He said with a smile. Tyler decided to share some words of wisdom, "Look kid, you did what you had to do at the time. That's not where my concern is. My concern is that you were 15 when I found you and apparently you know how to not only fight, but kill people. A skill I can only attribute to whatever place caused you to wash up on my alley in the first place. Which brings me back to my original question: what did that place do to you?". Legai looked down, avoiding Tyler's eyes all together, "It took away who I was. Tried to stuff something else in but...it didn't work. It just left me.....empty." He said, the words trembling in his throat, "The only thing I knew how to do is to be with the ones I cared about. The other kids there, my mother. I would do anything to keep them safe. And you too." He said, looking up at Tyler, as Tyler looked back at him. "Which leads me back to my question, Who. Are. They." Legai demanded, the pent up anger in his voice and grief in his eyes. Grief that he intended on aiming at these men. Tyler was almost scared to answer, scared of what he would do to them. But at this point, he was also a little scared of what he would do if he didn't answer so, "They work for a man that I owe money to. I'm supposed to pay them, they give the money to him, and he gives some back if he wants. But Legai, this guy is dangerous, I don't even think your fancy knife skills could handle him. I mean, that? That was just the beginning, you don't wanna piss these guys off more than you already have." Tyler stresses, trying to convince Legai that this wasn't a war worth fighting. Legai however, decided that he's already come too far, there is no coming back. "Then I need to be stronger than I already am." He says, unwavering in his conviction. Tyler was one person that Legai would not let get hurt again. He. Will. Not. Fail.
"And I have an idea on how to do it." He says, looking out to the horizon. Tyler winces in pain as he readjusts himself against the wall, "How? Muay Thai classes?" He mocks. Legai stares at the rippling water, "I'm getting my powers back.". That sentence sent a wave of emotions through both of them. Confusion, excitement, curiosity, worry, all of the above and more. "Uh...yeah, great idea. One thing though, how?" Tyler asked, raising an eyebrow in suspicion. "I've been planning something, it's mostly just a theory. I've been putting it off but, I guess that's not an option anymore." Legai says, offering Tyler a hand and helping him to his feet. Legai guided him over to the edge of the water, "Back at..that place... I had a friend, the smartest girl you'll ever meet. She taught us about trauma responses- functions in the brain," Legai began. Tyler began to slightly pull away, anxious of what he was about to hear. "She said that when the brain undergoes a traumatic experience, it may lock the event away, essentially erasing the memories to protect itself. It would be like the event never happened to you." He said, glancing at the water with a fixed look of firm belief. Tyler began to catch on, "You think your brain locked your memories of that night away as a trauma response?" He hesitantly asked. "I can't remember past flashes.....frames of what happened. And if I remember, then I could know how my powers disappeared, and if I can get them back." Legai responded with a grin reaching across his face. He felt his hope rising in him again, a way to make things right, a way to become whole again, a way to get revenge. But his "forgiveness" for what happened would have to wait, the men harassing Tyler would have to come first. And before all of that, this needs to work. It needs to work. "And for it to work, whoever went through the traumatic event needed to relive or recreate the conditions that traumatized them. Kinda...shock the brain into remembering. And that's what I have to do." He said, nodding his head and beginning to remove his hoodie.
Tyler snapped his head towards Legai, "You don't mean..." He asked, knowing fully well what Legai was about to respond with. "Tyler, I know it sounds crazy, but I need you to drown me." "You need me to what?!" Tyler exclaimed, the very notion seeming almost illegal to repeat. The thought of killing a kid, seems like something out of a Steven Spielberg novel, but killing Legai? He couldn't think of it. Wouldn't think of it. "Kid, you can't be serious." Tyler said, silently praying that this was some kind of sick joke. But Legai was dead serious, and his mind wasn't gonna change. "Tyler, I understand how it sounds-" "Do you?!!" Tyler exclaims, "Cause it sounds like you're asking me to kill you! What good would that do? What can you accomplish if you're dead?!?" He says, pointing an open hand at Legai. Legai sighed, worried he wouldn't be able to convince Tyler to help him, "This is the only way, Tyler." He urged, "I don't have anything else, I can't do anything else. This is the one chance I have." He said, gesturing towards the water. Tyler just scoffed, waving him off and shaking his head, "Forget it." He said walking back into the alley. Legai grew desperate for his help, "You once said I had to build myself back up. Become a new me. Rebuild. This is how I do that." Legai says, gesturing again to the water. Tyler stopped in his tracks, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, not appreciating his advice being used against him. "I know you know I didn't mean kill yourself." He said, turning back to Legai. "This is how I do it. This is how I rebuild myself. I- I need this. And I need your help to do it. Please Tyler." Legai pleaded.
Tyler was moved by pity, seeing the helpless kid stand there once again having to ask for help. This was the first time he ever officially asked for help. Tyler's mind was torn, he didn't want to drown Legai, who would? But he wanted to help his friend. The wind rushed in between them as they stood there, waiting for each other's response. Tyler finally spoke up, "You do know, if this doesn't work, you lose everything." He tells Legai. "If I can't make things right, I already have." Legai assures Tyler. Tyler saw the pain in Legai's eyes, the desperation, the hurt. No matter what happened, this kid couldn't bear to stay the way he was. Maybe it was his underlying desire to get over with it all, for it to all be over, or maybe he really thought this would work. Either way, to Legai, any change was better than no change. Against his better judgment, against his instincts, and the law, Tyler reluctantly agreed to help him. Legai thanked him, took off his shoes, and got into the water at about a hip's height. The feeling of the water against Legai's skin made his skin crawl and his heart race. He felt a panic rush over him, every fiber of his being was telling him to get out of the water, and he saw that as him going in the right direction. "All you have to do is hold me underwater." Legai reassures Tyler, and also himself. "Shut up before I change my mind." Tyler responds. He grabs Legai by the back of his head and counts down, 3, 2, 1.. And pushes Legai underwater. He sat still for a minute, then started twitching. There was a moment where Tyler wondered if he should pull him back up, but before he could make a decision, the twitching stopped, and Legai's body went limp. Tyler lifted his hand from Legai's head, praying he didn't make a mistake. 'Did I hold him down too long? Should I have let go? Why didn't he get up?' His mind raced through a million questions. The second's felt like days as he waited for Legai to rise, and he did. Slowly but surely, Legai brought himself out of the water, and brought something else with him. His mind was fighting him, not wanting to release the memories, not wanting to relive the hurt, but it was too late now. Legai held his head in pain, was it supposed to work this fast? He wondered what was happening, why it hurt so badly. And then, he remembered.
It was a cold night, almost a year ago. Two agents from the facility, Micheal and Jessica, on a speedboat with him out in the water. He remembers feeling so...excited to be there. Though for whatever reason, tension was slowly rising. Perhaps it was the rocking silence of the speedboat they were on, or maybe the fact that one of them stayed behind him at all times. Eventually they stopped in the middle of the water, he could see the city lights on the horizon. So close to land, so close to home, he thought this would be it. He thought that things would finally change. He, and all of the others, and Jennifer, could finally live off the island. But they never intended to give him that chance. It took him a second to realize that they weren't moving anymore. He went from a state of excitement to alarmed curiosity, "What happened?" He asked, turning to Micheal. Micheal's reply sent a chill down his spine, "Just stay still." As he lunged towards Legai with a syringe in his hand. In the syringe was a glowing turquoise liquid, and it was heading straight for Legai. Legai stops Micheal's hand, struggling to keep it from penetrating his skin, about to call out for help from Jessica, but she pulls out a gun, and it wasn't aimed at Micheal. He could've used his powers to fight them off, get away but he was too scared to think about it. Too focused on keeping the syringe off of him, too confused as to why they were doing this to him. Throughout the whole thing, Legai could only repeat one thing, "What did I do!?" This child was being attacked by two grown adults that seemed to want him dead, two adults he trusted, from the place he trusted. His mind was racing with fear, when the syringe pierced his arm. He felt the liquid disperse through his system, making him weak, more tired than he already was after fighting off a grown man. His vision got blurry, he got dizzy. "Screw the gun," Micheal said to Jessica, before punching the kid out of frustration, causing Legai to tumble off the boat and into the water. His body laid limp, floating in the water, turning over on his belly as his limbs hung free under the surface. "He would want us to end it, permanently." Jessica says, slowly raising the gun towards the kid. Micheal puts his hand over the gun and brings it back down, "Forget it, he'd need a miracle just not to drown. Even then he'd never make it to shore. Let's just get outta here." He says, cranking up the engine and swerving around to head back towards the Facility, leaving Legai to die.
Legai collapses to the ground, his face buried in his hands. They left me to die. The sound of his silent sobs were suddenly cut short by a burst of energy. His energy. His eyes filled with a green glow as the same color light built up in his chest, bubbling all the way out to his fingertips. His grief, confusion, anger, resentment, pain, and sadness all added onto his power, causing it to storm into his system until he couldn't hold it in anymore. Tyler stood back, thinking Legai was gonna explode, hiding behind a dumpster. Legai finally lets out a powerful scream to the sky, letting all of his emotions pour out of him in an exertion of lightning so fierce that it changes the atmosphere of the sky, summoning a lightning cloud right above the city. Green lightning bolts struck him, his scream echoed throughout the night mimicking the sound of the thunder strikes. As Legai stopped, his screams nothing more than a fragment in the air, the electricity died down as the accumulated clouds began to rain, and Legai uttered one question, "What did I do?" He mumbled through shaking whimpers. Tyler rose from his hiding spot, going up to comfort him as he sat on his knees, sobbing, his tears camouflaging themselves in the rain water coming down his face. Tyler was almost too stunned to speak, not knowing where to start, until what came out was a frail, "Are you ok?". Legai, his cries turning to an eerie smile, as he slowly looks over his shoulder to him, his eyes glowing in a neon green light, as stray sparks of lightning trail his face, "How could they?" He said with a forlorn look across his face.
The next night, Legai went on a walk with a lot on his mind. The surge of his powers brought a sudden rain to the city that turned the sidewalk to a sludgy sounding mess of puddles. The rain was coming down frequently but not heavily, enough so that it blurred his vision in front of him, making everything look like he was looking through TV static. The sound of cars driving through the rain and people scurrying in between raindrops brought a little calmness to his mind. Not that it did any good. The past few days so much has happened. He couldn't believe what he had done. What they had done to him. He finally had something close to answers, and this is what he finds. Almost shot, supposedly killed and left to rot in the ocean. How could they? He hadn't done anything wrong. He didn't deserve this. Was this a test? Was he supposed to beat them and make it back? What kind of test is that? And that guy last night... He killed him. How would his mother feel knowing what he's done? How could he go on knowing what he's done? That mans face, his eyes staring into Legai's as he died, it was burned into his memory. A memory that would always prevent him from remaining the person he was. He was something else now. But what?
As Legai was walking aimlessly block to block, his electric energy enhancedthe static in the air around him within a certain radius. He had a year's worth of pent up energy in him, and had no way of letting it out. Then he caught sight of a mother and her child playing in the rain. At first it was cute, the little kid hopping in and out of puddles with a bright giggle coming out of her rain jacket and bright yellow hat. But then he started comparing that girl and her mother to him and his mother. The rain began to poor a little faster, reducing the girl and her mother to just a silhouette playing together happily. His mind filled the blankness of the mothers form with Jennifer, as well as he could remember her face, and him. But then that image faded away and he was reminded how they were never allowed to have a nice and normal moment in years. He missed bonding with his mother. Though she lied to him, multiple times, though she hadn't come for him when he actually needed her, he loved her. He missed her. And that made him hate that girl and her mother. Who were they to flaunt their gift in his face. His eyes sizzled in his lightning as his sparks shun through the darkness of night. His rage built up until his body had to release it in a blast of lightning towards the ground flowing down his body through his feet. The force of the lightning shook the ground, leaving a scorch mark that smoked upon impact with the water, and the sound scared the child and her mother. The child looked, to see a pair of floating green eyes staring at her in the distance. The mother saw it too, and they both screamed in terror and ran. Legai, his eyes powering down, was moved by how scared they were of him. 'What am I doing?' He thought to himself. He ran away before anyone could clearly see him, and he ran by a shop that had small TVs playing the news in the window. He watched as the news broadcasted about the storm.-
--REPORTS OF AN UNFORSEEN FRONT COMING IN FROM SEEMINGLY OUT OF NOWHERE IN THE MANHATTAN AREA. OUR LOCAL WEATHERMAN REPORTS THAT IT SHOULDN'T BE POSSIBLE FOR SOMETHING OF THIS SCALE TO APPEAR SO SUDDENLY WITHOUT EXTERNAL FORCES. AND EVEN SO, THE QUESTION WE'RE ALL ASKING IS, "WHAT COULD HAVE DONE THIS"? AND "WHAT WILL IT DO NEXT"?--
-Legai's mind runs wild as he watched the news react to the mess. Another mess he caused. 'What am I?' He thinks to himself.
Legai returns to the alley, having some fruit he freshly stole from a vendor in the dark of the rain. He gave an orange to Tyler, and kept a cucumber to himself. They ate in a strong silence, not looking at each other once through the rain that was pouring onto them. Just crunching on their food in a dark wet void, letting the white noise of the rain on the concrete and metal of the dumpster filter their thoughts. Finally, Tyler spoke up, "So... you were born able to do that?" He asked, speaking carefully, scared to upset him. "And trained to do worse." Legai responded, looking down at his hand. Tyler's heart sunk, 'This kid, whatever he's been through, it couldn't been worth it. It couldn't've'. "Did you ever... try to escape?" He asked, realizing how dumb of a question that was after he asked it. "No, I think that's the worst part. We all wanted out of that place. But we never broke out. We were always too scared." Legai's hand crunched into a fist, "That's why it's the worst part. The things they did to us was torture, but we let it happen." He wimpered in shame. He thought back to everything they had done to them.
-D.N.A examinations.
-Taking bone marrow samples, without anesthesia.
-Being disected and put back together.
-The Box, ect.
So many things they could've stopped if they just fought back. Things that are probably still happening to them now. Tyler tried to change the subject, seeing that Legai was going down a mental spiral, "Does it ever scare you? What you can do?" He asked. Legai looks up from his hand, seeing the dim light reflecting off of the water on the ground. "Yes." He replied silently. A reminiscent look reached across his face like a shadow, "You know, when I first got my powers, my mom moved us out to a vacation home we owned. Said it was 'for our safety'. I hated it." He growled. Tyler leaned forward, and Legai continued, "Waking up to the same face. Seeing the same trees. Hearing the same birds. To most people it would be calming but...7 years Tyler. I was stuck there for 7 years. All I wanted was to spend one day out here. Part of society. I wanted to be normal and I was just...trapped." His face filled with disgust thinking of those mountains. "I'm sure she was just tryna protect you." Tyler reasons. "I don't think protecting me matters anymore." He responded, looking up at the sky. He let out a deep breath, closing his eyes as the rain poured on his eyelids. "The fact is she kept me there cause she was scared. Scared the world wasn't ready for someone like me...whatever I am. Scared I wasn't ready for the world. And when she took me to that place..." His voice broke again, "That place proved her right. The world isn't ready for people like me. But now I'm out here, and you proved her wrong.". Tyler chuckles, "Glad I could help." Legai looks at him, "Trouble is, I dont know if you did. One person isn't enough to change what happened. I don't think anything could. Now, it doesn't matter if she was right or wrong." Tyler's head tilted, "How come?" Legai thinks about the eyes of the man he killed, and the woman and child he scared, "Because I'm not that boy in the woods anymore.".