Talking- " "
Thinking- ' '
---
Chapter 5 – Not All Scars Heal
He didn't remember blacking out.
He only remembered the cold.
Ray's body hit the metal floor of his cell with a thud that echoed in the concrete silence.
The sound was sharp, final — like a gavel coming down to seal a sentence.
The guards didn't even grunt as they dropped him.
No words. No sneering taunts. Not even the lazy cruelty they usually threw around like loose change.
Just business.
Like he wasn't a person.
Like he wasn't even meat.
Just… results.
His vision blurred, edges swimming in and out of focus like water over glass. Somewhere between one breath and the next, he thought he heard one of them mutter something under their breath. Or maybe that was his own heartbeat rattling in his ears, a slow, uneven drumbeat that felt too loud in his skull.
It didn't matter.
The door slid shut behind them with a hiss, sealing the cell in its usual coffin-still air.
He was alone again.
The silence pressed down heavy — no voices, no distant screams from the other blocks, just the low hum of electricity bleeding through the walls. His body wouldn't move, not yet. Every nerve felt like it had been set on fire and left to burn in a slow, merciless blaze. His muscles twitched without his permission, small, useless spasms. Bones ached deep in their marrow, as though they'd been shattered and glued back together with rusted nails.
The healing was working — always working — but pain came with the process. And the process… had been forced into overdrive.
He shifted slightly, a mistake, and felt something wet beneath him.
Blood.
Some of it was his. Fresh. Warm. Sticky.
Some of it… wasn't.
It was older. Darker. Crusted into the grooves of the metal floor like it had been waiting for someone to add to it.
He didn't want to know who it had belonged to.
'Will I ever leave this place?'
The thought crept in, fragile and whispering. Unwanted.
'Will I die here? Will they keep slicing me open until there's nothing left but cells and scars?'
A bitter breath slipped out. 'But I can't even have that, can I?'
His throat still ached from the gag — from the way it had cut into his tongue when he'd tried to scream around it. His wrists throbbed from where the restraints had torn through skin and muscle. Every swallow brought the metallic tang of copper and the acid burn of bile.
He wanted water.
A blanket.
A name that still meant something.
Instead, he had a cell.
And the echo of that voice.
"Break him. See what happens."
It hadn't been a command.
It had been an invitation.
A challenge.
The floor was ice beneath his cheek, seeping into him, numbing nothing.
And somewhere above, somewhere beyond the cameras and walls, he could feel it — the stares. Cold. Calculating. Hungry. Some laced with the faintest trace of awe, others with disgust so sharp it cut without a blade. Murmurs had drifted between the louder noises earlier. Not words he could catch, but tones. He wasn't supposed to know they were there, but he did.
They'd been watching.
Like it was entertainment.
He didn't know if that made him want to vomit or laugh.
One crack — just one — that was all they'd gotten from him during the whole thing.
And then darkness had reached for him, not in a rush but like a tide rising over his head.
And.. for once, Ray didn't fight it.
---
Elsewhere.
[Marc's POV]
Marc's hands were shaking.
He stood in his own cell, back pressed against the wall until the ridges dug into his spine, fists clenched so tight his knuckles burned white. There was no sound here either, just the constant buzz of the lights overhead — not loud enough to block out thought, but just irritating enough to fray it.
He hadn't seen Ray. Not since the last rotation.
But he'd heard things.
Faint sounds carried through the vents sometimes. Not the usual yelling or the shuffle of boots — something sharper. Short, cut-off cries. A metallic clink that meant surgical trays. And then… the smell.
The sterile, choking tang of disinfectant had drifted through the vents hours ago. That was all Marc needed to know.
They'd taken him again.
And they still hadn't brought him back.
Marc exhaled slowly, controlling the pace. 'Don't panic.'
But his mind didn't listen.
It wandered.
---
Back then
Marc's family had been… normal, for a while.
The kind of normal you only appreciate after it's gone.
Sunday pancakes in the kitchen. His mom's laugh — warm, full, unguarded. His dad's hand ruffling his hair before work, the scent of aftershave and coffee lingering.
Before the debts.
Before the alcohol.
Before the shouting started to fill the walls.
It began small — a missed bill here, a late rent notice there. Then came the bruises. First on furniture. Then on his mother.
Marc remembered hiding in the closet, knees to chest, listening to fists hit flesh and pretending he couldn't hear his mother's muffled crying.
He remembered thinking, Maybe I could stop him.
And then, one day, he did.
The X-Gene doesn't choose its moment based on kindness or cruelty. It just… does.
Marc was ten when it happened. His father hit him too hard, slammed him against the wall, and instead of Marc's skull giving way, it was the plaster that cracked.
Marc didn't.
His father stared at him like he'd grown a second head.
Something in his eyes shifted that day — fear mixed with something uglier.
From then on, the hits didn't stop. They just changed. His father couldn't break him physically anymore, so he went for the other ways — control, humiliation, threats whispered low enough that no one else would hear.
His mom tried to shield him, to stand between them. Until she couldn't.
One night, she left.
She knelt beside him on the worn mattress, kissed his forehead, and whispered, "I'll be back, baby. I promise."
She never did.
Marc waited until the sky turned black, thinking every sound at the door was her.
A week later, the men came.
Gangsters. His father owed too much and had nothing left to give.
Except Marc.
They took him.
Threw him into the lowest rung of their operations — drug runs, protection rackets, breaking kneecaps for late payments.
He was thirteen.
They tried to beat loyalty into him. Didn't work. He didn't bruise the way they wanted. Didn't bleed fast enough. They started calling him the freak tank.
And then "They" came.
He didn't know how they found him. One day, the gangsters were gone, and men in black suits filled the doorway instead. Clean smiles. Clean gloves.
Marc fought..
It didn't matter.
He woke up in the lab.
---
The lab wasn't the same for everyone. Some were tested. Others were trained. Some were killed. Others were… remade.
Marc was useful. His endurance made him a walking shield, his body able to withstand things others couldn't survive once.
They called him Project Fortress.
He couldn't even remember his last name anymore.
Years bled into each other. He met Kara first, then Eli, then Tessa. Survivors, like him. Different designs, different nightmares, but all caught in the same machine.
He didn't let himself care. Caring made you weak. Caring gave them leverage.
Until Ray.
Marc remembered the day they wheeled him in — hands bound, mouth bloodied, eyes still defiant. A healing factor, they'd said. Rare. Valuable.
Some of the other test subjects tried to break him early.
Marc broke them instead.
Even if knowing the consequences.
There was something about Ray — not just the power, but the way he held himself. That spark in his eyes, stubborn and bright. He reminded Marc of someone he could've been, before closets and scars.
Marc protected him when he could.
But even Marc couldn't stop what came next.
The experiments escalated. The pain worsened.
And one day… that version of Ray was gone.
Replaced with someone quieter. Someone who still had fire in his gaze — but whose soul already looked like it was burning from the inside out.
---
Back in the present, Marc sat on the edge of the metal bed, elbows braced on his knees, staring at the floor like it could give him answers.
He didn't know why they were doing this again.
Why Ray.
But he knew one thing for certain.
They weren't going to stop.
Not until they broke him completely.
Or until someone stopped them.
And Marc was getting tired of waiting.
---
Thanks for sticking around! 🙌 Because of your powerstones, Ray finally got a bit of "rest"… though it definitely wasn't quiet. (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧💎
Drop some powerstones if you want me to keep putting Marc, Ray, and the others through hell—uh, storytime! (≧▽≦)b