It was a block like room, three children were founded to be huddled together, they were no tears neither whimpering they shared a silence which would have been fairly normal if the room wasn't filled with other dead kids and blood splashed across walls.
Men who looked like researchers sat outside the cell which a huge projection played how the kids, one girl and 2 boys killed a hundred and twenty children
The room had once echoed with the footfalls and carefree shouts of children. Now, it bore no sound, only the stench of iron and death, soaked into the concrete like paint on canvas.
A flicker of static hissed as the projection began to roll.
The footage started slow.
A hundred and twenty children. Boys and girls of different ages, none older than twelve, every one of them. The room was designed for play but was reinforced, with padded floors and retractable steel plating hidden beneath foam walls.
In the middle stood three: a girl no older than ten, lean and wiry with hair in cropped twin braids and dark eyes that didn't blink; and two boys, one tall and broad for his age with a steady stare, the other small, twitchy, fingers constantly twitching like a pianist unsure of his next chord.
There was no countdown. No bell. No declaration.
Only motion.
God knows what lit the fuse for the chaos that had unrolled in the hall that day.
A heavy-built boy from the crowd lunged first, letting out a guttural yell that seemed to trigger the others, the horde surged, perhaps aiming to overwhelm the 3 little kids with numbers.
But the three didn't move.
Not until the first attacker was in striking range.
The girl ducked under with a wild swing and swept his legs. As he fell, she pivoted mid-roll, slamming her elbow into his jaw before he hit the ground. A sharp crack and he was unconscious before the others reached them.
The big boy stepped forward, catching a fist mid-air. His grip tightened like a vice, then twisted, bones snapped. His opponent screamed. He headbutted the boy so hard that teeth flew from his mouth, and the crowd hesitated.
That moment of hesitation was enough.
The small boy, who had been circling behind, moved like a serpent, quick, small, coiled energy. He leapt, feet digging into a taller kid's chest, and used the momentum to spring off, landing on another's shoulders. He wrapped his arms around the victim's neck and jerked backward, crashing them both to the floor. The taller child choked and stopped moving.
It was two minutes in. Eight children were down.
Still, the others came.
A girl with twin braids and precision footwork closed in on the big boy, launching a high kick. He blocked with his forearm and took the hit like stone. She spun to follow up, but he grabbed her ankle mid-motion and slammed her body like a hammer into the floor.
The wiry girl with a cropped twin braid faced four at once. They circled, testing, flinching. One threw a feint; she ignored it and stepped into his guard, driving her knee into his gut, grabbing his wrist as he doubled over and twisting his arm behind him to use him as a human shield. The others hesitated again.
She didn't.
She threw him into them like a bowling ball.
The third boy, small, twitchy, too fast, dashed and ducked and turned their numbers against them. He baited two into swinging at each other. One reeled back from a misjudged punch and caught a knee to the throat from the small boy. He spun, leapt off a nearby table, and landed knees-first on another's head.
Blood began to spill. The footage played in muted silence, but the visuals were deafening.
They were just children. But what they lacked in size, they made up for in ruthlessness.
The tide turned with desperation.
The other children adapted, forming tighter groups, coordinating. They learned to watch the trio's patterns. One team of six closed in on the girl, her back nearly against the wall. She breathed heavy now, arms trembling. Still, she smirked. When they charged, she didn't meet them.
She ran toward the wall, up it, two steps, kicked off, flipped mid-air. While airborne, she drove her knee into one of their temples, turned mid-fall to elbow another in the throat, and when she hit the ground, she swept the legs of the third.
Two of the group grabbed her arms. She used the momentum, let herself fall backward, kicked up, and used their grip to swing her feet into the fourth's face. A fifth slammed a fist into her ribs, she didn't flinch. She turned her head and bit his ear off.
They all collapsed around her.
At the center, the big boy fought like a tank. He didn't dodge. He didn't flee. Every hit he took, he returned threefold. His nose bled. His knuckles split. One eye was swollen shut. But he tore through the crowd like a force of nature, breaking bones, slamming heads together, using unconscious bodies as weapons.
And the little one, the fast one, moved like a ghost. You saw him only when someone dropped. A cracked spine. A knee popped backward. A throat collapsed under a stomp. He was there and gone in the blink of an eye, slipping through chaos, diabolical and cruel.
In twenty minutes, the fight ended.
Of one hundred and twenty children, only three remained standing.
Blood drenched their skin, not all of it their own. They breathed heavily but said nothing. Their expressions unreadable, no pride, no panic, Only stillness.
The footage stopped.
The men outside the cell didn't speak. They simply observed, watching the children huddled quietly in the corner of the bloodied room, only movements made were scribbles on a note pad. The girl had her back to the wall, eyes open but blank and empty. The big boy sat beside her, one hand protectively resting over hers. The small one lay with his head on her lap, fingers twitching even in sleep.
End of Flashback
The screen faded to black, the screams and carnage dissolving into the silence of the recess of her mind to be locked away.
She remembered, maybe she never forgot.
Looking down at the paper in her hands
Romano Friedrich Wilhelm.
The name striking her like a bullet to the ribs.
Her chest tightened.
The air thickened.
Her brows knit.
There were only three in that cell, only three who survived. Herself, Romano. And…
The name.
She tried to speak it. The edges of it danced through mind, static lacing through her thoughts like radio interference, his name floated around her mind like the wind.
His name was
–glitching–
Pain. A sharp spike behind her eyes.
What the hell?
She looked down. Her hands trembled.
A fragment of a memory surfaced, hands coated in blood, a whisper in her ear, a promise sealed in silence.
She staggered back.
He was the third.
But she couldn't remember him.
Just what had happened that day?