Chapter Text
He could hear the footsteps getting closer. With each one, his heart picked up the speed, just as the man did. Glueing his eyes to the metal door, he waited for the inevitable to happen— the harsh clacking on the other side, and then the signature 'click' of the lock turning. He even expected it. But he closed his eyes and hoped and prayed.
The door swung open. Inside strut a man that Soonyoung was very familiar with. He'd been seeing that face for years now, even his nightmares consisted of that ugly grin and those blank gray eyes. The same eyes that were now looking at him with excitement, a truly disgusting emotion on the man. This couldn't be good. Though nothing to come out of that man could be considered decent even, he supposed.
The man, Madman as he called him in his head, walked towards the operating table he was laying on and pulled out a chair to sit.
"So, 1010, how are you feeling today?" The man asked as he started toying with some of the instruments on the table next to Soonyoung.
"Oh, I'm feeling fantastic! It's like I'm not even held captive and tortured everyday, totally fine, you know?" He forced a happy tone. This was a game of endurance and he wouldn't let Madman win. He couldn't.
Madman turned to him with a syringe in hand, smiling. The single light source above them flickered, casting a shadow on his face. Soonyoung felt the temperature of the air drop. Goosebumps graced his skin. As Madman got off his chair and came to him, he knew he should've let him win this time. Just once.
"I don't, actually. Care to enlighten me, Hoshi?"
"Don't call me that." He growled back before he could stop himself. Stupid tiger pride.
"Oh, but I will." He chuckled. "Not like there's anybody else left who could say that to you. Let me be your last friend, will you?"
He lost all control then, and spat. He would bite if he could, but he was out of reach.
"Fuck you. I will not let you be anything to me other than the monster I know you are."
Madman wiped his face with a napkin and turned to him again. His eyes had an evil glint, like a storm just about to break out. Soonyoung knew that look. Oh, how he knew that look.
He cowered back and his ears automatically flattened against his black strands. The hit he expected didn't come though. Not a fist. Not even a slap. Maybe he had some mercy left in him. Maybe it was because he still had bruises from last week when he decided it wasn't enough to break his fingers, he had to give him a concussion too. Or was it because of the breathing problem he'd had?
Before he could come to any conclusions, Madman grabbed his already chained arm.
"We'll see who the monster is." He dug the syringe he had in his arm and the suspicious looking liquid in it slowly got into his bloodstream.
He knew from experience now that the best thing to do was close his eyes and just hope he wasn't dead when the drug hit. Sometimes it would take hours for it to do something, sometimes minutes. Sometimes it wouldn't do anything at all. That was the worst option out of them. He didn't want to imagine the beating and the other needles and the drills– the drills were the worst. He wasn't going to go through that today. The drug was going to work.
And it did. But maybe drills weren't the worst option.
Few minutes after he got the shot, he started feeling it. It started mild, just a tingling sensation all around his body, not enough to hurt him. Then it turned into needles pricking skin, nothing he couldn't (or didn't) endure.
But the stage after– it would have left Soonyoung begging for anything else, if he could speak. He was burning everywhere, he couldn't feel his limbs, couldn't even feel his tongue. He might've opened his mouth once or twice.
Even his insides felt like they were about to burst out of his body and into flames. He tried to claw his way out of the white bodysuit but he had no idea how to get his hands to work. His mind was screaming at him now, "Do something, anything, you dumb fuck. Get out. Get out. Out."
Out, out, out. That was the only thing on his mind as his instincts took over.
Madman was still closely inspecting him, face awfully close. Neck exposed, it was almost too easy. The 'scientist' had gotten too comfortable with him after years of torturing and getting away with it. He probably didn't even think Soonyoung could do anything to him. And he would be right, Soonyoung couldn't. But Hoshi could.
He stuck his head out when Madman turned to the table and got him on the neck. The skin and tissue and blood under his teeth, in his mouth was an entirely new experience. He never had anything like it, just lab processed food in his 7 years of being here, and animal meat before that.
Maybe it was the satisfaction of knowing he was free. Free from the one man that had done unspeakable things to him, so he could never be at peace, even in his sleep. Or maybe it was the drug the man gave him just a few minutes prior. Or the taste of human flesh.
He went wild. He locked his teeth into the man's neck and chomped it off. He didn't swallow though, he spat it onto the tiled floor, on bloodstains of his own. He could recount how each one of them happened. They were permanent markings not only on the lab grounds but also in his soul. He'd forever remember the taste of blood in his mouth, metallic and cold. He'd still hear drills and come back to this same old room.
That was why he didn't have any mercy for the man before him. He hadn't had any mercy on him for the 2582 days and 14 hours he had him locked up in this small cage. Hoshi had to be brutal. For Soonyoung's sake. For his sake.
He didn't remember much after that, only blurry images. Madman on the floor, eyes open and lifeless as ever. Just slightly more literal this time. He hadn't been alive for years, Soonyoung knew. The next thing he remembers, he was out of his chains and the building.
He thought it would be a cathartic feeling. Killing Madman, getting out, actually seeing the sky– or anything but the same old gray walls. But he was too far gone to even know he made it out. The tiger side of him completely lost it.
And when he came to, he was standing in front of a boy around his age, bodies torn up all around them.
And blood. So much of it. On his hands, on the ground, on the boy.
"Um… Thank you, I guess?"