Broken
A woman with long dark red hair slowly turned to small boy, no older than four, on operation table that was standing in the middle of the room. The boy was scared, but couldn’t move, because he was restrained. The woman raised a scalpel and her green eyes glinted.
„Don’t be scared, little one,“ she said with a smirk, “It’s only a small operation to make your body stronger…”
The door to the room opened revealing a tall man with dark hair and ice blue eyes. He had bored, almost annoyed look on his face.
“What do you want, Ieronim?” the woman asked without facing him.
“Nothing much, Nadya,” Ieronim answered, “Only that Boris changed the plan…”
Nadya smirked at the words. “I knew it!” she exclaimed with glee, “They want me to insert RD53 too, after all.”
Ieronim was silent, but Nadya ignored him. She was busy paying attention to her test subject, the boy.
The boy looked at her with wide eyes, as she once again raised the scalpel to decide where to cut first.
And suddenly there a loud bang. The boy found himself spattered with blood and brains from his tormentor. The woman didn’t even have to time to change look on her face and she was dead. Her body fell forward onto the table. Her face was turned to the boy and he could see her now empty eyes wide open. There was a hole in the middle of her forehead from which the blood trickled down on his clothes already drenched with blood and brain substance.
It took the boy several seconds to comprehend what was happening but after that, he opened his mouth and let out blood-curling scream.
Tala sat upright in his bed and he bit his left hand on instinct to keep him from screaming. He was trembling and sweating. He swallowed hard. It was that dream again. He glanced over at the watch standing on the nightstand beside the bed. The glowing angry red numbers told him it was only short after two in the morning.
It took him few seconds to realize that the weird taste in his mouth is actually his blood and the warm liquid is trickling its way down his wrist. He bit himself hard enough to pierce the skin and perhaps even damage some muscles. He slowly let go of his hand. Then he stood up and slowly made his way to the bathroom.
In the bathroom Tala turned on the water. Then he pushed his hurt hand under the stream. He hissed as the cold water hit the wound, washing away the blood and slowly numbing the pain. Once satisfied with it, he reached with his good hand to the cabined above the sink and took out first aid kit.
The wound fortunately wasn’t as deep as he feared but it still needed some bandaging. He bandaged his hand a little clumsily, because he had only one hand to do it. When he was done he clenched the hand glad not to see any blood seeping through the gauze.
Tala leaned to the mirror to get better look at himself. He was almost ghostly white and had dark circles under his eyes already. But now wonder there. After all it was third night in row, that he had that nightmare. He just couldn’t get the images out of his head. Images that he thought were long forgotten.
But he knew, what triggered this. It was few days ago. As innocently as it sounds, Bryan told him, that he wanted to have family with him. Family. Something that most of the kids back at Abbey didn’t know and dreamed of. Tala however, this word reminded of his parents. Parents, he worked hard to erase from his memories.
Tala shut his eyes tightly as the images from his nightmare flooded in his mind again. No, not from nightmare. It was his past. His dark secret that nobody knew about. Not even Bryan or Kai. He never told anybody, because he tried to pretend, it never happened. And he was successful, until now…
As the image of the dead woman, his own mother killed by his father, and room full of blood flashed before his eyes, Tala could bile rise in his throat. He didn’t waste the time and leaned over the toilet. Next thing he knew was that he was re-aquitanced with his half digested dinner. He coughed everything out, but the bad taste still lingered. He hated it. He hated how all this left him weak and shivering on the floor in the bathroom.
He shakily got up and he went to the sink to brush his teeth to get rid of the taste of his bile from his mouth. Once done he sat on the edge of the bathtub. He just sat there, trembling. He didn’t have the energy to go back to bed just yet.
“Tal?” came a sleepy voice from the door.
Tala looked up. In front of him was standing Bryan, with half open eyes.
“What are you doin’ up?” asked Bryan groggily.
Tala smiled weakly, “I think, I shouldn’t have eaten so much…”
Bryan nodded, not really registering what was going on around him. He reached his hand, which Tala gladly accepted. Tala leaned on him and he helped him back to bed.
They slipped under the covers. Tala lied with his back facing Bryan. Bryan hugged him close and whispered in his ear,
“I love you…” Tala remained silent. It wasn’t long before Bryan was sound asleep. But Tala was still staring before him.
“I’m sorry Bryan,” he whispered into the dark, “I’m broken…”