“I don’t trust anybody here, why should I start now?” Naomi replied, a crack evident in her voice. She hadn’t tried talking for months, the most that came out was screams. Her throat immediately began to burn after she spoke.

The sound of the chain moving and Naomi quickly removed her hands from her face to try to get farther away, nails digging into her knees as she curled up deeper into the bedframe. The boy simply lifted himself to the bed, a small wince as his cuts on his stomach began to sting. He turned his head, his face in plain sight to Naomi.

His crimson eyes were looking at the bedframe to the left of her face, avoiding eye contact. Naomi closely observed his features. The sudden urge to touch his face enveloped her, and she moved forward. He jumped in surprise, but he closed his eyes and relaxed his body. Naomi’s fingertips softly brushed over his high cheekbones, following the curve down along his soft jawline. Her fingertips glided over his exposed skin, softly pressing on a small cut on his cheek. She finally reached his eyelids, his eyelashes were long; she felt over his eyelids, as softly as possible, trying to sense a noticeable difference. One of her hands moved to her right eyelid, touching the same spot as she was on the man before her. No noticeable physical difference.

“I think you should have at least taken me to dinner before you started touching me so much. It’s very unladylike” he chided.

Naomi stifled a soft laugh, instead she spat on her hand, and brought the hand to his face. The saliva began to glow slightly, instead of being a light color, it turned into a dark blue. The saliva that was spread over the man’s cut slowly began to heal, slightly. Once the saliva incorporated itself into his skin, a small sigh was released.

“Naomi right? I really don’t want to know if what you put on my face was spit, but I appreciate what you did… Whatever it was, because now I feel better.”

His eyes opened suddenly, and his cheeks flushed. Naomi had moved even closer to him as she was examining him, much closer than he had anticipated a girl would come to a strange man she just met. His eyes gazed into hers, the deep blue of her eyes seemed to be pulling him into the ocean, as if a shark had bitten his entire body and was dragging it down to consume him. It made his heart beat with excitement at the very thought.

“I never introduced myself, I’m Xander. Subject 593.” He whispered.

“I know, I read your file.” Naomi replied calmly.

“How? You didn’t even get out of bed, literally”

“I have good eyesight, I could barely see it thanks to the clipboard, but the reflection was visible in her eyes.”

Xander scoffed in amusement, he had never known anyone who would be able to see such small reflections before. As repayment for her examination, he raised a hand to touch her arm, however he instead received a very painful scratch from her. Her eyes widened and she moved away from him. A cry of pain from Xander startled her even more, as he swore softly. His eyes looked into hers, her body was shaking now. Xander couldn’t understand how she could flip such a large 180 on her own thoughts and emotions. Xander quickly blinked his gaze away, he was so sick of seeing someone shake of fear underneath his gaze.

Xander had never wanted eyes that could control blood, yet he ended up being kidnapped to be used as a genetic experiment for the military. They had even promised to keep Nima, his baby sister, out of the running for the experiment. Those stupid scientists lied about that too, and now he was chained to a bed, alongside a girl, in a room all by themselves.

“Who are you? Why are you here?” Xander questioned, bringing his eyes back to the girl in front of him.

“I’m Naomi. Subject 001.” she whispered, shrouding her face and clouding her gaze with her long brown locks.

“You didn’t answer my-” Xander was cut off with a sudden whizz beside his ear. A chain latched itself onto Naomi’s left wrist, covering over an already dark purple bruise. It pulled her towards Xander forcefully, making her knock into him and push him to the floor.