Beep. Beep. Beep.

The steady thrum and high pitched chirp of machinery permeated the small and shabby laboratory. It had been one of the many constants to flutter about the stale air over the year and a half of its existence. It only served to illustrate the joyless actuality of that which dwelt within. Amidst the odds and ends, the wires and contrivance, toward the back of the room sat stationary an iron medical bed with tubes and even more wires hanging over its edges. The steady rhythm of breath, the proof of life, made barely perceptible fluttered upon the bed’s surface. Those tubes and wires connected to a small frame so emaciated that it made one wonder whether or not the falling and rise of the chest was merely an illusion made by deceptive eyes. However, had someone been there to see it, these fears would be put to rest the instance a weary head turned toward the entrance.

A noise, the signal of the rare visitor, drew the small life’s attention to oddity of it and then toward the fear of it. A visitor always came once for everyday of the week around the same instant when the machinery trilled for its four thousand and three hundred and twentieth time. Those were feared times when flesh was poked and prodded and when blood was taken and things injected. After the visit ended bones would ache with tiredness and eyes would drop shut where nightmares of the day’s events would unfold with frightening clarity. This was the reality of the fragile life that lay upon the steel medical bed that appeared barely living. This was the fear that entered its mind with the unscheduled appearance of a life outside of its own in this confined space of machinery and other types of inanimate objects.

Steps of ingress, timid and hesitant in sound, drew even more curiosity from the small life that it attempted what it had not ever in its memory. Hands that were more bone than flesh and meat grasped at metal railing tightening with the little strength it owned in preparation to pull. A moment’s hesitation, a fading doubt as to whether or not the coming action was even possible to perform, and arms that were nothing but sinew yanked an even more pitiful body forward. A breath of relief, very slight, left lips that were chapped with thirst and eyes that always remained shut toward the mind from this dreary laboratory, opened. Sight from sunken sockets newly woken from darkness took a moment to properly function and even then its vision was wavering and questionable.

Not more than three steps from the entrance was a blurred figure frozen in abject horror, mouth soundlessly working as if wanting to say something or perhaps even scream. As the face came into focus the small life found something very comforting in those features that were drawn with terror and blanched with illness. There was a familiarity that rang just outside its grasp and the small life had not the energy or ability to chase after it. Even as the figure ambled forward, eyes wide and boring and hands outstretched in disbelief, the small life did not feel its natural reaction to shrink away from the approaching unknown. Instead, it stood its ground and watched this being that held neither feelings of cold calculation or brutal hostility in interest. Warmth brushed the small life’s bone fingers, trailing up sinew arms, coming to hesitantly rest against a hollowed cheek. 

“My word,” the familiar face breathed in distress, “what have they done to you?” The face cried and the hand upon the hollow cheek trembled violently seeming as if it wanted to do more than what it was, yet unsure of how to proceed. 

It’s breath was becoming stained in this upright position and it moved to be prone to the thin mattress upon the iron cast bed. Yet, it was held fast by the unknown albeit startlingly memorable stature. The small life went limp in the hold, the strength from its efforts giving out rather quickly, as it had long since owned very little. Though its weak tugs and gurgled voice trapped in the throat were probably scarcely notice by the figure through its deep and horror filled perusal of the small life’s worn and sickly appearance.

The personage of a slipping memory, like those bleary images after waking from a dream, swiftly removed the tubes and wires from the small life’s body. Blood oozed from the openings and stung white hot across its vision causing tears to prick the corners of sunken sockets. The figure apologized in his quick work of removing the many connected devices and upon noticing the blood to spider down scarlet rivulets from open holes paused to remove a layer of cloth from his body. He then shredded the cloth into strips with a knife pulled from the belt at his side. Every bleeding hole was patched with a strip tied moderately tight. Afterward he would brush his lips against the cloth with muttered words of regret and remorse. Something about the action struck the small life with an image of kind eyes and a soft smile and as the image faded it left behind warmth to squeeze at the heart. The feel was foreign and the small life was unsure as to whether or not it enjoyed the surge of emotion that flowed through it's veins.

In the next moment the small life was scoped up securely against a broad chest and the world around it went by in a blur from the hurried egress. There was a strange thumping against its hearing, not quite like the constant trill of machinery, which seemed warm and comforting in nature even as it thrummed a speedy rhythm. The light sound was familiar, nostalgically so. The nocturne of another’s warmth. A lullaby lulling the mind toward slumber, yet, while on the crux of sleep was pulled back to reality quite abruptly. Eyes first came upon a pensive face, twisted in deep consideration and worry, before coming to rest upon what had startled the familiar figure as he slipped into hesitant consideration. 

Any further rumination toward the familiar figure’s odd behavior was quickly dropped in the wake of it's understanding. Blocking their taken path was an image torn straight from the small life’s nightmares. Rather, it was a commonplace horror throughout it's remembered existence. 

There stood, wearing confidence like a second skin, an old wizened figure it was quite acquainted toward; armed in a deadly fashion. This person a familiar fixture amidst the odds and ends of the laboratory where the small life had spent, in its recollection, a time of pained misery when escape had been but a dream. The cold piece of metal pointed in their direction. A tool of lurid imagery. The mere reminiscence of gore splattered across the floor and landing on various places, itself included, brought tremors and a cold sweat to break over the small life’s emaciated stature. Bile rose to its throat at the memory of lifeless sockets. A body had, at the whim of this madman, dropped against its bed to slide a gruesome descent to the chilled tile in death.

The sturdy arms of the familiar presence that wrapped it, tightened, and words of meanings it could not quite grasp were whispered against its ear. The words, though irrelevant of its understanding, brought a cool comfort and a secure haze to fill its being soothing it's terror filled mind. For a moment the small life felt itself become lulled into a lazy contentment on the verge of sleep that it so often slipped into, its body too weak for long bouts of wakefulness.

“Release subject two-two-five-six, Ian!” The old figure crooned in address to the familiar warmth. The voice, the remembrance of the wizened figure’s cruelty, had all sense of solace seeping from the small life’s bones leaving behind ice to chill its soul. Sleep having been cast aside, sunken eyes watched as the barrel of death rose level to the familiar figure’s face with lethal purpose. “Release the subject or I’ll do something we’ll both come to regret.”

The familiar figure laughed bitterly at the claim. The sound startled the small life as it was something that was completely foreign in the form that seemed to be washed in kindness. The figure’s body moved at an angle as if to shield the frail life in its arms from the wizened figure and his cold metal that delivered death. “Old man,” the familiar figure spat spitefully, “we both know full well how you regret nothing. You’d kill me without batting an eye. Do you think I don’t know what happened to mother, I know everything now! I found out everything. Do you think I’m going to allow you to”-

“It seems,” the wizened figured interrupted abruptly, “that you know far too much.”

Bang!