﹠· 。☽ { thefirebug: }
a brief flash of relief runs through his system when he sees nyxxie’s eyes fly open ( oh, thank god ), but it’s almost instantaneously snuffed out when she lets out a high, almost animalistic keen. it rattles his mind, amplifying his headache to the point where he feels as though something might rupture, a blood vessel or a nerve.
matty looks on, horrified, as his friend jerks against her restraints hard enough to draw blood. he’s only seen her like this after a nightmare. but then, this i s a nightmare, isn’t it?
❛ nyxxie, nyx, shhh… ❜ he tries to keep his tone as soothing as possible, which is a difficult feat when he himself is at his wit’s end, but the last thing they need is for those maniacs in the white coats to hear the commotion and come back. he’d love the opportunity to knock them out on their asses, would happily disembowel them all, but he’s not exactly in a position to do that right about now. ❛ yeah, it’s me. ❜
he’s shocked into silence when nyxxie makes her admission. ❛ you’ve… you’ve been here before? ❜ HOW? WHEN? he’s looking at the girl in a whole different light now. her usual bubbly persona makes absolutely no sense with this revelation… but the nightmares do. they make all the sense in the world.
it occurs to him, then, that if he’s here, and nyxxie’s here, then any number of the people he knows might also have been captured. RUBY. matty’s eyes widen in alarm and he immediately begins scanning the bodies around them, looking for a familiar shade of red - but he can only see what he’s facing, with the other half of the room to his back. he jolts a little as he sees people he does recognise: a little way off are spencer and juniper, who are currently wrapped up in their own panicked discussion, judging from their faces. matty’s fingernails are sinking into his palms deep enough to draw jagged lines of pink, as the magnitude of the situation sets in.
he lets out a nervous laugh, rough as only a chainsmoker’s can be. ❛ whaddaya mean… too late? what’s gonna happen? ❜ morbid curiosity drives him to ask, though he already has more than an inkling. the environment they’re in is a dead giveaway, as is the people who they’ve taken. they’re all mutants, and there’s not much question as to why a group of scientists would take them against their will.
and if he doesn’t already have enough to go on, there’s a whiteboard placed conveniently within his vision that reads:
07/4—gene work does not give an explanation as to why #1257 does not respond to stimulus drugs. 12/4—#1266 shows heightened cognitive abilities. 22/4—#1232 shows no sign of verbal communication, experiments run do not elicit even the smallest noise from them. 27/4—#1201 terminated. brain biopsy to try and understand how #1201 survived birth with their physical deformities.
he should have set fire to them all before they’d even stepped one foot out of the room.
no , no she w o u l d n ’ t calm down , COULDN’T calm down , she needed to rage , rage against the dying of the light ; those words , simple words , spoken to her by her s a v i o u r , the one woman who managed to help nyxxie escape , all those years ago , on the dawn of what would’ve been her last day on this plane of existence . many wonder why she threw herself into artistic talent , perhaps that was why ; it began with poetic prose and climaxed into something much more morbid and even more all - encompassing . and now that’s what she would do , she would refuse to go gentle into the night , she would be their worst nightmare , and they would forever regret forcing her friends into the hellhole that claimed the most traumatic years of her young life .
and then ; then she heard it , somewhere softly in the distance , the faint murmur of spencer wilde’s voice , and nyxxie lost her ever - loving mind .
I WILL FUCKIN’ KILL ALL’A YOU , LABORATORY BASTARDS ! ! ! is the proceeding scream , a screech so deafening , so blood - curdling , it makes her throat hoarse , mouth dry , eyes water . at the same time her adrenaline peaks and she throws her arms down against her chair , attempting to weaken the constraints of the cuffs , or , that’s what she’d like to do , ideally , but in the midst of all her own chaos she’s incapable of processing anything , anything except the fear in the other mutants’ tones and even in matty’s own , nothing except the absence of her spirit friends and the claustrophobic heat of the room around them . nothing except the mortified screeches of her own mind . but her body’s reacting , thrashing about , desperate to tear the cuffs despite the blistering pain of metal against raw flesh thawing off layer upon layer of blood - stained skin . and in the pain of it all her mouth begins to move , speak in rushed , hyperventilated breathing , telling stories of a morbid past and a potentially even more morbid future .
❝ i was kidnapped , matty . by these fuckin’ FREAKS . when i was just eleven . but i couldn’t remember , not ‘til all of ‘em came back , an’ then it was just memories of torture an’ electroshock an’ experiments and drugs an’ sufferin’ . . . they would force me to kill people just to see what would happen to my mutation . they’re m o n s t e r s . we’re DOOMED . ❞
and as though that unsettling realization wasn’t enough , from somewhere deeper into the laboratory came a young child’s terrifying SCREECH . and it makes nyxxie jump so bad, dissolving into a fit of panic , blind rage now overwhelming her that she slams her arms against the chair and splits the cuffs in half at the chain , blood pouring freely down her arms now, tainting tan skin with violent rose petals.
❝ matty . . . ❞ breathes she in response , choking on her sobs . during her adrenaline rush she’d felt like the hulk, unstoppable , but now , coming down , all nyxxie feels is a horribe , consuming nothing . bitter emptiness . and that was so much worse . ❝ i’mma getcha outta here , ‘kay ? just tell me what i can do . ❞
