Chapter 1 - Father

The boots halted in the middle of a long hallway. I slowly lifted my head to look at my surroundings. Sure enough.

A pair of familiar looking heavy bronze doors lay before me. The guardian seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then, he raised his right hand and knocked as gently as he possibly could on the imposing doors...well if you could consider a gorilla banging on the ground as "gentle". A honeyed voice came from within.

"Please come in."

The guardian opened the doors with both hands and entered the sunlit room. The only sunlit room in the entire lab. Such was the privilege bestowed upon our Father. He then turned towards me, expecting me to follow him obediently like always, but I remained frozen in place.

No, I thought, please for once in my life LEAVE ME ALONE!

But my silent plea was left unanswered. The guardian looked straight into my eyes, his own exuding anger and violence. Without any warning, he grabbed my arm and threw me into the room. A loud CRACK resounded as I fell on my knees.

Tears began forming in my eyes. OUCH, that freaking hurt man. I was tempted to turn around and punch him in the gut, but I knew that resistance would only be rewarded with death...or worse.

I breathed in, slowly. As soon as the pain in my knees started to subside, I stood as unfazed as possible and waited, arms crossed behind my back, eyes facing the ground.

"Look at me", said the same sweet voice. This time, it was laced with an edge of sharpness. He was getting impatient.

I raised my head. The sight before me was even more repulsive than the sound of his voice.

"Father", I said, trying my best to sound as composed as possible

The man facing me couldn't be more than forty years old. Not a single wrinkle could be found on his face. His delicate features, the dimples on his cheeks as he smiled, the tender curve of his eyebrows, gave him the look of a benevolent father talking to his beloved child.

Fake ass bastard.

His sparkling blue eyes were partly hidden by his lush and well-groomed chestnut hair. But the hair didn't manage to hide the glint of malevolence shining through. Malevolence solely directed at me.

Shit, I was in deep trouble.

...-._.-._.-...

While I braced myself for the worst, Father began talking.

"14999, how old are you now?" he asked, resting his chin on top of his linked hands

"The same age as my sister, Father," I answered. There's no way that he couldn't know my age as his favorite "daughter" was none other than my twin sister.

Suddenly, the guardian took a fistful of my hair and yanked my head backwards.

"Answer the question trash," he growled in my ear.

As my eyes began to sting from the pain, I quickly said "sixteen, I'm sixteen". While he released my hair, Father continued his questioning, as if nothing happened.

"Sixteen...," he said, pensively, "yes, the perfect age indeed... I imagine you already had your first bleeding, yes?"

I froze. Oh no, please, anything but that.

As I remained silent, he took it as confirmation.

"You know 14999, despite your useless capabilities, we still raised you, fed you, gave you a home for sixteen long years. If it weren't for your twin sister, we wouldn't have bothered keeping you here all these years. Don't you think it is time for you to repay us?"

I looked at him then. Really looked at him. Whatever hope I had kept deep in my heart that he could have truly loved any of us at least once in our lives was completely gone.

"You do know what kind of important job is reserved for useless ones like you right? You should feel honored that I even propose this to you, as I love you so very much" he added, his smile failing to reach his eyes.

I closed my eyes, wishing it was all a dream. Ha, what "important job", what "great honor"? I could taste vomit in my mouth, the nausea slowly numbing my senses. After all these years of pain and torture, after all the training sessions, the sparring, the wounds, he just wanted to use my body as a freaking birthing machine.

Something in me snapped. I turned around as quickly as I could and threw up all over the floor. The guardian was already walking towards me in big strides, but I paid him no heed.

Fine, you want to play this game Father? Let's play.

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