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Chapter 3 - Chapter 3: Salvation Syndrome

The first day at the lab, Yuri von Eisenberg realized what Nacht said was true. The children there were lab rats. He was no different.

The first day Yuri appeared at the lab, Nacht went full mad dog mode, pulling punches whenever someone went near his angel in the white robe.

But it didn't stop the children from flocking to the tenderness they had never seen nor received before. The laughter rang like music in their ears. The soft voice was like a summer breeze when they had a rare chance to play outside for a brief second.

Yuri was their salvation.

But the salvation couldn't save itself.

"Subject no. 13. Day 1. Detached a finger from him. It grew back. The rate of healing is steady but slow." The scientist's cold voice dripped through the recorder.

Yuri cried, watching his newly grown finger being examined by others in white lab coats. He wondered what he had done wrong. Maybe Her Regency was really mad at him for hiding from practicing stabbing the wooden figures. Maybe Lord Heron was also furious that he hadn't been good at studying the different ways to put poison into others' food. He kept thinking that if they visited him, he would ask for another chance. He would be good. Then, the other children could also be free. 

As long as they were good. As long as they did nothing wrong. Yuri bit his lower lip as his finger was cut off for the third time. His eyes were swollen and growing red from crying. The cheeks were flushed from his heaving. It would be alright, Yuri consoled himself. Nacht said he would protect him. 

Outside the special unit of the lab, Nacht struggled to get a glimpse of what the scientists were doing. His heart was in his throat. An army of ants crawled in his stomach in a revolution. 

"Big brother Nacht." Little Amir tugged his robe, sucking on his chubby finger. "What are they doing to Yuri?"

"I don't know, Amir. I'm trying to find out." Nacht said, scratching his head impatiently. "He is the young master. He isn't supposed to be here."

"But Yuri promised to play with me and the girls after the session is over." Amir tried to reach for the door handle. He wanted to get in, to get his Yuri's attention. "I wonder why it takes them so long. It wasn't that long with me."

"Because they just injected things into you. We don't know what they'd do to him. Amir, you run along now. Don't get caught by the guards."

"Big brother Nacht, what about you?" Amir asked, frowning. The worries were laden in his voice.

"I'll wait for Yuri. They couldn't take longer." Nacht ignored the boy. His attention zeroed in on the glass panel that revealed nothing but the fact that the experiment was going well. 

And Nacht waited until night fell. But Yuri never came back to his cubicle. 

He tried to ask around, but the children didn't know where his porcelain doll went. The only consolation for them all was Yuri still appeared in the mess hall and the playroom. Bandaged up, sometimes with open wounds and seeping blood, but the boy remained untouched by the ferocity of the world.

He took Amir and the little girls to the garden outside, playing house with them. He read fairy tales to other children, about the princesses and princes, the fairies who had magic to turn bad things into goodness. The sweet, sugary smile never left his face. 

Nacht watched Yuri race with Amir on the field, laughing so happily it was almost hard to believe there were wounds beneath all those bandages. The guilt rose in his throat like bitter bile, and he wanted to vomit. Maybe it was a side effect from the drug they just tested on him. Maybe he was still human enough to feel the anger at his powerlessness – unable to save the things he treasured. 

"Nacht, what are you thinking?" 

Without his noticing, Yuri appeared. The opalescent silvery hair had grown long enough to cover his back. He was thinner, but it only accentuated his beauty. The long eyelashes were the same color as his hair, and they fanned out in a shadow, covering the starry violet sky underneath. The pink lips had gone pale for a bit, but the cheeriness in his voice made up for the things that were lost.

"Nacht, they said Lord Heron and the Her Regency will be here tomorrow." Yuri dropped down by Nacht's side. The bandages loosened. A wound opened up, but closed on itself again. Nacht winced.

"So? It just means they're gonna see which subject has the most progress." He grumbled, chewing on a blade of grass.

"Nacht, I think I will tell them how everyone here has been very good. They are so nice to me – you, Amir, Lola, and everyone else. If we'd been good, we'd be rewarded, that's what Lord Heron told me. I had done my best." Yuri said, visibly happy and excited at the thought. "I think I will ask Lord Heron to release everyone."

Nacht felt his heart torn apart. Lord Heron was the person who built this hell. Nobody would release the lab rats just because they had been good. Rather, the better behaved the lab rats were, the longer they would stay. 

But Nacht couldn't explain that to Yuri. Human cruelty was a far-removed concept to his barefoot angel. Even witnessing it, suffering it, and living through it, Yuri'd rather believe in the villains' goodness. Nacht clucked his tongue. There was only so much he could do. 

"Yuri, why don't you escape?"

"Huh? Escape to where?" Yuri played with Nacht's cropped hair as the other boy laid his head on his lap.

"I dunno. To anywhere. There's a better place."

"But Nacht is here. Amir is here. Lola, and the other kids, too." Yuri smiled down at him. Something twinkled in those dawning violet eyes and it took Nacht's breath away. "I can't leave when everyone else suffers. Why should I be different?"

"Yuri. You listen to me. It's a matter of life and death." Nacht sat up so suddenly he bumped his forehead against Yuri's bandaged one. "If you don't leave, they're gonna kill you. There's no fucking two ways about it."

Stunned, Yuri stared at Nacht, eyes wide, lips hanging open. Then he chuckled; the joy in his voice erased Nacht's anger. Only for what he said next to fuel it back to life: "Funny. That man over there also said the same thing."

Nacht looked in the direction of Yuri's index finger. No one was there. The barbed wire fence was still in place. The lab was impenetrable from the outside. A chill ran down his spine.

"Who was there, Yuri?"

"Eh? Let's see, he was about this tall," Yuri reached his hand over his head, then realized it wasn't quite where the man he saw stood yet, he chewed his cheeks, "Like, really tall. Taller than Lord Heron even. Blond hair. Blue eyes. His eyes sparkle like the ocean at dawn. And he was so gentle to me. Nacht, you'd have liked him. Though he said funny stuff."

"What funny stuff?" Nacht gripped Yuri's hands, but released it quickly, cursing himself for getting loud and using force with the boy. "I mean, what did he say?"

"He said, people are killing people for the sake of it. He also said I shouldn't be here. That people here are trying to kill me. But I haven't died yet, now, have I?" Yuri giggled, finding the thought of death so detached and unrealistic in his mind. "Then he said, um, what else? Right, he said he was going to kill them all."

Nacht went pale. "Kill? Who?"

"I don't know. He looked serious but I think he was just joking. Like, I'm going to kill you," Yuri faked a deadpan face, "but why is everyone so obsessed with killing? It's no fun being dead."

"Yuri." Nacht crawled up to his doll, hugging him, trying to be calm, to think of an exit route. "Yuri, did you get his name?"

"Nah. He said he was, let's see, right, a god. He said he was the God of Time and Order. He had come to take what was his."

"What was his?" Nacht asked, confused.

"A Supreme Deity," Yuri pondered on his memory, finding the words. "An omega."

That moment, Nacht knew that there was nothing he could do to keep his promise. The protection he swore fell on the ground and shattered like shards of glass piercing him to his final moment on earth.

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