WARNING: CHAPTER CONTAINS DEPICTIONS OF PHYSICAL CHILD ABUSE AND TORTURE. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.
IT WAS HIS first day of schooling, and he hated it.
Allen picked him up after breakfast in the color room. That was what Silver called it, since it was the only place that wasn't stark white.
He followed Allen into another room, one with a long table and many chairs. One side of the wall had a blackboard; The other had a shelf that spanned the entire wall. Cramped with many books.
"Do you know how to read?"
"Only what I taught myself."
"How about writing?"
Silver hesitated, contemplating lying. He never really had a use for writing, so he didn't bother trying to teach himself. Reading was more important, but he wasn't particularly good at that either.
"No..."
Allen just nodded, pulling a few books from the shelves and spreading them before Silver.
"Them we should start with the basics."
It was hard and many times he stopped, wondering if this shit was even necessary, but Allen was always there to reign in his frustration with calm guidance.
He'd never say but by the time Allen called for them to stop, he was quite proud of the wonky image of his own name he spelled out.
Kingsley completely ignored his presence when he reentered their shared room, leaving moments later. Silver couldn't be happier. It was far better than that empty niceness he was obviously faking.
He lay on his bed, eyes wide open. He still saw the cooling body of Erik most times before his brain ended its mental torture and finally sent him off to sleep.
The simmering rage in his chest whenever he thought about Jay was still there and Silver clung to it like a second skin.
Someday, I'll get out of here. And end him the same way he ended Erik.
Content in his personal vow, Silver faced the wall, falling into a light, dreamless sleep.
Allen awoke him not much later. The soft shaking of his shoulder made him jackknife into a sitting position. Hands clutched around his pillow, ready to throw it in defense.
He froze and calmed down when Allen's blurry face finally came into focus with his hands raised in surrender.
"What now?"
"The second half of the day focuses on Enhanced training."
"What am I even supposed to be training?"
"That is what we're going to find out. Follow me."
Silver tailed the black-clad man out of the room.
He wasn't sure, but there was something about Allen that felt off. He still spoke in the same calm manner, but his attitude was steely and guarded. The firm set of his jaw, furrowed eyebrows, and stiff movements spelled trouble.
It raised alarm bells in Silver's head, but he followed because he knew being stubborn would only delay the inevitable.
In the hallway, they passed all the other children making their way to the color room. Silver assumed it was for lunch, based on the chatter of questions about what they were going to eat.
Silver caught Kingsley's eye, and the unmistakable pity and sadness reflected in them made him stop dead in his tracks.
Why is he looking at me like that?
Noticing he wasn't behind him, Allen turned before Silver could confront the boy, who continued to walk by him as if he were a ghost.
A large hand reached out to grab his wrist and pulled him along. Silver stumbled as he was dragged to the very end of the hallway. He pulled. The hand tightened on his wrist.
"Hey-!"
Paying him no mind, Allen pulled a key from his pocket to unlock the door. Silver silenced himself. To his knowledge, none of the other doors had locks.
He began tugging at his arm in earnest.
Allen's grip was iron.
Silver was pulled into the room, and the door locked so swiftly he had barely righted himself on his feet by the time it all happened.
Allen was blocking the door, hands raised in that annoyingly placating manner of his.
"I apologize for the sudden harshness. I didn't want to cause a scene in front of the other children."
"You didn't want me to cause a scene."
"I'm assuming Jay never told you much about enhancement abilities?"
Deciding to ignore his evasiveness, Silver responded.
"No, nothing he said made sense."
"I suppose that isn't strange in Jay's case, allow me to clarify."
Jay held his hand out to Silver, who blinked in fascination as he witnessed small currents of electricity build up from his thumb and connect to another tendril that buzzed on his pinky. The currents regularly broke apart and reconnected with each other as they wiggled about on Allen's hand.
Silver reached out a hand to touch them, only for Allen to close his fist when he got too close.
"They might be low voltage, but lightning still burns."
In his moment of curiosity, Silver had instantly forgotten that the element was highly dangerous and not at all as harmless as Allen made it seem to be in the palm of his hand.
"To me, enhancements are just that, an extension of your person through the appearance of a superhuman ability. That night in the storm changed my life. I can no longer remember what I was like without the constant hum of electricity pulsing just beneath my skin."
Silver shot another long look at the scars on his face, not unlike the image of a lightning strike itself. Perhaps it was because he had only ever seen the man with the disfigured tissue permanently marring his skin, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't image Allen without them. Similar to Tony and his one good eye and leg, he had half the mind to think he was born that way. It was such an integral part of their identities.
"There is still so much left to be studied, and taking into consideration that abilities are unique to each person only makes gathering information much more difficult. It is a widely known fact that while Enhanced are born as such, they cannot tap into their own latent talent. There are estimates suggesting that more than half of our kind go through life ignorant of our abilities, just like you Silver."
Our kind.
"Should I be saying thank you?"
Allen smiled, long used to the boy's aggressive nature.
"Only you can decide that much later in the future. While information is scarce and heavily guarded, the Enhanced needing a trigger is common knowledge... something to force their hand in order the pull out their enhancement."
"How does a trigger work?"
"A trigger compels the brain to look through all options it may have and forces the subconscious to become conscious. The brain is capable of incredible feats under high levels of stress, and apart from certain unique cases, there is only one trigger that seems to work to awaken Enhanced."
"What is it?"
"Near-death experience."
Silver immediately looked around, too wrapped up in the conversation to notice how vastly this room differed from every other one found in the daycare.
Tiles of a muted gray shade covered the floor and walls; There were various things spread throughout the space. A tub tucked into one corner, a table equipped with restraints in another, a high metal closet locked with a heavy-duty bolt... and so much more.
His eyes slowly turned back to Allen, goosebumps rising on the surface of his skin as the man's face contorted into one of sorrow and pain. It seemed as if he might start crying.
"Silver... please don't make this harder than it has to be."
Silver jumped back to put distance between them, head swiveling from side to side but there was nowhere to escape, no weapon to grab onto that would make this fight easier.
Dread began pooling in the pit of his stomach. His breath shortened as the room closed in on him.
Allen ate up the distance he put between them in two quick strides of his long legs.
"Allen, wait... please."
Silver wasn't above begging, he did it on a daily basis. He knew instinctively he couldn't beat Allen in a fight, all he could do was run in circles before eventually tiring himself out and possibly making his punishment worse.
He didn't fight back when Allen reached for him.
A first for me.
His touch was deceptively gentle, and it made Silver's skin crawl.
Allen placed him on the table, thick leather cuffs tied his ankles and wrists to the wooden surface.
Silver's instincts were screaming at him, but he could only watch in unveiled horror as the tall man went about preparing a large bucket of water and a rag.
Kingsley's face full of pity, suddenly flashed through his mind.
He knew... He knew, and he didn't tell me anything.
But why would he tell Silver anything? They didn't exactly start out as the best of buddies, and now that he thought about it, other than his brief encounter with Isabelle, he didn't even know the other children's names.
Did they go through this too?
He snapped to attention when Allen hovered above him.
"I won't ask you to forgive me for what I'm about to do, but I promise not to kill you."
Is that supposed to make me feel better?
The words caught in Silver's throat as a cloth covered his face, and then the water came.
At first it wasn't too bad, his airways burned, and he coughed and jerked so hard he almost dislocated his shoulder. But pain had always been a part of Siver's life, he could work through this.
Then it happened again, and again, and again.
The slow suffocation deteriorated his awareness, causing his throat and nose to burn as if someone had poured acid into them. The water collecting in his lungs made him want to balance on his hands and knees and hack until every drop was expelled, but the restraints kept him in place. Silver couldn't even feel his wrists and ankles being rubbed raw, too lost in the sensation of drowning..
He wished Allen would just kill him.