Young Writers Society

Heliodor Everett could hear Jo panicking. That was fine. Humans were allowed to do that. They were allowed to yell and cry and scream and laugh and smile. There was a distant voice in him that said that Jo’s humanity was in question but he ignored. In the end it didn’t matter what exactly Jo was. She was better than him. That’s all that mattered.

He glanced at Jo. “My sincerest apologies for the inconvenience of causing our capture.” His voice was completely blank. Nothing to see. Nothing to exploit. It was a safe voice. It had kept him safe for so long.

Jo barely registed Heliodor Everett speaking to them. If she hadn't been in the mental state she currently was in, she would have told him to not apologize for what had happened to them. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't like he had done the capturing.

But, instead, all Jo could think about was how Kyle wasn't here with her right now.

"I can't lose Kyle again," they whispered, even though they were the one arguably in the most trouble at the moment.

Heliodor Everett couldn’t feel sympathy. That would require feeling anything at all. He looked away from Jo. “There is no evidence Master Kyle was captured. He’s most likely not in any present danger.” That wasn’t sympathy. Those were facts. Unfeeling, straight-edged facts. If they happened to make Jo feel better, then it was just because the facts were in her favor.

He let his head fall back. They were both chained for easy access, their arms spread so neither of them could cover their chest. That likely meant torture. Which was fine. Heliodor Everett knew how to survive torture. He turned to Jo. “I will do my due diligence to have any pain fall on me. You can focus on your escape.”

Jo took in a sharp breath then.

Heliodor Everett was right. She was still terrified of Kyle being left alone right now, but he was with Estella Fay. He wasn't really alone. They didn't have to worry about him getting hurt. Heliodor Everett and Jo were the ones in trouble right now, and Jo wasn't the one with the immortality mutation.

"I'm not going to let you get hurt," Jo said. "And I'm not going to leave you behind. Friends don't leave each other, especially in a situation like this."

Heliodor Everett frowned slightly. “While I don’t wish to argue, I have to disagree with that declaration. Nothing that this… person can do will be new to me. Pain and I are seasoned friends.”

He glanced at his leg. Jo had no idea just how much pain went into breeding an alis lord. Broken bones, scars littering his chest, the innate fear that at any moment, he will wake up bleeding out on the sidewalk and every passerby will snicker or look away and he will die, alone and worthless.

A sharp emotion twisted in his chest and he smothered it before it could make him cry. He wasn’t allowed to feel anything. He wouldn’t feel anything.

Jo's face had already been serious, but her expression became even more so when she thought about the Dark Year again. She carefully let out her breath, then, thinking about what her life had once been like.

"...Pain and I are seasoned friends, too," Jo softly said. They might not have suffered abuse in the same way that Heliodor Everett had, but they had been harmed for being a mutant. The Dark Year was a rough time to be one, and it took time for Jo to master their ability. She wasn't always the best at hiding her mutation.

Heliodor Everett frowned. It wasn’t real. There was no feeling behind it. It was for Jo’s sake. But that would be sympathy so it went as soon as it came. “Well, I’m here now. You don’t have to be.”

Heliodor Everett knew what he had to do. He had spent his whole life learning how to avoid pain. By proxy, he had been taught all of the things that make people hurt you. He sat up, fixing his posture to be perfect. It felt foreign, wrong. A spark of panic took hold in his chest but he smothered it. Not yet. Not now. He had to look like a survivor. Someone who had some fight in him because if anything made people want to leave bruises from your shoulders to your thighs, it was fighting back.

“Let your mind focus on more important things. I was born to hurt.”

Jo looked over at Heliodor Everett.

"Don't say that," they said, voice still quiet. "No one is born to be hurt. I know you were told that your entire life, but..."

They trailed off.

"You can't let yourself believe that," she said, "because if you do, then you're letting them win."

Jo didn't entirely know who Heliodor Everett's them was, but she knew who hers was.

She wished she could do more than just sit here, but their movement was still restricted. They had to wait where they were for whoever had knocked them both unconscious and brought them here.

“They’ve already won.”

Heliodor Everett sighed. “The alis war came and went. We lost. We’re lucky we’re not already dead. We’re lucky. If the alis play nice, we get the pleasure of not being blacklisted from society.”

He took a deep breath. “If the person who comes lifts my shirt, look. Look and remember that I’m one of the lucky ones.”

It was like Jo was listening to what could have happened if the Dark Year had never truly ended. If the humans had realized that the mutants could never fully be wiped out, and had forced them to rejoin human society by making them something less than. It had happened, once. Jo had no memory of the time. It was from before they were born, and Jo had heard that time was wiped from the memories of anyone around to see it by some all powerful mutant that no longer existed.

...It was scary, thinking of that possibility.

Jo took a long, deep breath.

"...We...We had a year," they said. "Called the Dark Year. It wasn't that long ago. It wasn't a war. It was a genocide. Robots-"

Jo paused, realizing Heliodor Everett probably couldn't understand the idea of a robot collapse because of the time he was from.

"Someone named Michael made these things that were supposed to wipe out all mutants," Jo said, "because of some stupid religious group with far too much power. But the really terrifying part of the Dark Year wasn't Michael or the constructs. It was the humans, the ones who had hated us since they knew we were around and saw the perfect opportunity to act on that hate."

They looked down at their own shirt. Then she raised her head and looked back at Heliodor Everett.

"...If the person that comes lifts up my shirt," Jo said, voice quiet, "you should look, too. I'm also one of the lucky ones."

Heliodor Everett sighed. “I… I am glad your world didn’t stay that way.”

Unfortunately, that was true. He was glad. He wouldn’t willingly wish a world like this on anyone, even if that was his job description. But, that gladness was followed by a deep, bitter wave of jealously. He desperately wished he could say the same thing. That it was just a Dark Year and not a Dark Decade, a Dark Century.

He felt terrifyingly close to crying. But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. He squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to clear the feeling away. Back to neutrality. Back to numbness.

“The alis surrendered, really. So, it’s deserved.”

His voice wasn’t the hollow it needed to be. It was strained now, pulled taut against a bubble of emotion.

Jo shook her head. It wasn't deserved at all.

"They did what they had to survive," Jo said. "If...If things hadn't gone the way they did, mutantkind might have done that, too."

They looked down at their lap.

"You know how I mentioned Chatterbox earlier?" Jo asked. "They're one of the people who managed to change things. They were gone for the entirety of the Dark Year, and when they got back, they were different. Stronger. Between them, and Marvellous, and Goddess, Michael was defeated."

They paused.

"...But that was a deus ex machina," Jo said, quietly. "A miracle. If they hadn't been there and made the sacrifices they all made, I don't think I'd be talking to you right now. Not like this."

Heliodor Everett sighed. “That’s what Estella Fay and her… team is trying to do. But they’re not gods. They can’t… they can’t fight back.”

He could feel the grip of pain again. The sharp crack of bone. The same basement for days, memorizing the guns on the walls. He took a deep breath. Then another. It wasn’t working. The chains on his wrists felt too familiar and he was in the exact same position.

He struggled to breathe. His lungs seemed to stop expanding when they were only half full. Panic overtook him again. What was happening to him? This wasn’t neutrality. But he had been so good at avoiding pain. He was a good alis. He was Master Harris’ pet. He always did what he was told. And it didn’t matter. He was going to die in some basement, completely worthless just like his father threatened.

“Men don’t cry, son, and if you keep on crying like that then you’ll be no son of mine.”

He clenched his teeth, but he still couldn’t breathe.

That explained a lot, when Jo thought about it.

"It'll take time," Jo said, not really from experience, but from things she had heard about revolutions back when she went to school. It felt like an eternity ago, but they still remembered some of their history lessons.

It was at that moment that their captor walked in.

He was a tall man. Jo studied him well. It was what they always did when they met new people. They studied his worn clothes—where they folded, where their stains were, and how they hung around his lean body like they were made for someone who used to be bigger. She looked at how he kept his long, ragged black hair back in a ponytail, and how his dark eyes glinted with an energy that didn't match the bags underneath said eyes.

"I see you're both awake," he said.

Heliodor Everett swallowed, holding his breath. This was it. This was his new father coming to rebirth him through fire and brimstone. His new Prime Minister here to be his puppet master.

He tried to sit up again, to look powerful. He had to protect Jo. That was his job.