I didn’t understand!

Why wouldn’t Fiori fight back. Why? WHY! No matter how many times I smashed my head on the wall, the same question came back over and over again. Why didn’t Fiori do anything! Why?

“WHY!” I screamed at the closed door.

My fists were covered in blood from hammering the iron with my bare hand. I couldn’t tell how long it had been. A day, maybe two? It couldn’t have been much longer than this. I hadn’t been given any food, but I was still standing.

I gasped for air. Breathing was laborious in this room.

“Eva! Can you hear me! EVA? We need to talk!”

Sweet voice, angry voice, and screams, none triggered an answer.

Exhausted, I curled up on the floor and sheltered my eyes from the light. In my cell, the light was never out. After months of darkness, this sudden burst of white light was torture to my eyes.

I slowed down my breathing. It was hard to breathe. I tried calming myself. I had to remain in control.

I thought of Lianna.

I searched my memories for the sound of her piano.

I entered a slumber amidst dreams and reality, suspended between time and infinity.

Since that day I had played the piano, the music had come back. However, it was no longer hers. In a way, it was mine: clumsy, sloppy, lacking movements and feelings. Still, it was music to my ear.

But today, for the first time, the melody was interrupted by the grinding of a metal flap. Through an opening, a small bowl was pushed into my cell. Inside the bowl, a few drops of water.

I started laughing.

Of course, I thought. Torture. She is torturing me.

And I laughed some more to hide the tears of despair running down my cheeks.

I grabbed the bowl and smashed it on the wall.

I dropped back to the floor and curled up again.

I didn’t care if I lived or die. Either way was fine with me. There were just so many battles we could loose. It seemed the war was over. Without Fiori, there was no way to go on.

My obsession became another source of torment.

But why? Why hadn’t he fought back.

Time went by. My thirst grew. The light stayed on. The same question lingered in my head. My sole comfort was knowing, or at least, hoping Eli was safe.

Yet during all this time, there was another question I had ought to asked myself: “Should I have accepted the offer?” But I did not. I blatantly chose to ignore this question preferring to trap myself into a destructive thought cycle: “Why didn’t Fiori do anything? Why didn’t he save us? What was the point of making it this far, if he was just going to crumble when it mattered the most?”

Another days went by.

For the second time, a small bowl was pushed into my cell. Inside the bowl, even less water than the last time. Time… What is time?

I pounced on it like a wild animal. I licked everything until the last drop. It was not enough. I needed more.

This time, I didn’t laugh. I didn’t throw the bowl. I no longer had the strength. I just curled back up and cried waisted tears. Water was precious.

Time passed. A few hours. Many hours. Days. Times. My throat was dry. My head started spinning. I felt hot and cold all at once. My tongue felt thick. I tried getting up but collapsed back onto the floor. Time was swallowing me whole, eating up at my very flesh. I laid there. Starring at the small opening, waiting for the next bowl.

It didn’t come.

Instead, in front of my eyes, a silhouette appeared.

Hana? She had a disappointed look on her face. Another silhouette replaced the first one. Eli? I reached out to touch her.

“Help me,” I mumbled caught in the infinity of my torment. She seemed so real. She vanished.

“Help You? Pathetic coward!” a voice laughed.

I covered my ears and buried my face into my knees.

“Leave me alone!” I screamed. “YOU! All of you! Leave me alone!”

“Have you had enough yet,” the voice said.

I raised my eyes. The silhouette was blurry.

“You could have had it all, Fenn. But you just wouldn’t listen,” Eva said.

I pressed my ears harder.

“Go away,” I screamed at the figure.

“You didn’t always use to be a coward like that,” she said innocently.

Tears had reappeared on my cheeks. The hunger, the pain was real. But the thirst was the worst.

“You used to have a fire burning in your eyes. I had to extinguish it. I made you a coward!”

She pulled out a pocketknife from her hand and sliced open her hand letting the blood slowly drip in front of my eyes.

I didn’t flinch.

“I’m glad you’ve overcome that paralysing fear of blood.”

She laughed and wiped her hand on her pants.

“I played with your mind, I made you a coward. I had to. After all, it was my mission: making you into the perfect human super weapon. For that, I needed to control you. But you turned out to be stubborn, angry and too dangerous…”

She squatted down and grabbed my face between her hands. I felt her warm blood on my cheek.

“…of course, I failed. But I wasn’t always a failure! Your first murder! What a success that was. It was just a trial run. Ted was testing me. He was testing my abilities. I proved him well. They picked us up in the middle of the night. We were given 24 hours to terminate our target. I turned on the switch, you pulled the trigger… so to speak. You have it in you Fenn. You have an ardent fire burning right here in your heart! I had to smoother it to gain control over you but deep down it is still raging. And I can flip the switch back on if you’d like…”

My back was pressed against the wall. As she squeezed my face between her hands, I had no room to back away.

“…those 24 hours were exhilarating! We were out of Nova Urbi. We had a warm meal. We got to clean up. Taking a shower was always your favorite. Then you went and killed. Like a good little boy. You took such pleasure at killing. Once accomplished, we were both returned to the orphanage. I wiped your memory clean. I rendered you dull again, and we’d resume our daily hell.”

It was horrifying to hear her speak of me in that manner. I couldn’t have been that person. I couldn’t be that person. Yet, or maybe it was because of the delirious state I had entered, deep down I wished that person would come up and save me. If only I had the guts, the drive, the strength, I could seize her wrist and kill her. But I couldn’t. It was beyond a moral dilemma, it was like a part of me had been locked up, and with it, my survival instinct.

If what she said was true…

Of course, it was true…

Still, I had rather not think about it…

The person I truly was…

The person I had been…

The person I could revert too…

… was a murderer. My true nature was to be a killer.

“…but you see, things started falling apart after Fiori and his minions defected. Pressure was on to deliver; we were given a new target, but I made a small mistake and Hardi walked away with minor injuries. Ted ended up buying his silence by naming him head of Centrum Agricultio. That was just a few weeks before Hana and Fiori started striking! First, they retrieved Meyer right under our nose. Following that incident, Ted decided the safest place for you was to be at the orphanage. We became a dormant cell. No more trip outside the concrete hell. I got a little worried... Scared they might just drop the program. Scared I’d be left in Nova Urbi to rot. I knew we weren’t the only one. They had another team. Except, unlike you and I, with each our own characteristics, the other team had a kid with them all. His name was Elijah Dáire Edwards-North, or as we refer to him E.D.E.N.

You get it now? Project EDEN has always been about him… and never about us. We were test subjects, place into a controlled environment, to see how we’d fair in different situations. You did well enough, to keep Ted interested in you. But me… I did poorly… Right now, my only chance is that you will cooperate. Then maybe… just maybe, we can be a team again. And maybe, Ted will let us live. So, you see, your brother is a bit of an issue… if you have him, you don’t need me. I can’t let that happen. I can’t let you team up with him!”

“Project Elijah Dáire Edwards-North. That’s Eli’s brother? Did Fiori know about him? Did he know he was Eli’s twin brother?” I asked trying hard to piece all this new information together.

“Fiori? Of course, he knew! But Evian and Hana, I don’t think so. It wasn’t until Evian recovered the experiment reports that they found out.”

“Why? Why did you do it? Why did you agree to work for Ted? For project EDEN?”

Eva seemed confused by the question. She took a moment, visibly unsure how to answer this sudden query. She let go of my face and took a step back. Sadness appeared on her face as she answered in a daze: “I like lemon in my tea.”

Her words made no sense to me.

I seized my chance: “Why did you come here, Eva?”

“I wanted to see you, one last time. I wanted to see that pathetic face of yours. Gosh, how much I hated that pathetic face of yours.”

She was back to herself.

“Eva, please let me see my brother. I have to see my brother!”

“There really isn’t much to see. He’s been unconscious ever since our little walk in the wood. He’s not going to make it, Fenn. Your brother is sick. He’s injured too. That’s a shame. Him and you, together, could have been as dangerous as EDEN. But let’s not talk about your brother. He’s already dead to me. Let’s talk about what’s at stake here. Fenn, the survival of humanity depends on you.”

“…the survival of…”

“That’s why I can’t kill you Fenn. That’s why Ted won’t kill you. That’s why everyone’s been ordered to keep you alive.”

None of what she was saying made sense. Was she even real? The room was spinning around me. I could hardly grasp the words coming out off her mouth.

“…humanity.”

“I have to go. But remember. All this. Everything, we’ve ever done was all about surviving the 8 minutes in Hell.”

She rested her hand on my cheek once more. For a second, I thought I saw a tear run down the side of her face. The weight of the world seemed to press heavily on her shoulders.

“Stay alive,” she whispered.

I closed my eyes briefly, my head suddenly burning. It wasn’t a headache. It was a crushing pain, slowly enveloping my body. She walked away from me. Her figure faded. I heard the heavy iron door close behind her just as I passed out on the floor.