The blackness started to turn to light. I could make out simple shapes, but the details came later. When I could clearly see, I could make out an old fashioned hospital room- white walls with little to no furnishing that wasn't medical. I was hooked up to an IV that was pumping liquids into my arm.

My first reaction was to panic. I moved quickly but was pulled back onto the soft white bed by handcuffs that held me to the rail of the bed.

Okay, come on. You're Shadow. Think, what happened?

I remembered everything with surprising ease. Collin, that bastard, he injected me with something and then captured me. The only question is why aren't I dead or in prison yet?

Taking in a breath, I thought about what I could do. Closing my eyes, I focused, trying to find the blades that were strapped to my limbs. All I had left was one I concealed under my left pant leg. This is what happens when the police don't use metal detectors. People get hurt, or they will at least.

At the moment, I couldn't move my hands or legs. My best option was to wait and see what happens. As I prepared to take in a breath and scream, the door was pulled open to reveal a nurse.

When she caught my gaze, she dropped the clipboard she was carrying and ran. That went well. I tried smiling at her and everything and she runs away. How rude. I liked to think I made rather good first impressions.

I waited for a minute and two officers that I didn't recognize came in. Each had a sword strapped firmly to their waist. The one on the right, who I'm now going to call officer one, came around the bed and held onto my wrist. Cautiously, he unlocked the chain and removed it from my wrist. The other, who's name is now officer two, unlocked my other chain from the bed. They then proceeded to cuff my wrists in front of my stomach. Weren't they taught that it was dangerous to cuff someone with their arms up front? I could easily tie the chain around one of their necks and kill them within seconds.

"Look, I get that you're being cautious and all but this is agonizingly slow. Could you hurry it up?"

Apparently I didn't say that polite enough because I got slapped by officer one. Taking a breath, I controlled myself, for the most part. When they worked with my ankles, I just had to hope that they wouldn't notice the dagger. As of now it was emergencies only. I only had one shot and I planned on making it count. Using three handcuffs, they restrained my feet so that there was still room to walk.

"Stand." Officer one said. I really didn't like him, you know. Maybe I would use my last dagger on his head. I'd being doing the world good for a change.

Sighing, I obeyed. I turned my feet on the side of the bed and resting them on the floor. Judging by the pins and needles that went up my foot when I tried to stand, this wouldn't end well.

"Stand." God, officer one was a real broken record.

Not seeing any other options, I stood. Well, I tried to at least. I felt nothing but pain up my legs. With a muted grunt, I fell to the ground, squirming at the pain. What the hell did they do to me?

Something connected with my stomach sending me sliding into the wall with a crash. A line of blood came from my lip where I'd bitten it. When I looked up, officer one was smirking down at me. That bastard kicked me!

Don't use the dagger. Don't use the dagger. I had to keep telling myself that as I curled into a defeated ball on the floor, my pride now diminished.

"That's enough!" Officer two finally spoke up. "We were told to bring her to the Training Department not beat her half to death!"

"She's a criminal who's killed hundreds of men without mercy. She shouldn't expect mercy from us."

"I didn't," I mumbled just loud enough for them to hear, not bothering to correct him on the number of people I'd killed. "I never expected mercy from the police. You know what else I never ever expected? Being beaten half to death in a hospital! God, what's wrong with you people!"

Officer two, good cop, was kneeling down with his hand on my stomach.

"Can you walk?"

I shook my head. Whatever drug they put in me did its job. My body felt like it was failing me. My legs went numb when I walked, my stomach felt like it'd been torn to shreds, and my face still stung from being punched. I'd never been in a real hospital before and I sure as hell wasn't coming back.

"Get a wheelchair."

"But-"

"Now!"

With a dissatisfied click of his tongue, officer one went to get a wheelchair. When he came back officer two lifted and set me down with graceful ease. To my great joy, officer two was the one who wheeled me around.

The building I was in looked to be one of the cities original buildings, made of fine marble and other solid stones. It was probably made before 2000, when electricity was still legal and so were vehicles. Eventually, the building turned into steel and more people passed by us. All of them glared at me as we passed.

"Do they know who I am?" It seemed like a stupid question but I was curious.

"A few of them know you by name." I liked officer two, I'd have to remember to keep him off my revenge list. "The rest just know you're a criminal."

"We're in the Paradise Bureau then?"

"What makes you say that?"

"If they know who I am they probably had to do with my arrest."

"Shut up!" Officer one was defiantly on my kill list. Maybe not literally, but who knows. I could grow to hate him more. Anything's possible with this son of a bitch.

We stopped at a steel door with two locks on the outside. When officer two knocked, the door was immediately opened. Standing before me was a sandy haired man, tall and dressed in a light blue t-shirt and black pants. He looked down at me with a smile that made me want to beat the shit out of him.

"This is her?" The man held his hand out and officer one placed a file in it. I was upset with myself for not noticing the file earlier but blamed it on the drugs.

"This is it," Officer One said.

"Don't be so disappointed. I'm actually pretty good when I'm not drugged."

Sand Man looked at me, smile fading, and motioned for officer one to bring me in. I was wheeled in front of a metal table that was bolted to the ground.

I heard the door shut and close behind me. The room was illuminated by a single candle that hung from the ceiling, yet the room was still incredibly bright.

"You let the officers leave?"

"I don't see any point in keeping them in here."

I actually laughed at the idiot. My laugh was close to hysteria, but the man didn't show any signs of giving up that smile.

"I'm one of the most dangerous criminals you'll ever deal with and you don't see a point in keeping officers here. The governments really gone downhill since it made guns and electricity illegal."

"Maybe."

I gave him a sideways smile. I'm not sure if it was fake or real but I just felt unexplainably right.

"Anyway," the man said, flipping through the file with a pen, "why don't you tell me something about yourself?"

"I'm a thief and a murderer."

"We have absolutely nothing about you in the files."

"Then I've done a good job."

"We don't have face recognition equipment like in the good old days, so we have to dig through all the files. This could take weeks so how about you just tell me you're name."

"Shadow."

"Your real name."

"As far as your concerned my real name's Shadow."

"Don't make this any harder than it has to be."

"Listen, I'm from the slums, you won't have any data on me no matter where you dig."

"Which district?"

"Nice try, but no. You don't need files to execute someone, you know."

"That's the problem, we don't plan on executing you."

"What?" My mouth was hanging open in a confused way, but I quickly corrected it.

"You've been chosen for an experiment that I proposed to the government."

"I'm not big on human experimentation so if you could just kill me..."

He laughed at me. The dagger was growing warmer on my ankle and I was tempted to use it, but no. I wasn't completely confident I could aim either.

"Not that kind of experiment. Think of it like...a study. It's called Project Reform. My proposition was that, instead of executing all the criminals, we try to reform them, turn them good."

"And you chose me as the first subject?"

He nodded, waiting for my response.

"Why me? I'm one of the worst there is as of now."

"Exactly, if we can reform you we can reform anyone. I had the investigative department put extra care into tracking you. When we found you we followed you for a while and waited for you to commit a few more crimes so we could be positive. After that I got one of the trainees to hook you in. He did well, didn't he?"

"Collin."

"That's not his real name but yeah."

"Okay and how do you plan on reforming me?"

"Well I was thinking about having you work with the trainees."

"Me? I'm not exactly the type for listening to orders."

"That's why I'm gonna give you your own squad and make you the commander. It's your job to train them. That also gives you a certain extent of cruelty in sparring and missions."

I let a corner of my lip perk up. I liked this man, he understood me.

"I thought you'd like that. I'll be part of your squad, if you agree that is."

"Well, you're not giving me many options so...why not?"

His face lit up.

"However, I don't wanna be walking around in chains all day."

"You won't be. Since I'm part of your squad I'll be there to keep an eye on you."

"And you think you could stop me if I suddenly decided to kill all of you?"

That brat! How dare he look down on me like this.

"No way in hell. We'll be inserting a tracking device into your arm so we can find you if you run away."

"Electronic devices are illegal. The governments breaking its own laws. And you guys wonder why three of your five cities are lower class."

"Not breaking just bending for the sake of the the future of our country."

"Uh huh, just like the degunning law. For the sake of our world, they say. There'll be less wars, they say. They just make fights more gruesome."

"Maybe, but the death rate went down drastically."

"And what about the amputees? How many people do we have walking, some not even doing that anymore, around with missing limbs because, A someone cut their arms off with a frickin sword and B because without electricity you don't have the medical equipment to save their limbs."

"You're just a ray of sunshine aren't you?"

"No, not exactly. More of a shadow."

He snapped his fingers and two people entered the room. A man and a women. They didn't make eye contact with me as they hesitantly took ahold of my arm. When they brought a needle to my wrist I jerked away.

"What the hell are you planning on doing to me!?"

"Relax, it's just the tracking device."

I forced my body to relax as I watched them insert a clear liquid with a shiny blue light in the center in my arm. The blue part was the actual device, the liquid was just to make it easier to insert. I cringed but didn't move away. I could see the light travel up my arm and saw it stop halfway up, around my elbow. I'd remember where it was, just in case.

When they finished, they quickly left.

"I never got your name."

"It's Theodore, but most people just call me Theo or Teddy."

"I think I'm gonna call you Pooh Bear, like that old cartoon."

He let out a sigh as he hesitantly approached me with a key. First, he unties my hand and then my feet. I could still feel the dagger sitting comfortably there, but I didn't feel any need to use it.