Chapter 1: The Past

"Pýx, láx, dáx"

On its own, this sounds like complete nonsense, and rightfully so. Words didn’t mean anything until mankind started spreading rumors that they did. However, it’s actually a Greek phrase which translates to: “With fists, kicks, and bites.” This can be interpreted as how hard someone fights; how much determinations someone has.

Juni, Julianna Shea Chung, used to be someone with a lot of determination. She had a sole intent on escaping the very place she was imprisoned within her entire life. She had no memories of being anywhere else, and for a long time, she was sure that nothing else existed. That this was what existence was.

She was kept in a small room. Not an unpleasant one though. If you could get past the blinding lights, and bleak, white walls; one could live pretty comfortably here. It had consisted of metal frame bed in the right-hand corner, a small dresser pressed against the wall nearest the door and a chair. The only purpose this tiny, rusted chair seemed to serve was for her favorite doctor, Dr. Kaito Masuta, to sit incorrectly on as he chatted about various parts of his day to her.

Most doctors in the facility were cold and distant to Juni. They seemed to take pride in their work without acknowledgment of any life around them. Masuta, however, seemed to be the complete opposite to her. He seemed to genuinely care for her and treated her like a child should be treated. She would see him look at her with gentle, loving eyes, while the others seemed to only give her dismissive glances.

For the most part, due to Masuta’s hospitality, Juni actually hadn’t mind being there. That is until Monday rolled around. Juni absolutely despised Mondays. Every week she would be told to strap a mask on by some other rude doctor she hadn’t liked. She would do her best to answer the questions they would but for some reason, unknown to her, she would fall asleep. The next day she would wake up in her bed, disorientated, with a different ache, or scar on her body. Anytime she would ask about Mondays she would just get ignored. Not even Masuta would tell her.

One day another girl was put in the same room as Juni. Juni had never even seen another girl, so there was a lot about the unfamiliar situation that surprised her. The rude doctor that had thrown the girl in the room with Juni had mumbled something along the lines of “running out of room” and then left. Juni had no idea what to do. This was her home, her safe space. Now someone else was here.

Her anger was soon dulled when she took in how upset and even frightened the girl next to her had seemed. She was a mess. Her long, curly, brown hair was frizzy and covered in what had seemed to be grease and dirt. Some of her clothes were in a similar state of disarray. She had no idea what could have frightened this girl so much, and that thought frightened Juni as well.

After a few awkward moments of Juni starting at this frightened girl, they decided to speak. Her name was Robin Clio Oxendine. She was a year older than Juni. Unlike Juni, she had a family. She explained that she had a mother, and three older brothers. However, a few nights ago armed men stormed into her house taking her away from her family.

Robin was in tears as she expressed how worried she was for her family. Juni tried to comfort her the best she could, but no matter what there was no way she could possibly understand what the girl was talking about. She had no frame of reference of what a family was. She’d never even heard the phrase ‘armed men’ in her life. Robin seemed to understand this though. The girls sat in silence for the rest of the night.

The girls had been roommates for quite a while, the doctors even referred to them as ‘sisters’. Robin seemed quite pleased about that, and after teaching Juni what that meant, so did she. They had grown close in the time they spent together. At some point, Juni considered her, Robin, and Masuta, a little family of her own.

However, one Monday was different to all the other Mondays Juni had endured. It was a Monday that changed the way that she viewed her entire life. At no point did she think of herself as a prisoner. This was what life was to Juni. She knew nothing else until this specific Monday.

Juni woke up before Tuesday. She saw what was going on. For once in her life, she saw beyond her room. The first thing she noticed was all the doctors surrounding her. All of them unfamiliar. The second she noticed was the pain. Pain was everywhere. It was everything that she was in that moment. She screamed, hoping that the doctors around her would stop whatever was happening to cause her so much pain. They didn’t move.

She looked around and saw Robin. She was in the same position as Juni, but Juni noticed something slightly different in her situation. The doctors attending to Juni weren’t carrying any type of large instruments, only small tools like scalpels, and needles. Needles that made her entire body light up in pain anytime they got near her skin. However, when she looked over at Robin they were using much larger instruments. Tools that varied in technology that Juni had never seen before and bone saws, which were quite common in the facility.

Juni didn’t want her dear ‘sister’ to feel the same pain that she was feeling right now. Hell, Juni didn’t want any human to feel the same pain she was feeling right now. She started resisting. Resisting against the doctors in the room, and against anything that held her down.

The room noticeably went into a state of panic. Doctors rushed to try to sedate her. She assumed that it worked because the next thing she saw was Robin shaking her awake. She was relieved thinking the entire ordeal was some terrible nightmare she thought up. However, once she was up she noticed a few problems with this theory. She was not in her room, in fact, she had no idea where she was. It was definitely some part of the facility, but not well taken care of part of it. There were ceiling tiles falling apart above them, plants growing in through cracks in the floor, and wires being exposed through any damaged construction.

The next thing she noticed was the state of her ‘sister’. Her hair was somehow even messier, and her face displayed a look of despair and hysteria. Her jacket was pulled up over her right arm with her left hand clutching tightly. Gore had soaked both of her sleeves heavily. Juni was chilled by the sight. None of this was supposed to happen. This wasn’t what life was to Juni.

Her fears were finally realized when Robin had spoken, shakily of what happened. According to her, the doctors that Juni had trusted so much had been doing experiments on the two ever since they arrived. They had been mutating Juni’s genes while trying more external experiments on Robin. This had explained why Juni’s eyes had no longer appeared brown but rather started looking more light, and grassy as the days progressed.

They had been trying to replace parts of Robin’s body with that of other children’s in the facility. They started off with smaller things, like teeth or smaller bones. Apparently, today was the day where they had grown impatient and wanted to try something bigger, and more challenging.

Robin explained that in the moments that Juni blacked out she had literally thrown doctor’s around like rag dolls without even touching them. She grabbed Robin and ran as long as she could before collapsing.

The two spent the rest of their day there finding a way out. They succeeded. The two escaped the following day and went off into the world for the very first time. They stole from a pharmacy they found to help keep any infections at bay and ran off into the night.

They slept in an alley they found particularly cozy for a few months until Robin made a decision to change. She proposed that they should find her family and live with them. They should find whatever happened to them since she found herself solely responsible for whatever happened to them. Juni rejected this idea.

Robin had been Juni’s only family apart from Dr. Masuta and didn’t understand why Robin thought she needed anything else. Obviously, this didn’t go over well with Robin, so the pair eventually went their separate ways. Robin was going to find her family at any, and all costs. Juni...well Juni didn’t know what she was going to do, but she supposed she’d figure it out eventually.

After a couple years of practice, Juni has found a way to control her new ability. She can develop green discs about the size of her hand and throw them, similar to a frisbee. She’s learned that getting hit by one can actually hurt quite bad, so she hasn’t really found any use for it apart from knocking over stacks of discarded soda cans. She has yet to find out how to do what she did at the facility again.