Helpless (Elliot - OC)
Nobody knew what happened to those who ran out of points on the Deepsea Metro. But the number printed on the tags Elliot wore— 10,007— and the unexplained origins of the Octarians he'd faced thus far was a decent indicator that it couldn't be anything good. The drip bags of green ink that littered the hallways by Central Station… were a decent indicator that it couldn’t be anything good. Elliot was never as gifted as his sister Emily, but he was far from stupid. He'd put the pieces together long ago:
That ink, which burned his skin worse than anything he'd ever felt, must be what turns people into those things. Those things, whose numbers had to be in the thousands down here. Thousands. Elliot was #10,007.
And he would likely be joining them if he didn't think of a way out soon. That girl he ran into on the platform of that last station, #10,008… She'd passed. He should have gone with her. He should have taken the offer to work together. But instead he walked right on by, deciding he could figure out the test himself.
He couldn't. Now he was out of points.
He should have taken a detour to one of the cheaper stations, or one he'd already beaten, to get more points beforehand. He should have given himself a buffer.
He didn't. So what would happen to him now?
“Test Subject 10,007, please board the train.”
Fear running wild in his mind, he did as the tiny blue conductor asked. The doors closed behind him, and the train began to move.
“It seems you have run out of CQ Points, number 10,007.”
“Y-Yes, sir.” He replied quietly, “Is there any way I can get more?”
“Sadly, no. That's… it, I'm afraid. You have not proven yourself to be what we need. So now your only option is to become a part of the tests themselves.” CQ explained.
“What do you mean? What happens now?!”
“It's a simple process. I will take you back to Central Station. You will transfer to another train, which will take you up into the lab facilities for Sanitization. The Sanitization process results in what you see out there: you will receive physical enhancements, and help to keep the stations running for everyone after you… At the cost of your life and your sense of self, of course. We can't have any rebellion down here.”
“My life?! You're going to kill me?!” He demanded. Brainwashing was something that, as a former Octarian soldier, Elliot was intimately familiar with. But to go so far as to take someone's life in order to ensure a lack of free will? He didn't think anybody was that cruel.
It took a moment to let that sink in. He was going to die. He was never going to see his sister or his friends again. He was never going to get to see the sun, or feel the wind or hear the rain or play in the snow. He would never get to see the surface. He would never get to meet real Inklings, ones that don't want him dead solely because he has 8 limbs to their 10. He came this far for his freedom, and now he would never get it.
I don't want to die… There are so many things I haven't done!
“There has to be another way! Please, I'll do anything!” Elliot begged, “What if I refuse to get on the train?”
The two sat in silence as the train pulled up to the central station platform. The doors opened, but instead of there being an empty platform for Elliot to step off onto, two Octolings— both Sanitized, as he now knew it was called— stood there, before each grabbed ahold of one of Elliot's arms and dragged him away.
“You don't have a choice.”