Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

Huff…. Huff… perspiration mixed with tears, dripped down the trembling and horrified faces of the girls. They who had gathered up the courage to sneak inside the facility, were finally aware of what kind of place this was and what these people were doing to them using the excuse of treatment.

They were so shaken by the words of these white suit men who they thought were a group of nice people who helped homeless and abandoned children like them. However, reality seemed to be far different than what they thought. They were being used as test subjects and experimented upon by them.

"Uwwwwaaahh.. sniff..sniff" One of the girls broke down into crying, following which the other girl too. Chloe was no exception, the picture of the white suit men that she painted as kind people, was immediately broken down.

Days after days when these people came over and took her friends away using the excuse of treating them, when in reality they were being exposed to such experimentation.

Knowing this broke her heart and she couldn't find the strength to stand back up. Her knees trembled and tears continued to drip down her face. She was about to give up and break down like the two girls beside her, when she realised that her close friend was taken inside the facility and if she did nothing, that fellow who kept on believing in that good mister would no doubt have the same cruel ending.

Making up her mind, Chloe grit her teeth and stood back up using the capsule as a support and started walking towards the door beyond which her friend who was completely clueless about the schemes of these cruel people was taken in.

"Ch-Chloe? Where are you going?" the blonde girl named Alice cried.

"I had this feeling for some time but I wanted to believe that it was false; however, when things are put so plainly in front of me, how can I still live in my own bubble of dream?" Chloe said wiping away her tears.

"I'm going in to save my friends no matter what. You guys can sit there crying all day and blame yourself and everything or you guys can come with me and save those idiots who have been taken inside".

Chloe's words like an arrow, struck deeply towards their heart and mind. Their pale white faces turned a little solemn and amidst their indecisiveness, they made up their mind.

Just as the three girls approached the door that led to the transplantation chamber mentioned by those people, a sudden noise that almost made them shriek out, came from one of the capsules.

When they turned around to see where the noise originated from, they saw the capsule inside which Glenn was held captive, writhe around. The way he spasmed sporadically, made it seem like he was alive somehow.

"Glenn... he is alive! What do we do?" Alice asked seeing that one of the boys she knew was somehow still conscious even when his body was turned into something like that.

Chloe bit her lips and pondered for a while, she then stepped towards the capsule where Glenn was and looked for any mechanism that can free him out of it. The other two girls similarly searched the place for anything that might help the boy get out of the capsule.

"I found this that looks like an iron bar," the girl named Sophie said holding a thick iron bar that seemed to be a component of some machine.

Chloe's eye lit up when she saw that, she took the bar from Sophie and banged it on the capsule. DONG… a dull sound echoed around the room, making them anxious about the noise pulling the attention of those white suit people.

Although Chloe was not a warrior and did not even receive her first class, she was still more than level 30. After seeing the cracks on the surface of the capsule, she kept on banging it with the iron bar a few more times until the glass-like substance broke apart and its contents flowed out.

THUD… Glenn's body fell limply on the ground, if not for his ragged breathing they might have considered him dead with how different he appeared from a month ago.

"GUH..BEGH…" Glenn threw up a mouthful of liquid and painfully opened his eyes. The moment he saw the light, his eyes teared over and he cried with a tone of desperation.

"Please no more… it hurts".

"Glenn, Glenn… it's us. Don't you recognise us? What happened to you?" Chloe shook his body trying to wake him up from his trance.

After hearing the voice he have not heard for more than a month, some reasoning returned to his otherwise blank and hollow eyes. The moment he saw Chloe, he understood that he was not in that chamber any longer.

"Chloe?!" he uttered.

"That's right it's me. Thank god you can recognise us" Chloe and the two girls sighed in relief. However, before they could become too complacent over saving their friend, the words that he spoke next, turned the atmosphere in the room completely silent. 

"Run…run away. This place is not what it looks like, they are not treating our illness here. It is very painful, the good mister is conducting some research on us. All of our friends who have been taken inside, have either been killed during the test or turned like me. Run…".

As tears and snot dripped down from his face, Glenn curled his hands into fists and started bawling. The room became silent with none of them uttering any words. It was just like those three people in hazmat suit had said, they were nothing but experimental subjects for them.

All the children that have been taken by them, were not cured and taken to a different place but rather have become like Glenn or died.

"How could they do that to us, I thought that the good mister was a kind person" Alice mumbled, her voice cracking at the end.

"Glenn calm down and please listen to me. Have you seen Risa? What happened to her?" Chloe asked while tightly clenching her hand. She was the third batch of children who had been taken inside the facility. Thereafter, there was no news of her.

Even with all the evidence in front of her, she still wanted to believe that her friend was still fine and alive.

Glenn looked lost for a while, his eyes unfocused and his brows locked. He appeared like he was thinking very hard about something.

"I am not sure, all the others that have been brought here had either died or become something like me. That's right, there is a special assembly room here where they bring children who have already gone to the transplantation chamber to contain us. If Risa survived she might be there".

Hearing his words, some hope finally returned to Chloe's eyes, she appeared to be thinking very hard and finally reached a decision after a long contemplation.

Seeing her quickly changing expression, Glenn couldn't help but ask "You aren't thinking about going there are you? Don't, if they catch you, they will throw you inside the Transplantation chamber. Just run".

Midway through his sentence, he suddenly realised how stupid he sounded. There was no point in running, even if they sprinted out right now, there was no way they could pass through the barrier.

"Wait… how did you reach this place? Were you also brought here by those people to be sent to the transplantation chamber?".

Whenever he mentioned the chamber, his body would visibly tremble and his eyes would become frightened.

"No… I stole this pass from those people and sneaked behind them to come here" Chloe explained how they were the only ones among their group remaining in that room and how worried she was after seeing her friends disappear one after the other.

"Wait… I don't see Bell with you, don't tell me he was taken inside by those horrible people". Chloe could only bite her lips and look dejectedly at the ground.

The nightmare that she was having for the past few days, had really become the reality. Had she known this earlier, she would have stolen the pass earlier to prevent her friends from being made into something like that one after the other.

Glenn did not have to think hard to know what her silence meant, he simply glanced at the ceiling absentmindedly.

How and where did everything start going so bad for them? They were just children with no parents or whose parents have abandoned them. Day by day they used to live by scrounging the trash thrown by the rich and powerful, some even resorted to stealing and some simply accepted their fate and died of disease or hunger.

One cannot say that kind of living a life, but they were somehow getting by day after day even with that kind of lifestyle. Although they troubled the others simply by being around or trying to live their life, were they bad enough to have this kind of ending?

"Glenn… please help us, I must save that idiot, Risa and everyone".

While he was drowning in his sorrows, a soft voice that still held hope and refused to give up, sounded.

Glenn looked up and saw the determined eyes of the girl. The room descended into silence before it was broken by the noise of Glenn trying to stand up.

His body was now very different from how it was used to before, thus he was having difficulty standing still on his goat-like legs. The moment he stood up, he towered over everyone else around the room.

His height which was previously tall for a child, had now reached the point where he was comparable to an average adult. Even his thin and lanky body had become bulkier.