[FIC] Cages (Area D, Isobe)
Title: Cages.
Fandom: Area D.
Summary: When Isobe first arrives in Area D, he gets caught in a prison within the prison.
Trope Bingo square: Slave Fic.
Word count: 1515
Isobe’s cage is forged from barbed wire and sparks through with a lime green light that bounces between the barbs. He curls in on himself so that he is in a permanent crouch, the walls pressing in so close that he can brush his hand against all four without moving. He only ever deliberately touches them once, and in that moment the barbed wire (the lime green light) somehow manages to ripple through his blood and boil it hot in an endless, breathless pain.
He may only be fourteen, but some things Isobe learns very quickly.
The terrible, parched screams that flood the warehouse in a constant, high pitched hum suggest that others aren’t so resigned to their fates. There are hundreds of those other voices, sometimes thousands if it has been one of those days where Isobe’s world has fractured into a thousand pieces that all reflect back a distorted now. The others still fight, fingers burnt through to bone as they try and strip the wire from the cages, the smell of flesh joining the screams of pain and the dangerous clang of metal as the cages sway, sway.
They’re stacked high like battery hens, with rows stretching forever on either side of Isobe, dozens pressing down from up above him, and half a dozen below his feet-
Blood slides down in thick, fried blobs through the cages from above, flashing florescent red before cooling off to an almost-black. Other fluids also drip through, but Isobe doesn’t see them - never feels them - tucked in his tight, shaking ball.
His sister was right to save him in Lotus Flower. This is the hell he deserves.
Sometimes, it isn’t blood that drips down through the cages above him, but small chunks of flesh. They slide down over his hair and down his trembling back, before escaping down in a sickening squelch to the cages below.
And Isobe never sees them, never feels them.
On the fourth day there is a sudden heat, and then it feels as though his heart stops beating for a moment too long. The netted floor beneath him hardens into a solid, cold surface that is too smooth for Isobe after the rough texture he has become accustomed to. He slips instantly onto his back, the cold spreading along his spine and numbing his head.
“Open your eyes, prisoner 029521.”
The floor, cold and clean, must also have hypnotic properties, because Isobe does as he is told. Dull eyes flicker open, barely acknowledging the stern face floating before him. Isobe has always tried to be a good boy, but it’s so, so hard when most people believe him to be a monster.
“According to our records, you have gravity altering powers.” The voice carries on. The man has startling green eyes, Isobe notices briefly, before his ability to focus slips away again. “That could be ... convenient.”
Isobe doesn’t see how, until they attach a collar around his neck that is made of the same barbed wire as his cage. The weird electricity pulses through him at a much lower frequency, draining away his energy and bleeding the world around him into a lifeless grey. Pain flickers through him with each movement, but it’s a simple, organic pain that becomes just as familiar as each breath in.
He is taken to a vast graveyard of brick and steel that spans deep into the horizon and clutters up every corner of his sight. The scream of buildings being forged and land gorged cram the air, and smoke and soot slide down his throat.
“You will be building our metropolis,” a man whose arms strain with muscles says to them. Isobe doesn’t ask what happened to the city that had existed before it became these ruins.
Isobe finds out his fate through snatches of conversation that carry through the walls of the cages, or in the long hours he spends shaping gravity outside. They are nothing but slaves to one of Area D’s five large gangs: Central. They have a shelf life of approximately six or seven months, before the shock shuts their bodies down or suicide becomes too pleasant an alternative, but that’s ok. There are more and more arrivals these days, and Central never runs out of cages. Isobe doesn’t even remember being captured. There is nothing but a blank, empty space in his memory after entering through the prison gates.
He remembers each day he has spent in his cage.
At the end of each, numbing day raising a sprawling temple of buildings and palaces to a man Isobe has never seen, Isobe is flicked back to his cage with a simple click of some underling’s fingers. It’s a perfect hell for someone who deserves a death that is slow and arduous. The work may whittle away any thought of resistance and bind his body in its own kind of wire, but the cages scratch away the tiny shreds that Isobe thinks may be all he has of a soul.
And then, one day the cages fall. It is just a rumbling at first, a subtle swaying that takes on a sudden jerk that causes Isobe’s tired, uncaring eyes to flash open in shock. His hands dart out to brace himself against the walls of his cage before he can stop himself. While the barbs cut deep into his palms, the sickening, coursing pain that usually comes as well is absent. Isobe has a moment to notice that the green light that normally shoots through the wire is gone, before the cages are tumbling like an avalanche of human shells and twisted wire. The falling, twisting metal makes a sickening shriek that is more terrifying than anything a human throat could cry out, and it blunts Isobe’s hearing until he can decipher nothing else.
Isobe tumbles and tumbles, his cage bending inwards under the weight of those that fall on top of his, skin and hair and flesh shredded through by the barbs that are suddenly everywhere.
He thinks ... he thinks he maybe screams.
It is dark.
Isobe hears the sobs filtering down, is dully aware of the fact he can feel nothing down his right side. Wires pierce up through his left leg and tear at his chest. His head feels ... thick. Globby. Experimentally, he flicks his fingers (just two on his right hand, all the others are broken). For a moment, the top of cell buckles upwards, before the last of Isobe’s energy dies and his hand drops back down.
This hurts, right? He can’t quite tell.
Maybe this is how it is supposed to end, a corpse buried beneath corpses. Isobe’s not immortal; his body is already feeling fuzzy around the edges.
But if he dies here, then he’ll never know -
Isobe reaches up, his elbow shaking as he presses him palm flat against the top of his cage.
Like leaves, the cages above him flutter sideways. Some fall aside, others just rotate enough to clear the way. He sees light, feels the rush of air crowd into his cage.
Now he only ... he only needs to ... if he can only-
The top of his cage is gone, but his arm is shaking so violently now and then the light is gone-
“Impressive.” A scarred face smirks down at him from the top of his tunnel, stealing away Isobe’s light. “We would have gotten to you eventually, but then there are a lot of cages.” The face loses its sharpness briefly, and Isobe has to blink him back into focus. “You may have been dead by the time we reached you.” There are other voices coming from the other cages. Some beg, others simply scream. The man above ignores them, focussing instead on Isobe. Why? Why would anyone waste any time on him? “It seems we created a bit of a mess during the fight,” he continues easily.
Fight?
Who is this man?
“Kidou of the East,” the man says, reading Isobe’s mouthed words even from a distance. The name means little to Isobe, although it triggers a ghost of a memory. “I am one of the four heads of Area D,” he supplies helpfully.
“Four?” Isobe asks, the words getting stuck on his dry lips before stumbling out. “Aren’t there 5?”
North.
East.
West.
South.
Central.
A shark smile splits the man’s face almost in two. Isobe feels a sudden weight beside him as his cage sags downwards, and Kidou is bending over him, his hair sweeping low across Isobe’s forehead.
“Not any more. We have ... rules. Rules that don’t include cages.”
“That sounds nice,” Isobe says distantly, and this time he doesn’t try to fight back as the world begins to grey. “But then, how will we be properly punished?” That’s why they’re here.
Something warm and furry is wrapped around him, and Isobe’s eyes slide closed.
“You’ve got a lot to learn, kiddo.”
There is wind again, and a sense of movement as everything seems to rush around them. Isobe just clings to the warmth and fades away.
Fandom: Area D.
Summary: When Isobe first arrives in Area D, he gets caught in a prison within the prison.
Trope Bingo square: Slave Fic.
Word count: 1515
Isobe’s cage is forged from barbed wire and sparks through with a lime green light that bounces between the barbs. He curls in on himself so that he is in a permanent crouch, the walls pressing in so close that he can brush his hand against all four without moving. He only ever deliberately touches them once, and in that moment the barbed wire (the lime green light) somehow manages to ripple through his blood and boil it hot in an endless, breathless pain.
He may only be fourteen, but some things Isobe learns very quickly.
The terrible, parched screams that flood the warehouse in a constant, high pitched hum suggest that others aren’t so resigned to their fates. There are hundreds of those other voices, sometimes thousands if it has been one of those days where Isobe’s world has fractured into a thousand pieces that all reflect back a distorted now. The others still fight, fingers burnt through to bone as they try and strip the wire from the cages, the smell of flesh joining the screams of pain and the dangerous clang of metal as the cages sway, sway.
They’re stacked high like battery hens, with rows stretching forever on either side of Isobe, dozens pressing down from up above him, and half a dozen below his feet-
Blood slides down in thick, fried blobs through the cages from above, flashing florescent red before cooling off to an almost-black. Other fluids also drip through, but Isobe doesn’t see them - never feels them - tucked in his tight, shaking ball.
His sister was right to save him in Lotus Flower. This is the hell he deserves.
Sometimes, it isn’t blood that drips down through the cages above him, but small chunks of flesh. They slide down over his hair and down his trembling back, before escaping down in a sickening squelch to the cages below.
And Isobe never sees them, never feels them.
On the fourth day there is a sudden heat, and then it feels as though his heart stops beating for a moment too long. The netted floor beneath him hardens into a solid, cold surface that is too smooth for Isobe after the rough texture he has become accustomed to. He slips instantly onto his back, the cold spreading along his spine and numbing his head.
“Open your eyes, prisoner 029521.”
The floor, cold and clean, must also have hypnotic properties, because Isobe does as he is told. Dull eyes flicker open, barely acknowledging the stern face floating before him. Isobe has always tried to be a good boy, but it’s so, so hard when most people believe him to be a monster.
“According to our records, you have gravity altering powers.” The voice carries on. The man has startling green eyes, Isobe notices briefly, before his ability to focus slips away again. “That could be ... convenient.”
Isobe doesn’t see how, until they attach a collar around his neck that is made of the same barbed wire as his cage. The weird electricity pulses through him at a much lower frequency, draining away his energy and bleeding the world around him into a lifeless grey. Pain flickers through him with each movement, but it’s a simple, organic pain that becomes just as familiar as each breath in.
He is taken to a vast graveyard of brick and steel that spans deep into the horizon and clutters up every corner of his sight. The scream of buildings being forged and land gorged cram the air, and smoke and soot slide down his throat.
“You will be building our metropolis,” a man whose arms strain with muscles says to them. Isobe doesn’t ask what happened to the city that had existed before it became these ruins.
Isobe finds out his fate through snatches of conversation that carry through the walls of the cages, or in the long hours he spends shaping gravity outside. They are nothing but slaves to one of Area D’s five large gangs: Central. They have a shelf life of approximately six or seven months, before the shock shuts their bodies down or suicide becomes too pleasant an alternative, but that’s ok. There are more and more arrivals these days, and Central never runs out of cages. Isobe doesn’t even remember being captured. There is nothing but a blank, empty space in his memory after entering through the prison gates.
He remembers each day he has spent in his cage.
At the end of each, numbing day raising a sprawling temple of buildings and palaces to a man Isobe has never seen, Isobe is flicked back to his cage with a simple click of some underling’s fingers. It’s a perfect hell for someone who deserves a death that is slow and arduous. The work may whittle away any thought of resistance and bind his body in its own kind of wire, but the cages scratch away the tiny shreds that Isobe thinks may be all he has of a soul.
And then, one day the cages fall. It is just a rumbling at first, a subtle swaying that takes on a sudden jerk that causes Isobe’s tired, uncaring eyes to flash open in shock. His hands dart out to brace himself against the walls of his cage before he can stop himself. While the barbs cut deep into his palms, the sickening, coursing pain that usually comes as well is absent. Isobe has a moment to notice that the green light that normally shoots through the wire is gone, before the cages are tumbling like an avalanche of human shells and twisted wire. The falling, twisting metal makes a sickening shriek that is more terrifying than anything a human throat could cry out, and it blunts Isobe’s hearing until he can decipher nothing else.
Isobe tumbles and tumbles, his cage bending inwards under the weight of those that fall on top of his, skin and hair and flesh shredded through by the barbs that are suddenly everywhere.
He thinks ... he thinks he maybe screams.
It is dark.
Isobe hears the sobs filtering down, is dully aware of the fact he can feel nothing down his right side. Wires pierce up through his left leg and tear at his chest. His head feels ... thick. Globby. Experimentally, he flicks his fingers (just two on his right hand, all the others are broken). For a moment, the top of cell buckles upwards, before the last of Isobe’s energy dies and his hand drops back down.
This hurts, right? He can’t quite tell.
Maybe this is how it is supposed to end, a corpse buried beneath corpses. Isobe’s not immortal; his body is already feeling fuzzy around the edges.
But if he dies here, then he’ll never know -
Isobe reaches up, his elbow shaking as he presses him palm flat against the top of his cage.
Like leaves, the cages above him flutter sideways. Some fall aside, others just rotate enough to clear the way. He sees light, feels the rush of air crowd into his cage.
Now he only ... he only needs to ... if he can only-
The top of his cage is gone, but his arm is shaking so violently now and then the light is gone-
“Impressive.” A scarred face smirks down at him from the top of his tunnel, stealing away Isobe’s light. “We would have gotten to you eventually, but then there are a lot of cages.” The face loses its sharpness briefly, and Isobe has to blink him back into focus. “You may have been dead by the time we reached you.” There are other voices coming from the other cages. Some beg, others simply scream. The man above ignores them, focussing instead on Isobe. Why? Why would anyone waste any time on him? “It seems we created a bit of a mess during the fight,” he continues easily.
Fight?
Who is this man?
“Kidou of the East,” the man says, reading Isobe’s mouthed words even from a distance. The name means little to Isobe, although it triggers a ghost of a memory. “I am one of the four heads of Area D,” he supplies helpfully.
“Four?” Isobe asks, the words getting stuck on his dry lips before stumbling out. “Aren’t there 5?”
North.
East.
West.
South.
Central.
A shark smile splits the man’s face almost in two. Isobe feels a sudden weight beside him as his cage sags downwards, and Kidou is bending over him, his hair sweeping low across Isobe’s forehead.
“Not any more. We have ... rules. Rules that don’t include cages.”
“That sounds nice,” Isobe says distantly, and this time he doesn’t try to fight back as the world begins to grey. “But then, how will we be properly punished?” That’s why they’re here.
Something warm and furry is wrapped around him, and Isobe’s eyes slide closed.
“You’ve got a lot to learn, kiddo.”
There is wind again, and a sense of movement as everything seems to rush around them. Isobe just clings to the warmth and fades away.