White, fluorescent light slid through 02's eyelids and stabbed directly at his eyes. He scowled in irritation, turning on his bed and trying to burrow his face into the foam to block the searing brightness.
Or at least, he tried to.
An agonizing sensation rippled through his body and pulled him from his sleep against his will.
"Ugh," he groaned in pain as he forced himself upright and pushed the thin covers that they'd been provided away from him. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his blurry vision and focus on his surroundings. He held up his hand for shade, protecting his eyes from the brightness of the bulbs.
"Didn't I switch this thing off?" he groaned irritably as he ran his hand over his face.
"I switched it on," a voice spoke up, startling 02. His eyes flew open and zipped across the room.
It was small and minimalist, more akin to a small bunker than a room anyone was meant to live in. There was no sign of lived-in warmth or paraphernalia marked by memories; just cold metal walls and stark white fixtures of light. He was lying on a bed that was placed underneath an alcove, on a slightly elevated platform that loomed over the rest of the room. Another bed was directly next to the first, placed together with barely any space between them.
On this bed, a girl sat still and crosslegged. Her head was bowed, and white dreads that gradually darkened to pitch black at the tips fell around her face like a curtain, obscuring her features.
As if feeling the weight of his attention, the girl looked up, warm brown eyes meeting 02's cold blue ones.
02 blinked, his mind rapidly cataloguing what exactly he was seeing.
"Hey," he whispered, then swallowed and straightened his posture, running his fingers through his hair at the same time. "How did you…I mean, when did you get here?"
The girl shrugged and returned to staring down at her intertwined legs. Her fingers played idly with her toes as she spoke; "A couple minutes ago. I'm sorry about the light. You know how I hate…"
"Hey, it's okay," 02 waved a hand as if to dismiss the issue. "It doesn't matter."
Silence descended between them. 02 swallowed once more, and dread coiled in his stomach as he stared at his sister. Her shoulders were drooping, and her fingers were fidgeting restlessly; this was usually a sure-fire sign that something was dreadfully, hopelessly wrong. But he knew that 01 didn't like to be rushed, so he kept his mouth shut and waited for her to open up.
He didn't have to wait for long. She looked up and met his eyes, and he saw within the depths of her gaze a heaviness that made him tense up, wary of what was brewing in her skull. She opened her mouth to speak;
"I heard from the others that you fought five," she said, her words presented less as a question and more as a statement of fact. 02 opened his mouth to reply, but he found that the words would not come; they had been hooked and reeled in by the stripes of agony lancing through his muscles, weighted by the memories attached to them. So, instead of saying anything, he simply nodded.
01 choked on a sob, curling up on her bed with her face in the nook of her folded arms. 02 held in a sigh and tried to force himself off of his bed. When the sound of his foam rustling bled into the silence, however, 01 jerked upwards and spun towards him.
"You stay there," she spat with a voice thick with emotion and eyes reddened by unshed tears. She stood up and came to him, sinking into his bed and wrapping her arms around his bony shoulders.
"You don't have to do that," he muttered into her neck, while embracing her as much as his trembling muscles could allow. If 01 heard his words, she didn't react to them; she simply sank her face into his neck, and 02's heart fell when he felt the warmth of her tears against his skin.
"It wasn't my fault." He felt the need to defend himself, even if he knew he didn't need to. "I didn't even do anything. The Whites just like shitting on me, like they always do."
"I know," his sister whispered.
Those two words carried the weight and pain of unspoken resentment, of loathing so deep that it painted the air black with its vitriol. It was also filled with a tiredness that sank into 02's bones; a tiredness that he felt as well, nestled in his heart and bearing fruit every night as he tried to drift off to sleep.
After several long seconds, 01 inhaled and gently broke the hug, slowly helping him back on the bed. As his head sank into his pillow, she ran her fingers through his hair and settled herself next to him. Neither of them exchanged words for several long minutes, allowing the easy silence to fill the room.
"We can't keep doing this," 02 said. 01's roaming fingers stilled, stiffly tangled up in his scalp. His words hung in the air between them, and she seemed to be waiting for him to elaborate. He exhaled, his heart soothed by the weight and finality of his decision.
"I think they're planning on killing me," he continued. "They told me not to fight back."
"Like you did against eight?" her voice was low with a quiet menace.
He nodded. "Yeah. Said it'd be it for me if I laid a hand on someone else they paired me up against. And five…five hates me. And he's always getting stronger, the bastard."
"He'll never be stronger than me."
"I don't know about that," 02 rebutted. "He learned that move you used against him. Think of that. The move you used to beat him just the week before, and he almost killed me with it today. And he's been training his other moves too, getting stronger with them."
"So?" his sister scoffed. "I'll just beat him with another one next time. It doesn't matter. I'll always be stronger."
02 swallowed his frustration. He turned to face the ceiling and tried to center his thoughts. One was always like this; had always been like this, even, ever since she'd gotten her powers and clawed her way to the top of the hierarchy in the base. Her abilities made her practically untouchable; or at least it did in theory. One didn't understand that nothing could last forever; she wasn't spoiled, not really, but she was arrogant, and the fact that she had stood for so long at the top of the totem pole had made her blind to the hands reaching to drag her down to the dirt.
05 had only been brought to the base a month ago, but 02 recognized that look in his eyes; that relentless drive to strive for glory, for survival, for acknowledgement. 01 had possessed that drive, once. Unfortunately, he wasn't sure she'd had it for a long time now.
"And about us escaping," 01 spoke into the silence, drawing his attention. She held up a hand to the ceiling, fingers splayed wide. As they both watched, her fingers started to glow a bit, and 02 felt a sudden frenetic charge fill the air.
'ZAP!'
A jagged lance of energy surged from one finger to another; a bolt of pure electricity, wild and dangerous. She turned to look at him, a smile stretching across her high-boned face.
"I'm close," she said. "I can feel it."
She clenched her hand and brought the fist down to her chest, staring at it with a deep set pride shining in her eyes.
"I just need to touch Seven one more time, and I'll be able to take control of the base. I'll get us out of here."
She glanced at him, earnestness practically radiating from her. 02 stared at her warm brown eyes, and then at her fist. He allowed himself a moment of wild, breathtaking hope, a fleeting spell of time where he imagined what it would be like to be free, to experience the world beyond the metal walls they saw every day.
"Okay," he whispered, surrendering himself to it. "Okay."
He ignored the worm of doubt wriggling in his shuddering heart.