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VLAD

PAST

" Y ou're not listening," Vanya's voice grates on my nerves as she keeps on tugging on my arm.

"What do you want, Vanya?" I roll my eyes at her.

Since when has she become so needy? Doesn't she understand that I have other things to do?

I train daily, from dawn until noon, and then I study and help Miles with his experiments. There's very little time that I have off, and when I do it's for Vanya to blow my ears with her incessant chattering.

She doesn't seem to understand that what I'm doing is going to revolutionize science and warfare. She doesn't seem to understand anything.

No matter how much I try to explain to her that Miles' discoveries will change the world, she doesn't get it.

All she knows is to nag at me every day.

She's always hungry or scared, or in pain.

Weak.

The thoughts come unbidden, and while I know she is my sister, I can't help but feel ashamed of her.

I've been trying to make excuses about her to Miles for a long time now, telling him it's just a matter of time before she comes around and realizes the importance of what we're doing.

That she's finally going to put in some effort into completing the trials and experiments.

But the more time passes, the more I see her for what she really is.

Weak.

Weak-bodied and weak-minded, she can only drag me down.

"We have a test today," I remind her instead of admitting I have no idea what she'd been talking about. "You should get yourself together. We can't afford another failure," I tell her gravely.

After all, her failure also reflects badly on me.

"Vlad…" I turn to look at her, purple circles under her eyes, gashes all over her skin. "Can't I skip it?" she asks in a small voice.

"Vanya," I start, my tone serious, "you forget what I'm doing for you," I remind her, "this," I trace the small laceration on her skin that's mostly healed, "is a blessing."

She knows what I mean too, because anyone else with her poor endurance would have died a long time ago. Instead, I'd always assigned her tests that I knew she could handle, and when the opportunity arose to help her I did. But doing that is risky for me.

I've just gained Miles' trust. If I mess this up now, then I'll lose everything. Vanya too, since she would never be able to survive under normal conditions.

"You know what happens to others." I raise an eyebrow at her, lifting my own shirt to show her the myriad of scars that run along my torso.

But my case is different.

I've become so inured to pain, so used to being cut open and put back again, that nothing fazes me anymore.

Nothing hurts. Nothing shocks.

I'm… empty.

It's interesting when you put it like that, since in the time I've been with Miles I've only become smarter, stronger, faster. But while my brain has soaked in all available knowledge, my soul has slowly faded away.

Empty.

Even the sight of Vanya battered and in pain fails to rouse any sympathy out of me. The only reaction I get is a rational anger that she can't do better.

Cold rationality.

Every type of warmth that I might’ve possessed at some point is gone. Sometimes, I don't even remember what it was like to… feel.

"I can't do this again, Vlad," she complains, shaking her head slowly. "I…"

Her eyes are bloodshot, her lips chapped. "I don't know how long I can continue like this," she whispers, and I see what she's doing.

She's done it before. Trying to get me to pity her. And maybe before it would have worked, but my patience's run thin.

"You have to, Vanya," I tell her, exasperated. "You'll become stronger. You'll see." I nod at her, leaving her in her tiny corner while I stand up, righting myself and preparing for today's tests.

Miles and I had developed another system—a new area of immunology that could aid us in improving our model for the perfect soldier.

The body can be strong and can resist however it wants in the face of pain, but it's all in vain if the immunity is compromised.

And so we'd started theorizing and putting together a list that could affect immunity and how we could stop it.

Everyone's already been vaccinated against most known diseases, but there are other things out there that can prove just as deadly.

Like poison. Or venom.

We'd already gone through the poison stage, and we've been ingesting small dosages of ground leaves from poisonous plants like belladonna, aconite, datura and many others.

Of course, we lost a lot of people until we got the dosages right, but ever since then I've noticed an increase in alertness, my body responding better to my commands, and thus proving our experiment was well on its way to success.

After a lengthy trial, Miles had slipped a larger dosage of aconite in my food without telling me. It had all been to eliminate bias or the placebo effect from the findings of the study, and seeing that I survived, I'd say the experiment worked.

Vanya, however, hasn't fared so well. She's been sluggish since her last dosage of belladonna, her focus impacted as well as her appetite.

She's getting weaker.

I don't want to admit this to myself, but I don't know how much long she's going to last like this. And I don't know how that makes me feel.

She follows slowly behind me as we go to the lab area, dragging her feet on the floor and trying to get my attention with her petty tricks.

"It's not going to work, Vanya," I sigh, grabbing her hand.

Her head is hung low as she continues to walk with me.

"There you are," Miles greets us, his white lab coat, and his manufactured smile on. "I've already prepared the specimens, and I'll randomly select one for each." He flutters his fingers over a couple of syringes as if he's debating which one to choose first.

"So?" He turns, arching a brow, the syringe with the venom in his hand. "Who goes first?"

I give Vanya a small push, my eyes on her as I try to tell her with my expression that this is her chance to show Miles she's improving.

Her lashes flutter as she blinks rapidly, her eyes on me as if she's seeking my opinion.

I just give her a quick nod, pushing her slightly toward Miles.

"Little Vanya," he exclaims, "wonderful."

She's quickly placed on the reclining bed, her arm, already riddled with needle marks, stretched out and waiting for the shot.

Her eyes are set on me, her gaze blank.

No, that's not right. Her gaze is filled with something, yet I have a hard time understanding what it is. Her eyes are down-turned, but clear. It's not happiness, nor is it sadness. It's…

I don't know.

I can differentiate a few expressions, and I've taught myself what to look for in happiness and in sadness. But her expression? It's neither.

I frown as I continue to watch Miles inject the venom into her skin.

She squeezes her eyes shut at the invasion, the place of injection already swollen and red.

"Aren't you curious how this will go?" Miles asks me as he prompts Vanya to hop off the chair for me to take her place.

"I know it will go well," I reply confidently as I take a seat, folding my sleeve and presenting him with my mangled arm.

For all the needle marks that Vanya has on her skin, her arm looks pristine when compared to mine.

Long, jagged scars run all along the length of my forearm and go well into my upper arm. The result of surgery on top of surgery, of having my arm opened up to test my pain or to study its anatomical structure, I'd endured everything.

Even now, Miles has a hard time finding a vein to inject me into, the scar tissue prominent and gnarly. He purses his lips as he turns my arm around until he finds a good site to dump the venom into my skin.

"You each have a different venom. We'll see how you react to it." He smirks.

Vanya looks between the two of us, a sigh escaping her when she realizes we've started talking about the merits of the experiment and what the next stage is if it's successful.

And as we go back to our sleeping quarters she doesn't even bother to talk to me anymore.

After that, it only gets worse. She no longer asks me to help her or spare her, coming with me to every appointment and getting injected with the venom as expected. She doesn't even complain about the pain, or the swollen skin.

In fact, she just doesn't interact with me at all.

In the beginning I'm ecstatic, thinking that she's finally come around and that she's accepted why we are here and our importance in the grand scheme of things.

But more time passes and I can't help but note that for all her quiet demeanor, there is something strange about her.

I can't put my finger on it. But something is niggling in my mind.

Something isn't right.

And it only dawns on me when she starts feeling off, her pale skin changing color, more bruised and swollen than usual. She's barely moving, sleeping in all her spare time.

When I bring up the issue to Miles, he tells me that it's probably the venom slowly working on her body. While I'd reluctantly nodded at his explanation, I still can't help but feel that something isn't right.

The following day, Miles calls both Vanya and I to his surgery room.

The situation's already become too dire, and one of Vanya's eyes is so bloodshot and swollen, I feel it's going to burst out at any point.

"Don't worry," Miles smiles down at me. "This is an opportunity to learn," he says as he instructs Vanya to get on the bed.

She looks at me, her eyes almost sparkling with undefined feelings. But she doesn't protest as she sits down.

She doesn't even make a sound as Miles makes an incision around her eye, cutting dead tissue that had been rotting in her socket.

I'm on the sidelines, watching as her eye is semi-detached, hanging out of her socket, tiny movements denoting she is aware and she is watching me even through that limp eye.

Though I show no reaction, there's a small prickle down my spine as I watch the blood pool down her face.

"This shouldn't be here," Miles tsks as he removes a rather large maggot larva from behind her eye. "I wonder how it got here," he muses.