4POV: Luce
#14: Every person is born with a twin. One is evil and one is good. Your twin died at birth; the government isn't sure which one you are. They make their best guess and send you to one of the territories when you turn sixteen. They choose wrong; how do you proceed?
The tests were constant. Every day; every hour; every minute of the day, I was challenged physically, mentally and psychologically. On a good day, it may only consist of complex mathematical equations (e.g. simultaneous equations, quadratics, surds, etc.) and maybe the occasional half-marathon. If I was unlucky, I was compelled into having electrodes attached to my temple for both brain examination and electrical shocks. From the day I was born to now, 16 years later, I never got to have a proper relationship with anyone. Not even my own mother, who only birthed me for these experiments. And guess what? The scientists that put me through this constant torture is no step closer to finding out what I am since my sister died. Am I good? Am I evil? I'm not even sure. However, the researchers are out of time. The government set a date, that on my sixteenth birthday, if they didn't figure out what their grant was designated for, they would take an educated guess and send me to one of the 87 territories. Lucky for me, they gave me the benefit of the doubt, and sent me to Area 63, populated by the good twins.
And here I am, standing before two large doors, about 11 inches in size. The numbers 6 and 3 were printed on the doors, next to each other obviously. I could not be more happy. I was finally going to be able to live a more normal life, socialise with people my own age, and actually have a reason to want to get up the next morning. As the door started creaking open, the first thing I was greeted by was several hundred orphans, ranging from the ages of 5 to 28 from the looks of things. I knew I was going to be the odd one out, because no normal twin enters an area this late in the game. Usually it's a way younger. As the guards forced them to move away, I was also pushed inside. That's when I finally got the see the environment they had chosen for me to live in. Each territory has different living conditions, another challenge for the subjects to adapt to their surrounding areas. Area 63 was a lush terrain of grass, crops, trees, flowering plants, and much more. I stood in awe at the beauty of this place, that I didn't notice the exit closing behind me. I don't know the plan behind this whole thing (the government were very impeccable about keeping that a secret), but at least they preserved nature and wildlife.
"Hey." I snapped out of my admiration, and looked to my right to find a young man who was just a few inches taller than me (5'5 or 168 cm in case you wanted to know). He has messy, brown hair, which also looked very soft. His body was quite ordinary for regular teenagers these days, although you could see that his work in the area had given his arms some tone. This fellow also had dark eyes to match his hair, rough eyebrows and his face had certainly lost the match against acne. But this individual was very attractive to say the least.
"I'm Joe. Everyone here either seems scared or cautious to meet you, since you're the 'undecided twin' that the institute hasn't shut up about since they found you. I'd thought I'd come greet you since you seem nice enough. Looks like the government made the right choice about which side you belong on. Anyway, I'd rather not call you by what the majority have appointed you as, so what's your name?" I just stood there in relative shock, forgetting that the social convention is to reply to his question. Suddenly, he piped up again. "Oh God, do you even speak English? This would be embarrassing if you didn't. What do you speak then? Français? Español? Polskie? Nihongo?"
Before Joe could name any more languages, I spoke up. "No, no. I speak English."
"Good good. Back to my original question then, do you mind telling me your name?"
"Luce," I replied reluctantly.
"Huh, weird but kinda cool name. You sure seem quiet for someone who spent several years in captivity, most people would normally want to tell someone hours of tales about their life. Maybe you're just not that smart." Joe uttered this like it was nothing. From what I can tell, he's a bit of an asshole.
"No offence, but I think I'm a lot smarter than you, especially since I've been 'educated' for an extra eleven years longer than you."
"That's my girl!" I felt myself go slightly red at the sudden compliment that was normally addressed to girlfriends rather than strangers. "I pissed you off intentionally so you'd speak some more. I want to know more about you after all."
"You're a jackass, you know that right?"
"And you're a bitch."
"Touché."
As I accompanied Joe to the cabin that I would now be residing in, I asked Joe about his life. He knew all about mine, everyone in Area 63 did, but I knew nothing about him. Besides the fact that he's apparently fluent with a variety of languages due to the different nationalities here.
"Well…" he started, "like yours, my parents only had me and Daniel, my twin, for the experiment. I guess it was more for the money gained by participating in the experiment, since it was around £20 million for each set of twins. I was easily identified as the better twin because Dan tried to push a young girl in front of a train at the age of three."
"Holy shit, that's awful."
"Believe me, Dan was one of the better-no, less fucked up cases that I've heard. You should hear about Clarissa's brother. Allegedly, at four, he had stolen a baby from their neighbor, cut it open with a kitchen knife, and started playing with the poor child's organs. Now that is awful."
"Okay, now I feel a little sick."
"I guess gore wasn't something you experienced a lot in isolation. You'll need to start getting to grips with it though because there's a lot of stories to go around, plus we do eat animals that live in here because the institute only give us a few materials and snacks per month. Anyway, we're here." We arrived a pretty standard lodging, much like a ski resort hut. It was wooden, had a few windows, and had moss growing over the roof. "It's not much, but it'll do. There's several of these dotted around, so you have to remember the route we just took and the number of the lodge, which is 32 if you hadn't already noticed from the front door."
Impressed, I asked, "wow, did you guys make these?"
"No, they were here to begin with."
"Less wow. It would have been awesome if you built these by hand."
He chuckled. "Ah well. Each lodge has six rooms, split between three girls and three boys. You'll be taking the final room, seeing as this is the only group that's willing to 'endanger themselves while they sleep.' People already living here are me, Clarissa - the one I mentioned before, Donnie, Moira and Felix. Your room isn't quite ready, so you'll be staying in mine."
"But where will you sleep?"
"Where do you think? In the same bed with you obviously."
"W-what?" I blushed intensely, I had only known this man for half an hour at most and we were going to sleep together (not literally)? I looked up at Joe, only to see that he was beside himself with laughter. The dickhead was only joking around. "I hate you."
Still laughing to himself, he answered, "Everyone does." After another minute or so, Joe was finally able to calm himself down and talk more. "All joking aside, I'll be sleeping on the downstairs couch. I spend a lot of my nights there anyway. As much as I would like to be that close with someone was cute as you, I need to work myself up to a proper relationship first."
"Another thing you need to know about me is that I'm a huge narcissist, so that "cute" comment you made just there went straight to my head."
"Good to know, means it'll be easier to make a move on you."
"Wouldn't you prefer being with someone you know?"
"One, I do know you. Pretty much anyway. And two, Moira is a relationship with Felix and Clarissa is gay, and I don't talk to any other girls, so you're my best shot."
"So I'm just a single option?"
"Of course not, I liked you when I first saw you."
"Sure."
"Moving on, let's go in instead of dawdling outside."
After giving a grand tour of the house to which was only occupied by the two of us, we entered Joe's room, also known as my temporary place of rest for the night. All of a sudden, Joe stripped his top half to reveal his surprising toned front and back, to match his built arms.
"What the hell are you doing?!" I shouted with surprise.
"I'm just changing my top, calm down. My top smells quite rancid, so give me two minutes." As he turned himself away from me, I took the chance to observe a possible rare sight. It does look like he's done a bit of work before coming to me, there was still traces of sweat resting on his back. As I continued to look on, there was a change in my bodily sensations. My heart began to elevate, my hands became clammy and there was a small shortness of breath. When given the chance to read in the institute, I read about experiencing a crush or love. What I was going through now were in fact symptoms of this. However, there was something additional. There's only one word I can explain this with. Hunger. Suddenly, a wave of emotion came over me as I looked upon Joe's back. I couldn't hold back, I walked towards him and embraced him from behind.
Startled, Joe asked, "Luce? What are you doing? I'm supposed to be the one coming onto you."
And then, I opened my mouth, sunk my teeth into his skin and started to devour him.
Author's note: So yes, the general idea is that Luce was the evil twin and is a cannibal (not a vampire - I didn't want to go with supernatural ideas for this prompt). The reason the scientists wasn't able to figure that out was because none of them were in extreme proximity to her or gave her any human flesh. The only reason I chose to go down the cannibal route was because it seemed the most interesting and least cliche. Plus I have been reading Tokyo Ghoul recently, and ghouls and cannibals are very similar to each other. I promise to make other prompts with happy endings, I just thought I'd get off this fictional piece with a bang.
Answering to NotARealName123's question: I found all my prompts on Pinterest. If you know any other places I can find new prompts, please let me know. Also, I do plan on doing #5 soon, but I'm thinking of doing a happier prompt first because my idea of that prompt will be quite morbid.
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it.