So, he was forced to live in constant fear of falling into the hands of those who hated him… of being at the mercy of beings who would rather study him… rather see him cold, dead, and dissected and hacked up into glass jars of formaldehyde, than quietly living his life...
…who would rather see him here, captured by Hydra, with very little-to-no-hope left of ever escaping.
He was trying his best to fight off the strong sedative they’d just injected him with as he was being half-dragged outside in the night from one building to the next. It was pouring rain, and he was shivering fiercely, with only his tattered shorts, his matted hair and beard, and the resident body heat of the accompanying guards on each arm to keep him warm as they trudged through the mud. He’d lost his hoodie and shoes about a week into being held by Hydra. It was hard to hold on to clothing that was constantly being sliced and diced and doused in your own blood. The only things covering his upper torso were deep scars and bruises from regular trips to Hydra's lab to be 'studied' and experimented on.
“He’s almost out. We’re practically carrying him now,” the guard to his right huffed as Khyree fought to pull his eyes from the back of his head. If he could just stay awake long enough to see where they were heading. He liked to be aware of what he was walking into and how high the probability was that he might wake up to excruciating pain or someone sawing at his chest. Usually, an early appointed sedative meant a bigger procedure. He’d gotten used to some of the normals of Hydra, but routine was few and far between. The only thing one could count on was regularly waking up to shackles, cold white walls, and perhaps a new scar or a mangled body part. Meals came kind of randomly. He might go days without anything. Showers came when they started to smell. They’d be hosed down in their cells and left freezing and humiliated.
Khyree learned early on to just fall in line and cooperate. He tried fighting back at the beginning, but his spirit was quickly broken by taser sticks and other various forms of torture. They had ways of sucking the life (and your mutant powers) right out of you. If you wouldn’t go quietly, you’d eventually be forced to heel by the sedative in your system or the butt of a guards rifle to the temple. It was a frustrating cycle that reduced him to sobbing like a timid child many a night.
“Wait,” the hydra guard to his left stopped in his tracks, followed by the guard on his right. “Do you hear that?” Both guards loosened their hold on Khy and let him slump down into the mud below. They turned back towards the building they had just come from, hearing the faint sound of Hydra's emergency alarm.
“ALL UNITS! ALL UNITS!” Both guards practically jumped out of their skin as the radios on their hips broke through their concentration. “REPORT TO THE EAST END NOW! WE ARE UNDER ATTACK! I REPEAT! WE ARE UNDER ATTACK!”
Everyone’s eyes went wide, Khyree’s included. His mind began to race. Under attack?! What did that mean?? He wasn’t sure if he should be hopeful or horrified. But before he could make up his mind, his arms were almost pulled from their sockets as he was suddenly jerked and dragged, backwards this time, at full speed.
“We’ll just toss the mutant back in his cell and—" BOOM!!! Both guards slid to a stop in their tracks, Khyree in tow, and looked on towards the next building as a wall about ten feet up came crumbling down. “What the—!?”
Khyree, drooping lower and lower in the guard’s grip, was still struggling to not succumb to the sedative amongst all of the chaos. His head bobbed back and forth, but he willed himself to not let go. Not yet.
Suddenly, he was dropped completely into the mud as one of the guards went for their gun and the other for his radio. “We have a visual on the attackers! They’ve broken through a wall on the East End! Looks like they’re attempting to escape!” The guard warned the rest of the campus. Khyree slumped forward, groggily.
“What do we do with the kid?” The guard with the gun asked.
“Leave ‘em! He won’t get very far with that junk in his system. He’s already half-way gone! We’ll come back and get him when things settle down! Let’s go!” And with that, he heard both guards take off, their boots kicking mud against his back as they ran towards the action.
And there was Khyree. Unshackled, unguarded, but definitely not in the best condition to make a run for it. The guards were right, he wouldn’t get very far, but maybe he could get somewhere and hide until he was strong enough to move again.
At this point, all he could hear was the fast heavy pulsing of his own heart, his breathing, and the heavy rain. If only he had access to even just a small amount of his powers. He could charge up and at least make it out of Hydra’s view. He’d have to make due with the little burst of adrenaline he felt flooding his veins.
Clumsily, he tried to rise to his feet, stumbling forward and falling face forward into the mud. With a big gasp of air, a cough and a spit, he slid around until he was able to get back up and find his footing. He was unsteady and off-balance, his head was spinning, but he was up. He didn’t have much time to find a place to hide before he’d be completely under. Swaying back and forth, blinking, he looked around to see if there was anywhere close he could hide. That’s when he spotted a big military grade cargo truck just a little ways up the yard. Perfect.
Another shot of adrenaline gave him the courage to try and get there. It was the only hope he had right now. He’d figure all the rest out when he could think clearly again. Right now was just about getting out of harm’s way, finding sanctuary. As quickly as he could, he fumbled forward like a toddler, treading through the mud, falling here and there but quickly getting back up until he finally made it to the truck. He fell against the back of it and slowly pulled himself inside.
Crawling on his knees, he found a large wooden cargo box, stuffed with paper and canvas in the back right corner. Using the last bit of energy he had, he climbed inside and buried himself under some of its contents.
He let out a labored breath, and that was it. He was spent. He sat, warmly encased in canvas, leaning back against the wall of the box, his chest heaving as he listened to the sound of the rain pelting against the truck. He had no idea how things were gonna pan out from here, but he no longer had the capacity to worry about all of that. At least, in the here and now, he could have a moment of peace.
His senses grew cloudier with each moment. He drifted in and out of consciousness and foggy sounds of distant yelling and gunshots and explosions before he completely surrendered to unconsciousness.
And there he was, knocked out inside of a cargo box in the back of a Hydra military truck, unaware of the bullets and bodies, dead or alive, surrounding him…