How long have I been here?

I do not remember anymore; I stopped counting after the third year.

My unblinking eyes landed on the scratches I had once made into the wall of my cell--my room--no, no, cell. I still remember that this was always my cell.

That was one of the few things that I still remember from before my caretakers started performing these experiments on me and the others who came here with me. (Was one of them my friend?) Standing in the pristine white halls, the caretakers had told us we were on the front of an exciting new era for Humanity, that we would help them finally reach the final steps of immortality for Humanity as a whole. I remember feeling excited and like I was going to be doing something meaningful with my life, especially since I was going to become one of the new Humans the caretakers were calling The Infinity.

They kept telling us this was an honor, even as we were separated and put into rooms--no, cells, must remember, cells, that were beautiful and clean at the time. They were almost welcoming with their warm decor and the amenities that we were freely given. I still remember everyone being excited at that final happy dinner the caretakers gave us before the next morning came and the step toward becoming the first of The Infinity began.

Almost immediately, I remember thinking something was off about the way the caretakers suddenly treated all of us starting that morning. I was strapped down to an uncomfortable table in my cell, the bed I had slept in the night before was taken away, as were the other amenities that had been promised to all of those who participated in the experiments. Even the things I know for sure that I had brought with me were taken away, and my questions about what was happening were ignored.

To this day I believe that, after that moment, the caretakers no longer saw us as Human.

All we were viewed as good for were playthings for our caretakers to inject and cut and bleed and spray with things I could not recognize even still. The screaming throughout the day and night prevented any kind of sleep at any hour, and even if it were quiet, the caretakers probably would not have allowed us to sleep anyway. Once I had passed out and was woken up with a scalpel tearing through the back of my foot so they could test if an injection they had created would force the tendon back together.

It did not, and I was left with the mind-altering pain for, what seemed like, weeks until, at last, they injected my leg with something that worked, and as much pain shot through my body when they injected me with it, I wished that it hadn't. The caretakers praised themselves for finding something for proper healing, allowing me a moment to breathe, but only a moment before they began injecting both of my arms and legs with whatever serum or medication or whatever it was they loaded into the needles. I couldn't rightfully say what it was supposed to do, but all I remember for several days after that was white-hot pain.

The caretakers talked around me, mentioning my skin simply sliding off of my body and reforming grotesquely. They said that I was still doing better than the others who had been injected, though, and I remember watching a table being rolled by my open door sometime later with a bloated, twisted, deformed body on it. The person was still groaning and clinging to life, even as the caretakers around them were cutting bits of skin off of them and talking about destroying them, "like the others". I had thought of someone when I heard the caretakers saying this, hoping they hadn't succumbed to this fate too, but I can no longer recall who. (Perhaps it was the friend I vaguely remember who came with me?)

Sometime later than even that, after my body just seemed to accept the pain as my new reality, I found myself unable to blink, as if my eyelids were just gone, and I felt like I couldn't properly close my mouth, my teeth baring themselves constantly with the absence of lips.

The next thing I knew, the caretakers were around me now, calling me "another failure" and that I needed to be destroyed. They talked loudly about placing me into the incinerator with the others that failed that day as they drew blood and sliced bits of skin off of me, ignoring me when I screamed.

However, I wasn't a failure, they just wouldn't know that until they threw me into the incinerator. Because moments after I caught fire and began to burn, I crawled out, still on fire and bleeding profusely as my disfigured flesh melted away and reformed over and over again, leaving a trail of gore behind me, as I made my way down the hall to the room the caretakers were talking in before finally passing out. Quite unfortunately, I was not dead, just unconscious.

When I awoke, I was no longer on fire, bleeding, and my skin was seemingly staying in place, but I was strapped back down to a table with the caretakers looking at me in amazement. Suddenly, I was their first success, and they were proud of themselves, even as, in the coming weeks, I did not heal as they had expected: my eyelids and lips never returned, my skin stretched painfully and thinly over my now extended limbs, and my mind slipped away. As time passed, I eventually forgot my name, my family, my friends, and even if I was a man or a woman, I simply became Zero, the very first of The Infinity, a race of immortal Humans.

I don't know what the caretakers did outside of my ce--room--cell, must remember, after that moment, but I was allowed to roam about my own small space of my own free will. I didn't always want to walk around, though, as my too-long legs snapped and cracked--sometimes the wrong way--every time I put my weight onto them. Eventually, my nails grew out and were hard as diamonds, so I scratched each day into part of the wall, but as I said, this stopped after three years. I saw no point in it anymore.

Now every day was spent wandering in aimless circles, occasionally touching my now-clawed hands to the door I would never see beyond again, other times tracing the old scratch marks and even considering adding more. It had been so long, though, I could not even begin to fathom how many scratches would be needed to catch up, and so the thought of adding more was abandoned time and time again.

That wasn't to be said I didn't have any excitement in my life.

Every so often--I think it was once a year, but I couldn't be sure--the metal shutters of the window in my room would (no, no, cell, don't forget) open and a group of people would stare at me as I stared at them. There was always one person, though, that was facing away from me, talking to the rest of the people, and I could never hear what they were saying. All I could see were the mix of sympathetic and disgusted faces on the people looking in on my tiny world, and how the once pristine halls outside had grown old and dirty. It was almost like the place I had suffered in for so long had just fallen out of people's minds.

Then suddenly, the people just stopped coming and I began to wonder if I had been forgotten along with the place outside of my room. After some time, I accepted that I was truly alone, a forgotten experiment no one wanted to remember existing in the first place.

It seemed I wasn't forgotten for much longer, though, as I was walking around my room one day, and the door shuddered to life and squealed as it slid open for the first time in what seemed like a lifetime. Light poured in but nothing else happened beyond that, so I cautiously approached, only to be greeted by a group of four people in green clothes with guns.

I stared at them for the longest time, confused and unsure of what they were about to do. The group even just stared back at me, fear and worry in their eyes. Finally, after a long moment of silence, I opened my mouth and managed to ask as best as I could, "Why, are you, here?" My unused voice cracked and strained with the effort of forming even these simple words, unable to even get through that simple question without pausing to give my throat a quick break.

The people jumped and looked around at each other; I don't think they had been expecting me to talk. After another long moment, the one closest to me took a deep breath. "Are you Infinity Zero?"

Infinity Zero? I don't remember ever being called that. "I am, Zero."

"Shit," the one who had spoken to me cursed.

Another one in the group said, "This is worse than we were told."

The first one who had spoken looked to me once again. "Do you remember your real name?"

"Zero," I said once more. This was the only name I knew and remembered; anything from before I became Zero was lost to time. I looked between their horrified faces as they talked amongst themselves about what to do, then looked around the hall, which had fallen into disrepair since I had last seen it through my window. Above my window, even, was an old, dirty banner that read "See the first of The Infinity - Zero! Created over 150 years ago!"

One hundred and fifty years? Was that when the people were still coming by to look at me? How long ago was that for everything to look like it had fallen apart?

"They haven't even blinked," one of the group said.

"I cannot," I clarified best I could. "My, eyelids, fell off, when I was made." The person I had addressed turned green and appeared like they were going to vomit at my words, and I didn't understand. It was just a fact, a reality, that my eyelids had fallen away years ago. Was it really so horrific?

The first one finally sighed and looked back at me. "You are the legend that paved the way for The Infinity to exist," he explained, "and I am sorry that you've been forgotten here for so long." When I asked how long, they looked confused and concerned. "Our records show that it's been three hundred and seventy years since you were initially experimented on."

So it had been over two hundred years since I had seen a real Human; one that wasn't myself in the dull and dirty mirror kept in my room. Cell. Cell, right?

The group was still talking as I thought and watched them interact. It had been so long... "Has this, at least, helped, Humanity?" I didn't mean to interrupt their conversation, but they also didn't seem to mind the question. Truthfully, they all just looked sad, like something in my question truly depressed them. "What?"

"Only the richest among Humanity has been allowed to become part of The Infinity," he said with a twinge of sadness to his voice. "It is considered a reward for being part of the upper classes of society."

My heart dropped to my stomach and my blood ran cold. What? That wasn't what we were told The Infinity would be comprised of all those years ago. We had been told this was going to be for the benefit of all mankind, that our volunteering for the experiments would allow Humanity a renewed chance of survival and continued growth. I did not sacrifice my body, my very Humanity, just for this gift of immortality to be used in such a despicable way!

My nails ripped through the metal of the wall beside me before I even realized what had happened, but this stunned me. I didn't realize I could do that! I looked from my claw to the also-stunned people near me; a few of them had moved away from me. Good to know that other people thought that was a weird occurrence too.

"Um," the first person who had spoken to me said slowly, "hey, are you okay?"

"Y-Yeah... Don't know, what came over, me." I was not a violent person, as far as I could remember, and I hadn't had a reason to be in all the years I had been locked up here. So this sudden outburst was rather unexpected.

The group all exchanged worried looks, seeming to regret coming here in unison. Part of me hoped they didn't leave. They seemed nice, but maybe that was because I hadn't interacted with anyone in a very long time, and my last interaction was with the caretaker who locked me in my room and shuddered my window before I was left alone.

After this moment of silence, that same person told me, "My name is Lucien." He gestured to the rest of the small group. "They are Alexa, Tyra, and David." I raised my hand in a short wave to these three after their introduction, which was reluctantly returned. "I know it may not seem like it, but we are here to get you out."

Out? "What do, you mean, out?"

"Out of this lab," Lucien clarified, his voice lined with confusion and sadness. "We are a search and rescue squad hired to find and rescue Infinity Zero--you."

Rescue? I was in need of rescue? I suppose that being locked away for over three hundred years like the shameful mistake of people who expected better of themselves would be cause for needing a rescue. I finally nodded at him, deciding that wherever I would be going had to be better than here. At least maybe I could talk to and learn more about the four that were rescuing me now. "Where are, we going?"

He waved at the other three, causing them to walk ahead, before he gently got me to follow him slowly, the bones in my legs once again cracking and groaning under my weight. "To our client, Rebecca Chambers," he answered frankly as we walked. "She is one of the oldest of The Infinity, and she claims that her sister was part of these experiments many years ago." He looked at me. "I am willing to bet she thinks that you're her sister."

I shrugged at this, my shoulders popping as I did. "I could not, tell you. I, do not, remember, before I came here." It was getting harder to talk as I walked, having not done this much physical activity in a very long time, as my world had been confined to that small room. Even walking down the hall was something I hadn't been able to do since before I was locked away, and it was a straining activity.

Passing a room I actually recognized, I stopped and looked inside. The remains of the incinerator I crawled out of long ago lay collapsed in a heap of twisted metal on the floor, surrounded by ash that I knew had once been other Humans who were tricked into being experimented on the same as I had been. Seeing it like that triggered a sadness deep in my heart. That was the room where so many people, myself included, had been thrown away, deemed to be failures and therefore useless to the experiment at large, and it was unceremoniously forgotten and left to rot.

Just like me.

"Zero?" Lucien caught my attention, drawing my eyes from the dilapidated incinerator. "Are you okay?"

I shook my head. "This was, where many people, were killed in flame." I pointed to the heap of metal and slowly said, "Incinerator. Failures were thrown in, to die. I was, thrown in, too." Before they realized I was not a failure, went unsaid.

His face had dropped by the time I looked back to him, and the look of horror on his face had evolved as he looked back to me. "You survived," he whispered, horrified. When I nodded, confused at that statement, he cleared his throat and said, "Come on Zero. Let's get you out of this fucked place." He took my hand more gently than I recall anyone ever doing so, and slowly lead me toward the exit.

I did not understand how Lucien could just take my hand so casually; I knew how I looked, like a monster compared to a normal Human, but he did not seem to hold any fear for me. It was like hearing me talk about the incinerator and him realizing what I had survived to this point gave me a modicum of Humanity in his eyes. I looked at our hands and gently closed my elongated fingers around his; it felt nice to be treated like a real person.

When we reached the door with the others, one of the women, Alexa, I think, held out a pair of dark glasses and told me to put them on. They would protect my untrained eyes from the sun, she explained as I did as told, and I somehow just understood. It had been so long that I wondered if these would help, even as the other man, David opened the door and an insanely bright light filled the hall and surrounded us.

With a gentle grip still on my hand, Lucien lead me outside and was patient as, at first, I recoiled from the sun and tried to block the light with my free hand, unable to shield my eyes any other way. Slowly, though, I was able to step out, my deformed foot landing in the soft greenness that I remembered to be called grass, and a cool breeze hit my thin skin for the first time since I had come to be in that place.

I looked out over the landscape through the tinted veil of the dark glasses and felt tears slide down my cheeks. The only thing I could say as Lucien, Alexa, Tyra, and David looked upon me was, "Free."