Fool's Paradise

It had just past noon and the experimentees were making their way to their experiment chambers to commence their trials.

In Jophiel's chamber, two experimentees entered; Ian and Gian-Luca, they were greeted by Overseer Jophiel. He observed the two, specifically Gian-Luca.

"What happened to him?" Overseer Jophiel asked Ian. Gian-Luca's skin was pale, and his eyes were surrounded with dark circles. He was hunched over, making him shorter than his usual height. He was visually weak, and seemingly frail. He hadn't even made eye contact with the Overseer yet. On a normal day he'd greet Jophiel with a "good morning" at least.

Ian eyed his roommate. "I woke up to him sitting by his bed. Vomit, everywhere below his feet."

Jophiel walked up to his subject, observing his eyes that stared downwards. "Seems like you didn't get sleep either. Gian-Luca," he snapped his fingers. "Are you okay?"

The boy didn't reply. He didn't show any recognition for the question either. He was stuck inside his own world.

There was a moment of silence as Overseer Jophiel simply watched the boy. "We'll just give him some time. I have to retrieve Abel from his containment room anyways."

He began walking towards the chamber's exit. "John, Ian, keep an eye on him." The two nodded and Jophiel walked out.

Ian looked back at Gian-Luca. There was one thing he hadn't told Jophiel, and it's that Gian-Luca was hiding bloodied bruises under his bangs. Ian had actually woken up halfway through the night to Gian-Luca repeatedly slamming his head against the floor, muttering "I wanna go back, I wanna go back, I wanna go back," over and over again. It wasn't until Ian told him to shut-up that he stopped. Guessing by how he looked, Ian assumed Gian-Luca hadn't slept at all.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ian caught glimpse of people passing by their chamber through the window. It was Veronica and Vidia.

The window was knocked on, "Gula!", Vidia yelled.

Gian-Luca instantaneously reacted to this call. His head turned towards the voice that came from the window. His eyes widened with fear.

"No no no NO NO!" He slowly backed away.

"NO NO NO TAKE ME BACK! TAKE ME BACK!!!" He now screamed.

Suddenly, as if realizing, Gian-Luca's head shot up. He looked back down at his hand and remembered what he'd been practicing for the past year. In a quick succession, he planted his palm onto his bruised forehead, pressing as hard as he could against it. In his peripheral vision, he could see Vidia now knocking harder against the window, worried with how Gian-Luca reacted.

Ian tried to butt in, "Gian-Luca what are you-"

"GO AWAY, I SAID GO AWAY YOU MURDERER!" He yelled in Vidia's direction. He now clenched his forehead tighter than ever. Using what was left of his mental strength, he activated his ability.

Gian-Luca's eyes immediately clouded. He fell backwards, breaking through the layers of memories. Like glass, each memory was shattered as he fell through, eventually slamming onto the ground. His eyes slammed shut.

"What has he done?" John asked in worry. "Did he just use his own ability on himself?"

Ian looked down at Gian-Luca, then back up towards the window. He could see Vidia being pulled away by Overseer Ariel, as Veronica walked alongside.

"What the fuck just happened?" He asked himself. He looked back down towards his roommate.

Gian-Luca's eyes unexpectedly snapped open. He stared into the open space for a moment, before looking around the room. He held his head, and used his other hand to push himself up to sit.

"What… happened?" Gian-Luca asked.

Ian and John looked at him with the same amount of confusion he conveyed.

"I could be asking you the same," Ian said. He reached his hand out, pulling Gian-Luca up. "You began freaking out as soon as your sister called out to you from there," he pointed towards the window.

"My sister?"

"Yeah, Vidia."

Gian-Luca froze for a moment, but his expression calmed. "Really? I can't seem to remember," he held his head. He felt the bumpy bruises. "Why is my head swollen?"

Ian looked at Gian-Luca with an inconceivable realization.

He really just wiped his own memories, Ian said to himself.

John in the back room corner was already typing on his computer, as if unaware of what had happened. But truly, he was writing down the unintentional but incredible results they had just come across.

{ Subject Gian-Luca Yvox is capable of applying his own ability to himself; capable of erasing his own memories. }