“You can’t just erase every single memory from his mind.”

“I’ll do as I desire. This is my prison and I can do as I please. Mr. Seo?” the warden motioned with his hand for the aspiring scientist to come closer. Though his eyes were full of fear, Mr. Seo stepped forward to the chair in the center of the tightly concealed room. A young boy, who was currently unconscious, was being strangled by the straps imprisoning him to the chair. Thick straps of leather were wrapped on his arms, legs, around his stomach and across his forehead. He was beyond weak, beyond being able to escape.

“Sir, shall I leave memories of his family?” the scientist began to boot up his latest contraption, flipping some switches as the lights began to turn on and beep furiously. The warden leaned onto the wall, thinking for a few moments. When he seemed to have conjured his thoughts, he gave a small nod and walked over to the sputtering machine that Mr. Seo had hooked up to Aron’s forehead, small shocks of electricity coming out from the incisions.

“He shall have no memory of his life here, of his arrest or his past other than his family.”

“Well, sir, I can make him have recognition abilities, but the machine is highly unpredictable…” he said, looking at the innocent looking boy in front of him.

“I don’t care.” The warden stated, dismissing the matter with the wave of his gloved hand. “We need more officers and this is the last resort we have.” He chuckled somewhat menacingly, throwing his hands into the air as a careless gesture. “The only thing we have is these lowlifes…” the scientist laughed nervously, scratching his electric looking hair sticking up in all directions, before reaching for the machine and setting it.

“It’s all ready to go, sir.” Mr. Seo bowed, before resting his pale hand on the final switch. It was a rather sad sight. An insanely exhausted looking scientist standing beside a boy strapped into a chair against his will, wires inserted into his brain, small trails of blood running down his face from the careless incisions made. Without a doubt they would be infected and his chances of survival would be slim. It didn’t matter; his life was nothing.

“I don’t care, erase the bastard’s memory!” the warden hissed in disgust, walking out of the room, breezing past his unconscious victim and mad scientist, moving on to his next important event of the day, leaving the scientist to do his work.

He was nervous, yes. It was scary for him. Sweat dripped down his face and landed near the floor, his hand consistently resting on the lever. He hated his job; especially this particular part.

“I’m sorry…”  he whispered, shutting his eyes closed as he pulled down the red lever, the machine rurring and sending immediate shocks to his victim’s brain.

The blood-curling screams cut through all of the machine’s noises, it almost seemed as it would go through the sound-proof walls. He squirmed in pain, his throat beginning to go dry with his constant screams; each yell racking through his body with extreme force. The scientist turned away, plugging his ears as he always did. It was terrible. Aron’s face was pained, bloody and full of tears. His screams were unbearable painful and loud, his life would never be the same. Sparks flew from the machine and from Aron’s head, his memory being erased by the second.

Then, the terror was stopped. The machine calmed down and all that could be heard was sobbing. Sobbing from not only pain, but the fear of what had been happening. All he had wanted was a good life for his brother, in return he received this… An erased memory, a useless life with no one he loved in it… Mr. Seo finally turned around, taking out the wires from the prisoner’s head, never once looking into his eyes. Aron was looking up at him with pained and empty dull brown eyes. He always avoided the eyes as he knew they would be forever hopeless and full of pain, something the scientist could never understand.

As he painfully extracted the wires and placed small stitches into Aron’s now shaved scalp, he sighed to himself. He wondered what would become of this boy. He would be thrown into training, and his chances of survival after his memory erasing would be slim as it was. Cleaning the cuts as carefully as he could, the scientist began to undo the buckles restraining Aron.

His memory was as white as a slate, other than language and his family. It was sad, really, how he sat there once he was freed. Aron simply sat in the chair, not knowing where to go or what to do. Looking to the scientist with confused eyes, he whispered,

“Who are you… Where am I…” his eyes skimmed over the darkly lit room, his hand softly touching the dark red blood dried to his face. Aron blinked, looking down at the clothes he was wearing. Normal street clothes, certainly nothing that a prisoner would be wearing. Mr. Seo said nothing  but pointed to the bolted door in the corner of the room.

“They’re coming for you, Aron.”

“Who?” he demanded, sitting up straight in the chair, immediately feeling dizzy and falling back down as tears began to fill his eyes. Tears of frustration poured down his face; Aron buried his head in his hands, uncontrollably sobbing. The way he knew nothing, the way he had no idea where he was or who he even was, the way he was frustrated… The way it felt like he had started a completely new life. Not only was he frightened and frustrated, he was alone. During his breakdown, the scientist had taken his horrific machine and left Aron in his room. It was frustrating more than anything. His brain was in extreme pain and he didn’t know how much more he could even take. It was painful to even think, painful to look at his surroundings.

“Why… Why won’t you leave my mind?” he asked the cold air surrounding his shaking body. There was a constant image in his mind that wouldn’t leave. An image of a brown haired boy kneeling down beside a shorter, smiling blonde haired boy, happy as could be. They were happy, not a care in the world. Their smiles were gigantic; the bigger boy’s arms wrapped around the smaller one in a protective stance. The smaller boy couldn’t have been that old; maybe 5 or 6 years old. But this wasn’t the odd thing; the odd thing was that the image refused to leave his mind. It was as if… As if the image was all that he could see. All he could see were their stupid happy smiles. He was confused. Was the boy in the image him? He recognized the blonde boy for sure. Just the thought of seeing his smiling little face made  Aron’s lips tug upward in a small but painful smile. His younger brother, Minki, was all that he could remember of his past life. Aron folded his hands together in front of him, smiling softly as the memory of Ren came back to him.

“Hyung!” a little blonde boy tottered about, hiding behind the leg of a chair within a small apartment. “Come and find me!” he giggled and hugged onto the chair to keep his balance. An older boy wandered aimlessly around the kitchen table, looking in all the wrong places.

“Minki-ah, I can’t find you!” he called out, looking under the table with a smile at the sight of his younger brother. Ren laughed and tried to hide behind the chair, closing his eyes tightly. “Ren…” he grinned and swooped up the little toddler from his hiding spot, swinging him around in the air as he carefully took him in his arms.

“You found me!” he squeaked, laughing endlessly. They both smiled and laughed. “Hyung’s so good at this game!” a giggling Minki said as he was placed onto the couch. Aron let out a small laugh and ruffled his younger brother’s hair.

“I’ll always be here to play games with you.” Aron said with a grin.

“Do you promise hyung?” Ren asked with a serious tone to his tiny voice. “Do you promise that you’ll play with me every single day until we grow up?” he carefully extended his pinky finger out to his older brother, looking at him intently. Aron smiled and linked his pinky with the latter’s smaller one.

“I promise, Minki. I’ll always be here to play with you until the very day we grow up.”

The memory of the broken promise echoed in Aron’s mind, the thoughts torturing him slowly. And that was simply all he was left with. Memories.

[[A/N: I'm sorry subbies! T_T This took me so long to update and I cried while writing it.. I'm so so sorry! Thank you for still being here <3 ]]