Freedom
Zenith digs his feet into the ground, running across the grassy field that is his training grounds.
Like he hasn't had enough training.
His breaths are quick and shallow, his legs ache and his lungs burn. But he keeps running, back and forth across the field. He can't stop. He needs to be able to face anything Marcus can throw at him.
He won't lose. He refuses to lose.
His steps begin to falter. How long has he been running? Five hours? Six? Time is fading into an incomprehensible blur, and it takes the world with it. There is nothing but Zenith, and the weight of his footsteps as he runs. Sweat trickles down his spine, and the heat of the mid-day sun beats down on him.
He hasn't trained like this in weeks. He's spent so much time just experiencing the world for the first time. Feeling the fresh air. Seeing the moon. Being alive.
Zenith finds a new burst of energy, and he pours on the speed, running with everything he has in him. His freedom may not last very long, but every step he takes, every breath of fresh air he breathes, every moment he's outside the lab makes escaping worth it.
It's almost surreal, to be free. To not be strapped down on a table and stabbed with needles. To not be starved in an attempt to see how long he can last without food. To not be tortured for the sake of Marcus's experiments.
He's not going to play the part on the stage Marcus set for him. Sure, they may have made him out of scratch, the first artificial human created in a lab. But he owes them nothing. He refuses to be a disposable weapon of war.
Zenith was created to be a solider, one who was disposable for his lack of 'humanness'. After all, why weep for a weapon?
But Zenith won't let himself be used and thrown away. He's more than a weapon. More than something to be manipulated. He's not Theta anymore. Not just Marcus's little experiment.
He is Zenith Zagami. And he is human.
