Black.
It was way different from the blinding white walls that he was used to.
He found it sort of serene, but at the same time he couldn't see.
Oh.
His eyes were closed.
Not Tom felt a sudden sense of urgency, and something at the back of his mind told him that he needed to wake up.
He prepared himself to open his eyes.
On the count of three.
One...
Two...
Two and a half....
Two and three quarters...
The brunette groaned as his eyes flickered open, and he reached up to rub the grit out of them.
And yet, this room still wasn't white. It was grey. He didn't know where he was, but he was glad that he wasn't back in that awful white room again. Then their plans to escape would be for nothing.
Escape.
That's when it all came rushing back to him. He and the other rejects were trying to escape when the creators shot them with darts.
Not Tom pushed himself up off of the ground, only to be greeted with a pounding headache and a stinging sensation in his left thigh. He grumbled as he realized the dart was still in his skin. He plucked the red dart out with a swift movement, and then observed the room.
It was small, and for the most part empty. There was a large metal door in the corner of the room.
As his eyes adjusted and he gathered his bearings, he realized he wasn't alone.
Tomatoredd and the other rejects were laying on the floor not too far away from him.
He crawled over to the amalgamate, kneeling down and shaking him slightly.
"Tomatoredd...Redd...wake up..!" Not Tom kept his voice to a whisper, out of fear of being heard.
The taller man only let out a small whimper.
Not Tom sighed, and pulled out the dart that was stuck in his arm. With that, Tomatoredd yelped, shooting up and giving Not Tom a cold glare.
"Ow! Wh-what was that fo-or?" He asked.
"Shh!" Not Tom covered his mouth. "I don't know where we are. The last thing I remember is Bing and Larry shooting us with these darts," he explained quietly, holding up the dart he just pulled from Tomatoredd.
Tomatoredd squinted at the dart before looking around the room.
"D-did they put us b-back into o-our old...room?" He asked.
"No, they didn't," spoke another voice, that made the two men jump.
Torm was awake, and sitting up.
"I was half awake when they took us here. We're in some type of containment room I guess. It just says 'extras' on the door.." he informed.
"Are they coming back?" Not Tom asked.
"How should I know? I passed out before we even entered the room," Torm answered in his usual harsh tone.
Not Tom sighed and glanced over at Realistic Matt, who was currently fast asleep and cuddling Scribble.
"Well what now?" He asked.
"I-I say we t-try t-to get out of h-here before they come back..." Tomatoredd said.
"The door is locked, and they took our makeshift weapons." Torm stated. "If we do manage to get back out there, how will we defend ourselves?"
This caused the three men to fall into silence.
Not Tom had opened his mouth to speak when suddenly, the sound of the door unlocking broke the silence.
The clones glanced quickly over to the door, where Bing and Larry were just coming in.
Not Tom felt his heart skip a beat. He wasn't sure what else the creators could want from him.
It was so strange to remember that he was created instead of born.
It was even weirder to think that his creators probably had a million other copies of him.
He wasn't special.
Larry closed the door and locked it behind them, shooting Not Tom a stern glare.
The slam of the door had woken Realistic Matt and Scribble up from their post-dart gun sleep.
"I'm glad you're all awake," Bing spoke finally. "There's something that I'd like you all to hear,"
The 5 clones sat in complete silence, afraid of what would happen if they dared to speak out.
Bing smiled softly to himself, and began to explain.
"Since you are the first ever clones to try and escape, we will be putting you to good use. You see, Larry and I had to do an experiment, and didn't know which clones to choose," he started.
This made Not Tom gulp.
He didn't like the direction in which this one sided conversation was going.
"But now, we have just enough clones to run the experiment on," Bing continued with a grin.
He stepped closer to all of them, making Not Tom back up on reflex.
"Fun fact- most of you have parts of Tom's DNA in you. The original Tom. It would be fun to see what would happen if we manipulated it," he said.
Upon hearing this, Larry frowned and put a hand on Bing's shoulder.
"Sir. Haven't we gone far enough? The cloning machine already malfunctioned and I'm the only one taking care of the clones. I don't think it's a good idea to-"
"Of course it's a good idea!" Bing exclaimed. "Think about the money, Larry!" He grabbed the other man by the shoulders, shaking him a bit.
Larry sighed, brushing Bing's hands aside and falling into silence again.
"I'll be coming back within the next hour. Don't go anywhere!~" the raven-haired man sang as he made his way to the door.
He pulled it and when it didn't open, he scowled. "Dammit Larry! You didn't have to lock it, I was only gonna be in here for a second!"
Larry rolled his eyes and pulled out the keys to unlock the door and let Bing out.
The last thing they heard before the two men exited was Bing starting to lecture Larry.
"That poor man.." Not Tom mumbled to himself.
"Poor man? What about poor us?!" Torm exclaimed suddenly. "We were shot with dart guns, thrown in a small room, and now they're gonna experiment on us!"
Not Tom winced at the tone of the fusion's voice.
"I told you all from the start that this was a bad idea, but no one wanted to listen!" Torm continued to rant. "We're clones. We're freaks of nature! We don't belong in the real world."
"That's what they want you to believe..." Not Tom mumbled.
"Well if that's what they want me to believe, I'll believe it." Torm sneered, backing himself into a corner and crossing his arms.
"Thanks for giving us false hope."
No.
Not Tom wasn't going to just sit around and watch him and his friends be defeated like this.
"Come on guys...we've made it this far...why stop now?"
Realistic Matt shrugged.
 "I say if we're caught, we're caught,"
Not Tom frowned as he watched the ginger squeeze himself into his own corner.
He turned to Scribble, and the child copied Realistic Matt's actions.
Finally, he looked towards Tomatoredd.
"Redd....come on, not you too..." he spoke quietly.
The taller man looked away from Not Tom, and walked into the last corner of the room.
The brunette sighed, sitting down in the center of it all.
They were back at square one, except now the walls were a different colour.
Not Tom felt a pang of guilt in his chest. Maybe Torm was right. Maybe they were all just clones.
Maybe they weren't meant to exist.

((For some reason this chapter didn't publish? I hope it works now. I had to unpublish chapter 8