Friends, want a friend.

From the age of three to nineteen, Ella's wishes never changed.

Ella was "born" in Noah's City's experimental base, and she was a test subject in Group B. In human experiments fifteen years ago, researchers divided babies into groups A and B. The children in the two groups have to undergo various examinations and tests every day, the difference is that the children in group A are raised by special personnel and can play and coddle freely, but the children in group B do not have this right. The children in group B are the defective products in their mouths, and they have been locked up in another building since they were "born", and after the age of three, they will begin to undergo all kinds of devilish training, which is called to exercise the children's body and mind and make up for their natural defects.

However, Ella never thought that she was flawed, on the contrary, she even thought that all the children in Group B were more physically fit and more observant. Under the standard of Group B, every child must learn to walk and talk before the age of one, pick up a knife and stab at the target accurately at the age of three, and start to learn about firearms and machinery at the age of six. The nurturing system is based on a system of elimination, and if a child gets the lowest score in all trainings, they are sent out to be "destroyed". Therefore, in the group B laboratory, all the children are competitors, and in order to survive, it is impossible for them to produce anything that can be called "friendship".

If it weren't for the day when little Ella unintentionally ran out of the experimental building, she wouldn't have had a desire for "friendship". At that time, Ella had just turned three years old, and Lady Joanna had left after giving them a lesson, dropping the brooch on her collar. Young Ella wants to return the brooch, but she can't keep up with the adults and gets lost in the experimental building, only to stumble into the exit of the experimental building.

There were no windows in the experimental building, and it was the first time she had seen the sunlight and the world outside. The breeze was blowing, and when she looked up, she didn't see the cold ceiling, but the height of it, and the sky was not illuminated by electric lights, but round objects she had never seen before.

Little Ella heard the children's laughter, and on the other side of the barbed wire, on the green lawn, there was a group of children laughing and playing. Ella was drawn to the laughter and unconsciously approached the barbed wire.

"Who are you?" I heard a childish voice.

Little Ella was flattered, and no one would ever take the initiative to talk to her while she was in the experimental building.

"Ella." She whispered.

"Why are you out there?"

"I don't know...... I'm here to find someone......"

"Then I'll go talk to Maria and tell her to let you in and play with us." The little girl who accosted her staggered to the tree in the distance, and under the tree, a woman dressed as a maid was holding the other children, smiling softly.

For as long as she can remember, no one has ever smiled at little Ella, all she can see is the indifferent faces of the staff. No one has ever hugged her, but she has been slapped a lot. Children with low training performance and mistakes are only beaten or hung up for publicity.

"Maria, do you see this child, is she our new friend?" The little girl led the woman towards her, but when the woman named Maria saw Ella, the gentle smile on her face disappeared.

Maria picked up the walkie-talkie on her waist and didn't know what she said. Then she crouched down and said to the little girl she was leading:

"Sophie, she's not our new friend, someone will pick her up later."

The little girl named Sophie pursed her mouth and looked lost. She trotted over to Ella and came face to face with her.

"It's a pity, Ella, you'll have to play with me in the future."

It was only a short time before Ella was taken away, and before leaving, little Sophie was waving her little hands through the net, shouting goodbye to her.

After returning to the building, little Ella was locked up and starved for two days.

During the two days of confinement, little Ella kept thinking about what she saw outside the building that day, why she couldn't see the top when she looked up, why there was something green on the ground, and what did Sophie mean by her friend? Ella was puzzled.

Joanna is the head of Group B and the teacher of the three-year-olds, mainly responsible for teaching them literacy. Joanna likes to keep her hair high at the back of her head and neatly combed on her forehead without a single break. She always wore a long dark black dress with a brooch of golden roses pinned to her neckline. Joanna was not smiling, and there was no anger on her young face, as if she had been born the embodiment of discipline and rules. As soon as she appeared, the children all held their breath.

The children were afraid of every teacher, and they were afraid of every staff member, but it was Lady Joanna who was most afraid. It is said that if a child is called to Joanna's office, the child will be destroyed shortly after, so the older children privately call her "Death".

Little Ella wants to know what a friend is, but children her age don't know either, and older children don't bother to tell her that the best thing to do is to look it up in the dictionary. Ella was just over three years old and had not taken a few literacy classes, but it was the only way she could think of it. Now the problem is that the key to the study is in Joanna's hands, and what books you want to take must be approved by Joanna. Little Ella hesitated, she didn't dare to face Joanna alone, and she was unwilling to let this question keep pressing on her chest. After much deliberation, she finally decided to face Joanna.

After making up her mind, Ella Jr. was particularly active in training, and achieved good results in a few days in order to make a good impression on Joanna. After some preparation, one afternoon off, little Ella knocked on the door of Joanna's office.

"Ma'am." Little Ella didn't dare to raise her head, and her voice was not loud, for fear that her actions would annoy the woman sitting in front of her.

"What's the matter?" Joanna looked down at the papers on the table, her voice low and with her usual seriousness.

"I want to borrow the key to the study......" She was unconfident, and her voice became quieter and quieter.

"What's the use of you asking for the key to the study?" Joanna frowned, no child had ever dared to ask her for anything.

"I want to look up the dictionary ......"

"Take it, and give it back to me in thirty minutes." Joanna took the key out of the drawer, handed it to Ella, and continued to look down at the papers, no longer speaking.

Out of the office door, little Ella breathed a sigh of relief, it turned out that Joanna was not so scary, she took the key and ran happily to the study. But a child is always a child, and even if she is enlightened early, three-year-old Ella cannot read the dictionary explanations. She returned the keys to Joanna and returned to the classroom to continue her afternoon lessons.

What is Friend? In addition to this question, little Ella was also concerned about what she had seen outside that day, and a small wish came to her heart, she wanted to go out again to see the scenery that was different from the building. Before that day, she thought that the building was the whole world, she had never seen the sun, moon and stars, she had never seen mountains, rivers and valleys, and she didn't even know what a creature was. Now little Ella is like a bird imprisoned in a cage, because she left the cage by chance, her heart is full of longing for the blue sky.

"Ella, do you know what freedom is?" Sophia, who was the same age, asked.

Freely? Another word I haven't heard. Little Ella shook her head.

"I heard Ressley say to Johnson today that we are human beings who were born deprived of their liberty." Sophia whispered in Ella's ear.

Resley and Johnson are eight-year-olds in the Experimental Building, and they know a lot of words and a lot of things that little Ella can't understand.

That night, little Ella secretly ran to Reslie, chased after him and asked him what a friend was. Despite the stalking, Resley finally gave her an answer.

"A friend is someone who will care about you, someone who will not betray you, someone who will never abandon you. Got it? ”

Little Ella nodded, as if she understood.

"Is Johnson your friend?"

"Not really!" He clenched his fists, looking a little angry.

Little Ella was confused again, Johnson and Reslie grew up together and were inseparable, spending almost all of their time together except for sleeping and going to the bathroom. When Resley had a cold, Johnson would visit him, and when Johnson couldn't finish his schoolwork, Lesley would stay with him. Isn't this a friend?

"Little ghost, listen, we don't need friends to live here, and we don't need friends for our future work!"

Little Ella's heart sank, and she remembered the little girl who talked to her that day. I want to go to her, I want to play with her, I want to be like her, I can be coquettish to people. But Reisley, who was older than her, had no friends, so was it possible for her to make friends? Little Ella saw her future in Ressley, a gray and colorless future.

The older you get, the harder it is to train, and the more kids are called to Joanna's office. The devilish training of the laboratory building tries to polish each child into the way they want it to be. As soon as the child reaches the age of eight, he is sent for surgery, and after the operation, he loses his freedom forever. This is what little Ella heard from other children, and Resley, who is already eight years old, must have lost his freedom.

Friends, Freedom, Surgery...... More and more nouns are testing little Ella's little brain.

Just three days after she went to find Ressley, Johnson was called to Joanna's office — Johnson was going to be "destroyed" as a substandard product.

On the day of Johnson's send-off, Resley didn't show up. Johnson, dressed in a white lab coat, kept looking back, his eyes searching back and forth in the crowd, and little Ella knew that he was looking for Ressley, and he wanted to say goodbye to Ressley. It's like that little girl waving goodbye to herself.

Goodbye, not goodbye, not goodbye. Instead, there is a small hope, looking forward to at least one reunion after a long absence in the future.

Until the last moment, Johnson did not wait for Resley, the tears on his eyelashes were endless loneliness flowing from the bottom of his heart.

After Johnson left, Little Ella spotted Resley somewhere near the exit of the building, crouched on the ground with swollen eyes.

"Imp...... That's what happens when you have friends......"

He sobbed and whispered, and gradually fell silent.