Instead, things were fuzzy. I couldn’t quite remember what had happened to me the last time I was awake. It was so distant. Like a memory, or like a dream.
I realized soon enough that I could feel my limbs again, weak and sore against my body. My arms were folded neatly over my chest and my legs were separated at equal angles. I laid on something smooth yet uncomfortable. It had a stiff feel to it as I shifted my foot against its surface. My eye lids were still too tired to lift, but I could sense a bright light above me, bearing down on my face. Over my undergarments, I was dressed in a rough material, which draped over me until my knees and left my back bare to the surface I lay on. There was a soft beeping that persisted behind me, steadily continuing with every beat my heart made. I felt my own breath enter and exit at regular intervals. Everything seemed to be okay.
Except for a cold, round object that bore into the middle of my back. It was irritating me so much that my back involuntarily twitched, causing my body to splay awkwardly. A groan escaped through my throat and I mustered up the strength to drag my arms to my sides and, ever so slowly, prop myself up on my elbows, still keeping my eyes shut.
“I wouldn’t get up just yet, if I were you.”
Again, if I were more aware, I might’ve been afraid. Instead, I obeyed the suggestion and gently rested back down on the strange circular object.
“So you’re finally awake, eh?” The mystery voice chortled. A woman.
“Mmmhm…” I mumbled, barely audible.
“That’s good. For a while I thought the procedure didn’t work correctly. But here you are, as good as new!” She laughed again.
My eyes finally decided to open just the slightest bit. It took them a few long moments to focus, but when they did I saw a brightly lit room, the walls painted a light blue color and the floor covered in white laminin tiles. There were a few tall white machines that stood next to my side. They were the ones causing the beeping. A few cords were hooked up to a bag and dangled down to my right wrist, connecting themselves to me by an IV. There was a clock on the right wall of the room and a potted fern that was placed next to a sitting area with two lounge chairs. Finally, next to the lounge chairs, there was a sleek black wheelchair, and in the wheelchair was an old woman. She wore a flowing-white blouse with a pitch-black pencil skirt that reached just below her knobby-knees. She had simple black high-heeled shoes on and dark tights.
“…Am I in a hospital?” I asked, my voice cracked and rough.
The lady smiled, the skin around her eyes and mouth crinkling. “No, not yet. We’ll be transporting you soon, though.”
I raised an eyebrow. “So… where am I then?”
“It might be best to explain that a little later,” She said, reaching down to move her wheel chair. “First, I would like to ask you: What do you remember from being fully aware last?” She asked as she came closer. Her silver hair glinted in the light of the over-head lamps.
“Uh-I was…” I hesitated. If I said what I really thought, she’d think me insane. “I was on a trail in the forest, walking home from school.” I stated, rubbing my thumb over my fist.
“Really? Are you sure about that?” She asked, a hint of a smile teasing.
“Why do you want to know? Where am I?”
“Please stay calm. I don’t believe becoming too emotion would be good for your state at this moment.” She warned me again, holding out her hand.
“Then tell me where I am and I won’t freak out!” I growled, propping myself up with my elbows again.
“I will not until you describe to me what happened the last time you were awake.” She concluded, folding her hands back into her lap.
I tightened my jaw and looked down at my feet. “You’re going to think I’m crazy,” I finally huffed.
“Will I?” She challenged. I shifted my eyes over to her. She sat complacent in her chair, waiting for me to answer her. I sighed.
“Well…” I looked up at the clock behind her. It read 4:23. I wish I knew if it was AM or PM. “I… ‘woke up’ on the forest floor and… I… started to experience some strange things, like-“
“Enhanced sight, sound, taste, strength, and speed?”
I gawked at her, unable to process how she knew. “…And smell…” I added weakly.
“Ah, yes. How could I forget?” She beamed at me. “Yes, all of those symptoms are common. Did anything else happen that’s worth mentioning?”
Bewildered, my tongue fumbled before spitting out “Well I stopped a speeding car with only my bare hands! Is that worth mentioning?”
Her laugh reverberated off of the walls, echoing in my ears as if she were mocking my reaction.
“Is that funny? Because I’m pretty sure whoever was in that car was completely crushed!” I growled.
“Oh… no, no. They’re fine, dear.” The woman said as her laughed faded into soft chuckling. “Badly injured, but they’re recovering quickly. Don’t worry about them.”
I looked at her. I just looked straight at her, wondering if she was insane. After there was a long moment of silence, I finally found my words again, “So are you going to tell me where I am?”
“Yes, of course. I just needed you to confirm your experience first,” She answered. “In truth, it wasn’t supposed to happen quite like that,”
“What wasn’t supposed to happen quite like what?” I cut her off.
“Let me finish, dear.” She sighed. “You say that you experienced enhanced natural senses and abilities. I feel like you are forgetting another symptom, however. My resources tell me that you were in a great deal of pain.”
I nodded, suddenly realizing that the electric fire had disappeared entirely from my body, only leaving soreness in its wake.
“In truth, the pain wasn’t supposed to be there. That was an accident. When a human body comes in direct contact with Aqua-Delta, it is toxic and causes…” She paused, squinting her eyes down at her lap. “Severe injury.”
“What is Aqua-Delta?” I questioned. Nothing she said was making sense to me, especially in the groggy state I was in.
“To put it in the simplest terms, it’s a hyper-active steroid that causes the human body to, in essence, become super-powered.”
“Uhuh… super-powered?” I snorted.
“Yes. But it is so powerful that, if in contact with oxygen, becomes… explosive.”
“So… what are you saying?”
She smoothed her hands over her black-satin skirt. “If not administrated to the human body in a certain fashion, over a short period of time as the individual takes in oxygen from their surroundings, the compound increases in power so much that it causes a detrimental eruption from the individuals being, causing death instantaneously.”
I felt my eyes narrow again as I propped myself up more to take a good look at the woman. She looked completely serious. “So you explode.”
“Precisely.”
I rubbed my eyes, trying to process the information. “So what does that have to do with me and me being in this ‘not hospital’ room?”
She sighed again, as if I weren’t getting something obvious. “As you were walking home through the forest, my workers were doing a few tests to a machine that carries and injects the steroid in question nearby. However, the machine backfired on them and sent out a small burst into the open, only a few yards away from where you were. Therefore, you were accidentally exposed directly to the compound and started experiencing the symptoms of the heightened senses as well as the destructive tendencies.”
“Yeah, okay so I started to explode or whatever because of your ‘workers’. So why were they testing it out in the middle of the forest anyway?”
“Actually, we were going to ask you to be injected willingly.” She mused, smirking.
“Ah yes, because I would love to explode for no reason?”
“Well, I believe this will answer your original question,” She started. “Where you are right now happens to be a top secret facility that is located many miles underground the military base you currently live on. This facility is used for the sole purpose of creating and testing specialty weapons for the American Military in order to further our chances in warfare and in protection of our country. We had to keep it in a disclosed area in order to keep enemy eyes from watching us, but I’m afraid that a few have come to know our general location and we have been experiencing minor attacks on the outer borders of the base.”
She paused to check my expression, which was blank. No words came to my head that could make a reply.
She continued, “So as a precautionary measure, and also as a wonderful opportunity, we, as a company, decided upon testing our most prestigious work of weaponry in order to keep our base safe, above ground and underground,” She took a breath before looking at me straight in the eye, “That, my dear, is where you came into the picture.”
When I didn’t give her any sort of reaction, she went on again: “You see, we have been testing the steroid Aqua-Delta for many many years without any luck. All of our test subjects, mostly smaller animals, succumbed to the disastrous outcome that it typically causes. But in the past few years, we have developed a sort of… catalyst that causes the individual bearing the power to not be affected by its deadlier tendencies, therefore enabling them to fight. So, we went out in search of possible willing participants that seemed to be good contenders for the power. And you, Juniper Tatum, were one of them.”
I sniffed, rolling my eyes. “Okay, so I guess my destiny called and I became a ‘superhero’ in that moment. But just one question: I didn’t have your ‘catalyst’ thing, so how am I not dead?”
“Indeed, that is a significant question,” She agreed. “But have you not noticed? I’m sure you felt it when you were laying down.”
Confusion washed over me, yet recognition came instantly afterwards. I slowly picked up my hand and grazed it over my bare back. Around the center, just where I felt it before, was the cold, round object, still stuck to me. I felt around its edges, the object sunken deeply into my skin. I shuddered. “What… what is this thing… what did you put in me?!” I growled.
“I just told you, didn’t I?” Was her only response.
“Look, I don’t know what kind of drug you somehow gave me that caused those weird hallucinations in the forest. I don’t know how you managed to even know what I saw back then. I don’t even know how you implanted this thing into my back. All I know is that what happened wasn’t real, superheroes aren’t real, and there is definitely not some sort of ‘top secret facility’ underneath my base. Now if you would please,” I hoisted myself up into an uncomfortable sitting position, “Bring out the hidden cameras, or whatever, and just take me back home. I’m late for dinner and my mom is going to kill me.”
“After all that, you still don’t believe me?” The woman suddenly interjected.
“No? All that I believe right now is that you’re insane.”
She shook her head dismissively. “I really didn’t want it to come to this, but if you still don’t believe me, I’ll show you.” And she started to roll towards me.
“Don’t get near me, you nut!” I snapped, painfully scooting away on the platform I was set upon.
“Please don’t fuss. I’m not going to hurt you, alright?” She said as she came to my side, then outstretching her hands to reach my back. I grasped her hands and tried to force them away, but I was so weak than even her strength prevailed mine and she managed to wrap her arms around me, fidgeting with the strange metal ring that was encased in my back.
All at once, everything went white. I screamed and shut my eyes, feeling my arms give way to the sudden pulse of energy flow through my body once more. But after a few moments, I realized something. There was no pain this time. I felt fine. In fact, I felt strong.
I opened my eyes again, only to behold the room in a new light. My eyes did not focus on anything that I didn’t want them to; rather, I could focus them at will. I watched the small dust particles dance in the light above me, every one of them unique in texture and size. I could handle the smells of adhesive, plastic, and cotton in the room without being overwhelming. There was nothing to it. It felt so natural, yet oh so very wrong.
“What did you DO?!” I screamed at her, kicking my legs off of the edge and gripping the paper lining under me. It ripped instantly as I crushed it under my fingers.
“I just proved to you what you were denying. You do indeed have superpowers.” She smiled triumphantly.
Panic, much like when I was in school, rose up in my throat. I needed to get away. I needed to escape. I needed help.
My instinct kicked in and suddenly, without even realizing how I got there, I was gripping the handle of the door that kept me from freedom. I yanked the handle, and the whole frame of the door simply popped off, as if they were made from the paper lining I had just moments ago crushed. The solid door screeched a few feet on the laminin flooring before finally slamming into the wall, creating a large hole form the force. I froze for what seemed to be minutes, but it must’ve only been a few seconds as the woman had only just whipped her head around to stare at me in shock. I stiffened up and then turned, bolting left down the dimly-lit hallway. The floors seemed to crack and creak with every sprinting stride I took, chips of the tile flying up at the force of my feet. My sheer robes fluttered aimlessly around my form and my bundled up hair wove like a flag behind me as I shot down the long hallway, everything around me blurring. As I came to the end of the hallway, I saw a wide, metal door with an exit sign right above it. Bracing myself for the quick impact, I leaned in with my elbow and took a giant leap towards the door. As I sailed into it, the metal bent as if it were tin-foil and broke away from its hinges. For a few moments of time I rode the door as it skidded noisily on the ground, finally coming to a halt in the middle of the new room.
A room filled with people.
Again, time seemed to move by slowly as I processed each face turning towards the commotion. Some were confused, some were shocked, and some were horrified at what they saw. A sudden feeling of embarrassment came over me, as if I disturbed some peace with my loud entrance. Also due to wearing the thin layer of cloth that seemed invisible when in a room full of gaping people. As I came to take in more of my surroundings, I notices computers lining the walls. Table upon table with test tubes clustered in groups with different colored liquids in each one. Every single person wore a lab coat. I noticed a brown haired lady, with her bangs swept behind one of her ears, let go of a beaker she held. Its shatter echoed loudly in the silent room. I noticed an older man near a computer, take a few faltering steps back. I noticed a chair facing one of the computers, swivel around. A young man with blonde hair, and glasses…
And then, the blaring siren: “WARNING, ROGUE TEST SUBJECT HAS ESCAPED. GO TO THE NEAREST SAFTY AREA IMMEDIATELY UNTIL THE THREAT IS EQUALIZED”
I was so caught up in my surroundings that I didn’t realize they were talking about me. People started to evacuate, some calm, and some feigning calm. Before I even got up, though, something pierced me in the back of my neck, and for the 4th time that day, I passed out.
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