Okay, I know that I've been very non-writing for a while. Just a warning, in this chapter there are swears. I know I usually don't include them, but I felt they were necessary. Also, this is the longest chapter I have written in a while, and it is honestly a Wizard101 fan fic. I just had to cover a few things up I would reference throughout this story about my version of Earth. I hope you guys don't hate this.
I DO NOT OWN WIZARD101
~gh0stheart~
Morganthe Programming - Chapter One - gh0stheart
There wasn't much time. It was now or never. She ran towards the door, not looking back, knowing that if she did she would be stopped by emotions. A single tear escaped her, no more and no less. She was outside. The landscape was barren and it was very bright, much brighter than the inside. The air was much less humid. She didn't have the time to contemplate the air or landscape, she had to focus on her own escape.
She ran towards the gate. It was vast and seemed infinite, but there was a top, all she had to do was focus on her power. It was what she called it, not the scientists at the base. The scientists called it "anomalies," she wasn't sure what that meant, but whatever it was it wasn't good. No, not at all. It was what kept her at the base. She remembered barely what her parents were like before they were taken away, she was five years old, or at least that was what she thought she was at that time.
Time meant nothing at the base. There was no birthdays, holidays or time outside. It seemed that besides lights out and the fact she was much bigger than she was when she was taken, time never seemed to pass. There was the occasional new scientist and sometimes one would mysteriously vanish.
Her parents seemed like such good people, from what she could remember. Her father always worked in the daylight, and her mother worked nights. She was rarely alone. She remembered that she had a pet. It was a dog. She couldn't remember the gender or name, but she remembered that her dog was large and had a fluffy golden coat.
She tried concentrating on her power, but it wasn't working. She was scared. She wasn't sure what was happening. It always worked, except for right at that moment. She didn't understand why it wasn't. She heard a voice in the back of her head. It sounded familiar, but not, she wasn't sure where she had heard it from either, but she was sure she should trust it. It told her to concentrate below the ground instead of above it. So she did.
Slowly it seemed there was shaking. It seemed to be coming from everywhere. It felt almost natural to her. Almost as if this was supposed to happen. The feeling was almost pleasuring. The sheer power that she had unleashed. It was maddening that it came from her. She didn't have the time to look at the destruction she had caused, as she knew that she needed to go at that second, or else she would be dead. She wasn't sure how she knew this, but she didn't care.
She climbed quickly above the rubble of what was left of the wall. When she climbed over the once standing wall, she started her running. She found it odd that the scientists hadn't come for her yet, but she pushed those thoughts aside, it was a good thing in her mind. Maybe the earthquake had caused a brief distraction. . .
She started running again, even though she was tired from lack of exercise from the base. There weren't many places she could hide if there were any at all. The world around her was dry and barren. The ground beneath her feet was solid, but the wind picked it up easily. She had to slow down to a walking pace due to the fact she was panting heavily. She wanted to stop so badly, but she knew it wasn't possible, she made it that far, destroyed a very large wall, and broke almost every rule. Especially the one, never go outside.
She wasn't allowed much freedom. She was allowed food, a bed, a shower, a small white room and clean clothes. The clothes were the same every day, a white tee and black leggings.
After a few hours walk, there was a small town. It looked old and decimated, but there was a diner that was still standing, though just barely. She wasn't sure how reassuring it was, but she decided that it might be best that she sit down. She was tired, very tired. Her energy was not that high. She was starting to feel very much like she had used up most of her energy. Again, she wasn't sure how she knew this. It was scaring her, very much so, but as the feeling hadn't let her down yet, she wasn't going to complain about it.
The entered the diner. It had a few warning signs not to enter, but she decided nothing bad could happen by entering besides maybe something collapsing on her. There were cobwebs and dust. It was dark inside and it smelled bad. It reeked of something she couldn't describe as she had never smelled something quite so horrible in her entire existence. She had smelled some horrible chemicals, and other things, that they had injected inside of her. They never made her feel well afterward, but then again, she wasn't sure if those were good or not, but she was assuming bad since she felt bad when they were forced into her body by the scientists.
She opened a door. It wasn't the shattered glass. She was glad for the shoes she was allowed to have, even if they were soft as they were meant for indoor use only. She could tell that without the shoes that her feet would have been cut. The diner was even darker than the once glass room she was in, that she was sure was apart of the diner. It took a few minutes for her eyes to adjust to the dark, as it was still a little light outside of it.
The sun had not gone down, the sky was turning a burnt orange and the air was becoming cooler. She moved slowly to find something she could sit on. She kept hearing something moving but she brushed it off. It was probably just some small animal that was fuzzy or not. She couldn't remember what her parents had called them other than vermin. She wasn't sure that was a just word for them, even if she wasn't sure what the word meant. No one ever really bothered to teach her much. All she had learned came from listening to the scientists speak. Most of it she couldn't understand, and she wasn't allowed to speak. She wasn't sure why she wasn't, but she wasn't and they always made it. . . hurt when she did. Even the smallest whimper could cause it. She hadn't spoken or made a sound in years. She wasn't even sure what she sounded like.
That was when she heard something unsettling. It sounded like something like her. Was there something other than vermin with her in the small diner? She was scared. She suddenly had a surge of energy and she wasn't sure why. Her instincts and the feeling told her it was unsafe, but she couldn't move. She was frozen in place like an animal that was cornered and no way out. She wasn't going to attack, she wasn't even sure how to. That was when she saw it. It looked somewhat human, but not. It stunk horribly, like the smell she kept smelling except far worse. Its skin looked grey and in some areas rotted off. Its face was just too ugly to look at. That was when it released a gut-wrenching moan. From what she could see, she couldn't escape.
She decided that she was not going to die the very day she finally escaped from the scientist's claws. With that in mind, she looked over at the table next to her that was broken into many pieces. She didn't know what motivated her to do this, but she grabbed a leg that had been once apart of the table before it had shattered from some force that she didn't want to know about (her eyes had finally completely adjusted to dark and could now see things far clearer than she had) and, as it moved towards her at a normal rate of speed, she swung the once-table-leg like a baseball bat and knocked the thing to the ground. After that, she ran, as she knew that the force she had hit the thing with wouldn't make it stay down for long. She quickly opened and shut the door, tried her best not to step on too much glass and made it through yet another door. She decided that maybe the scientists were right about the never going outside rule, but it was too late for that.
The sky was a darker color than it was when she had first ventured into the building. She was still tired but the adrenaline from the thing kept her going. She was scared that she would run into another one of those things, but she knew that she'd have to go forward. If she didn't, she wouldn't survive, who knew how fast or smart those things were. If she kept moving maybe she could outrun them. Her stomach growled as she went forward. She was hungry, very hungry. She was never fed very much where the scientists were. She was only fed enough to survive and have enough energy for the tests. There was never over the amount, sometimes though under it. She was used to being hungry so she persevered. It was well into the night when she stopped. There was nothing out for miles and none of those things out that she could see. She figured that she could smell them coming if she slept (she was always a light sleeper, any sound or smell could awake her). She hoped that it would keep her safe from them. She didn't wake until the morning when she felt something touch her arm.
There was something there. Human looking but wasn't like the things. It looked completely human but the energy was different, much more menacing and more like they would eat you for fun. She was scared of it.
"Young wizard, would you like to get to the rest of your kind? What is left of them?" the creature said. She immediately tried backing up, something told her that she should run, not follow. Her brown eyes were open wide, much wider than they were earlier. "Hmm. . . you smell like those fuckers at the base. You are probably not going to say anything, are you? I hate those bastards, removing any sort of freedom from us creatures. That's why the treaty exists between magical creatures. They even made the mother-fucking zombies to keep the population down until they realized that they were killing off humans too! But by then it was too late. Come on, let's go. I'm not leaving a very young inexperienced wizard alone."
She was confused by this new information, she never thought she wasn't human, but then again, she didn't want to be one if humans were like the scientists. She was wary, but she got up. He looked at her expectantly and sighed.
"I guess that you know nothing about what I am?" She shook her head when she said this. "My kind are known for eating humans, their great greed/possessiveness, and their speed. Now, hold onto me, and please don't open your eyes until I stop moving. I am not responsible for any lost limbs, should you let go, or your sanity if you dare open your eyes, young one." She looked at him even more terrified than she had. "I promise it won't be too scary. It's just like flying on a plane. Three, Two, One. . ." he said as he grabbed her. She kept her eyes shut, more out of fear than safety.
It seemed like hours; her heartbeat was accelerating from fear. There was no sound, but at the same time, there was so much. It was almost overloading. She was almost in a dead panic, except for the fact she didn't dare move or even open her eyes. She didn't want to even imagine the horrors that could be outside. Then it stopped. The sound came back from whatever distorted reality it was in and so did everything else. The landscape was different than when she first arrived from out of the base. The creature gently set her down on the dark brown dirt that had leaves covering it in some areas.
"See, it wasn't too bad, was it?" She was still kind of scared, but she knew it was pointless, and so she tried to shake it off. "You can speak, young one. I won't hurt you. The treaty through magic won't let me physically harm you, or any magical creature. I can smell your fear coming off you in waves. You must have managed to escape the base. Just be lucky I was in the area before you dehydrated, died of hunger or of zombies. I rarely ever spend time in that desert. Way too much. . . evil." He shook his head and said something. The very large oak tree suddenly changed its appearance to something houselike. He opened the door and beckoned her inside.
She was very dubious that he was telling the truth about the "no harm to magical creatures" thing, but she didn't have a place to go, so she went forward through the door and shutting it. The place was small and had many devices she couldn't remember the names of. It was much lighter on the inside than she thought it would be. Especially since the walls were a red color; the floor though was a light brown, just barely a tan. It was not carpet but wood. The place reminded her of her parent's home, from what she could remember. To the table, chairs, and appliances. She wasn't sure if all houses were like this one.
She was a little unsure of what to do. This was not the room she spent long periods of time in. No, definitely not. The room was much colder than the one she was in now. The room she was used to was white and had a door. There was nothing for her to do in that room beside sit, pace or cry. She spent many hours crying. It became a routine: Eat, be experimented on, cry and then sleep.
"You look confused, young one. Have you never been inside a house?" The creature looked at her in worry. She almost cried when he said that. "Calm now. There isn't anything wrong with that. You're still only a young wizard who has been kept by those scientists. They wouldn't want you to know anything as knowledge is power."
She wasn't sure how knowledge could be power. Then again, she wasn't sure what the word meant. It was such a large word, and it was obliviously kept from her. Whatever it was, she wanted to know more about it. It didn't cheer her up at all. She just wanted to know everything she would know. This time, she did cry. She didn't want to though, but it was becoming too much. She couldn't hold herself together, so she sat on the floor, curled up into a ball, putting her arms over her legs, and putting her head between them. The creature sighed.
"I don't like tears, so please, don't cry, okay? I'll get you to the place of the wizards, but I don't know which type you are. Shadow or Light. Both types practice the same magic up until a level. It's just after that level that things get a bit. . . interesting, to say the least. I don't know the history of why. It just happens to be an is. Do not bring a Light wizard near a Shadow, and don't bring a Shadow near a Light. It's rather deadly, and I don't feel like subjecting myself, or you, to it. But please, speak, so I can actually get to know your view on things and therefore can know which type you are. Magic morphs my what the person believes and is a tool, nothing more or less. Some though, I will not say names, believe that magic is much more than that. I will not bore you with it. Way too much magical politics there and way too little time. So could you answer questions to the best of your ability? Only answer yes or no, or," he sighed. "Nod your head for 'yes,' or shake it for 'no,' okay?"
She nodded her head to say she understood. She was hoping that she understood correctly. She was never asked questions; it was always a "you will do or else" thing.
"Is love free and not be condemned by anything?"
She thought about it. She didn't know much about love, or what love actually meant. She knew her parents had loved each other, and she knew they probably loved her. But could love be condemned? She thought about it, could it be? She finally nodded her head, yes. Like all things, she supposed, it could. Though it would be a terrible thing.
"Okay. Thank you for answering, now. . . Let me see if I can remember the next question. I am not a Finder; a creature that discovers or saves wizards and other creatures. I, most of the time, avoid even the food source I need to survive, humans. This talking thing is not my gig. Killing is though. . . Okay, figured it out. . . Is the 'Time of Shadows' a time of peace?"
Almost every fiber of her being wanted to say yes. She wasn't sure why, as she hadn't even heard of it, or remembered it at least. She was sure there were many things she had forgotten about in her time at the Laboratory, things that she was sure were important to her survival. She nodded her head. She hoped that the feeling was right.
"Is the 'Time of Light' good?"
She got a feeling that it wasn't. It practically screamed at her, even if, she was again unsure and ignorant of why. She shook her head, no.
"Interesting. . . Are dark creatures bad?"
She wasn't sure why they would be thought of as bad. They were just dark, not technically evil, nor bad. They didn't have the same fundamentals as light creatures. She wasn't sure, once again, how she knew this, but she wasn't giving up a free source of information of a world she knew almost nothing of. Once again, she shook her head.
The creature smiled slightly. For once she was able to clear her vision enough from the odd energy to see him. He had shaggy brown hair and had an odd grey-blue eye color. His skin was not pale, but it wasn't completely non-pale. It was a happy medium. She wondered at this second what she looked like. There were no mirrors in the laboratory, nor were there anything truly reflective. That was when the thought hit her, did she not look like them? Was that why the creature found her so easily and decided not to eat her, other than the scent she carried?
"I think I realize where you stand, I don't need to ask or modify the other questions to a 'yes or no' format. I still don't understand why it is necessary for the scientists to make sure that their subjects are selectively mute. Come now, I can feel you are hungry. I'll find something that is safe for your consumption. It'll be some fruit and vegetables. Even though I don't need them, I still like to remember the taste of them, before I became what I am. But don't worry about that now, someone I'm sure can explain it to you. . . When you feel safe enough to ask or can brave it. . . Let me bring some fruit from the Fridge."
The creature walked to a very large device. It was white and had a handle on it that was in stainless steel. Not sure quite how she knew this, but she went along with it. There was a bottom half that was all white and had a horizontal stainless steel handle. He opened the top handle, it opened up at the same rate of speed as his hand (which was gripping the diagonal handle) was pulling the door open. She found it slightly intriguing (she wasn't sure why it was happening other than it was).
She watched him bring out fresh fruit. It was already sliced, or at least the yellow stuff was. There was also a red, heart(ish) shaped fruit. Some were smaller than others, while some were larger. Then there was a blue, tiny fruit. He placed it on the table.
"Get up, young one, you need to eat, much more than I, that way I do not get complained at for not taking care of you. The Community of Magical Beings doesn't particularly like me. So come on, get up."
Hesitantly, she got up from the wooden floor and stood up. She walked the short distance to the table. There was to chairs, she decided to stand as she was unsure if she could sit or not. She didn't remember what it was like to sit at a table, or even the basic understanding of why.
The creature pulled out a chair and sat down looking at her curiously.
"Aren't you going to sit down?" he asked after a few minutes. Then he sighed. "Tell me that they at least had you sitting at a table? Please?"
She desperately wanted to say yes, but she shook her head. She didn't remember it so she might as well have never done it.
"That's odd, you are almost to the age where they sell you to the Mythic Hunters. . ."
She paled considerably. She remembered the scientists talking about them. They did not seem like good people, no not at all. She had run away the day before she would have been sold to them. It scared her, the idea of being sold. She didn't know what it meant but she was sure it was bad.
"They were, weren't they? At least you weren't. . . Grab the chair and eat something! Please, I do not need to be blamed for starving you, or something else they can come up with."
That was when she heard a knock on the door. She watched his energy darken. She decided that it was best to attempt to do what he wanted. She quickly pulled out the second chair and sat in it while the creature walked towards the door cautiously. There was then a second knock. His energy darkened more. He opened the door.
"Hello Beau," she heard someone say. It didn't sound too horrible, but she didn't dare look. Her small voice told her that whoever this person was he was a bad person. Not good at all. That was before she felt the energy coming off of the person. It felt entirely too. . . light, but oh so intimidating. She knew she couldn't run as she didn't know if there were any exits besides the one the person was at.
"What are you doing here, 'Leader of the Light'? Aren't you supposed to be doing your job, supervising the spiral, not poor little Earth?" the creature, or Beau as she now knew, replied with a hint of bitterness. She was wondering why Beau had such a reaction to this person, but she decided to maybe grab a piece of fruit. There wasn't much else she could do, there was no escape, and she didn't want to seem too fearful of the man. She grabbed a piece of yellow fruit and tried it. It was tangy and slightly sweet; she decided that she liked it.
"I'm here to take the young wizard. She is the key to the lights winning this war!"
"I don't think so, Merle! I hoped that it wouldn't come to this."
There was no time for her to process anything. She figured out what had happened after. Beau ran, collected her, said a spell, and now she was wherever here was. It was a dark place, but it felt. . . safe. The energy felt like it was giving her a comforting hug.
There was a throne with a dark-haired and pale skinned woman. She was wearing a tight-fitting dress and appeared to be some type of royalty. That was when she heard, Yes, I am royalty. You were not supposed to meet me so early, Tempest. The name seemed vaguely familiar. Then a memory of her mother calling her that came into her mind. She realized that was her name and that it was spoken in her mind. There was a hint of a smile on the woman's lips.
"I found the girl, my queen."
"Thank you, Beau, you may leave, go back to wherever you want to be. Your post on Earth has been. . . compromised."
The chapter is finally over. So what do you guys think? I will be updating my other stories when I can. I just haven't written the chapters the way I want them to be.