Chapter 1: Salvation
I couldn't help but notice the splashed of red against the concrete walls of my room, accompanied by a muffled female voice and alarms. Standing from my hard flat bed, I made my way over to the only window in the room, a single, thick, round window in my door, about two feet in diameter. I struggled to look through the window, as the reflection of my completely black eyes and blue face kept getting in the way. With a frustrated sigh, I put my hands up around my face to keep from allowing the overhead light in to cause the reflection, only catching a momentary glimpse of the hallway outside before a tremor that seemed to shake the entire hallway rifled through my room, causing bits of debris from the ceiling to fall into my blue hair. Annoyed, I reached up and brushed the debris out of my hair before pressing my face against the window again and cupping my hands around it. Streams of soldiers rushed past, a single man standing stationary with his back to the door, my pointed ears picking up his muffled voice as he barked orders to the passing soldiers. Another tremor shook the entire structure, throwing me violently to the ground. Thank the goddess that my mutation allowed for some kind of grace and dexterity, because I was able to get right back to my feet without a struggle.
Yes, I am a mutant, and my room, which I had come to know it as, was more of a cell, I guess than anything else. My only mutation, however, was my physical form; at age 14 I had grown a long blue tail, about the same length as my body. The color of my skin had followed suit a short time later, turning a deep shade of blue, my pupils took over my entire eye, giving me the uncanny ability to see even in complete darkness, and my ears had elongated and grew a point, allowing for superhuman hearing. My nose had shrunken into my face, all but disappearing, fingers grew longer, and toes grew more finger-like, arms elongated. My family was horrified by my transformation and pulled me out of school, practically locking me in their basement to avoid the embarrassment. My only entertainment was a TV with bunny eared antennae that only picked up two stations, and my own imagination. I needed to escape, the world was calling my name, and I couldn't stand to be holed up in that damp basement anymore. I spent months watching those two channels, and found that, before long, I could mimick any movement I saw on that television, within reason. My new found ability gave me the perfect outlet to escape, as I smashed out the basement window, and sprinted away from the house before I was noticed missing.
Before long, after disturbing the patrons of several local coffee shops, military helicopters surrounded me in an open field as I left a barn I had spent the night in. A stout man, who was apparently getting up there in age, and introduced himself as Colonel Stryker, offered me a place to stay, lavish accommodations, and food every day. In my desperate state, I gladly took the offer, but soon found myself locked in this cell. Poked and prodded daily, shown massive amounts of abilities that no one could ever perform, I was subject to tests and expected to perform the abilities exactly as I had seen them. Most I could, running up walls, complex acrobatics, even swordplay; in months, I had learned almost every martial art known to man, I could expertly use almost any weapon placed in my hands, I could even play the piano. I overheard the doctors referring to my abilities as muscle memory, which, I guessed meant that my muscles could remember whatever I saw, and immediately mimic the movements without having to learn it over and over again. The doctors began pushing my abilities, seeing how much I could learn in one day, testing my physical strength, which, no matter how many videos they showed me of muscle-bound olympians lifting heavy bars holding hundreds of pounds, never proved to be anything special. They showed me images of other mutants flying, shooting lasers from their hands, after which, I was pushed off of high platforms, and given targets to shoot at. I can't say that I didn't try to fly as I watched the cold, concrete floors rush up to claim me, flailing my hands and legs, even my tail to find something to grasp, but when I was given targets to shoot at, I simply looked at the doctors and laughed.
This left me here, exhausted after nearly 16 hours of testing, and left in my room to rest until the scientists came back to drag me to the testing facilities and see what else I could do. The constant blood samples, and overexertion had left my blue color more pale, and me thin to the point of being sick. Another tremor shook my room violently, and it was all I could do to stay on my feet, stumbling backwards away from the door. This wasn't one of the normal evacuation drills, something was terribly wrong. I pounded on the door with my fists, my claws digging into my palms without notice, fear gripped me.
"Hey! Let me out of here!" I screamed, my voice echoing off of the concrete walls, reverberating loudly into my own eardrums. I doubted that the man on the other side of the door could hear me, as I pounded frantically, and screamed over and over again. He turned at last, shooting me a callous glance through the thick glass before taking off down the hall after the last private hurried past. I sunk down against the door, laying my head against it, as the most violent tremor yet shook the room, cracking the floor beneath me. Water began to rise up from the crack, and before long I was standing up to my ankles in what smelled like river water. I stood again, and kicked at the door, but it stood firm. All of a sudden, a rather stout man, sporting dark colored muttonchops and a feral look in his eyes, appeared in the window. A cheroot cigar stuck between his teeth, he put his hand up, balled into a fist, and mouthed the words 'stand back' to me. I stepped back from the door, watching as three long blades popped from between his knuckles and I heard the soft clang of metal against metal as he used them to slice the bolt off the outside of the door, and a loud thud as he kicked it in. The smoke from his cigar wafted up around his strange hairstyle as he stuck it back between his teeth.
"Come on, and keep up." He said, turning from the doorway and sprinting through the now knee high water and down the hall. My height hadn't changed at all in the last five years, and I stood a short four foot five when I was standing up straight, so the water was debilitating and slowed my movements down considerably, so in order to keep up with my savior, I took to running along the walls until my momentum dissipated and left me struggling through the water again. Short of breath, I tried desperately to call to my new friend, but found that he was out of sight, leaving me stranded with no idea where to go at an intersection in the hallways. I glanced from left to right and then back to the left again. 'When in doubt, go right,' I thought to myself, taking the right part of the T and jogging along the quickly filling corridors. Several metal barrels wrapped in yellow tape with a hazardous materials insignia stamped on it floated by me, and a loud rumble caught my ears. My eyes grew wide as I saw what appeared to be a tidal wave sweeping down the corridor, smashing more of these barrels against the concrete walls, breaking several of them open. Some sort of silver liquid seeped out of them and into the white water as it rushed to over come me, and turning, I tried to beat the rushing water back to the T but to no avail as it loomed over me and slammed me into the hallway floor, splashing the silver liquid all over my body. I don't know how much of it I swallowed, but when the water passed, and I was able to return to the surface, my stomach felt heavy, and it was all I could do to stay afloat as the silvery ooze seeped into my eyes.
"Help! Please," I cried weakly as darkness began to overtake me, the oozing liquid, some kind of liquid metal, I guessed, burned into my eyes, with a single sputtering cough, I fell into unconsciousness.
