Flame Twister

The Story of Rachel Flemmings

Destiny Wren

My name is Rachel Flemmings and this is my story. I was born on October 31, 1986 in a small town thirty miles west of the Outer Banks in North Carolina. The Outer Banks is sometimes called the graveyard of the Atlantic. Thinking back to living in North Carolina, I realized it was better than living here. I guess I should describe myself. I'm around 5'6" and I have long black hair with red streak tips. My eyes are two different colours due to the exposure to that chemical accident and the science experiments. My right eye is completely blue and the other is completely white with no pupils. I have a fair complexion. I am twenty-five years old.

Before all of this, I was a scientist and an international spy. Part of my job was to build secret weapons for the government and to deliver them. One day I received a call to investigate a new chemical substance that was discovered in Iraq. Apparently, the US was to acquire the chemical for half a billion dollars. I was to make tests on it with my boss, whose name is Nicholas Strider, on a peninsula that jutted out in the Arctic Ocean off the coast of Greenland. My boss got sick the day of our plane departure. He sent me by myself. I immediately made arrangements to have the chemical shipped ahead while I got my stuff from back home. If I had known what was going to happen in the next few weeks, I would have laughed. Instead, I was wondering why they had hired someone such as me.

I arrived at my destination five days later. I was exhausted. Who knew filling out paperwork, having a security check, and ID check took so long. I should have been used to it after three years of working as an international spy. My boss-he caught pneumonia-sent his son, Junior, along with me at the last minute. That kid is a punk. He's seven years younger than me and looks like he's related to the goblin king in the Hobbit. I hate Junior, even though I'm friends with his mother. He maligned everyone on the crew except me. For some reason, he has always been terrified of me. I wouldn't blame him though; I can be terrifying when I'm angry. Funny, that didn't stop him from causing the explosion. He's the reason why the first half of my life with my powers was used as a weapon against the innocent people that I had killed. The little idiot nearly killed me. He killed everyone else. One moment, everything is fine and then the next moment the alarms are going off. The explosion destroyed the tank that the chemical was being held in. It started leaking under the door. When it comes into contact with any living thing, the object is devoured. It's a miracle that I survived. The chemical is a lot like liquefied hydrochloric acid, only green. As I was running out of the building, I didn't spot Junior standing outside the door with a pole. The brat hit me with it. The last thing I saw was the chemical oozing toward me.

I woke up to intense pain. It felt like I was on fire with hundreds of needles being shoved into me. The pain was too much. I blacked out again.

"Sir, she's waking up," a woman said.

"Good. Stabilize her," replied a male voice.

I slowly turned my head toward the sound of the voices. My gaze fell on a man and a woman in white lab coats. I was strapped to a metal table under a bright light. The room was made of metal and it was cold. I couldn't see very well because apparently the light came from that one light bulb.

"Good morning, Miss Flemmings. Welcome to Alcatraz Island," the man spoke when he saw me look at him.

"Why am I here? Who are you? What do you want?" I asked. "And why am I strapped down like I am a lunatic?"

"My name is Doctor Peter Walker. You are here because of the fact that you survived an encounter with Substance 327. You are being monitored because, quite frankly, you should be dead."

"You didn't tell me what you wanted," I replied.

"I want the chance to see what will happen to you. I want to see if the chemical is still trying to destroy you," Dr. Walker stated.

"And people in Hell want ice water. Let me up," I demanded.

"I'm sorry, but you see, everyone thinks you're dead…"

"What!?"

"And that means you can't leave," he finished.

"What do you mean that everyone thinks I'm dead?" I asked.

"The explosion at the science lab in Greenland was on the news three days ago," Dr. Walker replied uncaringly.

"Three days! I have been unconscious for three days?!" I shouted as I struggled against my bonds.

"Sir, her blood pressure is going up," the lady stated.

"Calm down, I can't have you freaking out on me. I also can't have you dying; then this experiment will not work," Dr. Walker told me.

The next thing I knew was the lady coming toward me with a needle as big as a toothpick. I couldn't do a damn thing as she stuck it into my arm. Immediately, there was a searing pain. I started screaming and trying to stay conscious.

"MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE!"

"Knock her out. I can't stand screaming."

The next thing I knew I was in a concrete cell somewhere on the island. It was dark and damp. Somewhere there was the sound of people screaming. There was a window, which had bars on it, that I could see out of. It was dark outside. The wind was howling and it was raining. I tried get up but I realized that I was chained to the wall by an ankle chain. I could go more than three feet in any direction. As my eyes adjusted to the dark in the room, I noticed a cot close by me and a metal pot that I assumed to be a toilet. I heard a scratching sound near one of the walls. The concrete cell seemed to be rather small, although it was shaped roughly like a rhombus. The door was in the center of the longer wall. The bed was under the window along the shorter wall. The other two walls were just bare.

"Help! Can anyone hear me! Please, answer me if you can!" I shouted as loudly as I could out the window.

There was no answer except that there was a sudden clap of thunder. I slid down the wall and started to cry. I couldn't believe what was happening to me. I didn't understand. I cried until I heard a song start to play. It was Hey Brother by Avicii.

"Who's there?"

There was no answer. I cried out again but was met with just the song playing. I don't know how long I just sat there and cried. Eventually, I got up and laid down on the bed and fell asleep.

I woke up to the sun shining in my face. The whole day I didn't see any human beings. There was music playing though. It sounded like it came from outside my cell in the hall but I couldn't see anything because the door was made of solid metal. How the music was coming in had I no idea, but I wasn't complaining. It was strange because every song was ones that I loved. I hoped that someone would come at tell me what was going on or at least to give me something to do. All I had with me was my clothes, gum, and a couple of coins from Greenland. I wasn't given any food or water that whole day.

The next day was relatively the same except I was given water through a slot in the door. When I cried out, there was no answer. I realized that I was isolated from everyone. Suddenly, the wind started to howl outside and clouds sprang up. Then it started to snow. I stood there dumbfounded as I watched it turn into a blizzard. It began to get really cold. I heard the sound of running feet outside. There was shouting.

"Sir, it's snowing outside!"

"It's that freak, she's doing this."

Then I heard Dr. Walkers voice outside, "So it worked. Good and now for the rest of the experiment; bring her to me tomorrow. We will see if the second dose will also work."

I drew away from the window and sank onto my bed. Who was this person they were talking about? Maybe we could help each other escape if she was a prisoner too. I sat on my bed for the rest of the day thinking of ways to escape. The day slowly went by as I planned and re-planned. Eventually, I fell asleep.

I woke up the next day to guards coming in my cell. They came over and unchained me from the wall. They blindfolded me and dragged me out of my cell. We walked about 100 feet before turning a corner. Then we went down a flight of stairs. We went out a door to the outside. After that, we entered another building. This time we got in an elevator and went down. I don't know how many floors. We entered a hallway and walked another 100 feet before entering a room. That's where they took off the blindfold. I blinked at the sudden brightness. Before I could recover, I was shoved onto a table in the middle of the room. The room looked like the same one I was in before.

"Good, you're here. Now no screaming or other annoying noises because I have a headache today," Dr. Walker announced as he came into the room.

"That was an impressive display of powers these last two days. I wonder what else you can do."

"What display of powers?"

All he did was chuckle and turn around to a small table that had various instruments on it. He picked up a needle and started to fill it up with a bluish liquid. When it was half way full, he turned toward me. The pain of the needle wasn't has painful as the first one. Then at once my head and eyes started to hurt, badly. The light became too intense for me and I suddenly felt very weak. I was blindfolded and dragged back to my cell. I was reeling from the sudden blast of light and the headache. I was thrown onto my cot. All day I was in agony. My eyes hurt the most. Something was happening to them because the little light I had was getting to be too much. Soon I fell asleep.

I woke up to the sound of my cell door being opened. The same procedure happened to me. For three weeks, I was experimented on and tortured. Dr. Walker was trying to make me into a super weapon to take over the world. The man was completely insane. He reminded me of that crazy doctor named Dr. Strange.

Every time I came back to my cell, I felt like I was getting stronger and stronger. My pain tolerance was getting higher as well. I seemed to be able to adapt to any type of weather. I started to plan on how I was to escape from my prison. The base was on the island so I needed a boat. I was rarely outside except when I was led to the metal room and I was blindfolded when this happened. I managed to glean information about my prison from listening to the guards talking. About 1,000 feet away from my cell, there was a dock that had motorboats. No one guarded them. There was really no patrol system because no one ever came to the island unless they worked here. The island itself was rocky and uninhabitable, except at the base, which took up most of the island. The conditions around the island at night were foggy and hazy. Thankfully, that was just what I needed.

I began to understand what the experiments were about. Dr. Walker was trying to make me into a mutant like in the X-men movies. The chemical itself started to change my DNA and the doctor's substances that he injected into me was accelerating the changes. I didn't know my own powers though. I had to break into the base's computer in order to figure what exactly they were trying to make me. I needed to find that room before I could execute my escape plan, which I had yet to develop. First, I needed to figure out what my powers could do. It was time to do my own experiments.

I remembered what Dr. Walker said the third day about an impressive display of power. Maybe my powers had to do with the weather, or even the elements. After my daily "check-up" by the lab rats, I would try to use my abilities. Nothing seemed to work.