I stared at the bars of my cage in utter disgust and smashed my fist into the thick, metal door with a quiet thunk.
Yeah, I said, "cage". I know what you're thinking, but it wasn't a prison. Not the normal type. Oh, I wish it were a prison. If I were in Juvie I could stand up or even talk to someone. If I were in prison I'd be dancing for joy.
I wasn't in prison; you probably noticed. It didn't have enough room to dance, or stand. Heck, I barely had room to sit upright. If you've heard from Max, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, the School.
This sucks, I thought for the millionth time that day. I punched the bars harder. Thunk. Harder. Thunk! Blood was beginning to run down my hands, but I didn't care. Thunk! I rammed my fist hard into the cold, feeling the skin on my knuckles tear. I hurt all over anyway, from the experiments. Thwak! My hand drew back and I snapped it forwards with all of the force and rage and resentment in my fragile body. Crunch!
"YAUGH!!!!" I screamed, clutching my hand. At least two of my fingers were broken. I could feel it in the stabs of pain that sent shocks up my arm. I could feel the eyes of some of the other experiments on me. The ones that had eyes anyway. Or brains. Or knew how to use them, for that matter.
I heard footsteps in the hall, coming closer. I bit my lip and tasted blood, unable to keep from whimpering one last time in angry pain. Tears leaked into my eyes and I shoved them back. I'd only ever cried a couple times in my life after the change. I'd sworn I never would again.
Stupid whitecoats. Stupid experiments. Stupid School! Augh!!!
I shifted back from the door as the whitecoats shuffled closer, on guard for any attack. They'd learned the hard way that they had to be careful with me. I almost smiled at the memory, but I hadn't done that in years either. The muscles didn't seem to be working right.
At least I thought it had been years. The days were sort of blended together, a hazy mass of pain and fear. I could barely remember the face of my mother. I think I was four when the whitecoats took me and started experimenting on me. I'd been in that stupid School four ten or eleven years. And you know what? They'd replaced some of my human DNA with something else.
Red hazed over my vision as the whitecoats unlocked my door. I was sick of everything, I was sick of it! The only thought I had as they reached in to pull me out was, IwantoutIwantoutIwantOUT!
Through the red haze, I felt myself moving forwards, out of the cage. I felt oddly detached from everything. I felt sort of like an out-of-body experience.
I drew back my fist and punched. Hard.
I hit one in the stomach and then spun, landing a hard kick on another's side. A quick uppercut to a third whitcoat's face and she crumpled.
I checked the situation. There had been five to begin with: three whitecoats and two unmorphed erasers. I'd downed two whitecoats, but the eraser I'd kicked was getting up, morphing. The remaining whitecoat took out one of those electric-rod thingies that they used to zap me during tests.
I flinched and bit back a yelp as pain lashed through my side. The second eraser had grazed me. I was cornered, backed up against my cage, with enemies advancing from all sides.
I'm never going to back down. Never ever again.
I jumped on top of my cage backwards, still facing them. One of the erasers lunged.
As quick as a flash, I stepped on his hand and vaulted over him, kicking hard backwards. I heard something crunch and nodded slightly to myself before taking off down the hallway.
I glanced back once and saw the remaining whitecoat running through another door. Then a voice came through some speakers in the walls, "Subject A42MiK9 has escaped from its cage. Kill it."
Cool, I thought, anger turning my blood into fire, No more second chances.
I burst through another door, then another and stopped, backpedaling furiously. The room was full of erasers. They all looked up, and every one of them began to grin and morph. Screaming like a maniac, I shot back out of the door and down the hallway, with at least a dozen erasers on my tail.
I swerved left, then right, through so many doors that I lost track of where I was. Then burst trough another…straight into a maze. I froze only a fraction of a second before plunging in.
Maybe I can trap some of them. Please, God, don't let me die here!
The walls were still shifting, but I simply ran, zigzagging backtracking, looping, until my lungs burned and I couldn't feel my legs. Then the walls simply melted away, shifting until I couldn't see them. There was a wall running around the room, no exit, no entrance. I was doomed.
I saw the erasers turning, looking…and spotting their prey. Yeah, that'd be moi.
And then they were charging.
I ran away from them as fast as I could, but there was nowhere to run. My eyes darted around, looking for a way out. No doors.
The erasers were taking easy strides now, leisurely. They could have fun now that they had me trapped. I backed into a wall. So much for the running-around-until-they're-too-tired-to-follow idea. Now the only option I had was the fight-at-least-a-dozen-erasers-all-at-once idea. And whether you believe it or not, I wasn't to keen on that.
I swung about in a hard roundhouse kick into one's stomach. He doubled over as I planted my elbow in another's face, feeling his nose break. I swayed sideways to dodge a punch that cracked the wall and brought my foot down from the roundhouse, breaking his arm. One grabbed my hand and twisted. I heard a snap and winced, gritting my teeth until they squeaked.
Time ticked by, thirty seconds, a minute as I landed blow after blow, but they were scoring hits on me too. I was bleeding and in pain. It felt like half my bones were broken. I saw a fist coming, but I was too tired to dodge. It landed on my face hard and I went down, tasting blood. Through a haze of darkness, I saw erasers advancing, nursing their wounds and snarling. Five were unconscious. One had both of his legs broken. Other than that, they could all walk. And I was on the ground, almost blacked out. Bad news. Seriously.
I felt the blackness rushing towards me. Is this the end? I wondered.
Wow, only chapter one, and a cliffhanger already! I was going to end it differently, but it got too long… So, does she live, does she die? Review to find out!