253 laid there and watched the back of Dr. Trost as he stood defeated in his medical lab. Scraps of metals and plastics littered the ground around his feet, along with the corpses of the tools that they were once attached to. They had all proved fruitless in their efforts to make 253 so much as flinch, much less pierce his skin. Honestly, 253 was just as confused as Dr. Trost was. Something about the fact his skin was impenetrable to Dr. Trost did not feel right. An alien concept to him. However, he was more worried about his aching back than what was going through the good doctor's head.
Dr. Trost stood there and stared at 253. His face adopted a look of intrigued defeat. Dr. Trost must not have had much experience with occurrences such as this. It both intrigued and confused 253 how little the doctor knew about a body like his. Deep inside him, 253 felt deep relief surface. Fear had started to take over on the third drill, but by the tenth scalpel it had all but disappeared. He found himself wondering if the doctor was done with these useless procedures. The doctor looked up to make eye contact with 253.
"You are by far the most interesting specimen that I have had the pleasure of studying." Dr. Trost said. He then proceeded to take off his glasses, carefully folding them and placing them on the table next to 253. He the took off his lab coat and walked over to the far left of the room, opposite from him. Dr. Trost hung the lab coat up on a rack with his back facing 253. "Despite having such a wide variety of tools at my disposal, it seems I could not penetrate your skin. I'm afraid I will have to resort to brute force with this. Such a shame, you know? I would have preferred to do this without making a mess."
253 did not say a word. He wondered what Dr. Trost meant by brute force. Perhaps he was preparing another machine to be used on him. It was annoying at the most, but 253 say no threat big enough where he should try to escape. At this point he was all but certain that his condition was a phenomenon. From what he was able to piece together, the scalpel was made to cut through a person flesh. Those drills were several times stronger than the scalpel. If the drills did not even put a scratch on him, his skin must be several times stronger than that of the average person they were used to dealing with. Perhaps he was not afraid of the soldiers because he knew that subconsciously. No doubt there were many things he did not know about his own body. But he had to wonder, was strong skin the only ability he possessed? Looking down at the straps that held him in place, he noticed he barely felt them now. Was this because of his skin? Shaking his hand a little, he noticed that the straps looked like they were tight, but to him they felt rather flimsy. If they felt like that, perhaps they actually were. Or it could just be a thought that passed his mind. Across the room, Dr. Trost heard the small commotion that he made. Turning to face him, the doctor smiled.
"Trying to escape?" Dr. Trost said.
"No. Simply testing a theory." 253 said. Without a second thought, he sat up. Much to his surprise, he found there was no resistance from the straps. As soon as he began to move, they strained for only a few moments before being forced to break. He raised his hands in front of his face as flexed them, studying the way his limbs moved. These were made to hold someone down it seemed. If that was the case, they would need to be strong enough to hold a person down. "So I have sizable amount of strength as well." He looked to the straps on his ankles and reached down. He grabbed the one on his left and simply jerked it up. The sudden movement and force on the strap caused it to give way immediately, breaking with a muffled sound. He reached over to his right ankle and did the same.
His legs now free, he turned towards the left side of the bed and stood up. He lifted both his arms and stretched his back with an audible crack signaling his relief. Much better, he thought to himself. He turned to the doctor, who simply stood there un-moving. 253 could see from the quivering of the doctor's lips, the uncontrolled shaking in his right hand, and the sudden but large amount or perspiration that the doctor was feeling an intense amount of fear. Though he could safely say he did not understand what had put the doctor in such a state, he assumed it had something to do with him. Regardless, the doctor was not on his list of worries at the moment. He wanted to know where he was and who had brought him here. He thought to ask the doctor. The soldiers would no doubt be extremely against answering any of his questions.
"Dr. Trost?" He asked. The doctor jumped a little at the sudden mention of him, and he audibly gulped what 253 assumed to be an excessive amount of saliva.
"Y-y-yes?" Dr. Trost stuttered. Strange, he never stuttered before. Perhaps his extensive amount of fear is the cause behind it, 253 thought to himself.
"Could you tell me where I am?" 253 asked. Dr. Trost was silent for a moment. 253 found himself confused at Dr. Trost's hesitation, though he pinned down the reason to be fear.
"...I-I'm afraid that information is c-classified." Dr. Trost said. 253 frowned. Classified? If he was not mistaken, that meant the doctor was not allowed to share the information with him. Although his original theory was wrong, it did not really matter to him. He would just ask someone else.
"I see. Thank you." He said simply, and turned to the door. Stepping in front of it, he inspected the door for any sign of ow to open it. Much to his dismay, he found nothing that looked like it opened the door. If he remembered correctly, the door slid closed earlier. Perhaps it slid open in the same fashion. Looking closely at it, he saw that there was a small amount of opening on the right side of the door. Maybe if he slid it to the right, it would open enough for him to walk through. Putting his hand on it, he expected a great deal of resistance from the door. He applied a large deal of force on it. However, instead of sliding open, the door broke free form the wall and flew forward. It smashed across the hall with a loud banging of metal and crushing of glass. Caught off guard, he looked down at his hand and studied it. It seems that I don't know the limits of my strength, nor how to control it. I shall have to figure out how soon to avoid mishaps like this in the future. But first, I should apologize to the doctor for breaking his hospital.
"I apologize." 253 said, turning to Dr. Trost. "That was a mistake on my part." 253 turned back to the door and walked through. As soon as his feet stopped moving, a sudden flurry of red lights and blaring sounds met him. It seemed the entire hallways was dark except for the pulsing red light that was present. He could hear the noises of pounding footsteps and clanking metal. Confusion grew in him as he wondered what was going on. Judging from the lights and sounds, it was obviously some kind of emergency. If something dangerous is going on, then I should get out of here. Just because the doctor couldn't hurt me doesn't mean that whatever is happening can't.
With that thought in mind he started to walk down the hallway, the chorus of lights and sounds never leaving him as he walked. He could hear the shouting of soldiers not too far from him. He decided it was best if they did not find him, lest they start trying to shoot him. Although, that lead him to the question. Could bullets hurt him? He knew that they were made to kill a person, but never the less he began to wonder. What if he was impenetrable to bullets as well? The thought plagued him as he continued to walk down the hall. He began to wonder what else he could do, or what else could or couldn't hurt him. It was a mystery to him. He sighed out loud.
"HEY! YOU!" Someone shouted. He turned his head in confusion towards the voice. At the end of the hall behind him, there were at least five soldiers lined up side by side facing him. Each of them was armed with a sizable enough gun that it even started to worry 253 a little. They all pointed their guns at him in unison, each one shouting their own commands. He could make out something of what they said, but they were drowned out under the horns.
What's up with them? He thought to himself. Oh, they probably want me to surrender or something like that. I am a prisoner here after all. Do they think I'm trying to escape or something? Well, now that I think about it, I guess it would seem like that. I should clear this up before they do something stupid.
Without warning, all five guns began firing in sequence at him. The sounds of the bullets being unloaded echoed out over the sirens, and where they connected on the floor under and the ceiling above sparks flew. He could feel stinging on his skin, although it was more of an annoyance to him than something painful. They connected with different parts of his body rapidly. 253 instinctively raised his right arm to cover his eyes so that none of the metal or sparks got in them. He decide that he had enough problems to deal with as it is without a piece of metal wedged behind his eyelids.
So they're actually trying to kill me. 253 thought. Well, in hindsight, Dr. Trost trying to cut my skin open should have been my first clue that something was off here.
The firing died out slowly, until there was one gun left firing. When it stopped, 253 could hear that the blaring sirens had went silent as well. At least that wasn't annoying him now. He kept his arm in front of his face for another moment, in case the soldiers were going to fire again. After a moment, he was convinced that they weren't. But he had to make sure.
"Are you done?" 253 asked. There was no answer, but there wasn't any gunfire either. He took that as an answer. He lowered his arm and looked at them. "Good. Now, if you could tell me just where I am, I-"
"HEY!" He heard from behind him. He closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of annoyance. He waited a second to calm himself down before turning around. Standing at the opposite end of the hallway was the girl who had found him in the iceberg. Maybe she could help him.
"Hello. Maybe you can help me? I'm-" He started, but was soon cut off by her firing a small pistol at him. He felt a small tingle on his forehead and heard the sound of the bullet ricocheting onto the metal. Despite that, he continued on. "-trying to figure out where I am."
"You think you can just come in here and attack us?" She asked. 253 raised his eyebrows in confusion. He hasn't attacked anybody as far as he could remember. Of course, a few things were broken because of him, but that was hardly need to say he was attacking them. When he thought about it, they were the ones attacking him. Of course, pointing those points out wouldn't help him get any closer to knowing where he was.
"I did not attack you." 253 stated simply. The girl scoffed, not lowering her aim at him. "Can you tell me where I am?"
"Are you serious?! You think I would really tell you the location of this base!" She said, her voice filled with determination. 253 betrayed no emotion, although he was becoming more and more irritated with these people.
"Yes." He said simply. The girl was clearly caught off guard, her face faltering for only a millisecond.
"Who sent you? The U.N.? Russia?" She asked. 253 blinked, confused at what she was asking. Were those people or something? Whatever they were it sounded like she didn't like them.
"I don't believe that I was sent here by anyone. In fact, you were the ones to bring me here." 253 said. The girl frowned at him, her grip on her gun becoming visibly tighter.
"So you're a joker, is that it?" She asked him. 253 was confused as to why she thought he was joking. He was being completely serious while talking to her. Perhaps she did not understand what he meant. Just as he opened his mouth to respond, the girl cut him off. "Don't say another word. I'm tired of hearing your voice."
Well that was unnecessarily harsh. So be it, He thought. He realized that trying to ask them about his location was nothing more than a waste of time. He should just leave and figure it out from there. Ignoring all the guns pointed at him, he started walking towards the end of the hallway, determined to find a way out of this place. He had questions that needed answering, and if he couldn't get them from these soldiers, he would just find them himself.
The girl took a step back as he advanced, her gun raised so that 253 could see down the barrel. He could see from the look on her face that she knew the gun would not help her take him down in any way. But that did not stop her from keeping the gun raised at him as he took more steps towards her. He was halfway to her when she started to fire at him wildly.
Bullets bounced off him with a strange sound. To him, it kind of sounded like "ping." They sparked as they ricocheted off his skin and into the surrounding environment, always hitting around his face but never hitting eyes, much to his relief. Bullets must move slow, because he could see them as they came towards him and bounce off. He knew he could dodge them if he wanted to, his instincts told him so. But he thought that it would do nothing but hurt the guys behind him, so he let the bullets hit him and move out of the way of danger for anyone behind him.
He was now a foot from her, and she kept firing. Soon her last bullet was fired, and no matter how much she pulled the trigger, the only thing that happened was the gun making a strange clicking noise. He kept walking towards the hallway behind her despite the major annoyance he was feeling. She finally stopped pulling the trigger and threw the gun at him, which bounced harmlessly off his chest. The girl took one step back for ever step he took in her direction. Soon her back hit a wall and she couldn't move anymore. Her face shook slightly in an expression mixed between fear and anger. 253 took one more step towards her, then turned right and continued down that hallway.
He could not hear nay noise behind him, so he assumed they were finally going to leave him alone. Now he had one less problem to deal with, but he still had to figure out where he was and what he was doing here. To be honest, he didn't care what these guys wanted to do, but he it irritated him to no extent that they wouldn't answer a simple question after abducting him and trying to harm him on multiple occasions. These guys had no idea how to treat people. He might not know much but he knew that.
He continued his walk down the hall and came to a large open area. Inside it were extremely large metal objects lined up in rows. Planes, he thought. There were boxes and smaller metal vehicles that littered the ares around the planes, but there were strangely no people around. They must have left when the sirens and lights started to go off. Maybe they thought they were in danger or something. Oh well, now he had to figure out how to get out of here.
Looking at one of the walls, he saw that it was different from the others. It was especially large, roughly around three times his height he guessed, but there was a split down the middle. He guessed that it acted like a big door of some kind. Well, all he had to do was open it. Walking towards it, he wondered what he would do after he left. He knew nothing about anything except for what he learned from the girl back at the iceberg. Still, it was better than staying here with these people.
He walked up the door and put both of his hands on the split. Slowly, he pulled apart the wall with little effort and opened it to the outside. A gust of cold wind hit him in the face, although now he could barely feel it. The metal of the door groaned in resistance as he continued to pull them apart. Instead of the separate walls moving, he found that most of the wall stayed the same as he made a whole in the bottom portion big enough for him to fit through. After a moment, he let go of the metal and stepped trough. His feet stepped in the snow and sunk down about an inch, snow hitting his skin and melting immediately.
He barely felt any of it. He guessed one of his abilities were now immunity to the cold. Looking up at the dark sky, he realized the only source of light came from behind him. Everything else that surrounded him was dark, unknown. It was the only time he really felt uneasy after waking up. Looking at the endless white blanket that covered everything he could see, he wondered if he should just go back into the base. But then again, he didn't think he was welcomed there, not now at least. Sighing, he took one step forward. he then hesitated a second to see if something would happen.
Well, not dead yet, he thought. With only a small sense of security, he started his journey into the unknown
