TITLE: The Price Of Survival (Chapter 2)
AUTHOR: Ananova Crowe ||^_^||
DISCLAIMER: i don't own 'em, i just play with 'em!!! :) i would really appriciate it if you could send me feedback, thank you!!!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Metallica: Poor Twisted Me (cont.)
So tear me open, but beware
There's things inside without a care
And the dirt still stains me
So wash me, until I'm clean
It grips you, so hold me
It stains you, so hold me
It hates you, so hold me
It holds you, so hold me
~*~
The Price of Survival CHAPTER .2 - Beautiful Disaster
(Sum up chapter before: Logan has been acting strangely ever since the rescue and so Scott gets frustrated and leaves for a while and Jean unintentionally enters Logan's mind via her telepathic abilities and figures out what happened to him. :) )
*present in Logan's mind*
"...I know who you are...I know who you are...I know who you are..." The voice echoed like a marshmallow soaked in molasses, dripping from the invisible phantom's tongue. The remark echoed hollowly in his head, disturbing him through his sleepless night.
"Get the hell out of my head!" Logan screamed out loud, cinching his eyes closed and smashing his pillow over the top of his head as if to block away the phantom. The rattling of the cheap window pain as the brutal drops of rain beat against the glass drowned out his voice.
But the suffocation of the pillow made him lift it from his face, taking in a deep, long breath in to fill his aching lungs and satisfy his thirst to fill the emptiness. But despite all circumvention to avoid the voice, it returned to his head. Louder and more vexatious.
"...I know who you are...I know who you are...I know who you are..."
"Arrrrgh!" He screamed at the top of his lungs so it ricocheted off the flimsy walls and seemed to shake the entire building. "Then who the fuck am I?!" With one swift sidestroke of his arm and the whisper of summoned metal breaking through flesh, his pillow exploded into a soft snowfall of down feathers.
The feathers scattered everywhere, coming to rest as a light blanket that seemed to quiet the room momentarily. Logan's eyes slowly fell to his hand, which shook in frustration and fear of himself.
Three nine-inch alloy claws protruded from his clenched fist, the shredded remnants of the pillowcase hung in tatters, strewn across the deadly blades like a thick cloth of spider webs. He looked away in disgust as he retracted the blades back into his knuckles.
"...I know who you are...I know who you are...I know who you are..." He forced himself not to listen, instead he pushed himself up from the rusty spring mattress and threw on a pair of faded jeans that were extremely worn with holes and tears all over, along with a black tee-shirt and a leather jacket.
He figured he'd go for a short walk, despite the weather, and maybe go down by the river and watch the sunrise. He flashed a glance to his wristwatch, which read three a.m. He yawned, remembering that he hadn't slept a wink in five days, but it mattered little to him.
~*~
*three days before*
"No, don't touch me! No! Get away from me!" Venus "Knightmare" Crowe cried out at the four men approaching her. She had been thrown onto her back onto the cold, hard concrete in the back of an alley. The pavement was splattered with blood, grime, and other things better left unrecognized.
So far she had put up a pretty good fight, able to give one of the men a broken nose which bled uncontrollably down his chin and dripped onto the pavement. But still the man came with the others; his rage as deep as the other's but more so for his wound than her mutanty.
She tried to kick at them, but they beat away her foot with the broken pipes and boards they had found along the road. She had managed to plant a good blow to the middle of one of the people's chest, but that only rewarded her with a purple bruise across the side of her cheekbone.
"We know what you are you piece of shit...Your kind shouldn't be here...You freaks are what's scaring America to the brink of warfare...You should go back to the planet that you came from!" One of them yelled at her, swinging his pipe with a loud *thwack* across her shoulder, bringing forth a wave of pain.
Venus cried out and fell back against the cement, smashing her head hard against the pavement. Her vision wavered momentarily, sloshing back and forth until returning to the hazy gray beneath her puffy eyelids.
All she had done was walked home, in the middle of the night; she had just wanted to get away from studying late at school. But unfortunately she had been cut off by some people looking for a fight to pick because they somehow knew of her 'powers'.
"Please stop! I didn't hurt anyone!" She protested, but the contact of flesh and biting splinters of wood made her think otherwise. Soon her whole head shook and the warm sensation of blood rushed into her mouth.
She spat the bile to the ground, feeling it dribble down her chin at her lamed effort. She reached up with a shaky hand and clumsily wiped away the drool, wishing desperately to suddenly vanish into thin air. But her wish was only answered by the hard blow to the side of her head.
Her vision began to cloud over, the looming blotches of black connecting and expanding so that despite all her trouble, she was blinded. The metal-toed boot of someone connected with her side, knocking the air from her lungs and causing her to fly backwards and smash into the wall behind her.
She could do nothing but roll away from where she knew the next attack was coming, but her body sang out with so much pain that it hurt to even breathe. Then suddenly, her ears picked up the whisper of footsteps close to her head; she curled into a ball, expecting a harsh strike with something.
But instead, there was the soft feeling of smooth cloth against her cheek. It felt like someone's fingers above the cloth pushing against her beaten and painful, but where the cloth touched her, there was no pain. Then suddenly, the numbing feeling that clouded over the pain began to spread, streaming through her veins and rushing through her every extremity so fast it burned.
Within the blink of an eye, Venus' eyesight returned and the bruises and scratched no longer hurt, instead she was overcome with calmness and the sense of rest as if she had been sleeping and was completely content. It took her a minute to fully convince herself that she wasn't dreaming and to fully trust herself to turn over onto her back.
"Holy shit!" One of the men said with huge eyes, his partners all huddled together, reinforcing the term 'safety by numbers'. Venus thought her imagination had finally gone to shreds when she heard what the man had to say next. "There's another mutie! Those damn things are all over like fucking insects! Let's get out of here."
The men turned and fled, dropping their weapons to ease their escape and she lay and watched them retreat down the road. Then suddenly, something like invisible hands grabbed Venus by the wrists and gently guided her to her feet. She staggered for a moment, before another pair of hands were at her shoulders, supporting her.
Venus turned back to see a tall, thin woman keeping balance for her. Her entire body was covered from head to toe in solid blue, and shingles of dark scales ran the length of her arms and legs. Her glossy red hair was slicked back solidly to her head, as if she had taken a glob of blood and used it as hair gel.
The blue woman's pearly white teeth shown like a beacon through the darkness, illuminating her face and intensifying her features. Wicked yellow eyes glowed faintly in the moonlight, almost like a lizard's, but with some human effect.
"You have nothing to fear now..." A voice came out from in front of her, as if someone was standing three inches from her face, but there was no one there. The voice was like a ghost, still holding her wrists like a protective mother.
Then suddenly, the outline of a human began to liquefy, dripping down to add more onto the body until finally the shimmering illumination of a woman stood before her. Then the glimmering outline solidified, taking on specific form and colors.
Soon a woman in tight leather pants and a white shirt was standing before Venus. Intense blue eyes stared down at her with love and compassion and warmth, the complete opposite of what was on her wrists.
Even through her long-sleeved shirt, Venus could feel the biting coldness from the hands that were still locked around her wrists. The liquid-woman shot a look to the blue-scaled woman and released Venus' wrist, smiling politely.
"Allow me to introduce myself, I am Asia Platt, but better known as "Vanish"," The liquid woman introduced herself, and then with a pale hand she pointed to the blue-scaled woman over Venus' shoulder. "And this is Mystique..."
"I'm...I'm Venus...or "Knightmare"." She stuttered, then suddenly remembered. "Whatever you do, don't-" She warned with a shaky breath, but was cut off when Vanish lifted her hand.
"I know," Vanish whispered then pointed out toward the opening of the alleyway, putting the other hand to her lips. Nightmare strained to watch and instead listened to the distant screams of the people who had tried to attack her.
Suddenly, the alley was ignited in a blazing fire that seemed to roar upward and swallow the sky, dimming the stars, and ceasing the screams. Nightmare tilted her head up to Mystique with a questioning gaze.
Mystique turned to her with wide, intensely yellow eyes and licked her lips. Obviously indicating something that Knightmare really didn't want to think about. Instead she turned back out to the dead flame, squinting hard into the darkness.
Then she finally saw something, it was moving fast up the alley, bringing a glowing flame of intense blue fire behind it. It was in front of the three women within a single breath. Knightmare was momentarily blinded until her retinas got use to the flamed being before her.
Standing proudly ahead of her was the levitating form of a tall, sleek man. He wore complete black and he smelled of singed clothing, even his skin was dark, the moonlight reflected off of his bald head. A white scar ran down the side of his face, as if someone had stabbed him in the cheek with a knife a long time ago.
"It's a pleasure to finally meet you Knightmare, I am Coal Adams. But you may call me Flame." He smiled graciously and held out his clenched fist; slowly opening his palm to reveal a floating rose that was a thousand times redder than anything Knightmare had ever seen before.
It was absolutely perfect in every way, the satin petals were a glowing crimson and the stem and razor-edged leaves were a vibrant green, even the sharp thorns seemed to create their own light. The magnificent rose rotated slowly in his hand, showing off it's beauty and elegance as if to mock the stars themselves.
"It's yours." His voice was heavy with a Russian accent, matching his immense size. His hands were huge and strong, his fingers alone were longer than half the size of Knightmare's forearm. But his touch was the gentlest thing she had ever felt.
"Thank you," Knightmare paused before taking the rose, afraid the delicate thing might crumble in her hands. But instead, the rose seemed to glow further, illuminating her face and everything around it in its soft, warm light. "But I don't understand..."
"Come my child, we have much to talk about and do." Vanish said, breaking the silence and leading the entire group away into the night. Soon, the only thing that illuminated the night was the moon, which shown down on the splatter of blood a thousand times less vile and evil than a single crimson petal from one glowing rose.
~*~
*present in Logan's mind again* (sorry about the confusion, but it was the only way to make it work... :) )
Logan ducked to avoid a low hanging limb, his boots splashing through the shimmering puddles without a care. He had been walking for three hours and the phantom's voice had done everything but left him alone.
He had managed to ignore the voice for some time, but each time it spoke it became harder and harder to block out of his consciousness. Until finally when the sun began to just barely peek over the taut cord of the horizon, the voice boomed like thunder in his head.
"...I know who you are...I know who you are...I know who you are..." They seemed to grab him by the shirt collar and stare him straight the face, using its mockery as the only explanation of itself.
He pushed it away from him, finding his hurried pace and the rhythmic slap of his boots against the earth once again. He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, feeling the beating raindrops through his soaked and sodden jacket.
He chewed angrily at the butt of his cigar, unable to light it because of the constant rain. He instead survived by chewing at it until it was a mushy substance in his mouth and left a thick coating across his tongue.
Logan stopped, listening to the swift current of the river somewhere off in the distance, but close enough that he could smell its sweet scent. Otherwise the forest was completely silent, not even the rustle or call of a lonely animal echoed off the trees. It seemed strange but he shrugged it from his shoulders, taking in another strange scent.
He was about turn back when he spotted something in the distance, no doubt what was creating the smell. A small bulk jutted up from the earth, something that would have otherwise been missed by someone if they were even looking for it. But Logan had the exception of enhanced vision and even from his distance he could tell it was a human.
He titled up his chin, taking a sniff in the air again before he began walking toward the bulk. As soon as he approached it, he saw it to be a young girl of about fourteen, wrapped from head to toe in clothes. Every inch of her body was covered except for her face, which was pale and looked sick.
"You okay kid?" Logan asked, turning the girl over onto her back to get a better look at her. A puddle of crimson blood began to grow from beneath her, mixing and steaming as it met the mud and rain beneath. "Guess not." He muttered to himself, digging through the clothes until he came down to one layer at her throat.
He knew from experience with Rogue that anyone enfolded in clothes usually wasn't supposed to be touched. He pushed his fingers in, straining to get a pulse until finally he felt the faint thump of a heartbeat, and a counter-heartbeat. Satisfied, he took his jacket from his shoulders and draped it over the young girl.
"It may not be warm kid, but it's all I got." Logan looked up through the trees for anything or anyone that could be of help, but there was nothing. He froze solidly in place, his eyes were the only thing that pivoted to the right when his keen hearing detected the soft *kaff* of footfalls in the shadows.
With blurred movement, three claws popped out from each of his hands, ready for anything that may come his way. He sniffed the air again, only picking up the scent of the girl lying unconscious before him. She reeked of blood, gore, and a lingering sense of fear.
He turned back down to the girl, astonished to find the most beautiful rose he had ever seen in his life resting in her open hand, and her lips curled upward into a small smile. That's when he knew there was something very wrong.
The attack came viscously from above him, a flurry of raking claws and choked cries. He barely had had a chance to defend himself before he was brought face-first into the ground. He came down hard on his palms, broken sticks and rocks digging into the balls of his hands.
He did manage to twist out of their grasp but a hard kick to his belly caught him off guard. And suddenly he felt the sudden thunder of blackness in his head and the vibration of his skull when it met the something solid and metal.
He was able to catch glimpse of the girl on her feet and smiling happily before a flash of blue and a sudden pain in his side made him get back into the fight. Without warning there were a swarm of colors about him and hands and arms holding him to the sodden ground. With a grunt, he lifted someone from his body and threw them against the thick tree beside him, getting the hollow crack of crushing bones.
He blindly swept up with his claws, catching onto something that was thick and tight. He let himself a small smile of success, having finally penetrated someone with his claws for the first time in a while. But he didn't have time to dwell on the moment, nor did he have the control.
The thunder of unconsciousness clouded over him as another blow was planted against the side of his head. He heard the snap of his jawbone as it crushed beneath the force of the huge limb, and a red pain seared through his skull. Another seven brutal blows to the head and stomach finally made the looming blackness consume him and he had no choice but to let himself fall into its icy hands.
~*~
"Adamantium - a supposedly unbreakable, impenetrable, and indestructible metal has been surgically grafted to his entire skeleton. Every bone in his six foot two inch frame is laced with the extremely tough metal alloy, making him a walking miracle. The miracle being that he survived this entire procedure. Bringing to full consideration the adducts of his mutations." She said.
"He obtains the ability of uncharted regenerative capability, which amplifies his powers to restore damaged or even destroyed cells and heal at an incredible rapidity. Unfortunately, during the procedure of bonding the alloy to his bones, fluctuations in the surgical configuration warped at the base of his forearm, causing three - nine inch - claws of extremely durable adamantium alloy to extend from his knuckles."
"The claws can be controlled by his forelimb muscles, any sharp snap of tendons can draw them out and be used to his advantage, but are also contractible at the same degree." Her green eyes swept over the two men sitting in front of her, their faces seeming to be carved from rock. Their expressions were cold and hard and fixated, clearly impressed and interested in her report, or other things.
She clicked off the slide machine of carefully charted pictures from portions of the actual procedure, which had been the only thing lighting the room. With a clap of her hands the small room was bathed in the iridescent glow of artificial light. The light was intense, except around the two dark men sitting side by side at the far end of a circular table.
The far right man - Jackson Henderson - had silver glasses and snow white hair that barely covered his otherwise balding skull. His sharp, carved features seemed darker in the light, as if it shunned him. He was small and frail; seeming so weak that a mere fly landing on his shoulder would crush him.
The far left man - Leonard Kindle - was much younger, barely out of his twenties and huge in comparison to Henderson. His head was crowned with a shock of congealed black hair that was swept back from his face as if he were going nowhere really, really fast. His deep purple eyes seemed to be more interested in her figure than the discussion itself.
Both of the businessmen wore black pinstriped suits, dark ruby and satin blue ties shined under the lights. The men sat across the room from a large white wall from which the images had been projected onto during the discussion. And a woman stood at the bottom, looking at them as a teacher would look at her students.
Her long black-streaked white hair was pulled halfway back behind her ears, the rest allowed to cascade down her slim shoulders. She had bright green eyes, an excellent factor to her perfectly crafted facial features. Ruby lips pursed and glimmered when she spoke and the white blouse and short silken skirt did it complete justice.
"Now gentlemen, I've kept up my end of the bargain." She took a seat at the far end of the table, flipping a pen through her fingers as she watched Henderson pull a dark leather briefcase from the ground. He hesitantly placed the briefcase on the table, careful to keep his hands resting reassuringly on top.
With a cautious look to Kindle, he opened the case with shaking hands; they were shaking more from fear than old age. His face seemed to ignite as he flipped it around, showing its contents to the woman before snapping it closed again.
The woman rolled her eyes at the frail man, expecting his arrogance and distrust in her, but she still despised it. "Not so fast, you said you would have a sample for us to inspect." Henderson turned to his partner who nodded and stood, beginning to leave.
"Wait!" She called after them, standing with a mask of surprise glued across her face. "I was hoping that it would be extracted by now, but the sample has not yet been taken from his skeleton. You have to understand, we're talking about in indestructible metal alloy secured to his bones."
"Then you and I are not the only one's out of luck, miss." Henderson began to turn toward the door again, but the woman said something that struck interest in his head. "But-, I do have the specimen from which the sample would have come from, if you would like to see him...I can make arrangements..."
"How much?" Henderson flipped around surprisingly quick for his elderly age, his eyes were wide like a starved dog looking at a piece of meat just close enough for him to reach. "Ten hundred-thousand dollars, all in advance."
"No!" Henderson's eyes seemed to bulge out of his head as he heard the amount. "Nothing's worth that much!"
"Oh really..." She spat, and suddenly Henderson's fragile frame was engulfed into twisting and devouring flames that made him nothing more than a pile of ashes in five seconds, giving him barely enough time to move, let alone scream. His suit and flesh melted instantly, casting the room a stench that made Kindle want to puke.
"Even your life?" The woman pursed, snapping her neck calmly as if old cranky men suddenly burst into flames all the time around her work.
Kindle's eyes were as wide as cantaloupes as he stared down at his use-to-be partner who lay in a smoldering pile of dark dust. The briefcase lay perfectly untouched beside his glossy black wingtip shoes.
"Wh-What the hell hap-happened to him!?" Kindle's pallor was dead white with fright and his knees shook as he stood there. The woman was almost certain the poor boy had wet himself, but she had more important things to think about.
"Call it spontaneous combustion..." She smirked wickedly as if she knew what had really happened to him. "Would you still care to see the specimen? I'll make an exception for you, only because you're kind of cute."
"Y-Yes..." He stuttered, reaching down with a shaky hand to grab the briefcase from the ground, scattering a small dust of the remnants of Henderson across the floor. He clenched his lips and swallowed back the risen bile in his throat, the sooner he got away from this place, the better he would be.
He followed the woman obediently down the hall, a short walk from the conference room they had just been in. They stopped in front of a large metallic door that stretched up to the ceiling and looked to be wide enough to let a car in.
The woman pulled out a silver card and pushed it into a slot. As the door slid open with a whisper of hydraulics, they were suddenly illuminated with green light. Kindle's jaw literally dropped to the floor as he took in the immense vicinity before him.
Machines and high-tech equipment crowded the floor and walls, any flat space they could. In the center of the room was an elevated bed on a tangle of hydraulics, there was the man curled on a steel bed.
The man was stripped of his upper clothes; but a blanket was pulled up across his hips. Tubes and wires hung and twisted from his body like chaotic serpents, making him look like a psycho's science experiment.
He was lying on his side with a giant device across his back that reached around and clamped his arms to his sides. The device encircled him and forced his hands into two metal gloves with metal claws held out. And judging from the peculiar bulges from beneath the blanket, the device continued across his thighs and ankles.
"Come," The woman coaxed the awestruck man closer to the table. "Think about it Mr. Rappel, you're now standing in the future. Everything you see here is the building block of human evolution." She approached a blank computer screen and with a few flips of switches and a couple buttons, the screen was filled with a sharp picture of a computer-generated image of a single strand of DNA. The DNA strand rotated slowly, filling most of the screen with its diverse grouping of red, blue, green, purple, and yellow dots.
"This is a regular human DNA strand, notice the green dots representing the carbon in the helical phosphate ester chains. Now watch as I bring up a picture of Mr. Logan's DNA." She went intently to work, looking over her shoulder to make sure the contemptuous Mr. Kindle lugging the briefcase was paying attention. "There."
A picture of another DNA strand materialized quickly on the screen, looking exactly like a regular strand of DNA except for the difference of a quadruple helix and-
"So what's happened to the green carbon thingies?" Kindle scrutinized the screen once more time before turning back to the man on the table. For the first time he noticed that the man was fully conscious, his eyes stayed locked on Kindle, and the man had a look that sent a chill down Kindle's spine. A metal mask that cupped his chin and bridged over his nose was securely fastened across his face.
"The helical phosphate in the ester chains?" The woman repeated coldly, trying hard to ignore Kindle's interruption. The green carbon had mutated into a white. "They've been altered by the indestructible alloy called adamantium."
"Adamantium? Isn't that what was put into his skeleton?" He peeked back to the man who only stared at him with cold, dark eyes. Dark strips of hair ran down the sides of the man's face, disappearing beneath the metal mask as if to conceal themselves.
"Yes." She said simply.
"But why would someone want to do something like that?" Kindle said, suddenly becoming impatient and anxious. He frequently glanced behind him to make sure that the man was still immobile, even though he knew the poor creature could hardly breathe; he had to reassure himself.
"Experimentation." She said solemnly as if she felt sorry for the man to which this happened, but from her facial features, there was no emotion to her words. And from what it looked like, she was doing just the same thing to the man again, in a way.
"That's sick."
"No, that's science." The woman corrected with an unflattering smile.
"Okay." Rappel didn't want to push the subject matter any farther than he had to. "So how would someone survive something like this?"
"His genetic enhancement." Her eyes glinted eerily in the green lights, the estranged shadows dancing and breaking across her face.
"I beg your pardon?" Though she had already told him about Logan's abilities, the fright in the conference room had nearly scared the shit out of him, so he had forgotten at least ninety percent of the discussion.
She turned back to him and pointed a slim and delicate hand to the screen, her fingertip following the slow rotation of the strand. "See the third and forth helix on the DNA when there should only be two?"
"Yes," Kindle leaned closer to the screen, nodding his head.
"As I was trying to tell you before, Mr. Logan has the special ability to regenerate damaged or even destroyed tissue." She smiled gleefully, as a child would do when receiving a present.
"So?" Kindle shook his head, not understanding.
"So..." She walked away towards the back of the lab, returning with a small pistol into her newly gloved hands. She paced back over to a monitor and screwed around with some buttons before a loud hum sang in the room.
Kindle followed the sound until his eyes met a small camera being lowered from the ceiling, just above the man's leg. She wrapped her fingers around a joystick and moved the camera to the exact spot at which she wanted it. She then flipped another switch and a close-up picture of the blanket flooded the screen.
The focus was at full zoom, close enough to see the fibers that had been laced together to make the blanket. The woman approached the man and folded the blanket up off of his leg, revealing the thread of his jeans. She then stepped atop a chair that sat next to the table, spreading her legs as far as her skirt would let her to keep her balance.
"It takes roughly two weeks for a human being to heal from a penetrated wound." She pushed back a strand of loose hair before bringing both her hands out in front of her with the gun pointed straight at the immobile man's leg.
"Oh god..." Kindle whispered under his breath, making a wild glance over to the man's face once again, seeing fear and bravery battle across his face. Even though Kindle's heart didn't have much room for compassion, he still sent his hopes to the poor creature. Human or mutant, it still felt pain.
"Watch." She took aim, closing one eye to sharpen her accuracy, and took a deep breath.
*No!* Kindle thought suddenly. At first he thought he had screamed the word, but his lips had only parted to take a silent breath. The bullet left the barrel with a screaming *bang* and ripped through the air with no mercy. And as far as Kindle was concerned, this cold-blooded bitch had no mercy.
He instinctively threw himself to the floor, hearing the startled cry of the man then a deathly silence. After he had recollected himself, he slowly got to his knees, peeking over the edge of equipment to see the woman calmly climb down from atop the chair, dusting off her blouse.
"What the hell did you do that for?!" Kindle screamed as the woman strode back over to a counter and set down the gun, instead picking up a handkerchief. Then she came back to stand next to Kindle, who had gone deathly white in the face.
"Watch the screen Mr. Kindle." She said calmly, indifferent to his outburst. She looked down at her suit, gingerly brushing away the splattered blood that dotted it. She only looked up once to make sure the experiment had gone as planned.
The screen showed an extreme close up of the puncture and the ferocity of the wound she had inflicted. The flesh had been ripped apart; gushing fluids of different colors all around. For a split second he thought he saw the glint of metal behind the blood and puss but he couldn't be sure.
*No, no!* His mind screamed. *This can't be happening! How in the -?* Rappel was glued to the screen, half out of horror and half out of pure amazement as he witnessed a miracle happen before him.
The man's torn flesh had somehow immediately stopped bleeding and was now growing together, reaching across the puncture with molasses hands to grab on and connect the torn flesh. Until within at least five minutes, there was nothing to indicate the wound but a hole in the man's jeans and splattered blood across the camera lens.
"That's amazing!" Kindle choked out.
"No." The woman corrected. "That's science."
"The Price of Survival" Is To Be Continued...
AUTHOR: Ananova Crowe ||^_^||
DISCLAIMER: i don't own 'em, i just play with 'em!!! :) i would really appriciate it if you could send me feedback, thank you!!!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Metallica: Poor Twisted Me (cont.)
So tear me open, but beware
There's things inside without a care
And the dirt still stains me
So wash me, until I'm clean
It grips you, so hold me
It stains you, so hold me
It hates you, so hold me
It holds you, so hold me
~*~
The Price of Survival CHAPTER .2 - Beautiful Disaster
(Sum up chapter before: Logan has been acting strangely ever since the rescue and so Scott gets frustrated and leaves for a while and Jean unintentionally enters Logan's mind via her telepathic abilities and figures out what happened to him. :) )
*present in Logan's mind*
"...I know who you are...I know who you are...I know who you are..." The voice echoed like a marshmallow soaked in molasses, dripping from the invisible phantom's tongue. The remark echoed hollowly in his head, disturbing him through his sleepless night.
"Get the hell out of my head!" Logan screamed out loud, cinching his eyes closed and smashing his pillow over the top of his head as if to block away the phantom. The rattling of the cheap window pain as the brutal drops of rain beat against the glass drowned out his voice.
But the suffocation of the pillow made him lift it from his face, taking in a deep, long breath in to fill his aching lungs and satisfy his thirst to fill the emptiness. But despite all circumvention to avoid the voice, it returned to his head. Louder and more vexatious.
"...I know who you are...I know who you are...I know who you are..."
"Arrrrgh!" He screamed at the top of his lungs so it ricocheted off the flimsy walls and seemed to shake the entire building. "Then who the fuck am I?!" With one swift sidestroke of his arm and the whisper of summoned metal breaking through flesh, his pillow exploded into a soft snowfall of down feathers.
The feathers scattered everywhere, coming to rest as a light blanket that seemed to quiet the room momentarily. Logan's eyes slowly fell to his hand, which shook in frustration and fear of himself.
Three nine-inch alloy claws protruded from his clenched fist, the shredded remnants of the pillowcase hung in tatters, strewn across the deadly blades like a thick cloth of spider webs. He looked away in disgust as he retracted the blades back into his knuckles.
"...I know who you are...I know who you are...I know who you are..." He forced himself not to listen, instead he pushed himself up from the rusty spring mattress and threw on a pair of faded jeans that were extremely worn with holes and tears all over, along with a black tee-shirt and a leather jacket.
He figured he'd go for a short walk, despite the weather, and maybe go down by the river and watch the sunrise. He flashed a glance to his wristwatch, which read three a.m. He yawned, remembering that he hadn't slept a wink in five days, but it mattered little to him.
~*~
*three days before*
"No, don't touch me! No! Get away from me!" Venus "Knightmare" Crowe cried out at the four men approaching her. She had been thrown onto her back onto the cold, hard concrete in the back of an alley. The pavement was splattered with blood, grime, and other things better left unrecognized.
So far she had put up a pretty good fight, able to give one of the men a broken nose which bled uncontrollably down his chin and dripped onto the pavement. But still the man came with the others; his rage as deep as the other's but more so for his wound than her mutanty.
She tried to kick at them, but they beat away her foot with the broken pipes and boards they had found along the road. She had managed to plant a good blow to the middle of one of the people's chest, but that only rewarded her with a purple bruise across the side of her cheekbone.
"We know what you are you piece of shit...Your kind shouldn't be here...You freaks are what's scaring America to the brink of warfare...You should go back to the planet that you came from!" One of them yelled at her, swinging his pipe with a loud *thwack* across her shoulder, bringing forth a wave of pain.
Venus cried out and fell back against the cement, smashing her head hard against the pavement. Her vision wavered momentarily, sloshing back and forth until returning to the hazy gray beneath her puffy eyelids.
All she had done was walked home, in the middle of the night; she had just wanted to get away from studying late at school. But unfortunately she had been cut off by some people looking for a fight to pick because they somehow knew of her 'powers'.
"Please stop! I didn't hurt anyone!" She protested, but the contact of flesh and biting splinters of wood made her think otherwise. Soon her whole head shook and the warm sensation of blood rushed into her mouth.
She spat the bile to the ground, feeling it dribble down her chin at her lamed effort. She reached up with a shaky hand and clumsily wiped away the drool, wishing desperately to suddenly vanish into thin air. But her wish was only answered by the hard blow to the side of her head.
Her vision began to cloud over, the looming blotches of black connecting and expanding so that despite all her trouble, she was blinded. The metal-toed boot of someone connected with her side, knocking the air from her lungs and causing her to fly backwards and smash into the wall behind her.
She could do nothing but roll away from where she knew the next attack was coming, but her body sang out with so much pain that it hurt to even breathe. Then suddenly, her ears picked up the whisper of footsteps close to her head; she curled into a ball, expecting a harsh strike with something.
But instead, there was the soft feeling of smooth cloth against her cheek. It felt like someone's fingers above the cloth pushing against her beaten and painful, but where the cloth touched her, there was no pain. Then suddenly, the numbing feeling that clouded over the pain began to spread, streaming through her veins and rushing through her every extremity so fast it burned.
Within the blink of an eye, Venus' eyesight returned and the bruises and scratched no longer hurt, instead she was overcome with calmness and the sense of rest as if she had been sleeping and was completely content. It took her a minute to fully convince herself that she wasn't dreaming and to fully trust herself to turn over onto her back.
"Holy shit!" One of the men said with huge eyes, his partners all huddled together, reinforcing the term 'safety by numbers'. Venus thought her imagination had finally gone to shreds when she heard what the man had to say next. "There's another mutie! Those damn things are all over like fucking insects! Let's get out of here."
The men turned and fled, dropping their weapons to ease their escape and she lay and watched them retreat down the road. Then suddenly, something like invisible hands grabbed Venus by the wrists and gently guided her to her feet. She staggered for a moment, before another pair of hands were at her shoulders, supporting her.
Venus turned back to see a tall, thin woman keeping balance for her. Her entire body was covered from head to toe in solid blue, and shingles of dark scales ran the length of her arms and legs. Her glossy red hair was slicked back solidly to her head, as if she had taken a glob of blood and used it as hair gel.
The blue woman's pearly white teeth shown like a beacon through the darkness, illuminating her face and intensifying her features. Wicked yellow eyes glowed faintly in the moonlight, almost like a lizard's, but with some human effect.
"You have nothing to fear now..." A voice came out from in front of her, as if someone was standing three inches from her face, but there was no one there. The voice was like a ghost, still holding her wrists like a protective mother.
Then suddenly, the outline of a human began to liquefy, dripping down to add more onto the body until finally the shimmering illumination of a woman stood before her. Then the glimmering outline solidified, taking on specific form and colors.
Soon a woman in tight leather pants and a white shirt was standing before Venus. Intense blue eyes stared down at her with love and compassion and warmth, the complete opposite of what was on her wrists.
Even through her long-sleeved shirt, Venus could feel the biting coldness from the hands that were still locked around her wrists. The liquid-woman shot a look to the blue-scaled woman and released Venus' wrist, smiling politely.
"Allow me to introduce myself, I am Asia Platt, but better known as "Vanish"," The liquid woman introduced herself, and then with a pale hand she pointed to the blue-scaled woman over Venus' shoulder. "And this is Mystique..."
"I'm...I'm Venus...or "Knightmare"." She stuttered, then suddenly remembered. "Whatever you do, don't-" She warned with a shaky breath, but was cut off when Vanish lifted her hand.
"I know," Vanish whispered then pointed out toward the opening of the alleyway, putting the other hand to her lips. Nightmare strained to watch and instead listened to the distant screams of the people who had tried to attack her.
Suddenly, the alley was ignited in a blazing fire that seemed to roar upward and swallow the sky, dimming the stars, and ceasing the screams. Nightmare tilted her head up to Mystique with a questioning gaze.
Mystique turned to her with wide, intensely yellow eyes and licked her lips. Obviously indicating something that Knightmare really didn't want to think about. Instead she turned back out to the dead flame, squinting hard into the darkness.
Then she finally saw something, it was moving fast up the alley, bringing a glowing flame of intense blue fire behind it. It was in front of the three women within a single breath. Knightmare was momentarily blinded until her retinas got use to the flamed being before her.
Standing proudly ahead of her was the levitating form of a tall, sleek man. He wore complete black and he smelled of singed clothing, even his skin was dark, the moonlight reflected off of his bald head. A white scar ran down the side of his face, as if someone had stabbed him in the cheek with a knife a long time ago.
"It's a pleasure to finally meet you Knightmare, I am Coal Adams. But you may call me Flame." He smiled graciously and held out his clenched fist; slowly opening his palm to reveal a floating rose that was a thousand times redder than anything Knightmare had ever seen before.
It was absolutely perfect in every way, the satin petals were a glowing crimson and the stem and razor-edged leaves were a vibrant green, even the sharp thorns seemed to create their own light. The magnificent rose rotated slowly in his hand, showing off it's beauty and elegance as if to mock the stars themselves.
"It's yours." His voice was heavy with a Russian accent, matching his immense size. His hands were huge and strong, his fingers alone were longer than half the size of Knightmare's forearm. But his touch was the gentlest thing she had ever felt.
"Thank you," Knightmare paused before taking the rose, afraid the delicate thing might crumble in her hands. But instead, the rose seemed to glow further, illuminating her face and everything around it in its soft, warm light. "But I don't understand..."
"Come my child, we have much to talk about and do." Vanish said, breaking the silence and leading the entire group away into the night. Soon, the only thing that illuminated the night was the moon, which shown down on the splatter of blood a thousand times less vile and evil than a single crimson petal from one glowing rose.
~*~
*present in Logan's mind again* (sorry about the confusion, but it was the only way to make it work... :) )
Logan ducked to avoid a low hanging limb, his boots splashing through the shimmering puddles without a care. He had been walking for three hours and the phantom's voice had done everything but left him alone.
He had managed to ignore the voice for some time, but each time it spoke it became harder and harder to block out of his consciousness. Until finally when the sun began to just barely peek over the taut cord of the horizon, the voice boomed like thunder in his head.
"...I know who you are...I know who you are...I know who you are..." They seemed to grab him by the shirt collar and stare him straight the face, using its mockery as the only explanation of itself.
He pushed it away from him, finding his hurried pace and the rhythmic slap of his boots against the earth once again. He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, feeling the beating raindrops through his soaked and sodden jacket.
He chewed angrily at the butt of his cigar, unable to light it because of the constant rain. He instead survived by chewing at it until it was a mushy substance in his mouth and left a thick coating across his tongue.
Logan stopped, listening to the swift current of the river somewhere off in the distance, but close enough that he could smell its sweet scent. Otherwise the forest was completely silent, not even the rustle or call of a lonely animal echoed off the trees. It seemed strange but he shrugged it from his shoulders, taking in another strange scent.
He was about turn back when he spotted something in the distance, no doubt what was creating the smell. A small bulk jutted up from the earth, something that would have otherwise been missed by someone if they were even looking for it. But Logan had the exception of enhanced vision and even from his distance he could tell it was a human.
He titled up his chin, taking a sniff in the air again before he began walking toward the bulk. As soon as he approached it, he saw it to be a young girl of about fourteen, wrapped from head to toe in clothes. Every inch of her body was covered except for her face, which was pale and looked sick.
"You okay kid?" Logan asked, turning the girl over onto her back to get a better look at her. A puddle of crimson blood began to grow from beneath her, mixing and steaming as it met the mud and rain beneath. "Guess not." He muttered to himself, digging through the clothes until he came down to one layer at her throat.
He knew from experience with Rogue that anyone enfolded in clothes usually wasn't supposed to be touched. He pushed his fingers in, straining to get a pulse until finally he felt the faint thump of a heartbeat, and a counter-heartbeat. Satisfied, he took his jacket from his shoulders and draped it over the young girl.
"It may not be warm kid, but it's all I got." Logan looked up through the trees for anything or anyone that could be of help, but there was nothing. He froze solidly in place, his eyes were the only thing that pivoted to the right when his keen hearing detected the soft *kaff* of footfalls in the shadows.
With blurred movement, three claws popped out from each of his hands, ready for anything that may come his way. He sniffed the air again, only picking up the scent of the girl lying unconscious before him. She reeked of blood, gore, and a lingering sense of fear.
He turned back down to the girl, astonished to find the most beautiful rose he had ever seen in his life resting in her open hand, and her lips curled upward into a small smile. That's when he knew there was something very wrong.
The attack came viscously from above him, a flurry of raking claws and choked cries. He barely had had a chance to defend himself before he was brought face-first into the ground. He came down hard on his palms, broken sticks and rocks digging into the balls of his hands.
He did manage to twist out of their grasp but a hard kick to his belly caught him off guard. And suddenly he felt the sudden thunder of blackness in his head and the vibration of his skull when it met the something solid and metal.
He was able to catch glimpse of the girl on her feet and smiling happily before a flash of blue and a sudden pain in his side made him get back into the fight. Without warning there were a swarm of colors about him and hands and arms holding him to the sodden ground. With a grunt, he lifted someone from his body and threw them against the thick tree beside him, getting the hollow crack of crushing bones.
He blindly swept up with his claws, catching onto something that was thick and tight. He let himself a small smile of success, having finally penetrated someone with his claws for the first time in a while. But he didn't have time to dwell on the moment, nor did he have the control.
The thunder of unconsciousness clouded over him as another blow was planted against the side of his head. He heard the snap of his jawbone as it crushed beneath the force of the huge limb, and a red pain seared through his skull. Another seven brutal blows to the head and stomach finally made the looming blackness consume him and he had no choice but to let himself fall into its icy hands.
~*~
"Adamantium - a supposedly unbreakable, impenetrable, and indestructible metal has been surgically grafted to his entire skeleton. Every bone in his six foot two inch frame is laced with the extremely tough metal alloy, making him a walking miracle. The miracle being that he survived this entire procedure. Bringing to full consideration the adducts of his mutations." She said.
"He obtains the ability of uncharted regenerative capability, which amplifies his powers to restore damaged or even destroyed cells and heal at an incredible rapidity. Unfortunately, during the procedure of bonding the alloy to his bones, fluctuations in the surgical configuration warped at the base of his forearm, causing three - nine inch - claws of extremely durable adamantium alloy to extend from his knuckles."
"The claws can be controlled by his forelimb muscles, any sharp snap of tendons can draw them out and be used to his advantage, but are also contractible at the same degree." Her green eyes swept over the two men sitting in front of her, their faces seeming to be carved from rock. Their expressions were cold and hard and fixated, clearly impressed and interested in her report, or other things.
She clicked off the slide machine of carefully charted pictures from portions of the actual procedure, which had been the only thing lighting the room. With a clap of her hands the small room was bathed in the iridescent glow of artificial light. The light was intense, except around the two dark men sitting side by side at the far end of a circular table.
The far right man - Jackson Henderson - had silver glasses and snow white hair that barely covered his otherwise balding skull. His sharp, carved features seemed darker in the light, as if it shunned him. He was small and frail; seeming so weak that a mere fly landing on his shoulder would crush him.
The far left man - Leonard Kindle - was much younger, barely out of his twenties and huge in comparison to Henderson. His head was crowned with a shock of congealed black hair that was swept back from his face as if he were going nowhere really, really fast. His deep purple eyes seemed to be more interested in her figure than the discussion itself.
Both of the businessmen wore black pinstriped suits, dark ruby and satin blue ties shined under the lights. The men sat across the room from a large white wall from which the images had been projected onto during the discussion. And a woman stood at the bottom, looking at them as a teacher would look at her students.
Her long black-streaked white hair was pulled halfway back behind her ears, the rest allowed to cascade down her slim shoulders. She had bright green eyes, an excellent factor to her perfectly crafted facial features. Ruby lips pursed and glimmered when she spoke and the white blouse and short silken skirt did it complete justice.
"Now gentlemen, I've kept up my end of the bargain." She took a seat at the far end of the table, flipping a pen through her fingers as she watched Henderson pull a dark leather briefcase from the ground. He hesitantly placed the briefcase on the table, careful to keep his hands resting reassuringly on top.
With a cautious look to Kindle, he opened the case with shaking hands; they were shaking more from fear than old age. His face seemed to ignite as he flipped it around, showing its contents to the woman before snapping it closed again.
The woman rolled her eyes at the frail man, expecting his arrogance and distrust in her, but she still despised it. "Not so fast, you said you would have a sample for us to inspect." Henderson turned to his partner who nodded and stood, beginning to leave.
"Wait!" She called after them, standing with a mask of surprise glued across her face. "I was hoping that it would be extracted by now, but the sample has not yet been taken from his skeleton. You have to understand, we're talking about in indestructible metal alloy secured to his bones."
"Then you and I are not the only one's out of luck, miss." Henderson began to turn toward the door again, but the woman said something that struck interest in his head. "But-, I do have the specimen from which the sample would have come from, if you would like to see him...I can make arrangements..."
"How much?" Henderson flipped around surprisingly quick for his elderly age, his eyes were wide like a starved dog looking at a piece of meat just close enough for him to reach. "Ten hundred-thousand dollars, all in advance."
"No!" Henderson's eyes seemed to bulge out of his head as he heard the amount. "Nothing's worth that much!"
"Oh really..." She spat, and suddenly Henderson's fragile frame was engulfed into twisting and devouring flames that made him nothing more than a pile of ashes in five seconds, giving him barely enough time to move, let alone scream. His suit and flesh melted instantly, casting the room a stench that made Kindle want to puke.
"Even your life?" The woman pursed, snapping her neck calmly as if old cranky men suddenly burst into flames all the time around her work.
Kindle's eyes were as wide as cantaloupes as he stared down at his use-to-be partner who lay in a smoldering pile of dark dust. The briefcase lay perfectly untouched beside his glossy black wingtip shoes.
"Wh-What the hell hap-happened to him!?" Kindle's pallor was dead white with fright and his knees shook as he stood there. The woman was almost certain the poor boy had wet himself, but she had more important things to think about.
"Call it spontaneous combustion..." She smirked wickedly as if she knew what had really happened to him. "Would you still care to see the specimen? I'll make an exception for you, only because you're kind of cute."
"Y-Yes..." He stuttered, reaching down with a shaky hand to grab the briefcase from the ground, scattering a small dust of the remnants of Henderson across the floor. He clenched his lips and swallowed back the risen bile in his throat, the sooner he got away from this place, the better he would be.
He followed the woman obediently down the hall, a short walk from the conference room they had just been in. They stopped in front of a large metallic door that stretched up to the ceiling and looked to be wide enough to let a car in.
The woman pulled out a silver card and pushed it into a slot. As the door slid open with a whisper of hydraulics, they were suddenly illuminated with green light. Kindle's jaw literally dropped to the floor as he took in the immense vicinity before him.
Machines and high-tech equipment crowded the floor and walls, any flat space they could. In the center of the room was an elevated bed on a tangle of hydraulics, there was the man curled on a steel bed.
The man was stripped of his upper clothes; but a blanket was pulled up across his hips. Tubes and wires hung and twisted from his body like chaotic serpents, making him look like a psycho's science experiment.
He was lying on his side with a giant device across his back that reached around and clamped his arms to his sides. The device encircled him and forced his hands into two metal gloves with metal claws held out. And judging from the peculiar bulges from beneath the blanket, the device continued across his thighs and ankles.
"Come," The woman coaxed the awestruck man closer to the table. "Think about it Mr. Rappel, you're now standing in the future. Everything you see here is the building block of human evolution." She approached a blank computer screen and with a few flips of switches and a couple buttons, the screen was filled with a sharp picture of a computer-generated image of a single strand of DNA. The DNA strand rotated slowly, filling most of the screen with its diverse grouping of red, blue, green, purple, and yellow dots.
"This is a regular human DNA strand, notice the green dots representing the carbon in the helical phosphate ester chains. Now watch as I bring up a picture of Mr. Logan's DNA." She went intently to work, looking over her shoulder to make sure the contemptuous Mr. Kindle lugging the briefcase was paying attention. "There."
A picture of another DNA strand materialized quickly on the screen, looking exactly like a regular strand of DNA except for the difference of a quadruple helix and-
"So what's happened to the green carbon thingies?" Kindle scrutinized the screen once more time before turning back to the man on the table. For the first time he noticed that the man was fully conscious, his eyes stayed locked on Kindle, and the man had a look that sent a chill down Kindle's spine. A metal mask that cupped his chin and bridged over his nose was securely fastened across his face.
"The helical phosphate in the ester chains?" The woman repeated coldly, trying hard to ignore Kindle's interruption. The green carbon had mutated into a white. "They've been altered by the indestructible alloy called adamantium."
"Adamantium? Isn't that what was put into his skeleton?" He peeked back to the man who only stared at him with cold, dark eyes. Dark strips of hair ran down the sides of the man's face, disappearing beneath the metal mask as if to conceal themselves.
"Yes." She said simply.
"But why would someone want to do something like that?" Kindle said, suddenly becoming impatient and anxious. He frequently glanced behind him to make sure that the man was still immobile, even though he knew the poor creature could hardly breathe; he had to reassure himself.
"Experimentation." She said solemnly as if she felt sorry for the man to which this happened, but from her facial features, there was no emotion to her words. And from what it looked like, she was doing just the same thing to the man again, in a way.
"That's sick."
"No, that's science." The woman corrected with an unflattering smile.
"Okay." Rappel didn't want to push the subject matter any farther than he had to. "So how would someone survive something like this?"
"His genetic enhancement." Her eyes glinted eerily in the green lights, the estranged shadows dancing and breaking across her face.
"I beg your pardon?" Though she had already told him about Logan's abilities, the fright in the conference room had nearly scared the shit out of him, so he had forgotten at least ninety percent of the discussion.
She turned back to him and pointed a slim and delicate hand to the screen, her fingertip following the slow rotation of the strand. "See the third and forth helix on the DNA when there should only be two?"
"Yes," Kindle leaned closer to the screen, nodding his head.
"As I was trying to tell you before, Mr. Logan has the special ability to regenerate damaged or even destroyed tissue." She smiled gleefully, as a child would do when receiving a present.
"So?" Kindle shook his head, not understanding.
"So..." She walked away towards the back of the lab, returning with a small pistol into her newly gloved hands. She paced back over to a monitor and screwed around with some buttons before a loud hum sang in the room.
Kindle followed the sound until his eyes met a small camera being lowered from the ceiling, just above the man's leg. She wrapped her fingers around a joystick and moved the camera to the exact spot at which she wanted it. She then flipped another switch and a close-up picture of the blanket flooded the screen.
The focus was at full zoom, close enough to see the fibers that had been laced together to make the blanket. The woman approached the man and folded the blanket up off of his leg, revealing the thread of his jeans. She then stepped atop a chair that sat next to the table, spreading her legs as far as her skirt would let her to keep her balance.
"It takes roughly two weeks for a human being to heal from a penetrated wound." She pushed back a strand of loose hair before bringing both her hands out in front of her with the gun pointed straight at the immobile man's leg.
"Oh god..." Kindle whispered under his breath, making a wild glance over to the man's face once again, seeing fear and bravery battle across his face. Even though Kindle's heart didn't have much room for compassion, he still sent his hopes to the poor creature. Human or mutant, it still felt pain.
"Watch." She took aim, closing one eye to sharpen her accuracy, and took a deep breath.
*No!* Kindle thought suddenly. At first he thought he had screamed the word, but his lips had only parted to take a silent breath. The bullet left the barrel with a screaming *bang* and ripped through the air with no mercy. And as far as Kindle was concerned, this cold-blooded bitch had no mercy.
He instinctively threw himself to the floor, hearing the startled cry of the man then a deathly silence. After he had recollected himself, he slowly got to his knees, peeking over the edge of equipment to see the woman calmly climb down from atop the chair, dusting off her blouse.
"What the hell did you do that for?!" Kindle screamed as the woman strode back over to a counter and set down the gun, instead picking up a handkerchief. Then she came back to stand next to Kindle, who had gone deathly white in the face.
"Watch the screen Mr. Kindle." She said calmly, indifferent to his outburst. She looked down at her suit, gingerly brushing away the splattered blood that dotted it. She only looked up once to make sure the experiment had gone as planned.
The screen showed an extreme close up of the puncture and the ferocity of the wound she had inflicted. The flesh had been ripped apart; gushing fluids of different colors all around. For a split second he thought he saw the glint of metal behind the blood and puss but he couldn't be sure.
*No, no!* His mind screamed. *This can't be happening! How in the -?* Rappel was glued to the screen, half out of horror and half out of pure amazement as he witnessed a miracle happen before him.
The man's torn flesh had somehow immediately stopped bleeding and was now growing together, reaching across the puncture with molasses hands to grab on and connect the torn flesh. Until within at least five minutes, there was nothing to indicate the wound but a hole in the man's jeans and splattered blood across the camera lens.
"That's amazing!" Kindle choked out.
"No." The woman corrected. "That's science."
"The Price of Survival" Is To Be Continued...