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May 19, 11:04:53 a.m.
The bright lights of Dr. Talia Walker's lab glared harshly into the camcorder's lens as the device powered on. Monitors flickered in the distance, and the consistent hums of running computers fed the recorder's built-in microphone. A lone table stood in the foreground with two items atop it: a tiny camcorder remote and rectangular controller. Somewhat obscured behind it was an empty, semi-reclined chair.
After a few seconds, a woman hobbled herself slowly into the view of the camera. A white lab coat, orange sweater, and black pants hung loosely over the frail figure, almost looking as if the fabric was weighing her down. A bony hand peeking out of the lab coat's sleeve leaned heavily on a cane that made tiny, progressive movements forward as the scientist forced her legs to carry her forward. She brought herself to rest in front of the camcorder, letting her arms rest against the table in frame in front of it as her cane itself rested against its edge. Brown hair framed a now-visible gaunt face, olive-toned skin hugging highly visible cheekbones. Icy blue eyes stared through thick glasses into the device recording her.
"Experimental journal of Dr. Talia Walker, date -" She paused, looking into the corner of the camcorder's display. "19th of May, eleven-o-five in the morning. Location is my lab, Byrne-Lee University. This is trial number -" She hesitated again, looking over at a monitor that was out of view of the camera. "Gamma trial number 169-16."
The ailing Talia took a long, labored breath, which she then extended into a sigh.
"Gamma exposure has been effective in short bursts, but progress is limited. Incorporating Geoff's research on the adrenal gland has provided some further progress; my body's production of epinephrine, or adrenaline, has allowed me to overcome physical limitations for brief periods of time. Yet, none of it has been enough - I haven't been able to achieve results like we did with our tests in New York. Instead, it's been like trying to treat a bullet wound with a band-aid. It's superficial, and it's not treating the real problem at hand."
She reached up, slowly and carefully, grasping onto the movable arm of a large machine, and using her body weight to bring the appendage down into the frame of the camera. "I'm done with band-aids," she said, with a tiredness in her voice. "Playing it safe has gotten me nowhere. Just like it did my father. I don't intend to go out without a fight."
The eyes made contact with the camera once more.
"I've programmed this gamma emitter to target my body with concentrated doses of radiation, starting off small and climbing. If my calculations are correct, I can tap into the building blocks of my cells, my DNA, and - with the gamma breaking them open - force my body to start from scratch with those building blocks, rebuilding healthy tissue over time from those blueprints. All is outlined point by point in my accompanying written log, subsection 32.
"The question is: how much gamma will it take?" She allowed a small smirk to form on her face. "And how much gamma can I take?"
Talia reached down to the controller on the table, careful not to knock over her leaning cane. She lifted the device up in her left hand while bony fingers from her right wrapped around one of its dials, but was careful not to move anything yet as she looked away in thought..
After pausing for almost half a minute, the doctor once more readied herself and stared forward. "To those who watch this: I may not live to see the successful completion of this or future experiments. But let it be known: The data, the blueprints that build each of us are coded within each of our cells. Gamma is the key to unlocking it. If it is too late for me, then use this data to find a cure for the others so that they don't have to suffer this...curse."
Slowly, she hobbled herself over to the reclined chair and delicately placed herself into it, leaning back into its support. Talia looked up into the gamma emitter, which was aiming right at her, then back to the camera briefly. She lifted the controller in her hands.
The scientist closed her eyes. "Gamma exposure beginning in three...two...one…" Talia's fingers turned the dial, and the gamma emitter hummed into life. The video technology did not play well with the radiation; the picture on the camera began to distort slightly from interference, and the audio on the mic grew staticky. That was the only visible evidence that the radiation was actually there; Talia did not seem distressed in the chair.
Looking down at the controller, the scientist's face seemed displeased at what she saw, and made some changes on the device. "Increasing gamma yield," she spoke, forcing her voice to a volume loud enough so the camera could hear her.
The picture continued to contort more and more every minute, confirming the continued increase in gamma rays. As the flickering of the image began to worsen, so too did Talia begin to noticeably squirm, her hand squeezing the arms of the chair.
"WARNING: EMITTER REACHING UNSAFE PARAMETERS. COMMENCING AUTO SHUTDOWN."
"Override!" shouted Talia, her voice hoarse. "Disengage safety protocols!"
"WARNING: OVERRIDING SAFETY PROTOCOLS IS NOT-"
"Confirm override!" yelled the doctor once more, her voice distorted on the video playback. The image was now hard to see amid all the flickering, which continued to worsen by the second.
"Computer####I#need#####stop###" started Talia, but the video image and voice contorted into an indecipherable tangle and the image went black.
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May 19, 3:29:14 p.m.
The video cut back to life with a fish-eyed image of a shaking Talia staring directly into the camcorder's lens. With the device powered on, her attention sluggishly turned to the timestamp on the nearby LCD screen, and its reading brought a fear to her eyes that was readily apparent through the screen.
"I...I lost consciousness," said the scientist weakly, with a hint of confusion in her voice. "When I came to, the emitter had...it burnt itself out. It also looks like this camcorder must've...deactivated from the radiation exposure." Talia's voice was muffled and overmodulated, her mouth too close to the camcorder's fragile microphone.
She placed one hand on her forehead, closing her eyes as if trying to tap into her brain for the right words. "I've apparently been unconscious for around 4-and-a-half hours," she said, struggling to maintain composure among the confusion.
The doctor shuffled slowly away from the camcorder, before appearing to feel faint and stumbling forward toward the table. Her weak arm muscles unable to stop her fall, Talia fell off frame to the cold embrace of the floor.
The video showed the empty room for a few minutes, before a hand rose into the frame, grasping onto the table. Talia slowly pulled herself up to her feet once more, then leaned onto the table in exhaustion. "Need to…" she said, sucking in a lungful of air in between words, "...check if...experiment was successful."
Gathering her strength, she slowly pushed herself up straight, grabbed the camcorder remote, and hit a button.
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May 19, 5:17:22 p.m.
The video returned, and the scene looked much like earlier in the video. Talia stood toward the camcorder the same as earlier, leaning against the table, but now her expression was dark.
"I've spent the last two hours going over any information I could find, and there isn't much."
Her head leaned down in frustration, and she brought a single hand through her dangling brown hair. "With the emitter and the controller burning out sometime in that four-plus hour timeframe, and the camera's recording being interrupted...I have no idea how much gamma I was exposed to."
A long pause.
"I ran some blood tests, thinking that, since I'm still alive, the exposure couldn't have been that much." A brief laugh escaped her lips, which then quickly transformed into a sigh. "However, everything that showed up on those results say the opposite: There's enough gamma in me that I should be dead."
She curled her fingers up, her nails scratching against the table's surface. "...and yet, nothing."
The dark, still expression on Talia's face soon began to twitch, to shake, to contort in a rage that began to leak from her. "And NOTHING!" she shouted, picking up the gamma controller and tossing it across the room, its flight ending with a loud clang in the distance that echoed into the camera's microphone.
The doctor's fist clenched and banged against the table, her voice fueled by the same angry energy. "No change in cell structure, no sign of mutated DNA, no muscle restoration." She shook her head and looked up to the ceiling. "Not even any radiation poisoning, no sickness...nothing nothing NOTHING! I can't even die right!"
She slammed her fist down on the camcorder remote, and the video flicked to black.
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May 19, 5:21:40 p.m.
"Something...is...happening."
Talia stood at the table, staring into the camcorder, laboring to get in words in between heavy breaths. "My body is ... having some sort of … reaction."
She looked up at the camera. "Radiation sickness has been known to manifest after a delay. Did I...speak too soon? Is this...the end? UNNGHHH"
With a sudden yell, Talia doubled over and leaned her upper body onto the table, her chin-length brown hair dangling downward.
"Pain! Pain...pins and needles all over. My muscles feel as if they're on fire, and they're spasming, as if an electric pulse is being fed through them. I feel weak, yet..." The doctor gripped the edges of the table, trying to keep herself level and balanced.
"Symptoms similar to a migraine," she continued, using the scientist voice that she so often did. "Splitting headache; I can barely see, everything is fuzzy. Feel like throwing up.
"Every...cell in my body...feels like...it's splitting...apart," Talia grunted. "It's...too much. Feel like I'm going to…pass out..."
Talia began to shake, and, despite her prediction, she clung onto consciousness as she continued to struggle against the table, against her body. Holding onto the edges, she braced herself for several minutes, switching, grunting and yelling. It was at this point that the symptoms she had been describing became visible on the camera.
Her bony hands, which were gripping the table, in a matter of seconds lost their skeletal look, beginning to fill in with added flesh. Her face, which had been gaunt with skin clinging tightly to pointy cheekbones, now began to fill out; cheeks, chin, and elsewhere padding out with tissue. Her body, which had been so tiny that her petite clothes looked like a tent on her, slowly began to take on weight.
The scientist's shaking then suddenly stopped, her pained cries with video stayed silent for a few moments. All the mic picked up was deep breathing
She finally moved once more, lifting up her head. Finding she no longer needed the table for support, the doctor stood up straight cautiously. Her movements now possessed a visible strength; no longer weighed down by her clothing - or anything else. The Talia that had been there at the start of the video was no more; this now was the Talia that existed in the current world: healthy-looking, no longer on the edge of death.
After a few moments of analyzing her restored body, Talia looked up to the camera. Her eyes were filled with tears.
"It worked," she spoke, her voice itself now stronger. "It worked!"
The scientist voice was gone, replaced with jubilance. "My body has somehow metamorphosed back to a state before my disease ravaged me physically." With a spry energy, Talia ran off camera to the side of the room, returning with a mirror, which she began to use to examine every square inch of herself. The look on her face portrayed itself as a mix of excitement and disbelief.
"This is the result I've been chasing for years," she spoke with emotion coloring her words, attempting to return to her scientist voice but failing. "The gamma was meant to unlock a healthy return to my previous state, but all my calculations showed that, if successful, the process would take months, if not longer. And here…" an excited laugh cut through, "...here, the process took minutes."
Talia placed the mirror on the table. Seconds later, she began to jump in place. "My core strength is back. My energy is back. My life is back. I feel like I have infinite energy. Every cell, bursting with power. Like my adrenaline is on overdrive!"
She stopped, her eyes widening. "My adrenaline…."
Talia pivoted and reached for several charts on clipboards that had rested off camera, knocking over the cane that had been rested on the table. The scientist didn't even notice the tool that she had once needed hours earlier just to move.
She spent a few seconds flipping through notes before letting them drop on the table. Her blue eyes once again met the camcorder lens. "Adrenaline! That must have kick-started the reaction; my outburst of anger created a release of epinephrine that altered my body chemistry and…"
Another laugh interrupted. Talia calmed herself with a few breaths, and just stared up into the sky.
"So much to study, so much to analyze," she said, picking up the camera remote. She couldn't hide her smile. "This is the start of a new life, Talia."
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May 19, 5:43:11 p.m.
"Something is wrong."
Talia once more stood in front of the camera, the jubilance of the last video segment now absent. The voice was now tinged with fear.
"That energy I described earlier, the feeling of being on adrenal overdrive, it's gotten...stronger. It's almost as if I can feel the adrenaline surging through every inch of my body. And it's growing more intense every second."
Talia's breaths were getting deeper, harder, and faster. "My body feels like it's...back in a state of...flux, or...maybe it never stopped being in one. Maybe I was too...excited to notice. My heart rate is through the roof. I gave myself a tranquilizer, but to no avail.
"I don't…" she said, her voice wavering. "I don't know how to stop it."
The doctor began to pace back and forth behind the table, her movements frantic and nervous. As she moved, she remained ignorant to the fact that her ear-length brown hair, which was bouncing and swaying with every step, slowly began to grow longer.
As she paced, nervous laughter began to leak out of her voice. "Talia," she chastised herself, "you idiot! Look what you've done!" The voice now hinted of nerves and...anger.
She put her hands to her head in distress. "Unnghhh!" The fingernails on her hands, which had previously been well-trimmed, had grown longer exponentially. "Oh god, something's happening!"
The sleeves of her lab coat began to stretch more snugly on her arms. Her hair was now down to her shoulders, and had taken on a darker shade.
"I don't know how to describe what's driving it. Whatever is happening, it feels raw, it feels...powerful."
Suddenly her hands came off her head and slammed into the table with a force that rocked the piece of furniture. "...and I hate it!"
The scientist's body swelled alongside her outburst, lab coat sleeves beginning to stretch at the sleeves, the sweater underneath beginning to cling tight to the torso. "Unnnghhh, what is this?" she shouted, the cracking of bones audible underneath her scared voice.
"I can feel my skeletal structure changing, expanding - shoulders widening, hips growing snug against my pants, feet stretching out my shoes," groaned Talia, struggling to return her voice to its defensive scientist tone as her torso continued to expand. "My muscles are growing exponentially, surging with power. Legs, arms, core…urrrghhh" She grimaced as her bones continued to crack, shift, and change.
"Everything seems to be changing." She brought up her large hand, feeling her expanding face framed with the long, wild hair that was flowing from her scalp. "My hair is lengthening rapidly, fingernails too," she uttered through a widened jaw, "I can feel...my breasts growing...Clothing getting...tight...Unnnghhh...grrr." She doubled over, another spasm of growth washing over her body.
"I feel...overwhelmed," cried Talia, tears rolling down her cheeks. "My emotions are...running rampant. It's hard to...think straight…grrrrrr...
"I couldn't kill myself right," seethed the scientist, her voice growling with vitriol. "I couldn't heal myself right. You are worthless, Talia...I hate this...I hate thissss!" The scientist's skin began to shift color into a dark grey as her body continued to grow. The sweater that had been loose underneath the lab coat was now stretching to its limits over her torso and chest. Seams of fabric had torn tiny holes, revealing small glimpses of the bulging muscles underneath. The grey woman on screen looked halfway between Talia and...something else, which was struggling to stay human.
"I don't waaantthis," a gravelly, deep voice croaked out. The grey half-creature looked into the lens of the camcorder. "It makes me… so… so… AnGrYYYYYYYY." Her eyes flashed green.
A final wave of growth hit the transforming scientist as she brought her now-massive hands up to cover her face; her skin changing shades once again. The bulging clothes finally began to give way to the monstrous form beneath: Black pants tore at the inner seams, ripping up from her calves to her thighs revealing green legs as wide as tree trunks. The orange sweater split open in the middle, enlarged green breasts bursting through a white bra as defined abdominal muscles flexed underneath. Strong green shoulders pulled the back of the white lab coat apart, revealing muscles rippling through every inch of the body.
The hands covering the green creature's face curled into fists, and its first action was to swing down and slam into the table, smashing the furniture into pieces, sending shards flying in every direction. The camcorder shook as the newly born being stomped across the lab with rage. The massive being turned its anger on the gamma emitter behind it, with one kick of its powerful feet the instrument skidded loudly across the floor into the far wall and exploded into sparks.
Its rage not quelled, the hulking monster turned around and stared down at the camcorder with its piercing green eyes. It didn't speak, but its gaze said everything it needed to in the recording's final seconds, as the creature leapt across the lab to smash it:
Rage.
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