Warning: Contains violence that may be triggering to some. Read at your own discretion.

“Is that lasagne ready yet?”

“Hurry with the lettuce!”

“Where the hell is my favorite spatula?”

I ducked and weaved through the busy workers in the cafeteria kitchen, carrying a strainer full of fruit.

Taking up residence at a cutting board, I pulled out a knife and began slicing the fruit for smoothies.

It had been three weeks since I started working at the sleeper facility. I had integrated flawlessly into the staff that worked here. No one suspected that I was a POP. Just a regular girl that survived the shockwave. Nothing scary. Just a girl who could cook.

This sleeper facility held over a hundred POPs that had put in a medically induced coma. It was run by the government, as a “humane” prison. Of course, they always failed to tell the public about the experiments they ran on the fifty or so POPs that weren’t in comas.

Not as if the public would have cared anyway.

I wanted to get them out.

But I had been here for three weeks and still hadn’t figured out a way I could spring them all and get them out. I don’t think I could even do it one by one. There was just too much security.

As I was thinking, my knife came down, slicing off the pad of my finger.

It hurt, but I carefully set down the knife and walked casually to the nearest sink.

I washed off the blood and within seconds my finger was back to normal.

Calmly, I walked back over to my fruit, casually looking around to see if anyone had noticed.

One of my coworkers, someone who repeatedly annoyed me, just for kicks, was watching me.

Shit.

The next day, security guards dragged me to the labs, where one cut me with a knife, and I could only stand there, helpless, as it healed.

I was dragged to a lab table, strapped in, and left there.

Tugging at my straps, I growled. I had to be a Tier 3, with my only ability being my useless self-healing.

Scientists filed into the room. There were three of them in total. One hooked me up to an IV, while another forced a feeding tube down my throat.

Whatever they had put in the IV was making me feel spacey, but wasn’t enough to knock me out. I was still awake.

“She won’t pass out, Dr. Johnson,” one of them said.

“Then she’ll just have to be awake,” replied another.

I screamed when he began cutting into me.

He cut into me what felt like a million times, moving everything. I couldn’t focus on anything. There was too much pain, and the IV prevented me from thinking clearly. They pumped more and more into me, and every time I started to come out of my semi-conscious state, they added more.

One day, they forgot to change out the IV bag. My thinking became clear, and all of the stress from the pain I had been going through hit me like a ton of trucks.

It was like something clicked into place.

I broke my restraints with ease and shoved my organs back into my body. They rearranged themselves back into normal order, and were quickly covered by muscle and skin.

Yanking out the IV, I noticed the lab was empty. Completely bare, I went out into the hallway.

Two guards stood there, chatting about something.

Then they noticed me.

Before they could raise the alarm, I broke one’s neck and filled the other’s lungs with water, watching impassively as the guard drowned.

In a trance, I moved through the facility, teleporting through walls and killing guards before they even knew I was there.

Burn, stab, poison, break, drown. My body was on autopilot, clearing the way out of the facility.

I teleported back to the pods where they kept the ones they experimented on.

Opening the first one, I peered in and yelled “Get out! The way is clear!”

The POPs immediately sprang into action, spreading the word. I did the same, going down the hallway and killing guards. One managed to gut me with a knife at one point, so when I opened the next door, the POP in there just kind of stared at me in terror.

“Come on!” I yelled, grabbing his arm, “The way is clear!”

I yanked him behind me and ran towards the exit.

“Who are you? I haven’t seen you around!” he yelled, running with me now.

“L...Amber!” I replied, giving him a random name. “You?”

“Wayde!” he yelled back, keeping pace as we burst out of the giant hole that I had made in the side of the building.

“Get out!” I yelled, shoving him towards the forest.

And then the alarms began to blare.