(This chapter is only in Earl Elias’ point of view)
I awoke after not knowing how long I have been unconscious. I was chained down this time on a surgery table. The first sight I saw was bright surgery lights blinding my eyes. When I looked down at my body there was no sign of any surgery done, but the table next to me did have trays of blood and gauze. Still feeling groggy, I laid there on the table thinking of what my next move was. My ears picked up a panting sound on my right side, I couldn’t see who or what it was coming from because curtains were hiding the identity. Reaching my arm out, my fingers desperately reached for the curtains to pull it away. My fingers slightly raised the curtains away and I saw a glimpse of something I wished I never saw. A man glowing, as I saw pure white liquid get suck out of his back. The suctions were bolted into his spine, he cried in pain. Crying in pain wasn’t even a word to describe the screams I heard from this man. He was thin almost to the bone.
Gloria appeared beside me and blew into my ear. I jumped in surprise. She whispered in my ear, “Finally awake? Don’t worry about that. It’s part of my experiment.” My brain told me to run, but I dug my nail into my thumb to keep me calm. I needed to assess the situation I was in. “Can you tell me more about this experiment. I need to know more about it if I’m going to work for you.” I suggested.
Two men with surgical uniforms robotically walked into the room and began to move me outside the room. I was placed in another room and the two men took and released me from the chains. The second the chains came off, I twisted my body in fighting position and punched one man at his Adam’s apple causing him to gag for air and he fell holding both hands onto his throat.
The other one tackled me and grabbed me by the waist, slamming my body into the wall behind me. Hooking my elbow from underneath one of his armpits, I locked his shoulder forcing his hand to seize in a straight position and with my body, I twisted around with my back facing his front and pushed down on his forearm the other way it should have bent hearing and feeling cracks from his broken bones. He released his hold on me and grabbed on to his arm as he wails in pain. I pushed him away from me and sauntered out of the room calmly. Gloria walked in with our daughter and grandchild. This time she looked younger and her hair was bright red. I almost didn’t recognize her.
“Your next mission is to take care of her, well she is your daughter so it should be fine. Our grandchild, well I’m going to put him in someone else’s hands to see how he fits in society.” She said. I still didn’t understand what was going on, but it seems I won’t be able to gain answers unless I listen to what she wants me to do. “What’s her name?” I asked. Gloria hummed a sound in confusion. “What’s her name?” I asked again. Gloria let go of her hand and pushed her forward towards me. The little girl ran towards me shaking and grabbed onto my left hand, still shaking as she stared back at Gloria. What did she do to her? “Her name is Zero because she’s patient zero. It will be easier to remember anyways. Now do you want to follow me so I can explain to you what’s happening?” she smirked.
I followed her into her office, Zero held on to my pants shivering in fear. She was my daughter, something that is a part of me but not at the same time. I stared at her and picked her up and held her while we entered Gloria’s office. Zero gripped on to my neck and shoulder, still shivering but less than before. She burrowed her face into my shirt collar and I felt something warm and wet on me when she moved like that. Automatically, I patted her head and she whimpered quietly by my ear. I didn’t know what other way was sufficient in soothing her.
As Zero still clung on to me, Gloria explained what she has been doing for the last couple of years and the reasoning of why our boss would partner us together. I didn’t know much about her despite the fact we have worked together for so many years now let alone share a child and grandchild. There was an island that several years ago Gloria and I were sent to find, it was in the sky or something that I’ve never seen before. The World Government was very dedicated to the project on finding out about the land up above that was never heard of or seen before. The first time I heard about the mission, I thought it was just an ancient story someone has heard. From what Gloria told me in the meeting was several years ago, her team went around the world to research ruins. Each encrypted artifacts, that were found in the ruins around the world, Asia, Egypt, North America, South America, Europe, Middle East, and Australia all had ruins stating about an island in the sky, Europe especially.
A couple of weeks after, I was sent orders to go with my team to take a look around the area for the island located in the sky. To my surprise it was real. When I went to take a look, there was something weird blocking me to get to the land. We flew our aircraft in and I also tried to parachute in, there was no way of getting closer. The more you tried to get closer, the farther it looked like it was flying away from you. At the end of the mission, my team and I failed to find or land onto the island knowing there was something that may have been guiding us away from it. I was never given any more information about what had happened about the failed mission after I had reported it. Usually, failed missions we were given punishments but this mission we were given no consequences at all.
From what Gloria told me, they found sightings of people going and leaving the island in the sky. So they captured a couple of the people that were on the path to leave the island and did testing on them. The man that was beside me behind the curtain in the surgery room I’m guessing was also one of the people from the sky. They were taking out their spinal fluid and harvesting their organs. Through Gloria’s research, she found out that they had many powers that were unheard of. That was how Gloria, over the years, was able to use many of their powers to put into weapons that now the organization uses. We didn’t have enough people in the organization to put at risk with the experiments she wanted so they decided to take kids from a nearby orphanage, that they bought and all the kids had died in vain.
So Gloria decided to use our child for the experiment when she was born. She was successful but wasn’t as strong as the people in the sky were. So she chose me next, then she had our daughter, who now has mutated cells, mixed DNA with another orphan boy, who had also mutated cells, but he died shortly after. As a result, that was how I gained a grandchild. Both these children were made from test tubes but had Gloria’s and my genes inside of them. They were probably the first two children that I could call my own family. Zero’s power is she can accelerate the growth in plants. The one I was given, they weren’t sure until I did some testing with it. My mission was to keep surveillance on Zero to see her growth in her powers. She’s very young now, so it might be because she hasn’t matured enough for her powers to grow more powerful. The orphan that died for my grandchild holds the power of explosions. He was able to cause explosions with his hands but one day, when he was having a tantrum, during his cells extractions he had killed himself with his own powers.
There was another child on the way that Gloria was trying to grow in her laboratory, but hadn’t been brought to life yet. She was saving it for later. I stayed at the laboratory to figure out my new powers and take care of my daughter. Zero gave me hope and warmth, I felt stone-cold before but when I was with her, I felt something different and a want to protect her. Twelve years passed by quick, Zero’s power never ended up maturing like Gloria had thought she was going to. As for our grandchild, it has passed away a week in the orphanage after my surgery that she did to me. Over the years, I found out the powers I had were to warp air. I was able to warp the atmosphere around me, solidifying it and making it more flexible almost like creating a bubble at my will. Gloria had put chips in my neck with GPS, every time I would use my power they were able to track my location. It was the same with Zero and the other orphans that were experimented and didn’t die in the laboratory. From what I heard, the World Government has been funding her over the years for this project to create weapons out of children, like what the organization did to me when I was younger but worse. My theory was the World Government wanted to create an army of powerful children because they were the easiest to train and manipulate at the age they were. I was trained similarly but didn’t need to be experimented to fight for my life. These kids had to put their life on the line with substances placed in their bodies that may kill them.
The orphans in the lab were always sad and scared when they first enter. They ended up feeling more hopeful because of Zero. Zero was such a delightful child. She had dark hair like mine and green eyes like Gloria’s. She was kind and humble. When I watched her take her shots, she never cried. Even though I was supposed to be taking care of her, I felt like she was the one who took care of me and supported me over the years just like she did with the other kids. Her kindness was contagious. I always felt butterflies in my stomach when she ran over towards me with her arms out calling me ‘Seth’. When she hugs me my heart squeezes a little each time, people who saw me with her would say I was a doting parent. They weren’t wrong I loved my child. She was something out of this world I believed in for the first time.
One day, Gloria did other cell extraction with Zero, without my knowledge and Zero died on the table that day. When I heard about this I went berserk which caused damaged equipment in the lab. Her men had to throw me in solitary for a month. Since I’ve been locked up in this laboratory, I wanted to take Zero and leave with her and live our own lives. Now I wasn’t sure of what to do. My grandchild was dead, Zero has left and I was stuck forever with this crazy bitch with no way out.
A month passed by fast, and I went back to taking missions and killed many with my new powers. Before I could kill a child without blinking, but now I just leave them be. Maybe one day when those children grow up they might come after me, seeking revenge. Another five years passed by with empty thoughts, I was a robot that conveyed no emotion and just took any orders I was sent to do. More and more orphans passed the experiments and testing they harboured through and the organization began to use the children to execute missions also. That was when Caedenbitus was formed. One year later I was promoted to Lieutenant and given me my own squad, it was squad number 12.
They were all kids around Zero’s age when she passed. From what Gloria told me was her experiment was a success. All she needed to do was switch bone marrows with the people we capture that came from that mysterious island in the sky. The side effects were bad but the bone marrow switch causes a switch of DNA and new stem cells in the other person. Probably not a lot of children survived the surgery, even if they did most of them suffered from the terrible side effects and died after. The first batch of kids that did survive and was fine was sent to my squad, my group was the first to have these type of powers. They were very powerful and knew how to kill as efficiently as possible but had no emotions just like me. Their powers were much more powerful than mine, but I was here to lead them because of my experience and leadership.
Watching them made me feel like something I didn’t want to lead. I didn’t like leading children that were my age when I first began to kill and murder others just like me. If they didn’t kill, they were killed that wasn’t a life a child should have to bear. All of this just seems like a repeated cycle, powers or not.
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