When In Rome You Catch a Killer

Prologue

It was another cold and gloomy day for the Russian army. Only the general's most trusted advisors knew about the secret weapon he had been working on; upgrading his soldiers with ice powers. They tested it on the general's right hand man, Dima. Sadly for them the prototype failed. What the army didn't know was that a part of their experimental concoction remained in Dima's blood. A few months later a special child named Alan was born in a small russian town. His father, Dima, left his mother to raise him alone. She was unaware that the small piece of the experiment had fabricated in her baby boy, soon to make him a very powerful and dangerous man. When the boy was only five, his mother started noticing strange behaviors such as his bath water turning instantly cold, she found her fingers nearly purple from the cold when she held him, he had no bodily reaction to ice or snow, and she found ice where he had been playing in the garden during the summer. On one of those hot summer days he asked for ice water but when his mom went to grab the ice he said "No mommy you don't need to get me ice, I can make it on my own! Look!." She had a shocked look on her face as the horror flooded her eyes. In as little as four months she had built a cellar in the basement to keep what she once called her sweet baby boy locked in.

Alan starred at the plain grey cement ground that laid under him. All emotion drained from his eyes as he started to ponder on why his mother would treat him like this. It wasn't his fault he had powers he couldn't control. He tried to ignore the rumbling from his stomach, since his mother hasn't fed him in three days. Instead he thought about a happy thought, he was getting fed tomorrow. The only resource he had for water was his own powers. He had a red plastic cup in the corner of his room with ice; he had been waiting an hour for it to thaw completely. Not to mention his room. He had a small cot with an even smaller blanket to sleep with. For entertainment he had a pile of rocks and some chalk he had been using to count the days of his imprisonment. So far half of a wall was filled with 254 tally marks. Surprisingly enough his appearance was more ratchet than his room. His hair had grown out a bit and he had dust all over his little face. His clothes were dirty and torn on the knees and elbows. His nails were long and filled with dirt and his teeth were yellow. Every now and then his mother would throw in a sponge for him to clean the walls of his dismal cellar. As the years went by Alan came to more of an understanding on how powerful his powers really were. Just like every other day Alan went to make a new tally mark; now with a count of 2,809. He found nothing better to do than to play with his pile of rocks. When he picked one up he saw a rat scurry out of a hole in the wall. He had a sudden urge to test his powers on the filthy little rat. He saw the rodent curl up in excruciating pain as he froze the fluids running through its body. Then it hit him; He can kill people. The first person to pop up in his mind was none other than his own mom. To be able to practice with more rats he begged the women he used to call mother to bring him cheese as his only meal. Seeing as she had some rotting cheese in the fridge she happily obliged. The thought occurring in her head, maybe this will finally kill him. With the thought of killing each other in both their minds they went to work. Each plotting their own plot. Now it's up to who will win.

His mother was not a poor wench. As a matter of fact she had grown quite wealthy over the past few years seeing as she didn't have to pay for anything of Alan's. And Alan was not blind to this fact. Now Alan is 16, he had full control of his powers. His first move was to escape his cell and kill his mom. It was the day his mom had to bring him food. Before she went to his cellar she slipped in some bottle of poison in the sandwich she made him. She hadn't even realized that it was completely abnormal behavior for her to be making him a sandwich instead of piling on some scrapes. She goes down and opens his cellar door, she's in the happiest mood she's ever been in for years. This is finally the day Alan will no longer be a problem for her. She places the sandwich on the floor, she shuts the door close and walks away. Alan's first thought after seeing the sandwich was to not eat it. He opens up the sandwich, he wonders why there's a liquid on the meat.
"Mom? Could you come back here?" Alan asked. She was in such a good mood she didn't hesitate to go back.
"What is it?" She opens the door as she speaks. Alan uses his hands to spread an icy frost all over the inside of her body. In an instant she fell over, her foot held the door open. It was almost as if she froze in time. Alan ran through the door and up the stairs. He saw the plethora of delicious food his mom had in her kitchen. He made almost five meals, after eating he found her photo I.D. and a sticky note on the fridge had the account number for the bank. He ran to the car and headed off to the bank. Surprisingly enough there were no suspicions or complications when withdrawing the money. He went to a market nearby to buy clothes and snacks to prepare for his journey to the US. The only thing left to do was to find his father and kill him. To remain disguised he decided to be called something other than his real name; Arcanum Glacies.

Word count: 1068