The End

The Prick Of A Needle

I sat in the cold steel chair, once again in a hospital gown and I looked around the clean white room that I was in. I had been brought here earlier today after having been inducted into the NATO forces and without further ado I was immediately dragged to the R&D building in the same fenced off area of bastion where I had met all the top brass in that dark secretive room.

The room I was in now however was completely different from that. It was large and square with many different instruments and machines lining the walls. Cabinets filled with medical supplies hummed as they kept their contents cold, centrifuges and generators spun and whirred, as I sat alone in the room strapped thightly to this metal chair, wires that connected to my body all draped across me as they trailed onto the floor and across to a machine in the wall.

The lone metal door that was set in the wall behind me slid open with a soft hiss and a short man in a labcoat stepped in. He had introduced himself earlier when I was being prepared to be strapped in this chair as Doctor Whitley the head of combat technology for the NATO forces. He was a middle aged man with slightly greying dark hair that was slicked back smartly on his head, his face was slightly lined and he had a kind expression that reflected his good natured impression he gave me when he introduced himself.

"Comfortable?" He asked quietly as he walked around to my front to face me. "A little apprehensive to be honest" I replied and Whitley smiled somewhat apologetically. "With good reason I'm afraid" he said now pulling a large needle assembly from his labcoat pocket. "How does this work?" I asked now getting quite worried at seeing the metallic crablike instrument with a needle in the middle. "Well" muttered Whitley as he now walked to another machine in front of me where he pulled a small tube off a rack and attached it to the crablike assembly. "In the data you helped procure we found a technology that allows us to produce a sort of super drug that allows us to temporarily modify the genetic structure of a soldier with a desired genetic attribute".

I whistled softly, impressed, "that is high level tech!" I said and Whitley nodded in agreement. "It is indeed and as I'm sure you've guessed we would like to be able to apply some of your abilities to our troops to increase their combat effectiveness" he continued as I nodded my understanding. "So this assembly here" he said waving the crab needle thing "will inject a stimulant into your body to activate your abilities to the full, then while your abilities are active we will take samples from your blood with the same assembly and get data from the electrode on your body".

I slowly nodded worrying slightly, "you do know that one of my abilities is pyrokenisis right?" I said and Whitley nodded "not to worry" he said with an assuring smile "fireproof concrete walls 2 meters thick! You're not getting to anyone". He sighed, "let's get this over with" and he reached forward to secure my forearm as slowly he pierced my skin with the crablike instrument. I tensed up slightly as I felt the needle enter my arm and after the majority of the pain passed the assembly abruptly clamped down onto my arm with its crablike extensions securing it firmly against my skin causing me to flinch a little.

I stared at the assembly as Whitley patted me on the back and said "good luck Jason" before he turned and quickly strode out the room the metal door closing behind him. After a minute of silence and my fretting Whitley's voice rang from a speaker in the wall, "alright we'll start the procedure now, if you're unable to continue we'll stop the procedure immediately" and with a click his voice disappeared and the machine across the room started up. 'Oh crap' was my first thought, but a few moments later when a bright green fluid started flowing into the tube and into my arm, my thoughts became much more colourful.

Liquid pain seemed to be pumping its way into my bloodstream, deep shooting pain started spreading from my arm and across my body. I grimaced as suddenly the pain was everywhere from the top of my head to my toes the pain eventually turning into a sensation that lava had replaced my bodily fluids causing me to moan in pain. Suddenly the ground around my chair began to crack with sounds that sounded like gunshots as small fissures began to open up at my feet my telekinesis being activated by this drug.

Suddenly I gasped as the pain doubled and a torturous sensation of crushing weight began to settle upon me and I struggled to breathe. "Fu...hell..." was all I could manage as this feeling of a thousand anvils crushing me began to overwhelm my senses. "Jason?" Came Whitley's voice but I grunted in reply refusing to speak, just as well to be honest because the next development rendered me speechless even with the lack of breath.

A hard piercing feeling of ice now spread over my body and as I looked down with a loud gasp of surprise I saw that my body had now taken on the exact texture and pattern of the chair beneath it. Well, there was my undiscovered ability! The ice was getting deeper though and soon I became buried under the mental strain of staying conscious through the pain of the stimulant, dark thoughts flying through my mind as I started to feel flashes of my past mindset appear before me.

'NO' I thought, as those thoughts crept ever closer to my consciousness, 'I will NOT fall into that hole again!!' And with a massive effort wrenched my eyes open. I glanced at myself again to see that my cloaking ability was now turned off and I glanced at the needle assembly to see its tube bloodied as it had taken samples during both of those episodes but I knew what was coming next, fire.

"Whitley!" I managed as pain again started to build up around my body "Jason??" Came the worried reply. "From now on" I said hoarsely "Whatever I do.....no matter how much noise I make.....I want you to finish the procedure!!", A pause and I was now gritting my teeth in agony as Whitley said "are you sure Jason?".

"JUST FUCKING DO IT!!" I roared and the intercom cut off. Not a moment too soon however as suddenly my entire body burst into flames. This time the flames didn't crackle and lick my skin harmlessly, I could feel the burning sensation, and I was in more agony than I had ever gone through in my life. I was now screaming harder than I had ever done, almost tearing my vocal chords in the process, and I thrashed in the chair fighting desperately against the bonds no longer in control of my mind. the chair creaked and moaned against my struggle but held as I continued to twitch an convulse always screaming. Through the red mist of pain I thought I could hear voices shouting, other than Whitley's, different voices but I was in far too much agony to register or care.

I was on the verge of snapping of losing my mind completely, of becoming insane when suddenly it stopped. The flames were gone and I was now slumped in a heavily soot blackened chair in a tattered hospital gown. My skin was perfectly intact however and I hadn't suffered any burns but steam rose of my weak body in clouds.

The metal door slid open again and this time not only Whitley came in but a bunch of other people who remained out of my line of sight. "Jason!!" He cried as he knelt before me, but I could feel my consciousness slipping.

"That better have worked..." were my last mumbled words as I slipped into darkness for what seemed like the thousandth time.