Shattering Glass

Chapter One

Number 4018 had appeared outside the gates of Warner Laboratories when she was two days old. Her hospital bracelet still around her chubby wrist.

Not many mothers abandoned their children at Warner Labs. Mostly because they knew what happened there; cruel, inhuman experiments. All in the name of science, they would say. The government did nothing about it; partially because all the leading medical discoveries came from there, and partially because they were paid off.

4018 had lived experiment-free in the comfort of the children's section, until the day she turned twelve.For her birthday, they began a series of surgeries and procedures. They would take years to complete.

For several hours, the scientists would operate on her. After each surgery, they would wait six months until the next, to make sure everything was going well. Every year, on her birthday, and then six months later.

They were slowly, but definitely surely, turning her to glass.

***

They started with her hands; trading bone and nail for glass. They carefully fused her veins into tiny glass tubes. Her muscles and nerves stayed the same; unaltered. Next were her feet. The scientists did the same, reinforcing the glass-bones with metal; the glass in her hands had shattered, and it was so much work to re-do them.

The next year they did her calves and forearms.

The year after, her upper arms and thighs.

For her fourteenth birthday, they were going to attempt to do her ribcage. They'd done trial pieces, a rib here and there. All had cracked, and one had almost punctured her lung.

4018 had little hope for the future.

She'd seen too many experiments gone wrong; kids slowly dying of whatever diseases were being researched at the time. The Hero Project-an attempt to give kids superhuman abilities, and so many others like it.

4018 considered herself lucky for living so long. 14 was a long time to live at Warner's. Two full years of experimentation.  Statistically, 4018 knew she was going to die soon. The longest lived kid had been number 1201. He'd lived to be sixteen. Then they'd injected him with a modified strand of the plague, and he'd died within hours.

She'd learned not to expect a good, long life. Or even a good life. She was in constant pain when she walked, and she was always cold, no matter what. 4018 was sure, that even if she didn't die on the operating table, she would die of what they had done to her.

She sat shivering in her room. All kids had mandatory classes, but the rules were not enforced, and hardly anyone went. 4018 always had, but today she skipped.

Her small defiance had made today different.

Today was hers.