Fantopia

4

 Fantopia

Cindy had to walk home from her school since she'd accidentally dropped her books on the sidewalk in front of the bus and it had left before she could pick them up. Normally, it would have waited for her but that bus driver didn't really like her. Her dad had always told her to come home on the bus but she knew if she called him to come pick her up he'd say he was too busy.

As luck would have it, it started raining, turning her white and purple uniform wet and muddy. She could imagine her father's annoyance at her when he saw her dirty clothes.

She was so worried about getting home as quickly as possible that she didn't even notice the two older men following her. She was less than a minute's walk away from her home when they grabbed her and pulled her into an alley.

One of the men held her down, covering her mouth so she couldn't scream, and the other searched through her backpack for money. When all he found were book and a lunchbox, he threw it to the ground next to her, grumbling.

Cindy squirmed, desperate to escape. In her mind, she was screaming as loud as she could but on the outside she was silent. As the men started to rip her clothes, she reached for a weapon like a rock or a pen. Her tiny fingers touched the cold metal of a fork from her lunchbox and she grabbed it.

The child stabbed one of the men in the shoulder with her weapon, making him release her, screaming. She scrambled to her feet as the man ripped the fork out of his flesh and flung it against a wall. Great. That had only managed to make him more angry. She started to yell as she ran away, trying to escape the alleyway. She knew that the men were chasing her. She could hear their loud footsteps.

Miraculously, Max, the man her father had met yesterday, was walking by the alley in the direction of her house. He froze when he saw Cindy running toward him, her clothes torn and her face white as a sheet.

"What are you doing--" The smile left his face when he saw the two men in pursuit. Frowning, the college student frowned and hid her small body behind him. She grabbed his legs, shaking in fear.

Max glared at the thugs, wishing he had a weapon so he could fight them off. When the pair saw him, they turned and ran in the opposite direction, not wanting to risk it. As they ran, Max took a picture of them with his phone so he could so the authorities later.

"Are you okay?" he asked, looking at Cindy, who was still squeezing his legs. She nodded, unable to speak. Max considered taking her to her house but she'd be alone there, so he picked her up and carried her to his car so he could take her to see her dad. He'd probably be happy to know that she was safe.

00

Lucy, the mayor, looked down at the group of small rats in the cage. She smiled as one ran on its exercise wheel at remarkable speeds, speeds no normal animal should be able to do.

"This is incredible," she whispered. "Imagine what you could do with an even larger dose," she told Dr. Alcento, glancing at the bottles of his medicine at the other end of the room. "I think you should start thinking about human testing."

Don was going to protect but knew Lucy would just ignore him so he didn't say anything. She was too impatient because so many other people around the country had had the same idea. They were just the first to successfully make a medicine that makes living creatures stronger and faster.

"Oh." She noticed that one of the mice was in a far corner of the cage, covered in blood. "What happened to this one?"

"Oh, Matthew?" Don leaned closer, realizing that the little mouse was dead. "He was the youngest in the group. He must have been killed by the others because he was the smallest."