Project Frostbite

Prologue

~ 3 YEARS AGO ~

Bloodied hands worked relentlessly, prying the nail away from the ventilation cover as the girl perched on the end of her rickety wooden bed, stretching to reach her escape. Her nails were broken and bleeding as she tried to turn it, unscrewing the last bolt. Just a few more turns... It was only a matter of time before the guards realised she had rigged the security camera in the corner of her tiny cell.

Finally it came free, and she pocketed the small weapon. She wrenched the cover away from the vent, and threw it to the ground, ignoring the bang it made as it connected with the cold concrete ground. No one could hear anything outside of the soundproof walls. Without another glance at her home for the past who-knows-how-long, she crawled into the vent, and began to move, the dim light of her single bulb fading until she was surrounded with nothing but her own reflection.

Following a mental map she had spent years creating, the girl navigated her way through the maze of vents, hearing voices below her as the people in white lab coats chatted back and forth in the hallways. As she crawled, she knew the air was there, brushing her brown hair from her dirty face, but could not feel the coolness due to her already cold skin. The metal surrounding her made crackling sounds wherever she touched, but she ignored all that and continued on, hoping the chill emanating from her palms would not be enough to cause the metal to combust.

Eventually she reached the vent cover she wanted most. Below her, two security guards stood posted as usual in front of the giant door, the only entrance and exit to Base 51. Both of them held standard issue machine guns filled with a tranquilizer should any Potentials - like herself - try to escape. She was above a warehouse, and below her there was dozens of activity. People sorted out crates full of many things, new Potentials waited to be tested, food, water, all those supplies. At the opposite end of the warehouse sat another large door. Behind that were the white-washed hallways that the girl knew only too well.

She was never going back in there.

The vent where she was right now lay behind the guards, directly in front of the door she needed to open. Pulling her tatty sleeve down to cover the tattoo on her wrist, the girl slowly put her skinny hands onto the bars of the cover, and the metal froze, allowing her to snap the metal apart, creating a hole large enough for her to drop through. She landed with the grace and silence of a panther, and wrapped two hands around the lever that controlled the mass of bolts and locks holding the door shut.

With a grunt, she heaved it from right to left, and the door groaned as the bolts began sliding open. She turned in time to see the guards notice, and one cried out when he saw her. The magic inside of her sped up, fueled by adrenaline and self-preservation alone, and she felt the chill in her hands as her body hummed with energy.

"Quick, alert Jek-" The guard was cut off as a ball of ice engulfed his black-clad leather suit. The girl screamed, knowing that it was her fault as the ice spread, eating through the clothes and turning him to ice. The second guard fumbled with his radio, but when she looked at him, a covering of solid ice formed around the radio, freezing his fingers.

"Please, I don't want to hurt you." The girl said as tears streamed down her cheeks. "Just let me go." Ignoring her, the guard lifted his black fingers, and pulled the trigger. In reflex, the girl shielded her face with both arms, and when nothing happened, she lowered them to see the bullet frozen inches from her face, before it dropped at her feet, covered with a layer of frost.

Suddenly the remaining guard screamed as his gun froze in his hands, and the girl felt the rush of the wind as the door pulled upwards, revealing the outside world to her. Unable to watch any longer, she turned and fled into the night, her wild brown locks streaming out behind her as she entered the treeline. She didn't look back.

She was never going back, ever again.