Our Creators

Prologue

March 10, 1956

9:00am

Today started like any other day. I woke up to the sounds of scrapping metal on concrete. I pulled the thin sheet over my head, trying to block out what was to come.

"Please don't ignore me, Austin!" came a cold, feminine voice. I peeked out from under the sheet to see a tall woman in a lab coat leaning over my body. Her eyes held an empty gaze, at first glance you could say she was a robot. However, I know the truth, underneath those cold eyes is warmth and love, or I misinterpreted what I saw a year ago in the professor's office a year ago.

"Good Morning, Lisa," I say, pushing my body up into a sitting position, the metal bed creaking with each movement. The nurse sets down a tray of food on the bed.

"Eat up dear, its training day today." I nod my head, picking up the fork stabbing it into a sausage.

The nurse stood by my bedside, watching me intently as I ate. As I set down my fork, she holds out a Styrofoam cup filled with a dark purple liquid. The doctors never would tell me what it was, but I assumed it had to do with training.

Once the last few drops of the purple liquid dripped into my mouth, the nurse took the cup and the tray and left my room.

***

3:00pm

I lay in bed finding shapes in the ceiling's design. This is how I spent most of my days, or recently at least. For the past couple months, the doctors have kept a tighter watch on me. Even if I walked around in my room, I would get a strange look from the guards out in the hall.

Once again, the sound of metal against concrete brought me out of my trance. I turned my head to look towards the entrance way, standing up from the bed seeing the nurse stepped into the room. "It's time."

I held my hands out in front of me as she clamped a set of handcuffs down on them. It was just protocol. She nudged me forwards and out of my room, and to the training room down the hall.

Lisa knocked on the big metal door as a warning that we have arrived. Automatically, the door slides open. She nudged me in and once the door was shut, she uncuffed me. I made my way to the center of the room, to the lonesome chair that resides there.

"Hello Austin, how are you feeling?" says a more friendly, masculine voice from the side of the room.

"Been alright, tired though" I say as I take a seat in the chair, reclining backward. The man walks over to me and takes a seat on a stool on my right.

"Have you had your morning juice?" He said more as a statement.

"Yes, sir" He looked over at the nurse and she nodded in agreement.

The doctor turned to me, pushing up my sleeve. "Today's session will be quick," he says as he wipes a cleaning pad over the veins in my inner elbow. I leaned back and closed my eyes because no matter how many needles I have had over the years, I will never get used to them.

I opened my eyes when I felt my sleeve being pulled back down. "We did up the dose of your serum today, so I recommend that you get an early night for it to properly settle in your system. I nodded my head to acknowledge that I understand.

The nurse cuffs my hands once again and returns me to my room.

***

10:00pm

I woke up sweating. It was abnormally hot in my room tonight. I pushed the sheets from my body and rubbed the sleepiness from my eyes. When my gaze finally came into focus, I noticed that the room was very smoky. I bolted up from my bed, covering my mouth with my sweatshirt to stop from breathing in the fumes.

What happened next was more than I could comprehend.

The door at the end of the hall swung open. Alarms blaring. I walked up to my door and grabbed the handle, but I reeled back from the heat. I knew I was in trouble, I knew I had to get out of this room, so I threw myself against my door trying to break it down.

After what seemed like a few minutes of trying, I leaned against my bedpost trying to catch my breath. Just when I was about to try again, the door swung open. I peeked through it, but with all the smoke I couldn't see who opened it, but that I didn't care. I made a break for the door and ran down the hall.

The doctors and guards were running around in a panic trying their best to contain the other test subjects. I didn't stop running. I ran down the twisty hallways, trying to find the exit. I let my sweater fall from my mouth, letting myself breath in the smoke, but I pushed myself harder. I rounded one corner and came face to face with a wall of flames from the floor to the ceiling. I halted and took a sharp left. I was starting to think I was going in circles, but just then I pushed open what appeared to be a door and ran outside. I barely heard the door shut behind me as I kept running out into the field to get as far away from the burning building as I could. Once I reached a grassy patch I collapsed to the ground trying to catch my breath. I looked back at the building, the whole place now completely engulfed in flames. I let my eyes drift closed for a moment, slowing my breath.

A few moments later, I felt my eyelids becoming heavier and I starting coughing more profusely. The shock of the whole situation started to fade. I passed out from exhaustion, but before I was completely gone, I felt a presence behind me as I was picked up from the ground and carried away.