The Other-Worlder Who Just Doesn't Care

Prologue

The alarm signaling the self-destruction of the base echoed off the white tiles of the lab. In the far corner of the room, lit by the harsh emergency lighting, stood the figure of a young woman huddled over a desk. The surface of the desk was littered with documents and pictures of the different research projects undertaken by the base. Surrounding her were the bloodied corpses of 20-some mutated creatures that vaguely resembled humanoid figures; grotesque body parts littered the floor, with majority of them still twitching indicating their recent demise.

"... How terrible," murmured a soft, tranquil voice. The young woman picked up a small photo, leaving blood smears where her hand met it. She focused on a picture that depicted four seemingly content children, all of them smiling at the camera. The two young boys in the picture had their arms around each other's shoulders, one of them playfully giving the camera a 'peace' sign while the other laughed with mirth at the other's gesture. The two girls that stood next to the boys smiled sweetly while interconnecting their arms at the elbows. The caption in the lower right-hand corner simply stated, "Experimental subjects 1-4."

The article that the picture was paperclipped to was titled "Modeling the effects of the X21 enhancer." Flipping through the paper, the usually indifferent woman couldn't help the flicker of disdain shinning in her eyes. If she didn't already kill them for capturing her, she would have left them for the mutants to finish them off. The research conducted on those children in the photo consisted of injecting them with a drug that could "supposedly" enhance their psychic powers gained from the M-virus. However, to enhance their powers, the drug had to be injected when the subject was under duress. Meaning, the children were subjected to torture every time they had to be injected. The documents included in the file she was searching depicted those activities to the smallest detail. The woman's face darkened as she read on.

"GrrrrAHHHGHHHHHH!" BANG! Slamming through the doors to the lab, a heavily disfigured figure stumbled into the room, the sharp emergency lighting doing nothing to hide its hideousness. Flesh could be seen rotting away from its body, coming off much like a peeled rime from an apple. Although humanoid, its features were no longer discernable as much of its flesh had already fallen off, leaving only the muscles and protruding bones on its face to admire.

"AGGGGGGGGGGGG!" Rushing towards the young woman, the mutant began thrashing its meaty arm, knocking over any tables in its way. The young woman looked up from her reading material and sighed. At least this is a chance to get rid of some of my anger. The second before one of its arms could come into contact with her, a wisp of movement came from her wrist. The arm that was inches from her face suddenly flew off its torso, falling to the ground in a gory mess. "GHWWWWWW!" Not being able to stop its momentum, the mutant continued its path of collision despite the fate of one of its limbs. The next instant, a force akin to an invisible wall slammed into the main body of the mutant. The flesh and bones, subjected to the sudden appearance of the obstacle, crashed and compressed into each other as the momentum was reflected. The sounds of crushing bones broke the rooms silence; the once humanoid figure transformed into a ball of meat falling to the ground.

"Tsk." The young woman looked at the ball of flesh coolly. "There's still more of you?"

The incoming sound of growling slowly inched closer to the room, overtaking the blaring alarm. She sighed. The alarm began to signal over 20 minutes ago, there shouldn't be much more time, she thought. As if waiting for her reminder, the ground underneath her feet began to shake as the base began its self-destruction protocol. Gaining back her balance, she hopped up on one of the empty lab tables and laid down, closing her eyes. Thank god. I can finally join everyone else.

As the incoming inferno swept through the halls and into the lab, one could only see the gentle smile that lit up the young woman's face before the flames devoured all. Unnoticed, the jade bracelet on the wrist of the young woman began to glow as the flames hungrily overtook her form.