Maddox Price has been implanted with a chip, allowing an ancient deity to control every thought that crosses his mind. Be it unwillingly, he's tasked with protecting someone "special," a smart-mouthed girl deemed the "healer of humanity."
Claire Ad...
"Your power to destroy the world. Of course, you have the power to save it, but who'd want that?" Dr. Bartone smirked as he glanced from his paperwork up to Claire, meeting her uneasy gaze.
"Care to explain, Doctor?" She allowed the words to roll off of her tongue. She was hardly able to muster sarcasm through her pain, but she wouldn't let him think of her as weak.
She refused to be known as a weak girl. In her mind, she was anything but. Her frail body begged to differ.
"Actually, no." Dr. Bartone chuckled. "You can't know, and you won't. You have no need for the light in your body. We do. It's best you're kept in the dark about this." Dr. Bartone scrunched his face as he turned to walk out of the room, leaving Claire in the dark once again with only a dim light above her head.
Maddox should come eventually, Claire thought to herself. At least, I hope he does.
A red light began to flash, illuminating the entire room and making a desperate, quick sound over and over again.
Fire alarm? Claire looked closer at the source of red light to see a siren. Oh no.
Muffled screams sounded through the thick stone walls, but Claire couldn't see outside of her room. The windowless stone walls surrounded her, and once again felt as if they were inching closer to box her inside.
The screams sounded close.
There's a fire in the lab.
Claire shook her chair, rocking once again in an attempt to free herself but with no avail. She was trapped. "Somebody help me! Please!" Claire began to sweat as the stone walls became like an oven, and she was stuffed inside.
"Leave all the test subjects! Everybody out!" Dr. Bartone's raspy voice echoed through the lab and into Claire's room. Test subjects?
We're all going to burn.
Claire's eyes became wide with fear as her adrenaline and primal instinct to survive took over her body. Her heart felt as if it could explode at any moment, and her mind wasn't of any particular help.
The room continued to heat at an uncontrollable rate, making the heat more unbearable than standing outside under the heat of the Red Giant.
Claire's breathing became harsh, yet shallow as she struggled to take a deep breath. A dark smoke infiltrated her lungs as it inched like a predator into the room from the crack in the door. Tension filled all of her limbs, and suddenly, she felt peace.
It was indescribable peace, like the peace she had felt when she sat in the water only earlier that day. Her hands began to glow, along with the rest of her body. Her veins glowed a bright yellow light, forming a shell around her.
I won't be hurt.
She sat still in the chair she was tightly tied to as fire entered the room, though she could no longer feel the heat from it.
Her light- her power- radiated from her. Protected her. She became like the sun, yet without the scorching heat.
Fire raged all around her, but she remained untouched by one of nature's most dangerous elements.
The flames danced carelessly around the shell of light that she owned, begging for entry in order to fill the entire room with heat, but still, Claire remained untouched by them.
Soon, the screaming from the lab stopped.
Upon opening her eyes and breaking her concentration, Claire watched as the warehouse burned around her, a cascade of red and orange bringing heat and light to the otherwise dull building. The stone walls had crumbled on their own weight, and the rooms above her were bound to collapse at any moment.
Still, she remained calm. The others around her- the test subjects- had burned to death, tied down to chairs similar to the one Claire herself was tied down to. Many burnt corpses were gathered at the entrance to the lab as if in their last moments, they were deathly afraid and trying to escape from the laboratory.
Others were still tied down to their chairs. Some's mouths were wide open. They'd been screaming before death.
Terror ransacked through Claire's being. She didn't deserve to be the only person left alive... Yet, here she was.
She felt less than worthy of the gift of life, so given to her by God. Life is so much more than what everyone makes it out to be.
It's more than a game of survival.
More than a bad dealing of cards.
It's a precious thing that can be taken away in an instant, and though at least one hundred "test subjects" died today, Claire Adara was not among them.
The fire continued to rage around her, dancing in the wind as it blew through the vacancy that became the bottom of the warehouse. Though halfway underground, the warehouse lay in a hole created by both fire and wind, two of natures elements that, when combined, have a deadly effect.
The roof above her head began to creak, and in the near distance on the other side of the building, the roof began to collapse.
Struggling once again against the bonds holding her to the chair, Claire still couldn't manage to free herself.
As she struggled, Claire could see a tall figure rushing toward her. The figure moved rather quickly, rushing from the other side of the building to her within a matter of seconds.
She couldn't make out what the figure might be, but she noticed one thing: it was human. A very strong human, at that.
They picked up Claire, still bound to the chair, and darted outside of the laboratory. Moving with the swift quickness of a bolt of lightning, they made way with Claire up the stairs and outside of the warehouse within seconds.
Through lightheadedness, Claire glanced at the warehouse as the figure- the man- stopped, only to see the entire place collapse into mere rubble, much like the rest of Sedona.
Her vision began to focus, though blurry at first, as she looked at the tribal tattoos covering the man's arms. He sat her chair down onto the ground outside, taking a knife to the bonds that held her securely in it to free her.
His brown hair had small streaks of grey, not really noticeable without the sunlight as the sun began to set, only to return on the opposite side of the world and burn it, too.
The man seemed to be in his early 30's. He wore a jean jacket, and on the breast of the jacket read a small silver tag: "Sgt at Arms."
As Claire's lightheadedness passed, she recognized him.
Wesley Amherst.
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