The Freaks

Sugar Free

Archie woke to the sound of water, slowly beating against the bedroom window. It's raining? Well that's just great.

Turning his attention to his clock on the wall he noticed that it read 7:00 am. 'Well at least he didn't have to get up for work' he thought to himself as he decided over whether to get out of bed or not. After a minute or so going over the idea he decided that getting out of bed was probably (although much to his disapproval) the best thing to do.

Once he had successfully managed to drag his butt out of bed he began to walk towards the bedroom door when something in the mirror caught his eye.

He stood, memorised by the person that stood before him. A well built, rugged looking and unshaven man with dark eyes stared back at him. His eyes almost burning into Archie's soul. It was quite common knowledge that Archie's physique was much better than the average mans and Shaun was always a little jealous of him for that but then again a boy who spent his afternoons on the laptop compared to a boy who spent hours a day training to become a sportsman...who do you think would have the better physique?

That's what Archie thought he was going to become when he was older. A sportsman. A javelin thrower at that. He would spend hours practising throwing tennis balls and pencils (with an extra sharp tip at the edge) with his father. Before he died.

It wasn't until he put himself forward to be a 'guinea pig' for an experiment that was being shown publicly in the middle of his town that he began to become curious about science. That was back when he was 15 years old. He was told to come up on the stage and run 5 miles on a treadmill once with and once without a woolly jumper on. It was quite a simple experiment to see how much heat would be produced and stored between him and the woolly jumper. However from that moment on everything to do with science just captivated him.

That was also the first time Archie saw Shaun. He was one of the boys writing down the results of the experiment but Archie did not find that out until almost five years later.

The man in the mirror began to smile.

"Damn..." Archie spoke aloud to himself "I've got to shave."

With that Archie made his way into the bathroom, washed his face, applied shaving cream and began to 'hack' away at his face. Well not literally but you get the idea.

Just as he shaved off the last strands of hair his hand slipped and the blade cut deep into the side of his cheek. That however was not what had worried him.

After reciting all the rude and vulgar words under the sun, he went to wipe the blood away but something disturbing and darn right creepy happened. Instead of wiping the blood away quickly and easily, the blood became an almost 'gooey' texture and began to stick to the tissue and its colour was now a deep red. And when I say 'deep' I mean it was such a deep red that some may even mistake it for back.

On top of all that, Archie began to feel week and his stomach started to churn, causing a nauseous sensation to take over. His hands began to feel numb and become heavy. it was like they were made of stone. He swore he saw them change into clumps of 'hand-shaped' rocks.

Just as soon as the feelings arrive however, they had passed just as quick leaving Archie fatigued and lightheaded. He knew why this happened, why his blood was so thick and why his hands felt numb. It was that damn super power. That damn mutation. The mutation he now had to live with for the rest of his life.

Taking deep breaths to calm his nerves he washed his face one more time to remove it of any fresh blood stains.

"I've got to take my mind off of this." he said to himself as he left the bathroom.