Darkened Shadows

Chapter 2

I woke up back in my room, on the floor. These assholes couldn't even bother to put me on my cot. I'm sore as hell, mentally exhausted, and honestly, ready for death. I couldn't take this anymore. Pushing myself off the floor, I immediately get dizzy. "Fuck this," I mutter. Before I could move any farther, the door was wrenched open.

Oh look, Clark's back. Yay.

"Good, you're not dead. Get up, we've got training to do."

Now I'm confused.

"I thought Gloughter said I was 'being completed' today? You know, getting wiped?"

He openly laughed at me. What a bitch. "He only said that to scare you. Now that we know for certain that the procedure didn't kill you, you have to hone your new abilities." He turned around and started walking away, knowing I had no other choice but to follow.

Struggling severely, I make it to my feet and stumble after Clark to the training gym. Thankfully, it's not that far from my room. I open the door and I'm met with none other than Satan himself: Gloughter. "What's he doing here?"

"He's here to-"

"I'm here to monitor your progress and how your body has taken to the Liquid Darkness."

"Yeah, that."

Normally, I'd bitch about this, but I am far too drained to argue. I just want this to be over so that I can go sleep on my cot and not the damn floor. "Alright, what do you need me to do?"

The Dr. smiled. "Try to create a pool of darkness in the palm of your hands, just to start."

Seemed simple enough. I nodded and looked at my palms, now facing the ceiling. I pictured an inky blackness slowly filling my palms. After staring at the lines of my palm for ages, a dark spot started to appear and steadily grow larger. It's appearance shocked me. There was no weight to the darkness, but I could clearly feel it in my hands.

By the time I shake myself out of my own wonderment, the darkness now covered the entirety of both my palms and had spread to the tips of all my fingers. It looked as if I had set my hands on the surface of a bucket of black paint.

"Very nice 51437." Gloughter's voice brought me back to the room. "Now try using that darkness to attack Clark over there." He nodded his head over to where Clark had been standing silently, until now.

"Excuse me?"

Still feeling pissed at his usage of the shock collar to bring me to the lab, I had no problem with that request. I turned to him and thrust my palms out towards the now uneasy guard. Pure black streaked across the room and Clark had no time to prepare. It hit his chest and threw him across the room. I brought my hands down, but the shadows stayed like orbs around my hands. This was easier than I thought it would be.

Clark groaned as he got to his feet, glaring at me as I did so. I smirked back at him.

Dr. Gloughter was absolutely giddy. "Yes, yes, YES!" Turning to him, I had a very stupid idea.

"You've taken to your new abilities better than I ever thought you would! We'll be able to finish your process sooner than we initially thought!" He seemed so sure of this. Instantly, I blasted him with my new darkness and then used the shadows in the room to subdue him and Clark as soon as he hit the floor.

Think again, motherfucker.

"You'll have to catch me first."

And with that, I sprinted out of the gym. Previous fatigue aside, I ran like my life depended on it, because it did. Racing down the halls of the facility, I blasted anyone I saw with shadows and kept going. My bound wings bouncing off my back as I ran. The alarm was blaring throughout the entire facility by this point, I didn't care. After constantly turning and weaving through the halls, I finally see the main doors. This is the closest I have ever gotten to freedom, this was almost too good to be true.

Boy was that right.

I was so caught up in my utter joy of almost reaching the end, I forgot that I hadn't quite reached the end and was blind sighted by a fucking mountain of a man body slamming me to the floor. My head bounced off the floor with a crack and I felt my wings snap beneath the two of us. My vision was swimming, I couldn't see straight, couldn't think straight, and worst of all, I couldn't focus on using my powers. My back was on fire and I couldn't breathe. Big man got off of me but I couldn't move. I was certain that I had a concussion and that my wings were broken; there was no way that they weren't.

Eventually I was surrounded by guards and one of them picked me up. Gathering what strength I had left, I started thrashing and fighting, throwing fists and kicking anything I could reach. I couldn't give up now, I was so close. My mind cleared just enough to think of an idea. Feeling all of the darkness inside me, I threw it out of my body as violently as I could, letting out a guttural scream. Everyone around me was thrown and knocked unconscious by a blast of dark shadows. My vision was going dark, all of my energy spent by now, but I didn't stop there.

I stumbled to the doors, stepping over the countless men that I had knocked out. Reaching the end of the hall, I smiled. I knew I wouldn't be able to escape now that my wings had been broken, but at the very least I could breathe fresh air before my mind was taken away from me.

I pushed open the doors and was nearly blinded, I had no idea what time it was, but the sun was high in the sky. It felt warm on my pale skin and the air was cool and clean-naturally clean and not clean with chemicals and antiseptic. In front of me was a beautifully green, thick, majestic forest. As I raised my arms up to the sky to enjoy my last few moments of freedom, my collar was activated. I was too tired to scream, I gasped in more of that beautiful air and collapsed. With my body writhing on the ground, a shadow blocked the sun's rays from reaching me.

Theodore Gloughter himself stood over me looking angrier than I had ever seen before. I couldn't focus on much, but I could see enough to notice the rather large goose-egg on his forehead.

My lips twitched into a nearly unnoticeable grin. Almost.

"Smile while you still can 51437, because this time tomorrow, the only thing you'll be able to do, is whatever Hydra tells you to do." He spat out with fury. "We were going to wait until you were more advanced with your new skills, but after this stunt, we can't afford to wait any longer."

He increased the voltage and I screamed. Just before my body gave out from the collective pain of my broken wings, the electricity coursing through my body, and the exhaustion of using my powers so extensively, I looked out to the forest I was mere feet away from.

It's so pretty out here. And then I was gone.