Act II: Storm

Chapter 19.

Monster.

Elizabeth Diamond.

Time/Area: Testing Facility in the Marais. July 12th, 2013.

“Hello Everyone and thank you for coming!” Jordan spoke into the microphone, assessing the crowd of people that had gathered in the lobby of the TF1 building between two pillars that acted as a hallway to the front desk. Everyone here was some important scientist that ran a specific part of ISAC. Even Director Ronald Worth was here, the same guy who hosted ISAC meetings at places like the White House. They would be the “audience” for the test and, if it did well, release the recordings to the public. The idea was that the recordings would increase popularity for the project world wide, and when it was time for the people of Earth to give their opinion, our experiment would come to their minds first. It was one of the perks of being ‘ready’ to test first.

Me and Sarah stood by Jordan’s side, faking smiles for cameras and whatnot. Upon seeing Sarah here, Jordan had originally protested, but since the testing date was just around the corner, there really wasn’t anything he could do about it.

Jordan said a few dramatic words about the “Struggle” he had to endure in order to start up Energis, and how much he appreciated this opportunity to “Start the future”. The ringing of his voice echoing across the pillar lined space was like a gunshot to my eardrums, the microphone certainly not helping that as he continued on with his introduction.

What a load of utter Bull.

I mean, I didn’t mean to toot my own horn or anything, but it was me who put this entire operation on the map! Sure, Jordan’s kind of psycho sister helped significantly with that too, but Energis was in no way the result of only Jordan’s sweat.

After Jordan finished feeding the judges his lie coated appetizer, people began to take elevators up to the Entree, murmuring about their excitement as they headed for the Observation Deck. Me, Sarah, and Jordan took the private elevator to the viewing deck, allowing us to skip walking through the halls. The twelve volunteers for project Inversion had already been set up based on a survey I had them take yesterday. They would be shown things on a screen that trigger fear, anxiety, humor, anger, lust, sadness, or joy. The point of this was to study which emotions generate more electricity. Jordan initially wanted to use children since they have a much higher neuron count, but I managed to convince him not to. I couldn’t bear to have that on my conscience. If a dangerous mutation were to occur where excessive neuron count was a bad thing, children would probably be the most dangerous to be around. I also did something else important yesterday, and-

Ding.

Our elevator opened up to reveal the, now crowded, observation deck.

The audience had found their way here surprisingly well.

Jordan stopped me as I nervously stepped into the area, pulling me out of my thoughts with a glare, “Get everything ready while I talk to these guys.” He ordered in a stern tone, walking towards the crowd before once again reverting to the lie hurling brat he was. I motioned for Sarah to follow me to one of the consoles, politely waving to any important looking judge I saw smiling at me. I could already hear the whispers of excitement over my presence here, the more knowledgeable judges knowing that it was I who developed this idea and not some dream that awoke the idiot at night.

“Uh, doc,” Sarah said, confused when I brought her to a different screen, “This isn’t the right computer-”

“I know Sarah,” I said, ignoring the computer for a second, “I brought you over here because I want you to leave.”

Sarah’s confusion grew, “Doc, I-”

“You have family,” I continued, “I can’t have you die.”

I took a deep breath before adding, “And you're fired anyways.”

Before she could speak, I brought up a file on the computer with a tap on a keyboard. Sarah's concern skyrocketed when she saw my frozen face in the dim light of the screen.

“This is a kind of..survival video I made last night.” I told her.

Sarah raised her eyebrow, looking back at me, “Survival video? What is this, a horror movie now?”

I nodded, “It might as well be,” I admitted, still having trouble believing the possible future myself, “Like I said, mutation is almost certain to happen.”

Sarah gulped, “Run that back,” She rubbed her temples, “What kind of mutation...We are talking about zombies, right?”

I rolled my eyes, “No not..well..” I paused, thinking about this, “Okay yea it might be a bit like zombies. Or maybe like Rabies in some ways.”

Sarah began to sweat.

“Point is,” I went on, “If the mutation turns out like I think, I made a video describing how the disease might be transmitted. It's a gas, so I would expect Inverse to go airborne.”

Sarah trembled, “Do you have some kind of guess as to how the erm...mutants would look?”

I shook my head, “Mutants...No..but everyone should be able to tell.”

Sarah tried to stand firmer, “I think we should try and stop this…. Like again.”

I placed my hand on her shoulder, “We already have, again. Jordan has us in his pocket.”

“How will people cure it?” She asked.

I sighed, “I put your work on the video, but it will be up to everyone else to stabilize it.”

“Bu-”

“Please go.” I interrupted her, “This won’t end well. I’ll try to release the video to the public from here, but take a copy just in case we don’t even get past the test.”

I handed her a white hard-drive labeled, “APOCALYPSE!” and motioned for her to leave, “Tell your family about this when you get to the city,” I told her, feeling my heartbeat quicken at the words my mouth was vocalizing. None of this felt real still. I crunched the numbers myself, I’ve had nightmares of literal monsters straight out of distant fantasies, but still, none of it felt like it was really happening.

Sarah just nodded, leaning in towards me in a half hearted embrace before taking off.

I took a deep breath, watching as she used the special keycard me, her, and Jordan each had to get inside the private elevator.

She had a look of terror on her face as the doors began to close, so I flashed her a smile and mouthed the words, ‘Don’t Worry’ to try and calm her down. I don’t think it worked, since I couldn’t even convince myself to do that, but it was better than matching her expression.

The doors closed.

“This might be it.” I realized.

There was still a chance that a mutation wouldn’t happen. There was still a chance that me and Sarah would both laugh about this someday. I smiled at the thought of that. I would hold on to the thought of that.

Just then, Jordan appeared behind me, grabbing my shoulder, “I didn’t see you prepping anything.” He said angrily, “I thought I made myself clear-”

I slapped his hand off of me, watching as he reeled back from shock,

“That’s because it’s already ready idiot,” I returned his glare, “and don’t touch me.”

He looked shocked, “Y-you know I can fire you, right?”

I laughed, “Gosh, what I’d give for that.”

In truth, the only reason I didn’t run away with Sarah was because I thought I could still find a way to stop it last minute, or at least give Sarah some more time to get to the airport.

Jordan huffed, “Start the test.”

I gulped, taking the slow and adrenaline filled walk away from the elevator, away from Jordan, past the smiling judges, and to the viewing glass. All sound around me seemed to dissipate as I approached the main console behind the glass, my heart suspended in its pounding as I clicked on the external mic button with a tap of my finger.

I spoke a few words to the volunteers over the mic system embedded into the metal console, trying to not think of what might happen to them and trying to avoid looking into their eyes.

These people could have families.

Who was I kidding- some of them definitely had families. I had told myself not to look at them, but it was hard not to notice the excitement in their eyes. Some of them volunteered for the fun of it, some did because they thought it would be cool to be a part of the future, and others just did it because Jordan had offered a cash prize.

I looked at Jordan from the console. His eyes were fixated on the glass, greed plaguing his face as he pictured results that weren’t possible..

I pretended to be experiencing technical difficulties, causing the ISAC scientists behind to begin chuckling softly. Adults really were just kids but older. Jordan’s face burned with anger as we walked up to the console.

“Nice try.” He said, tapping a few buttons on the board. The screen lit up and mechanical hums filled the deck, each volunteer’s individualized film beginning to play before them, “Don’t do that again.” He concluded, going back to his viewing spot.

“Crap.” I thought, actually surprised the idiot knew what he was doing, “Nothing I can do now..”

The test began to start, my eyes burning from concentration as I stared into the glass. There were six women and six men strapped up to the C units, each one possessing headphones that connected to a small screen displaying the short movies.

I checked the power being generated.

It was steadily getting bigger.

“Okay,” I thought, “As long as the radiation levels do-”

BEEEEP!

An alarm went off from the testing chamber, nearly stopping my heart in the process.

“Inverse Liquid canister cracked.” The console AI stated, “Electricity levels have now been affected by harmful radiation.”

I struggled to catch my breath as my arms trembled from the weight of inevitability, the idea that this wasn’t ‘real’ slowly fading from my mind like a forgotten dream.

The judges began freaking out behind me, all turning to Jordan to ask what was going on while I was more focused on the chamber.

Jordan’s eyes were filled with fear.

I checked the electricity levels again, shaking my head at the red bars that signified doom.

I looked out the glass, rapidly tapping every off switch I could find before noticing something off about the volunteers.

Were they...

Glowing?

All subjects had indeed started to glow.

“W-what’s happening?!” A male volunteer shouted from below, now trying to unbuckle the straps that connected his head to the Conversion Unit. The Inverse unit in the middle of the room was smoking.

Others echoed his reaction, struggling to get out of the C-unit’s pod, but their stress was only making the problem worse. They were generating power faster than the C unit could extract it. I quickly ran to another console, shutting off the facility’s power and letting the volunteers power it as per the original plan. That way, it would take longer for a fire to star-

Suddenly, a horrible, guttural scream came from the testing room. My blood went cold from the noise. It was like wedges of wood were trapped inside a set of vocal cords, constantly scraping at sound waves as they were distorted into a wavy, bone shaking cry.

I looked back to the deck.

One of the Female Volunteers that had been shown a clip designed to make her Angry had somehow broken free of the C-unit. She no longer looked..normal. Her face was charred from the electricity, and flesh had started to leak out of a huge wound in her stomach. Her long, brown hair had been burned off, her clothes and other attire along with it, revealing a mess of folded skin and glowing muscle tissue.

She let out another bloodcurdling scream, the same feeling racing up my spine as I tried to comprehend what was before me.

“ARRRRRWHARRR!” She cried, her torso briefly illuminating bright yellow in wide sparks that resembled static electricity.

How was she still generating power when she wasn’t even strapped to the C unit-?!

“Oh no.” I realized what she was doing.

She was the C-Unit. Somehow, her brain had become a self-sustaining power source, the exact goal for the project.

“We need to evacuate NOW!” I yelled into the crowd.

KSHH!

The sound of more c units breaking filled the air. I turned to see a whole bunch of different things happening. Every volunteer’s body seemed to have been charged with different colored electricity like the woman, their bodies now forming their own separate mutations as I took note of their conditions. Some had...grown taller?

Way taller. One man had grown to what looked like eight feet, a horrid grin seemingly melted onto his lips as he limped about the tile like a corpse.

Maybe they were corpses…

The idea seemed to be gaining traction as I noticed piles of mush on the metal of the Testing Floor. The mush piles were... not mush.

The burned through holes in stomachs and arms, the skinless fingers, the eviscerated limbs, they were all piled together in chunks across the room. The gut wrenching site only grew as the seconds went by, the 12 volunteers all hurling up their own intestines as their glow began to grow brighter and brighter and the screaming began to grow louder and louder. The collective light and blood from what was happening was too much for my body to handle.

Human body parts littered the floor, but they were still moving. It was as if a hideous animal the size of Texas had been skinned without a bit of care, its blood and unused meat discarded throughout the room.

That wasn’t enough for the mutations though.

The irradiated energy had caused extreme muscle growth in all subjects.

You heard me right. Muscle Growth.

It could’ve been from the excessive amount of energy flowing through what was left of their exposed veins, or just because of a random symptom that caused the fusion of fibers within their bodies, but some of the volunteer's muscles had grown to the point of skin break, only adding to the blood flood beneath their equally mutating feet.

“What’s happening!?” Jordan yelled over the screams of both humans and...what I helped create, walking next to me as Judges ran about the room for an exit. The electrically locked door must’ve been short circuited from this, much like the lights in the viewing deck, but I knew the private elevator ran on a separate generator, so maybe that still worked.

I shook my head, “They’re all mutating!” I yelled back, pointing at a woman who had grown a spike out of her arm. The spike looked to be made of her own flesh and bone and was glowing extremely bright. It was like her arm had folded inwards and her shoulder caved out. I looked around the room to see that this seemed to be happening to quite a few of the subjects, the....flesh spike proving to be a constant.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

One suddenly knelt on the ground, his leg muscles growing outrageously huge in the span of only three seconds like an inflatable bouncy house.

“Oh good they’re dying!” Jordan yelled, pointing at that one. My eyes widened as gold light reflected off the pupils of my eyes, “I don’t thi-”

Suddenly, the man jumped upwards, soaring through the air before smashing himself against the viewing window.

“RAAGH!” He..it yelled, the entire room shaking from its collision.

Jordan and I screamed as we stumbled backwards, the glass threatening to break as hundreds of cracks began to form.

“H-how?!” Jordan shrieked at its strength.

The thing had stuck itself to our window somehow, its newfound spike arm raised back to smash it into pieces. Its body was still smothered in blood, but now I could finally get a look at what horrors were forming beneath us. Its whole body seemed to be without a bristle of hair, yet all of its form hummed and buzzed with that same golden light.

The creature rammed its spike through the barrier,

“AAAARH!”

BANG!

I dove underneath a table as shards of glass flew across the room, leaving Jordan petrified in fear.

That was..military grade..glass.

I looked up from under the table, not daring to move. Jordan was on the floor, the creature now bending down in front of him as the height difference casted a shadow over the entire back wall of the facility.

The creature raised its spike once more, its mouth fixated into a scowl that bore sulfurous teeth.

“N-no! Please!” Jordan yelled, a flash of yellow light bouncing off his wide eyes.

I closed my own as a wet crunch rang through my ears and down to my very soul, the taste of blood now on my lips as a sheet of Jordan’s insides were sprayed against me.

I opened my eyes again. The spike had dug into Jordan’s chest, the golden energy from the spike seeming to disappear as blood gushed from Jordan’s lips.

I absently moved my hands to my mouth in order to prevent me from screaming, tears now moving down my face. Not tears of remorse, but tears of fear.

“He-He’s dead.” I thought, “No no no no.”

The thing removed the flesh spike from his chest, more blood washing over the area as it stalked towards the ISAC judges and scientists crowded against a useless, electrically locked door. Their screams bounced off the walls as the mutant slashed away at the ISAC scientists, blood and limbs causing a growing pile to develop as it screamed.

And screamed.

And screamed.

I glanced at the private elevator to the side of me.

I was about to try and dash for it when Jordan suddenly started to..move.

His muscles began to tear open and flesh started to come out of his eyes as he stood up. His torso grew out of his suit in a flash of the same golden light that was shining from the massacre across from us, his body morphing into an almost exact replica of the thing that had stabbed him- the only exception being that now Jordan carried a sort of...birthmark where the monster had stabbed him.

It glowed a vibrant yellow.

“RAWARGH!” Jordan screeched, his arm shifting into the now common spike shape with a rush of electricity that made my hair stand.

“Oh,” I realized, “That’s how it works.”

The spike arm is how the mutation spreads. Once a mutant stabs a human, the electricity that dissipates goes into the victim, turning it into a contagious, screaming, walking monster. Other ISAC employees screamed as blood rained across the deck.

I felt Adrenaline flooding my system, giving me the strength to run at the elevator as Mr.Ronald’s name tag slid past Jordan’s overgrown foot and touched my shoe.

3

2

1

GO

I charged at the cart, practically breaking my nail against the scanner with my keycard before jumping inside as soon as the doors opened.

Three huge mutants looked at me from across the room as I turned to slam the L button for Lobby, breaking into a dash once they saw me trying to leave.

“No no NO STOP!” I yelled to no one in particular, punching the button with my fist with all the force I could muster while knowing full well that it wouldn’t help the process.

“ARRHAWAA!”

Just as the first mutant reached me, the entryway slid shut with a Click, followed shortly by the smashing of metal and a sizable dent appearing in the middle of the silver doors.

“Descending to..Lobby Floor..” The elevator AI chirped.

I slowly slumped onto the floor, burying my head into my lap as I released a scream into my knees that conveyed both relief and terror.

What the heck just happened.

The things that had attacked me just then were under the Anger unit of the test. I didn’t even know what happened with the other Emotions.

CRASH!

I yelped, looking up. A huge dent had formed on the roof of the Elevator.

“No..please no.” I wished, hearing the screeching start again from above.

They were in the shaft.

DING!

I dove out of the elevator just as a mutant broke through the roof. It was one of the Anger subjects again. This one’s spiked arm wasn’t glowing, so it must’ve already infected someone. Maybe when it stabs me I’d just die.

I backed up until my body was pressed against a pillar of the lobby.

Before I was ripped open by the gurgling monstrosity in front of me, the fire escape door to my left burst open.

Another kind of mutant stood there. My hair stood up as it inched towards me, literally this time. All sorts of metal had stuck onto this mutant, forming a sort of armor around its body. I had no idea what its flesh looked like since everything from computer parts to door signs covered its entire form. I panted when I saw its arm. It was an electrified metal spike dripping with blood, vibrantly glowing a green color in contrast with the golden killers I was dealing with. The blood meant that it had infected someone already, and since it was still electrified, it stands to reason that it could do it again. I was now cornered by two mutants, sandwiched by each one’s individual roars. The metal creature was by far the most horrific, even if I couldn’t see what was behind the material. It was a ten foot tall metal giant that wanted to kill me.

I could charge at the door, but these things were way too fast for that. An overwhelming sense of fear crept into my spine as they drew nearer, my senses growing dull and my body turning rigid. There was nowhere I could go from here.

I glupled.

This was it...

VROOM VROOM! HONK HONK HOOONK!

All three of us turned our heads towards the lobby door.

My eyes widened when I realized what the sound was.

Without wasting another second, I crouched behind the pillar I was previously up against as an emerald colored truck smashed through the tall glass doors of TF1’s lobby, taking some of the wall down with them in the process.

BOOM!

Both mutants were flung across the room from the force of the blast as brick, piping, and all kinds of debris washed over the area like a short burst of rain from a storm cloud.

I slowly peeked up from my now destroyed cover. Through the window of the car sat none other than Sarah Reyes, frantically waving for me to get in as the moonlight from the skies of the Marais flooded into my grateful eyes.

“OH, thank goodness!” I yelled, climbing into the passenger seat as I felt my brain flood with relief.

Sarah was shaking and her eyes were red with Adrenaline, “What were those things!?!” She shouted, looking at me.

I was about to answer when something out the front window caught my eye. The metal mutant was still ‘alive’ and well, attracting even more metal than before from the now exposed piping in the broken walls.

“Not ‘ were’,” I corrected her, pointing out the window, “Are..present tense..DRIVE!”

Sarah switched gears to reverse and slammed the gas, causing us to roll out of the sight as fast as a truck could go. Unfortunately, right as we pulled out of the lobby and began to charge forwards towards the road, something stopped the car, causing the both of us to lurch forward into the dash.

In front of us stood the metal mutant, his spiked hand outstretched towards us as waves of verdant green rippled up its knight like body.

Sarah shrieked, ‘You gave it the FORCE?!” She screamed at me.

I screamed back, “I DIDN’T DO THAT!”

“AWARRRGHH!” It yelled, almost gliding through the air as it propelled itself off the ground with its boot.

Crap!

The hood of our truck was practically torn to shreds as the mutant’s landing was complete and, upon doing so, a large static crack echoed through the air.

“Eek!” Sarah yelped, her phone suddenly popping with static in her hand.

“AWARRRGHH!” It yelled once more, smashing its spike arm through the glass and nearly slicing my head off. It’s arm was so big, I could no longer see Sarah.

“Run for the mall!” I heard Sarah from behind the wall of flesh, her voice now muffled.

“Got it!” I responded, opening the door and running around back.

Me and Sarah didn’t bother to make eye contact, we just ran for it. We ran across the road, into a shopping center, and onto a sidewalk rimming a huge lake. Tons of confused people littered the sidewalk, the ones that had figured out what was happening beginning to scream as the others began to panic.

“AWARRRGHHHHHH!”

With a glance behind me, I realized that the mutant had freed itself from the vehicle, now leaping towards us in bounds.

I looked around, there was no way we could outrun it, and the only things around besides people were a couple of buildings, water, an-

“Water!” I thought, an idea coming to me. I stopped, Sarah did too,

“¿¡Qué estás haciendo!?” She yelled at me.

I looked back at her, “You know I don’t speak spanish!!!”

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” She yelled again, “CLEAR ENOUGH?!”

I watched as the beast rampaged across the street, smacking cars away like toys as it barreled towards us.

The screams of people running by almost competed with its deathly roars, but even as screaming kids were trapped underneath thrown cars, and even as sirens began to blast through the previous paradise of Paris, nothing was quite like this monster.

I gulped, glancing back at the lake before standing in front of it.

Wait for it.

“DOC IT’S ALMOST HERE!”

Wait for it.

Its metal legs charged at me, the sound of concrete scraping steel getting louder by the second.

WAIT FOR IT!

Just as the mutant began to make its pounce, I jumped to the left, watching its body cut through the wind before dive bombing into the water.

I heard its scream muffle underneath the waves while pops of green colored electricity sparked all over the surface of the lake.

Once the sizzles and cracks stopped, the huge, no longer metal covered body slowly floated into view.

It was dead.

Sarah walked up to me, her eyes wide with shock.

“So...water?” She asked.

I nodded, “Yeah..for that one, at least.”

With that out of the way, we both could truly take in what was happening around us. Terrified Human screams.

Disgusting Monster Roars.

BANG!

BOOM!

CRASH!

Sarah inched closer to me, watching explosions appear across the lake in the more urban part of Paris in bright flashes.

“More of the volunteer’s must’ve gotten out.” I thought, looking back at TF1.

Holes were in about every floor of the tall complex, the large smoke trail elongating from the roof joining the countless other ones in the sky like a desperate hand reaching upwards for help.

“Who am I kidding,” I realized, “All of them got out.”

I placed my head in my hands, only now really getting what would happen.

Inverse was a gas, and the machine had cracked, meaning that the virus was now airborne.

This was what I helped create.

Sarah placed her hands on my shoulder, she was shaking just as much as me,

“Hey,” she said, “Don’t worry, okay?”

I gave her a look, “I just helped create ten foot tall force wielding monsters.”

She was about to respond but I interrupted her,

“And that’s just the ones that we know of!”

Sarah sighed, “W-well they’ll just die out right?” She quizzed, “They can’t make electricity for like..ever.”

I slowly nodded, “No.. but that begs the question..”

“Do they need to eat?” Sarah finished.

“AHHHH AIDEZ MO-!!”

CHOMP!

I whipped my head around to see another mutant. This one was eight feet tall, about the size of one of the Anger units. It had a flesh spike on each hand, and an excessively long neck.

Oh, and it also was chewing a full grown man.

Me and Sarah backed away as the man’s body began to glow a deep red color. Once the red faded, the mutant dropped the man from its mouth and its arms began to glow even brighter. It seemed more active now...more alive.

“Well, I guess that answers that question,” I whispered. Sarah looked like she was about to hurl. The monster snapped its head towards us, raising his spiked hand before sloshing over to us. I thought we were goners, but for some reason it stopped running after us halfway across the street, tilting its giraffe-like neck before staring off across the lake.

“..Interesting.” I noted.

Sarah grabbed my arm, “Yea yea whatever let’s GO!”

She dragged me through the streets, both of us tuning out screams of people as we went.

I started to match her pace, “Where are we going?!”

She looked at me, “Airport! DUH!”

I stopped her, stepping out of the way of a mob of tourists bolting by, “Is that really the best I-!”

BOOOOOM!

I looked into the distance to see that a massive building had just, spontaneously, lit on fire. It was like lightning how fast it had happened.

I yelped, “What was that?!”

Sarah froze, “..The airport.”

“Well crap.” I thought.

HONK HONK!

All these noises were slowly driving me insane.

I turned again to see a car swerving at us, one of the golden glowing mutants smashing its window in while hollering viscously. I grabbed Sarah and dove into the nearest alley, watching the car fly off the curb of the sidewalk before taking a dip in the lake.

CRUNCH!

The sound came from the water.

It was followed by a human scream, which seemed to slowly morph into something else.

Suddenly, two mutants leapt from the water and back onto the sidewalk, both clones charging in the direction of the burning airport. I waited thirty seconds before getting up.

Sarah was freaking out, “D-did y-you see th-”

“Okay listen!” I yelled over all the noise, “We can’t focus o-on all of this right now, okay!?”

Sarah gave me a confused expression like I was an idiot, “What?!”

BOOM!

Another explosion, but I stopped Sarah from finding the source. It was hard to ignore the smell of smoke filling the air,

“All we need to think about is getting out of this place,” I continued, “So there’s a couple of monsters in the way... Big deal.”

Sarah seemed shocked, “Yeah! Big Deal! We could die!”

I shrugged, pushing away the waves of fear building in my chest “We haven’t yet!”

I was scared, obviously, but this was just instinct. It was my ‘will to live’ that was driving me to say these things, not common sense. It was just an impulse.

Sarah glared at me, “So you just want me to ignore what’s happening?!”

I nodded, “Yes, yes exactly!” I went on, “All we need to focus on is escaping and then we can worry about flesh eating monsters.”

Sarah slowly nodded, realizing that we didn’t have any other option.

I took a deep breath, “Okay, so now we really need to think of a plan.”

“HAHAHAHHAHAAAAAAAAARRH!” A laugh pierced the air, no joy or humor in the sound as I felt static electricity fill the air.

I looked upwards to where I felt the noise had originated.

There, on the roof of the left building that made the alley, stood another mutant. Its entire body was Matte black, with the exception of its teeth, which was strangely white and fixated into a wide smile. The only parts of its body that weren’t those colors were the cracks forming on its hairless head that leaked blood, and rips in its skin caused by excessive muscle growth. If that wasn’t enough to petrify me, the thin, almost invisible field of blue electricity orbiting its torso did.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHARGHH!” It laughed again, causing the blue field to crackle and pop as it grew in intensity.

One could only assume this was one of the twelve, since I didn’t see any of those birthmarks on it, but I still had no idea how this mutation was working fully so the only logical assumption I could make was that this was Humor.

I had displayed a comedic film on one of the C-units, and who knows how many people would die for that decision.

The creature let out another cackle, seemingly laughing at nothing in particular as its glowing eyes bore into the smoke filled sky.

Then, out of nowhere, the creature’s neck seemed to tilt downwards. It was hard to tell, since I couldn’t see any pupils behind the bright blue light blasting from its eyes, but the laughing mutant seemed to be...looking at us.

With another laugh my guess was confirmed, the creature throwing itself off the roof in a barbaric manner as it excitedly fell down to the alley.

“Run, Run, RUN!” I shouted, me and Sarah taking off out of the backstreet.

But it was too late.

Like lightning, the bulging coal colored chest of the creature appeared two inches away from my heart, causing me to nearly slide into the beast before I looked up in horror.

Its smile got wider as it raised the arm spike back, sulfurous breath seeping through the spaces of its teeth as a vibrating chuckle seemed to shake the ground.

“AHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Right before it could stab one of us, a large crowd of screaming people passed by, grabbing the attention of the mutant. It looked at us, its smile never once fading. I felt sweat drip as it brought its face down centimeters from my face. I could taste the disgusting scent of blood radiating off its mouth as it opened to the size of my entire head, causing me to whimper slightly as the edges of its jaw began to stretch and tear under the tension.

Before it bit down however, without another second going by, the monster turned away from me and sped down the street in one fluid motion, chasing after a larger prey like a wild animal.

Me and Sarah just stood there for a while.

“W-we need to get out of here.” Sarah stated, rubbing her temples from behind me as she stabilized her shaking body against a large black dumpster pressed against the same building the creature had jumped off of.

I forced my brain to recover, “I hate to ask this, but do you have any plan-?"

Suddenly, Sarah grabbed my shoulders, “Oh!”

Now I was confused, “Erm,” I said, constantly checking all around us for any inhuman surprises, “W-what is it?”

Sarah produced a smile that conveyed a blend of relief and anxiety,

“I-I think I have a plan!”