CHAPTER 6- The Experiments

“It took control of my older sister’s body, and…” Alma trailed off.

“Wait, your family was killed by the same thing that’s living inside me?” I asked.

“It’s only a guess, but I’m like, 75% sure that it’s the same thing. After my sister finished off my parents, she regained consciousness and tried telling me what happened… but I didn’t listen. Later that night, I snuck into her room and stabbed her. I thought she was lying, but now you’re telling me the exact same things she was…”

I saw tears welling up in her eyes, so I looked away. I was feeling a wide range of emotions, from fear that I might accidentally kill someone close to me, to relief that there was someone who knew at least a little bit about what was happening to me.

“Anyway, you have two options,” she started, “Either I kill you right here, or you learn how to control that thing.”

I flinched, knowing that wasn’t an idle threat. I know what it’s like to want revenge, and honestly if I were in her shoes I probably wouldn’t even have given me an option.

“Um… how can I control it if I don’t even know what it is and how it works?” I asked.

“That’s for you to figure out.”

I sighed. I would probably end up dead within the month.

“But I do have a few guesses. This is all speculation, of course, but I think it has something to do with Chaos Energy.”

“You mean, that thing that nobody knows anything about? How is that supposed to help me?”

“I’ve been doing some research about Chaos lately. Turns out, there’s plenty of information about it, but it’s all highly classified and stored in government archives.”

“So how did YOU get into the archives? You’re not some government spy posing to be a student are you? Actually, that would explain your insane combat skills…”

“Well, first of all the guards were sleeping, not thinking anyone would actually try to break in, so that made it considerably easier.”

“Wait, you broke into a government facility? You could be executed for that!”

“I wouldn’t call it “breaking in,” more like “taking the key out of a sleeping guard’s hand and unlocking the door.” she said.

“Whatever you say,” I rolled my eyes, “What did you find?”

“First of all, they’re trying to make a weapon out of Chaos Energy. A human weapon. They got pretty close, too, but then the person they were experimenting on died, and they lost all their progress.”

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Something about this jumped out at me, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.

“They had many failed experiments too, but most of them died. The ones who did survive were just deemed incompatible, had their memories wiped, and were released back into society. Of course, this is all top secret information, if the public found out the government was experimenting on and disposing of humans at their leisure, they would riot.”

I remembered when I was a child, proudly waving Glaetian flags and chanting the national anthem, always wanting to become a soldier, but now I was having second thoughts. If this is the kind of stuff the government does, I wouldn’t dream of becoming one of their slaves.

“I think my sister was one of the failed experiments. She was always out of the house, never telling anyone what she was doing, and then one day, she suddenly disappeared. We searched for months, but never found her. Then one day, a few weeks later, she just walked back in like nothing happened. My parents started shouting at her, asking where she’d been and what she was doing, but she was playing dumb. Or so we thought. Later that night, my parents were killed.”

“So you think she spent those months in the government’s hands, and she was released after having her memory wiped?”

“Precisely. It all fits, right? The disappearance, the unexplained memory loss, the sudden power surge that allowed her to beat my parents, who, by the way, were both capable and experienced sorcerers.”

“Did you find anything else that we could use? I mean, that’s all very eye-opening, but it still doesn’t really help me, does it?” Realizing I was probably being extremely insensitive, I added, “Oh, and sorry about your family. I also know how it feels to lose family members. My big brother died when I was five, fighting this really strong dude…”

I realized what had been jumping out at me earlier. Leo! Was Leo an experiment too? It would explain his incredible power, and his “library visits.” His last words came back to me. “Continue what I started… Chaos Energy.” I hadn’t understood it back then, but it was clear as day now. Leo was the one that gave me this power. He wanted me to continue what he started- continue mastering Chaos Energy. He put something inside me- some kind of ‘rune’ they were saying, and he asked me to continue what he started.

“It’s oka-” I cut her off.

“My brother was the weapon. The one you said they got pretty close with. He got hunted down by some masked guy, and got killed. Before he died, he passed his rune down to me. He was the one who could control Chaos”

Alma didn’t seem shocked at all to hear this. In fact, she looked relieved.

“I expected something like that. As far as I know, the government doesn’t experiment on kids, so you have to either have gotten the power from natural causes somehow or from someone outside the government.”

“Well, since you’re so knowledgeable, why would he give a five year old a government weapon capable of overpowering even Time and Space?”

“He probably hoped you would learn how to control it, and maybe take down the government or something with it. My guess is as good as yours.”

“But that leaves me with the same problem. How the heck do I control it?”

“I can’t tell you for sure, but all I know is that Chaos feeds off of negative emotions, like anger, frustration, fear, and sadness. Before you broke my shield, what were you feeling? Were you frustrated that none of your spells were working on me?”

“Yeah, I was. Honestly, I think it was more from fear, though. You were just walking my way, menacingly, and I didn’t know what you were planning to do with me, so I panicked.”

“Makes sense. And when it activated before, you were feeling angry, correct?”

“That guy was insulting and threatening my family, of course I was angry!”

“So, based on these things, my guess is that if you have complete control over your emotions, you can pretty much keep Chaos from doing anything. We’ll have to learn how to actually use the Chaos rune eventually, but for now, just try to be more patient and happy. Do some meditation or something, whatever works for you. I’ll be in touch.”

Then she just vanished into thin air. Man, I really have a lot to learn from her.