Writer's Note: Finals are over and it is time for a new side project. I had too many distractions during the semester so it will be easier to write now, besides my first job. Hooray.... My main story is The Snake Immortal. Thanks for reading this new side project. Certainly a new genre for me to explore and won't conflict with my main story.
Chapter 1: The Great Escape
"All fifteen of you children have woken nicely, yes? Everything feels fine?" a young brunette in a lab coat smiled to fifteen seven year old children.
"Yes Dr. Burka," the children answered, gathering before in in identical white shirts and cotton pants.
"Good. Everyone please line up for daily inspection," Dr. Burka said, smiling warmly.
A young boy with jet black hair and jade eyes stared around at the other children. He knew they were all different than the adults. All the adults had brown or blue eyes. None of them had red, purple, orange, jade, azure, grey, pink, or gold eyes. Only the children did.
Every so often, the children were experimented with drugs. They ate weird meat with a strange energy within. They were taught basic education, but the animals they saw were mutated from the ones in the picture books. A part of him always questioned them, never fully trusting people who tested on him and always had a smile and warm atmosphere.
Most of all, the children had powers. Supernatural powers. The boy learned to sense an energy around him, the scientists calling it the world's spirit energy. Each of them had a unique power of their own, slowly improving or developing new powers with each experiment.
"Experiment A-11, are you alright?" the woman asked as it was his turn to be personally inspected as the children lined up.
"Yes Dr. Burka," the boy said, pretending to smile as he always did.
"It's alright, Experiment A-11. Soon, you children can go outside and play in the real world," the woman said, patting him on the shoulder before calling for Experiment A-4. Today, the children did not line up by number.
"She told you the same thing?" A-3 asked as A-11 stepped out the room. At the end of the long hallways were armed guards. The two both knew the guards were not meant to protect them, but to detain them.
"We still doing this?" A-11 asked.
"Yeah. A-5, A-13, and A-8 were already tested. The others cannot be trusted. Those scientists still think we're children when we get flashbacks of other people who look like older versions of ourselves and received higher education," A-3 sighed.
"Because we are clones," A-11 concluded as two girls and another boy arrived. While A-11 had jade eyes, A-3 had orange eyes, A-13 had red eyes, and the two girls had pink eyes. A-5 led the trio as they walked over to A-11.
"A-3, we came," A-5 said, smiling as she stared at him before seeing A-11. "As suspected, the guards are changing shifts while we are getting our inspections. The left hallway is the way out and there are only 8 guards with guns along the path."
"Good. Let's move," A-3 said, black fire covering his hand as he burned the electronic pad by the door. "A-13, go have fun killing. You always wanted to kill the guards for when they punished you by smacking your hands with their belts."
"Oh, I am so on that," A-13 said, covering his body with wind as he propelled forward at an extremely high speed. One of the guards tried to yell, but A-13 stopped abruptly, his hand stretched toward the guard and the man beside him. Both guards held their throats as they could not breath, the air not reaching their nostrils or mouth.
"You killed them," A-11 noted as A-13 used his control over wind to keep them upright as they died.
"Just keep them upright," A-13 said as A-11 used his control over ice to connect the backs of the dead guards to the wall.
"Only six to go. A-3, seal up the hallway behind us. A-8, you got the X-ray vision. Keep us posted on their positions," A-3 said as he caught up to the two other boys. "No going back now."
"I'm done playing house. Let's get the hell out of here," A-13 said. The five of them rushed through the hallways, A-11 opening the doors by electrifying the key pads with blue lightning.
"That's a new power. You got two elements now? They finally succeeded through you. Guess it makes sense. You are the only original A-11, the lone survivor of all Project Alpha," A-3 said.
"I always had it. A part of me kept telling me to keep it hidden from everyone. The scientists said only Naturals had more than one element, though rare it is. My mind kept telling me not to reveal it or the experiments would be worse," A-11 answered. "And yes. I've been experimented on the most, suffered the most, and seen the most children dead. I am the first only A-11."
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
"I think I was B-2. I've been part of Project Beta and replaced the dead guys. I've been experimented the most, besides A-11," A-13 nodded.
"Seal up this door. We make a rights four straight, and another right as we seal the front door while we make a left," A-8 said, the others rushing their speed. After a while, she spoke again. "The other experiments helped Dr. Burka break open the door. She might have convinced them to catch us."
"A-11, can you drain the electricity from this place?" A-3 asked.
"I can try but I did not practice much of my lightning," A-11 said, A-13 carrying him with wind as A-11 drained the electricity from the overhead lights. As A-5 sealed the hallways with earth, the lights were burned out and only pitch darkness laid behind them.
"That's it. That's the way out!" A-8 cried as they appeared before a door with warning signs all around it.
"A-8!" A-11 cried as he saw a man appear from underground, shooting her in the chest as he turned to face the others. A-11 grit his teeth and roared out, a wolf's right arm of ice appearing as he leaped at the man.
"A-8," A-5 sobbed as the only other girl was dead, her eyes staring at the roof eternally. A-13 blasted the gun away from the man with a gust of wind as A-11's ice claws pierced the man in the chest. A-3 quickly jumped and grabbed A-11 before he could fall below.
"Seal the hole and let's go!" A-3 yelled as he shook the girl. "A-5, get a hold of yourself. She wouldn't want us all to die."
"It gets better," A-13 said as he tapped A-11 on the shoulder. "You just have to hate them to feel nothing."
The remaining four quickly left out the doors, A-5 sealing the door behind them as A-3 set the building on fire as they ran out. People screamed as A-13 went wild as he rushed ahead of them.
"We made it," A-3 gasped for breath as they ran three blocks away from the building and rested in an alley.
"This is where we part ways," A-13 said. "If we split up, they can't find us. I'm leaving the country. When I come back, it's to raise this city to the ground with my own private army."
"And he just left like that," A-5 said, staring at A-13's back as he ran off.
"A-13 only cared about freedom and revenge. It's better this way. I'm going to leave the country too. Gonna live my life away from all this," A-3 said.
"I'll come with you. A-11?" A-5 asked as the duo turned to him.
"I don't know. I never thought I'd be free," he answered. "I'm going to roam around, stay at an orphanage at some city and get adopted. It's better to live in the same country. They won't believe I will stay here. When I grow old enough, I might learn why they cloned us in the future. This country is not hell, just the scientist organization that created us."
"Good luck. When we get strong enough, we'll come find you," A-3 said, A-5 nodding as well.
"Not me. Find A-13. I'm more likely to get caught than him. You've suffered enough. Don't endanger your freedom for me. Unlike me, you haven't been experimented as long as I have. Those who are part of Project Beta are raised as normal kids with minimal experimentation until you replace an Alpha Number. Go," A-11 said.
"You have to survive. You have to," the two said as they hugged A-11 before running off into a different direction than A-13.
After an hour a news report was released about the burning building. A-11 was in mismatched clothes and running shoes he found by a home he passed by. He watched the news and learned how the public saw it.
"At around noon this morning, a building was set on fire and burned to reveal a secret beneath. It was discovered to be an illegal experimental facility to make artificial Shadow Hunters through a cloning process. No further details were released but it is suspected that some experiments escaped and caused the fire," a news reporter said on television. "In other news, a coven of vampires was discovered and another illegal gargoyle factory was destroyed last night. As always, those with supernatural powers are urged to formally register and attend a Shadow Hunter Academy for formal training. We need every Shadow Hunter we have to protect what is left of humanity from the terrors hiding in the dark."
"Shadow hunter? Vampires? Gargoyles? What's going on? These are not in my memories or among what I've been taught," A-11 said as he sneaked onto a travel bus and left toward the capital. There was no better place to hide and no better place to learn about Shadow Hunters and the world he had escaped to.