I was running. Trees flew past me in a blur, their branches stinging my face and skin. The thin material of the hospital gown that I wore whipped around me and provided little protection for my skin, but I barely felt the pain.
"Keep running," I thought to myself over and over again. "Just keep running."
The harsh, baying call of hounds, sounded out through the night air, almost drowning out the sound of men shouting. Fear clutched at my heart. I should have had more time before they set the dogs out after me. This wasn't going the way I had hoped and I would be lucky to make it out alive, but I couldn't give up. I just had to keep running.
Though, suddenly, I had to stop; grinding my heels into the earth and stopping just an inch from where the ground fell away into a sheer cliff. Peering over the edge revealed a fifty-foot drop to the ground below.
My mind was racing, delusional with fear 'What the hell do I do now?' I kept repeating over and over in my mind. I couldn't go back, they'd kill me if I was lucky. If not, they would torture me until my mind was broken.
Suddenly, a loud growl ripped through the air. I whirled around just as three large hounds burst through the trees. They stopped when they saw me, slowly fanning out, surrounding me and cutting off any possible routes of escape, their lips were curled back to reveal their long, razor sharp teeth. There was an intelligence in their eyes that was unlike anything that would be seen in a normal dog, but then again they weren't normal dogs. They were as genetically modified as I was, making them as far from normal as possible and making them much more dangerous. Without thinking, I took a step back and my heel slipped off the ledge. I managed to pull myself back before I fell. Then, one of the hounds let out a fierce snarl and leaped towards me. I looked back behind me at the cliff, then back at the dog who was mere seconds from reaching me. Then with a scream, I turned around and jumped into the abyss.
My eyes flew open and I bolted upright, my chest heaving. For just a moment I didn't recognize the world around me, my mind was still in the forest, feeling the air rushing across my body, the furious echoes of the howls of dogs still ringing in my ears. Then I blinked, and I was back in the present again in the small, grimy room that I called 'home'. A small ray of light shined in through the only window in the room, dust swirling through it in a sort of hypnotic dance. The place itself resided in an old apartment building, that I had found a few years back. The place had been abandoned for years, condemned by the city as being 'unsafe' and all but forgotten about.
The room I was in was one of the only rooms in the building that still had an intact window, most of them had been shattered and broken by various people and natural events. The room itself was small, only about twenty square feet and probably wasn't even an apartment, more like a storage closet. The walls of the room were covered in old, floral wallpaper that, at one point, had been white, but was long since yellowed and peeling, spots of mold dotting its surface. The floor was wooden and heavily warped from water damage. When it rained, the ceiling liked to leak. A few random buckets were scattered across the small floor underneath the worst of the places that liked to drip. And there was an old, ratty mattress shoved into one of the corners of the room on which I was currently sitting.
I let out a sigh and put my head in my hands. Ever since the night when I had escaped RCRX (The Research Center for Reformed Xenogenetics), my dreams had been plagued with nightmares, mostly reliving that horrible night. I glanced up at the wall across from me which was covered with about fifteen names, each belonging to a different scientist from the research facility, and each one written in an angry hand with large black letters. Most of the names had a large slash over them that sliced through the wallpaper and revealed the wooden wall underneath. Seeing the names gave me some amount of comfort. I had control over those people who's names were written there. A control that I had never had at RCRX.
There were only three names left on the wall that hadn't been slashed yet. I stood up and walked over to the wall, tracing my fingers lightly across one of the names that read 'Salvia Mitchells' imagining what it would look like when it was slashed through. My lip curled as I thought about the owner of the name but, resisting the urge to do anything, I sharply turned away and crossed over to the window.
Outside, the city stretched for miles, tall skyscrapers dominated much of the horizon though the area where I lived looked like a ghost town. The road below was dotted with potholes and large cracks through its surface. Most of the buildings around the area were in heavy disrepair and a good majority of them were boarded up. Not many people came around, and the city didn't bother trying to fix the area up. I didn't mind it, though. I actually preferred the solitude.
I sighed again and leaned forward to press my forehead against the glass, trying to chase away the last ghosts of the nightmare from my memory. I was supposed to meet with someone later that day, someone who had promised me information that I needed but I still had several hours left before then and I wasn't sure what I would do to pass the time until then.
An answer came in the form of a loud shout that broke the morning silence. Across the street, in an alleyway between two buildings, two large men had cornered a much smaller guy. But it wasn't the people who had caught my eye, it was the object that one of them clutched in his hand.
One of the two larger men held a formidable knife that he was currently jabbing threateningly at the smaller guy that he and his lackey had cornered. The blade itself was about 5 inches long and came to a wicked point with a serrated edge on top. The handle, or at least what could be seen of it through thug's beefy hand, was black and sleek.
I couldn't help but smile when I saw it. I had been looking for a nice knife for quite awhile and one had just graciously fallen into my lap. Well, not really, there was a person holding that knife for now, but he wouldn't be holding it for much longer.
I quickly slid open the window jumped out of it. The room I lived in was on the third story but it didn't matter for me. The only thing I got out of the life I spent as a human lab rat, was the enhanced body I lived in. My muscles and bones were stronger than a bodybuilder's, my eyes were as sharp as a falcon's, my sense of smell was as keen as a blood hound's, and my body was able to heal almost 10 times faster than a normal human. The only thing that wasn't changed or enhanced was my hearing, which was only as good as the average human.
My body sliced through the air and I hit the ground, tucking into a roll, my enhanced muscles and bones easily absorbing the force. I straightened up, casually brushed off my shirt and crossed over to the three people.
None of them had noticed as I approach and, as I got closer, I could start to hear what was being said.
"You better hand over it now before I split you open." The guy holding the knife said. He talked with a slight slur as if he was drunk.
"Please, I don't know what you're talking about," said the smaller guy, the unmistakable quiver of fear in his voice.
I lightly tapped the guy holding the knife on the shoulder. Both of the men were largely built and were about a head taller than I was. Both him and the guy he was with turned around sharply, glaring down at me with a sneer. They were both equally ugly and looked similar enough to be brothers. Both of them had squinty eyes, pig-like noses, and melon-shaped heads. The only definitive difference between the guy that held the knife and the other guy was the color of their hair. The bigger of the two, (and the one with the knife) had black hair, and the other guy had brown. The smell wafting from the two of them was so strong, it was making my stomach churn.
"What the hell do you want?" The guy with the knife sneered, his face curling up to an even uglier expression.
He didn't seem to be the brightest bulb in the box, so I decided to have a little fun with him. "Your knife," I said flatly.
His face twisted. "What did you say?"
"I said I want your knife."
They stared at me so I sighed and crossed my arms. "Alright, here's how this is going to work. You're going to give me your knife and walk away, or I'm going to beat your ass up and take the knife from you."
The bigger guy began to laugh. "Yeah, I think you got it wrong little girlie," that came from the slightly smaller guy. He looked me up and down, his eyes straying a little too long on my chest, a small smile creeping onto his face. "I think we're going to have some fun with you," he said, taking a step forward.
I shrugged, dropping my arms to my sides again. "Your choice," I said before I turned and delivered a powerful kick to the smaller guy's gut. The kick sent him flying backward into the wall, his head slamming into the bricks with a crack. He slumped to the ground, motionless.
The second guy, who had watched this, dumbfounded, whirled on me. "You bitch!" He snarled.
He lunged at me, slashing wildly with his knife. There was no purpose or precision in his movements and I had no problem simply stepping aside to avoid him as he barreled past me.
"You know, that was really impressive," I said, smiling slightly at him as he whirled around again. "I think you might have actually gotten a hair there."
"Shut the hell up!" He yelled and lunged again.
He tried to slash at my face but instead of avoiding him that time, I grabbed his wrist, pulling his hand closer to examine the knife that was grasped in it closely. It was just as impressive as it had looked from the window, if not more.
"This is a nice knife," I said.
Tried to pull his wrist free from my grip, his face twisting into confusion when it didn't budge. He quickly changed tactics, swinging his other hand around to deliver a punch but I easily grabbed his fist with my other hand. He tried to pull away again but his strength was like a toddler's compared to mine. In an instant, all traces of anger left his face, replaced instead by confusion and fear
"What the hell are you?"
Instead of answering, I smirked at him and then released his knife hand, sharply twisting the other one. He spun with the twist, arching up through the air, and landing hard on his back. He lay gasping like a fish out of water, all the air having been knocked from his lungs. I slowly walked over and crouched down by his head, placing my face inches from his. Even as he was struggling to get his breath back, he flinched away from me.
"Next time a girl asks you nicely for something," I said, "I suggest you give it to her." And with that, I delivered a hard punch to his face and he went limp. For a second I thought I might have punched him hard enough to kill him but then I saw that his chest was still rising and falling with his breath.
I stood back up, grabbed the knife from his limp fingers, and inspected it closely. It was nice and heavy, made of stainless steel. I flipped it closed and slid it into the waste of my pants. "Thanks," I said down to the unconscious thug before I kicked him in the groin.
Just as I turned to leave I heard a soft gasp. The guy that the two thugs had cornered was still standing against the wall, it didn't look like he had even moved an inch. He stared at me, eyes wide. I knew what he must have been seeing. A strange girl, with white hair, pulled into a ponytail and sharp green eyes who had just knocked out two men twice her size. My hair hadn't always been white. Once, many years ago, it had been red, though eventually, the time and experiments I was put through over my life had turned it white as snow.
But instead of looking at me with the usual fear that people regarded me with, he stared at me with... amazement. He was maybe in his early twenties with brown eyes and had short brown hair. He actually looked rather attractive once I actually got a good look at him.
"Tha-thanks," he finally said.
I looked at him carefully for a moment or two more before turning and walking away without a word.
ns3.148.107.92da2
然後按「加至主畫面」