Chapter 15: The Trinity Serum_The Scarlet Jane Files

The room is dark. Sterile. Lit only by orange LED lights that line the walls. As we enter, I take note of a man in a white lab coat, only to find it to be none other than Doctor Mitchell—who, with Amelia Vanderoof at his side, stand awaiting us with calm expressions on their faces.

 “Scarlet,” Amelia says. “Congratulations on being accepted into the Guild of Hunters.”

 “Thank you,” I say and bow my head in response.

 “I assume you know why you are here?”

 I nod in response.

 “You have been given the prestigious honor of being allowed to join the Guild of Hunters,” Amelia continues, rounding a simple metal chair with leather straps affixed around its surfaces to face me directly. “As such, you will now be administered the Trinity Serum and become one with the Supernatural world. I will warn you though, Scarlet, that this is not a choice to be made lightly. You will face many trials after this serum is injected. Never again will you simply be just human. You will be a force to be reckoned with—a living construct designed to destroy those Supernatural creatures who pose a risk to humanity and the anonymity of the Supernatural world—and will never again be able to return to your previous state. Now is the last chance you have to back out of this. Do you understand?”

 “I understand,” I reply, balling my hands into fists.

 “So what will it be, Miss Brown? Will you consent to be administered the Trinity Serum, thereby becoming one of the Agency’s Hunters, or will you choose to be wiped and forget everything you have seen in the past twelve days?”

 This is it, I think. My final chance to back down.

 My life. My love. My hopes, goals, ambitions, my dreams for the future and regrets for the past, my father’s death and my mother’s murder—I stand here, on the precipice of it all, ready to jump and never return from the rabbit hole. I am Alice lost in Wonderland, Dorothy trapped in Oz, the Pevensie children forever bound to Narnia. Like me, each had faced their trials, their fears, their greatest hopes, and their worst nightmares. But unlike me, they had always been given the chance to go back—to return to the worlds from which they came and forever be what they truly were: human.

 But therein lies my problem:

 I cannot

 go back. I cannot return to a normal world. My mother is gone, my future destroyed, the past rewritten to refuse my existence. Anything that happens from this point forward is on me.

 With a slow, confident nod, I step toward the much-taller woman, lift my head to look her in the eyes, and say, “I’m ready, Miss Vanderoof.”

 “Please, seat yourself in the chair. You will be administered the serum shortly.”

 It is with great trepidation that I settle into the metal chair—that I allow myself to be strapped in as though waiting a death sentence. It is also with fear that I watch Doctor James Mitchell step forward with a single syringe, within which dance a miasma of colors.

 Blood red, royal gold, aqua blue—they swim effortlessly within a stream of amber liquid, coalescing one another’s beings while awaiting to be injected into the next great Hunter.

 This is the choice you made, I tell myself. For you. For Mama. For everyone who’s ever been robbed by the Supernatural world.

 Countless lives have suffered over the course of history. Countless others will even now, and even in the future. But I know that, with my strength, my tenacity, and my willingness to change the world, I can prevent future tragedies from happening.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

 “Scarlet Jane,” Victor Delacroix says as Doctor Mitchell wraps a band around my arm to draw the vein from beneath my skin. “We will now recite the Hunter’s prayer, and through it, dedicate your body, mind, and soul to the Agency. Are you ready?”

 “I’m ready,” I say.

 Every Hunter within the room—including Emily Bane, who still has yet to tend to her injuries—clasps their hands together and bows their heads.

 “For Honor and Grace.

 “For Love and Hate.

 “For Justice and Pride.

 “With this we state:

 “I am a Hunter: in body, mind, and soul.

 “And this I swear:

 “I swear to drive back the forces of darkness.

 “I swear to uphold the good and virtuous.

 “I swear to bring forth justice to those who have none.

 “And above all else, I swear to protect the innocent.

 “With this prayer—this holy rite—I dedicate myself to the Guild, the Agency, and the World as we know, now and forevermore.”

 “Amen,” I say.

 Victor Delacroix and the rest of the Hunters lift their heads to examine me. “Doctor Mitchell,” he says. “You may now administer the Trinity Serum to Scarlet Jane Brown.”

 “I will warn you,” the doctor says, “that this will be painful.”

 “Nothing could be as painful as losing my mother,” I say.

 The doctor considers me for a moment, prepares and aligns the syringe at the vein protruding from my skin, and slides it into my arm.

 I begin to scream the moment the serum hits my veins.

 It is a pain unlike any I have ever felt before—comparable to fire being laced through my veins and daggers piercing every inch of my soul.

 As the Trinity Serum is administered, slowly guided into my system by the machinations of man and the hand of a lone doctor, I receive a vision of the world as it was, the world as it currently happened to be, and the world as it would be in the future.

 Eons pass before my eyes, during which time I see it all: the beginning, the middle, the untimely end. I see supernovas in space, the birth of suns, the destruction of spaceborn debris and then the creation of planets. I see life as it emerges within the ocean, as it develops legs and walks upon land. I see the dinosaurs as they look to the sky and witness, with their pale eyes, the meteor as it comes to Earth. I see men as they rise, as they evolve, as they fall beneath the brutality of a strange god, and I see the Supernatural as it comes to be—crowned in blood, raised in words, forged in legend.

 So great are the images assaulting my mind that I cannot not make sense of them all. They are like rocks being thrown at glass windows. With each pane that shatters, another spike of pain lights my body, my mind, my spirit.

 I thrash, trying, without success, to free myself from the chair and its endless torment, but bound by restraints I cannot escape. So I do the only thing I can do:

 I scream.

 Its pitch rises and falls, sharp and at times nearly inaudible, and around me empty vials begin to quiver as my trembling body causes the metal clamps holding the chair in place to shake. I scream. I cry. At one point I even vomit. The process seems to last forever, though it has to be less than a minute; and during that time I see my mother’s ghost standing behind Amelia Vanderoof, beckoning to me with one extended hand. Come to me, Scarlet Jane, she says.

 Come to me and forever be lost from this world.

 I can’t, I try to say but can only mouth the words due to the scream tearing its way from my throat. I can’t, Mama. I can’t.

 My mother’s ghost laughs.

 In its place appears the vampire, face scarred by a radiant crescent tattoo that extends from its hairline, over one eye, all the way down to its chin. I see it laughing—baring its teeth, extending its claws—and I want nothing more than to rip her free of the restraints and launch myself at the phantom that so desperately wishes to drive me insane.

 But I can’t.

 Bound as I am, I can do little but sit, and cry, and scream.

 By the time Doctor James Mitchell pulls the syringe from my arm, only a minute has passed on the clock above the door.

 Breathless, trembling, and crying from the sheer magnitude of pain coursing through my body, I collapse against the chair and weakly stare at Victor Delacroix and Amelia Vanderoof as they approach.

 “Welcome to the fold,” the leader of the Guild says.

 I black out before I can reply.

AliNovel

Chapter 15: The Trinity Serum