— Wh-what do you mean? — he asked again, this time with his voice trembling, to which the doctor only looked at him with a funny expression as if trying to hold back his laughter.


    — What I mean is that you now possess abilities that most people only wish they had, although I must say I’m surprised. As you know, the treatment has many risks; the only thing we didn’t tell you is that the probability of a successful surgery was 5%, but hey, you’re alive, aren’t you?


    John just looked at him in horror, his heart beating faster and faster as he felt adrenaline coursing through his veins and for some reason, he felt that his eyes were getting hot, causing him discomfort, so he started rubbing them.


    The doctor, perhaps because he was boasting about his success, remained oblivious to this.


    — To be honest, I doubted very much that you would survive. Did you know that the last patient who underwent the same surgery as you ended up with internal bleeding and his organs failed? Oh, I almost forgot, he also had a lot of convulsions, so many that I thought his muscles would tear from so much erratic movement. It was disgusting. Anyway, now that you’ve survived, we’ll keep you locked up here for a while to do some more tests. Don’t worry, you’ll love it, although the people aren’t very sociable and we’ll probably have to lock you in a containment room...


    It was then that as the doctor continued to list what would happen, he noticed that his patient wasn’t listening to him. He seemed too busy rubbing his eyes.


    — Hey, John, everything okay, buddy?


    John did not respond, feeling his eyes grow hotter and itchy, his heart racing faster and faster as the doctor explained what they planned to do to him.


    — Buddy? — Lawrence said as he approached John to check on him, placing his hands on John’s and moving them out of the way.


    Once he removed his hands from John, he could see what was happening. His patient’s eyes were glowing a bright red color, his eyes seemed to be glowing. But before he could even react, John’s eyes lit up even more, materializing a beam of energy that flew off the doctor’s head, vaporizing it completely and leaving only a decapitated body that soon fell to the ground. The blood spewed from the giant cut on the neck, which, having not completely healed, began to ooze, staining the floor with the hot, sticky liquid.


    This seemed to go unnoticed by John, who was trying to control the beam of energy that his eyes kept emitting, damaging and piercing the ceiling while he was still lying down, destroying the materials that made up the structure and passing through them as if they were made of cardboard, despite being made of materials such as PVC, steel, aluminum, laminated plaster, etc.


    Realizing that he was out of control, he quickly closed his eyes, trying to calm down. However, this was complicated because he was handcuffed, so he cracked his eyes, focusing his vision on his shackles, which worked as in less than a second he felt the chain of the shackle come undone, freeing his hand from the handcuffs.


    As he was already forming a plan, he tried to concentrate on his breathing, forcing himself to calm down. His chest was rising and falling rapidly, air was entering with difficulty as his heart was beating with an almost deafening force. Now that his hearing was keener, he could hear the hum of the lights, the dripping of the doctor’s blood on the floor, the distant murmur of voices and... footsteps.


    He tensed. Someone was approaching.


    His ears picked up the sound of boots stomping on the floor. He counted at least three, maybe four people moving down the corridor. Their voices were barely a murmur, but he could make out fragments.


    — ... he’s dead...


    — We don’t know what he did...


    — Weapons ready. If he moves, we shoot.


    John swallowed. His body was still in shock, but he couldn’t stay there. He had to find a way out before they overpowered him. He didn’t know how to control what he had done, but he couldn’t afford another thoughtless outburst of power. He took a deep breath. He tried to get up, staggering as his legs barely responded.


    The door flew open. Three armed guards entered with assault rifles raised, their eyes fixed on the doctor’s corpse before turning to John.


    — Hands up! —one of them ordered in an authoritarian voice.


    John tried to obey, but his muscles wouldn’t respond. His body was still in turmoil, his pulse frantic, and his mind in chaos.


    — Last warning! Hands up or we’ll shoot!


    But the stress triggered the adrenaline in his system again. He felt the heat building up in his eyes again.


    — No... no... — he muttered, squeezing them shut tight.


    But it was too late. The instant he raised his hands, his eyelids reflexively opened and a blast of incandescent heat shot out straight. The screams of the guards filled the room as the energy hit them, vaporizing their weapons and cutting off parts of their bodies in an instant. One fell lifeless before he could react, while the other two screamed in pain.


    John did not want to see the massacre, so he closed his eyes almost immediately and tried to calm himself down, hoping that when he opened them, he would not have hurt anyone.


    Unfortunately for him, this was not the case.


    He opened his eyes and the scene before his eyes made his stomach churn, and he wanted to vomit right there and then.


    John’s eyes fluttered open, the aftermath of his uncontrollable power searing into his retinas. The once sterile, white room was now a grotesque tableau of carnage and chaos. The acrid stench of burnt flesh and singed metal filled the air, mingling with the metallic tang of blood that painted the walls and floor in grisly strokes.


    The three guards were no longer recognizable as such. They lay in pieces, their bodies contorted in unnatural positions, the remnants of their uniforms smoldering. The beam of energy that had erupted from John’s eyes had sliced through them with surgical precision, leaving behind a scene that no scrubbing could ever cleanse.


    Above, the ceiling gaped open, a jagged maw of charred debris and twisted metal. The destruction stretched outward, the epicenter directly above where John lay, a testament to the raw, untamed force he had unleashed.


    The doctor’s body, what was left of it, lay not far from him, the stump of his neck still spurting blood in rhythmic pulses that were slowly weakening. The head was nowhere to be seen, obliterated by the same force that had reduced everything else in its path to ruin.


    John’s breath came in short, ragged gasps, his heart pounding like a trapped animal against the cage of his ribs. His gaze darted around the room, taking in the full horror of what he had done. A wave of nausea washed over him, and he clutched at his stomach, fighting back the bile that rose in his throat.


    He tried to move, to stand, to flee from the nightmare that surrounded him, but his body refused to cooperate. Terror rooted him to the spot, a scream building in his chest, a scream that never found its voice. His mind raced, fragmented thoughts crashing into each other, none making sense, none offering solace.


    If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by the drip, drip, drip of blood hitting the soaked floor. John’s senses were in overdrive, every sound, every smell, and every sight amplified to an excruciating degree. It was too much, the stimuli overwhelming his senses, pushing him closer to the brink of madness.


    As the shock began to wear off, the gravity of the situation settled on John like a leaden weight. He has become a weapon. The realization brought with it a suffocating sense of guilt and despair.


    His chest tightened, his vision blurred, and the world around him started to spin. The room seemed to close in on him, the walls pressing in, the ceiling bearing down. John’s breathing grew more erratic, each breath shallower than the last, until he was gasping for air that refused to come.


    The panic attack hit him with the force of a sledgehammer, stealing his breath, clouding his mind, and sending his heart into a frenzied rhythm. He doubled over, hands clutching his head as if trying to keep his skull from shattering under the pressure.


    — Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, please sorry…


    Amid the chaos, a single thought managed to break through the fog of fear: he had to get out, to escape this place before anyone else got hurt. But how could he? He was a monster, a ticking time bomb that could go off at any moment.


    As John wrestled with his terror and the crushing guilt of his actions, the full extent of his predicament began to sink in. He was trapped, alone, and afraid, with no clear path to salvation.


    Well, the last part wasn’t entirely true. He could go where the guards had gone; however, there was something he had to do.


    Struggling against his nausea and anxiety, John approached the disfigured corpse of one of the guards, an access card gleaming in the reflection of the lights in the room.


    John knew he was going to need to grab it. When the guards had arrived he had heard how the door had opened only after a loud click. So slowly and with effort, he crouched down to grab the card, while trying with all his might not to vomit on the corpse, even though he could already feel the remains of breakfast rising up his throat.


    Finally, he grabbed it, having cut the string that was tied around the neck of the deceased caretaker.


    — I’m really sorry —John said in a tone of sadness and remorse, holding back tears as he understood what he had done.


    Although he didn’t know these people, he didn’t want them to die. They were doing their job; maybe they had families, families who would never see them again because of him. The very idea of it made him sick, finally stood up and ran quickly to one side of the bodies to empty his stomach as he couldn’t hold it any longer.


    The contents of his stomach soiled the floor already stained by the blood of the bodies, so they ended up mixing together, creating an unpleasant collage worthy of the most macabre nightmares one could have.


    John held back the urge to vomit again at the sight of the scene he had caused and instead walked purposefully towards the door of the room and out into the corridor.


    The corridor was completely empty at the moment, so he took advantage of his luck and ran towards the only door in the corridor apart from the one to the medical room. This was a kind of steel-reinforced door with a card reader where the handle was supposed to be, so he grabbed the ID he had taken from the shattered body, some blood still on it, and swiped it over the reader, which made a high-pitched sound and proceeded to open the door automatically.


    John quickly walked out, closing it behind him, hoping he wouldn’t have to run into any more guards here, not believing he would be able to defend himself again if it meant taking more lives.


    Unfortunately, this would prove difficult for John in the future, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.


    Once he crossed the threshold of the door that was reinforced like a wall, he entered a much more extensive and less narrow corridor than the previous one. The view of the corridor was simple but peculiar, as on both sides of it there were what seemed to be dozens of doors identical to the one he had just come out of.


    This told him only one thing: he was not the only patient here, which could mean that perhaps there was someone else who had experienced the same thing as him.


    However, he did not have time to continue thinking about that possibility as he managed to hear the footsteps of multiple people heading his way. The sound of what appeared to be combat boots grinding against the vinyl floor was getting closer to him.


    For John, this was strange. His hearing had always been good but never this good. After all, the guards approaching him must still be hundreds of meters away, and yet he was able to hear not only their footsteps but also the movements they made—the rubbing of the bulletproof vests against the uniforms, the continuous exhalations they made as they moved. It was as if he were right next to them, but they still weren’t there.


    John quickly came out of his trance, realizing his predicament, so he randomly chose one of the doors on either side of the corridor and went inside. Once he had chosen it, he used the late guard’s ID card and quickly went in, taking care not to make too much noise as he entered.


    Inside, it was practically the same as where he had come from—a narrow corridor leading to a double door through which one entered the operating theater.


    John quickly entered the room, where he surprisingly found a girl tied to a bed. She looked like a young girl, perhaps a little younger than him, but not by much. Even in her hospital gown, her body seemed developed, her features delicate and well cared, even without makeup. Her hair was reddish like Jasper’s, and her skin was as white as snow, similar to his, and her eyes were the bluest he had ever seen, almost hypnotizing.


    The scene immediately reminded him of how he was only a few minutes ago, so his first instinct was to help her.


    But he stopped.


    If this girl was chained up, maybe it was for a reason. However, he couldn’t rule out the possibility that she had been deceived like him and left here against her will. So he finally decided to talk to her to find out why she was there. He wasn’t worried about being heard, as he noticed that once the electronically locked door closed, it immediately isolated all sound inside, which would explain why he hadn’t heard the guards coming until they entered through the door.


    John noticed how the girl’s gaze rested on him, her face neutral, almost as if she were tired of being there—or perhaps she was scared and had simply gone into shock.


    There was only one way to find out, so he cleared his throat and began.


    — Hi, are you okay? Did they trick you too?


    The girl did not respond, although her gaze remained fixed on John.


    — Are you hurt? Do you want me to help you get out? What did they do to you?


    Again, the girl did not reply. John did not know why she was silent, so he became desperate.


    — Hey, what’s wrong? You can''t talk? — he asked, desperation seeping into his tone.


    To John’s surprise, she nodded. This made his eyes open wide.


    — Oh, that’s why you weren’t answering — he said as she just nodded —. Sorry for getting a little desperate, it’s just that I’m scared and I don’t know what to do. Do you know what this place is?


    Surprisingly, she nodded again.


    — Really? That’s great. Let’s make a deal: I’ll set you free and you tell me what this place is, or rather... — John conveniently spotted a notebook on the table with a pen next to it —. You write it down, is that okay?


    She nodded again, although this time with more enthusiasm, which caused a smile to form unconsciously on John’s face.


    — Okay then, just... stay still and move your hand as far away from the chain as possible —said John as he positioned himself to one side of the girl and tried to make his rays come out.


    She just nodded repeatedly, seeming excited to be able to break free of her shackles.


    Meanwhile, John couldn’t get them to come out. He had tried to focus his gaze on a fixed point, to cloud it, and even to blink several times, but nothing happened. Until he remembered something.


    His rays had only been activated in certain instances—those instances had been in situations where his heart had been beating very fast and he felt adrenaline filling his body.


    — That’s it — though John triumphantly —. Adrenaline must be what activates the laser. Now the question is, how do I get the adrenaline going?


    His answer came quickly when he remembered what his sister had told him some time ago.


    — Phew, it was a hectic day, — she had said as she walked through the door —. I can still feel the adrenaline pumping.


    It was as if an imaginary light bulb had come on. That was what he had to do—he had to get worked up, and the adrenaline would come on its own.


    So John did the only thing he could think of—he started jogging in place, at which the girl looked at him with a confused expression.


    — Don’t worry, I’m doing this to activate my power, — he explained, to which she simply nodded.


    He stayed like that for a few minutes until he felt his legs ache, and it was then that he felt the adrenaline circulating, which made him redouble his efforts.


    As he continued to jog in place, his eyes began to light up, and that was when he took the signal and aimed directly at the chain that was keeping the girl in bed.


    His eyes lit up again and emitted a beam of concentrated energy toward the link, which quickly dissolved, yielding to the rays. However, he noticed that they were less powerful, as they took a few seconds to break the chain, whereas those he had used before had been devastating.


    ‘Maybe it was because I had used more adrenaline before.’ He thought as he separated himself from the bed.


    The girl, seeing that she was free, got up and looked at him with a grateful smile that John found adorable.


    — You’re welcome. Now, if you’d be so kind, tell me everything you know about this place.