《PROTOTYPE》 Prologue - waking up Prologue I woke up with the feeling of cold steel on my back, I tried to move my hands and feet but they were being held down by something. I was eventually able to open my eyes and I saw a high ceiling with bright white florescent lighting that forced me to close them again. I opened them again but this time I squinted so that the bright light wouldn''t hurt my sensitive eyes. I strained my neck and I was able to see right and left even though something seemed to be wrapped around my neck. The room I was in had white tiles on the walls and on the floor. It was really clean and combined with the florescent lighting it looked very sterile and cold. The room didn''t only look cold but it also was cold, I could see my breath turn in to a cloud of vapor as it left my mouth and nose every time I exhaled. I tried to move my hands and legs again but I couldn''t even budge them, I struggled to free myself until I run out of steam and just fell back boneless onto what felt like a hard steel board. I lay there staring at the bright lights on the ceiling when I heard voices coming from somewhere nearby. It sounded like two men talking, "......so how was the result on the new stiff, did you get anything?" "Of course not, this tests are nuts to begin with. The company is wasting its time with the new strain, hell the whole project is just a giant sink of cash, they are wasting their money. What is a pharmaceutical company doing developing new viruses anyway? Shouldn''t they be trying to cure diseases not starting new epidemics." "I don''t know man but the things we are working on....shit, I''ve never seen anything like this. I know that genetic engineering had progressed far but a triple helix? That''s some sci-fi shit right there." "I heard that they found the original virus in lice that were in the hairs of bonobo chimps." "Yeah, I heard that it mutated the lice to increase their leaping powers by three hundred percent." "Hey I''m out of cigarettes, give me some of yours." "Here you go you damn mooch, which reminds me aren''t you supposed to be monitoring the stiff? Why are you here bumming a smoke off of me?" "Relax man, the stiff ain''t going anywhere. He is brain dead as a potato. The idiot wasn''t much of a genius before he turned into a vegetable either, the moron stepped in front of a train in grand central. They say it was an accident but I think it was suicide. The man had no family or friends, he was probably trying to end his miserable existence." The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. "But how could you leave him alone, we don''t know the effects of the new strain on humans. What if he turns into a zombie." For a moment there was laughter which was mixed with violent coughing, "Zombies, you are funny Phil. You know you and I might think this is a joke but the company takes this kind of thing seriously, I mean they actually make us strap in our test subjects before administrating the tests, I mean can you believe that? It is actually in the guidelines. It is as if they believe that one of the subjects is going to get up and run away." I heard more laughter followed by even more violent coughing. Then something started to beep in the room with me. "Hang on Phil, do you hear that?" "It seems to be coming from operating theater A." "I think it''s my cellphone. Damn it, I must have left it in there with the stiff after talking to my wife." "Is that safe?" "It''s fine, the virus dies once it leaves the subject. That is why we have to go to all this trouble to infect somebody then cut open the subject while they are still fresh. Well I have to go and get that, if my wife calls and I don''t pick up she becomes naggier and an even bigger pain in the ass to live with. *sigh* Sometimes I wish that I could stick a scalpel in my wife instead of these poor assholes, she would probably deserve it more." After that I heard the *snick* of a door opening and footsteps in the room I was in. Eventually a small balding man wearing glasses and green scrubs came into my very limited line of sight. For a second he just stared into my eyes and I stared into his. I could even see his pupils dilate so much that his lime green irises nearly disappeared. Then he opened his mouth and let out a high pitched blood curdling scream. chapter one - Dr Elliot Chapter one The screaming was more than just ear piercing, it felt like it was piercing my brain. I felt incredible pain in my head as the man continued to wail in a pitch that should have been impossible for an adult male who had gone through puberty. He was screaming in such a high pitch that it actually caused me physical pain, it hurt so much that it dominated everything else in my mind, I couldn''t think of anything but the pain that was lancing through my head like a hot knife through butter. At some point I started to scream in pain but that didn''t help. I felt like I was dying because of the man''s scream, I needed to make it stop. That thought was the only thought I had left in my mind as my vision turned red and I blacked out. When I regained my senses the first thing I noticed was that the screaming had stopped and was replaced by what sounded like the croaking of a dying chicken. When I turned to see where the sound was coming from I found the man that had been screaming on my right hand, and by that I mean that I found the man impaled on my arm with my hand going straight through the center of his chest and out if his back. His green scrubs were covered in blood and his mouth was open in an attempt to continue screaming but without the help of his lungs nothing came out but a pathetic croak. As I looked on in shock at this sudden development my right hand started to feel weird, it felt like I had a million ants crawling up and down my arm then my skin seemed to peel back and the muscle beneath was exposed. The muscle then started to pulse and grew tentacle like protrusions which burrowed into the man that was impaled on my arm. Something strange started to happen to his body and it started to bulge in strange places. It continued to pulse until his skin burst and he had been transformed into a ball of meat and blood. Red ropes of muscles flew out from allover my body and entered the ball of meat and slowly dragged it inside of me, although it seemed physically impossible the large ball of flesh was completely absorbed into my body. After the process was complete I looked completely normal again, not at all like I had just consumed a whole human. A few seconds after the ball of meat vanished into me I felt a strange tingling sensation in the back of my mind. The tingling intensified until it was painful then I blacked out again but this time I was suddenly flooded with information, image after image started running through my mind, Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. Images of a fat kid growing up being bullied by his class mates, his brothers and even his father...... A teenager with too much pimples asking a pretty girl out to the prom and getting laughed at.... A short man laughing as he graduated from medical school... The same man looking at a mirror at his balding head and worrying he would never find a wife.... A man in a business suit approaching the man and offering him a well paid job.... In those few seconds I saw the highlights of Dr. Elliot''s life and for the first time noticed something important as I saw his entire life flashing before my eyes, I couldn''t remember anything about myself. I searched and searched for anything but I couldn''t remember a single memory or recall a single fact about myself, I was a blank slate. At least I knew my name from the late Dr. Elliot''s memories, Alex Mercer. It didn''t feel particularly familiar but I guess it was a good enough name. As I stood there wondering about my identity I suddenly started to feel an itchy feeling all over my body. The feeling was similar to what I felt before I absorbed the doctor except that instead of just my hand it was everywhere on my body. The feeling turned into blinding pain as my body started to twist and contort in weird ways. Eventually I ended up on the floor because I was no longer able to stand up. When I was finally able to stand up again something felt weird, it took me a few minutes to realize that I was a few inches shorter than I was a few seconds ago. I looked down and instead of an slim athletic body I saw a pot belly and too much body hair. I quickly ran to a table that was next to the metal slab I had been strapped in. There were surgical equipments laid out in a neat line on a tray, I dumped the equipment on the table and picked up the shiny tray. I raised the tray to my face so that I could use it as a makeshift mirror. I stared into the shiny reflective surface of the tray and the slightly pudgy and balding face of Dr Elliot stared back at me. chapter two - exit Chapter two It took a few minutes to get over the shock of what had happened but I eventually stopped staring at my reflection and decided to leave the facility I was in. From the memories of the late doctor Elliot, I had learned that I was in a secret and very illegal facility owned by a multinational pharmaceutical company called Trinity. Trinity had apparently greased the hands of the local politicians and police force so that they could perform experiments that were against the law , right here in downtown New York. They had also paid the local morgue and hospitals to illegally appropriate the bodies of any "John Doe"s. They were taking anybody who wasn''t claimed by family in twenty four hours, this included not only dead bodies but also coma patients. From Dr Elliot''s memories I had also learned that the Trinity corporation had their own private army here in New York-overwatch. Overwatch was a group of mercenaries comprised mainly of ex-military personnel. They were the strong right arm of trinity, responsible for everything from security to intimidation. They were also the ones I would have to fool if I was to escape this facility. I carefully looked out the door and the corridor was empty. I quickly ran to a door at the end of the hallway, all the way praying that nobody finds me. I made it without being spotted and quickly got inside. In the room there were rows of lockers, I went to the one that had the number 42 on it and hurriedly put in the combination to the electronic lock which was another thing I got from Dr Elliot''s memory. I took out the ratty brown suit and blue shirt inside and put them on. I also wore the sneakers and cheap looking watch. I checked the watch and found out that it was nearly midnight. I knew that overwatch performed a security sweep at midnight and if they found the room I had been in, I would definitely be caught. When I had absorbed Dr Elliot it hadn''t been a very clean process, the previously white and pristine room had been marred by splashes of blood. This meant that I had until midnight to get out of the facility before overwatch found the room and put the entire place under lockdown. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. I walked out of the nearest exit and nearly ran into somebody who was holding a cigarette in his hand. In my hurry I had forgotten about Phil, the man that Elliot had been speaking to before he came into my room and met his demise. "Hey Elliot, you done already? I thought that it would take you at least till morning to finish with your stiff. You didn''t come here for another cigarette, did you?" I racked my brain and came up with an appropriate response, "I have to go Phil, Martha has fallen down the steps and is in the hospital. I need to get there immediately." I ignored his offer to drive me to the hospital and headed to the main gate. The main gate had two overwatch soldiers standing guard. They both were wearing the typical overwatch uniform, they were covered from head to toe in black cloth and they were wearing a black bulletproof vest over the cloth. The only color on them were the three green lenses on their strange tri-scopes that they wore even during the day time. They were both heavily armed with M16s and several side arms, even knives. The gate was opened and closed by a guard called Simon, thankfully he wasn''t overwatch and the overweight man easily bought my story about my wife being injured and let me pass. The two overwatch soldiers were looking at me as I passed which gave me the creeps but I was able to escape with no one the wiser... ...or at least that was what I taught until sirens started to go off behind me. Chapter three - jump Chapter three I thought that I had escaped without getting noticed but the shrill sound of alarms going off behind me dashed those hopes into pieces. The two overwatch agents who were standing on either side of the gate immediately pointed their very large and very scary guns in my direction before they started to shout things like "freeze" and "get down on the ground" . I just stood there frozen like a deer in headlights. I had already passed through the gates and I could see the busy streets of downtown New York only a few steps away. I was so close to freedom that I could almost taste it, but with the guys behind me pointing their guns point blank at my head, I might as well have been miles away from freedom. As the two Overwatch goons cocked their guns threateningly and shouted behind me, I was left with two options. I could either comply or get killed. I stood there staring at the bright neon light of a seven eleven store sign only a few feet away from me and thought, fuck it. I''ve already died once, I''m not letting these fuckers take me in alive so that they could run their tests on me. I put as much power in my legs as I could muster and tried to run away, fully expecting a hail of bullets to stop my pathetic and pointless escape attempt. Instead , what I felt was wind rushing past me as my first ''step'' catapulted me into the air. Everything around me turned into a blur as I started to rise into the air. Five feet....Ten feet...Twenty feet... I just kept on going up until I hit about fifty feet at which point I hit the apex of my trajectory. For a few minutes I felt like I was weightless, just hanging stationary in midair , looking down at the roof of the seven eleven I had been staring at earlier. But the problem was that I only felt weightless, I wasn''t actually weightless and gravity was a heartless bitch who didn''t give a damn about how you feel. As the old saying goes what goes up must come down and just like I rocketed upwards, I started to plummet straight back down to earth. As the ground started to get closer and closer , I started to pick up more and more speed until I was hurtling towards the ground at a terrifying speed. I was sure that at the speed I was approaching the ground , I would become nothing but a bloody smear on the asphalt but even though it was futile , instinct took over and I positioned my body so that I was falling feet first. As luck would have it a taxi just happened to be passing beneath me right before I hit the ground. The yellow car was instantly totaled, the roof caved in like it was made out of cheap aluminum wrapping and the car bent into two like a lawn chair. I on the other hand was relatively fine. Just before I had hit , my legs had gone through that same strange transformation that had happened before I had consumed Dr Elliot. The skin had disappeared to reveal twisted knots of bloody muscle and I could see the pulsating mass of flesh because they had increased in size so much that they had burst through the pants I was wearing. Thankfully the disturbing image didn''t last long, my legs rapidly shrunk down to their former size and a few seconds later they were covered by normal pink skin. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. The cloud of smoke I had made when I landed eventually cleared away revealing the mangled wreck of the car I had landed on. The car had been cleanly bisected into two pieces , the back end didn''t seem to have anybody inside but in the front end I could see a beat up and bloody man. I run towards him to see if I could help. I dragged him out of the wreckage and checked to see if he had a pulse. It was weak but it was still there but he wasn''t breathing. From the memories I had gotten from Dr Elliot I knew how to perform CPR so I put my hands on his chest and tried to do chest compressions but the moment I rested my hands on his chest they transformed into a mass of muscular tentacles that then drilled into the already dying taxi driver. Just like how it happened with Dr Elliot , the taxi driver ballooned up until his skin burst and nothing was left but a mass of seething flesh which then entered into my body. After the assimilation was done all the minor scrapes and bruises I had all over my body vanished and I felt healthy again. I was wondering what I should do next when I heard clicking sounds around me. I looked up to find several people staring at me with shock and terror on their faces. More than a few of them had their cellphones out and pointed at me, the clicking sounds I heard were probably the sounds of pictures being taken. In the distance I heard police sirens. I looked at all the people and sighed. I knew what was going to happen next, the videos of me were going to be plastered all over the internet and I''m going to have the government coming after my ass in addition to Overwatch. I wanted to go around and get all the cellphones but with the police already on their way , it would only turn into a bigger disaster so I just stepped out of the mini crater my landing had created and walked into a dark narrow side street between two large buildings. Nobody tried to stop me, in fact everybody hurriedly got out of my way. I had barely made it into the dark alleyway when that itchy feeling invaded my skin and I felt it peel away. Chapter Four - To kill or not to kill? Chapter Four Once again I was swamped with memories that weren''t mine, this time they were the memories of a poor Ethiopian migrant who had come to America in the hopes of chasing the American dream but had instead settled for providing for his family by working as a taxi driver. Abebe, as the poor man was known, was surprisingly well educated with degrees in multiple fields related to engineering but he had come to america illegally after believing the false promises of a smuggler and as such couldn''t really find work in his chosen field of study since he lacked the proper documents. As the collective life experience of this rather unfortunate man filled my mind, my body started to transform as well. In just a few seconds I turned into a slightly short middle aged man with a slight bulge on his stomach. I didn''t have time to properly digest all of the man''s memories before exiting the alleyway from the opposite side that I entered it and lost myself amidst the constant stream of pedestrians where I became just another face in a sea of faces. * * * After hours of walking without any rest, I was relatively sure that I wouldn''t be found anytime soon so I slowed down a little and started to actually pay attention to where I was going. Apparently I had wandered into a rather seedy part of town and I could feel unfriendly gazes land on me. I looked around and saw that more than a few muscular men with multiple tattoos and matching blue bandanas on their heads that were looking at me like it was thanksgiving and I was the turkey. *sigh*...I really didn''t have time for this. I knew that I could probably get rid of these assholes without breaking a sweat now that I was some sort of genetically altered super Frankenstein monster but I didn''t want to draw anymore attention to myself than the amount I had drawn already. I quickened my pace again and entered another alleyway only to see that it was a dead end. I started to look for another way out but the raucous laughter that I heard behind me told me that it was all in vain. I turned around just as the thugs with the blue bandanas that had been eyeing me earlier turned a corner and appeared before me still laughing like hyenas. I looked at the impetuous young people in front of me as they spread out methodically and sealed what they perceived was my only escape route, all the while laughing like they had heard the funniest joke. I sighed again and tried to talk with the bunch of hooligans in front of all the while knowing that it was futile but trying anyways. I didn''t exactly feel guilty when I killed the innocent taxi driver and even less so when I killed the doctor but some part of me, a part that was so small that it was almost nonexistent, was still somewhat human and that part kept telling me killing was wrong. It wasn''t exactly a conscience, no it was more like a habit from my previous life that I hadn''t yet shaken off. Any how, some part of me still felt uncomfortable killing people so I tried to diffuse the situation. I raised my hands up to show that I wasn''t a threat and tried to seem as meek and helpless as possible before saying in a frightened voice, "Please don''t hurt me." If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. I thought that maybe if I was meek and cooperative, I wouldn''t have to get my hands bloody but my plan backfired, it only made the bastards more violent and they started to laugh even harder. I was suddenly surrounded by catcalls, hooting, hissing, and taunts. "...don''t worry old man, we''re just going to have some fun with you and then let you pay us for our troubles..he he he...." "....Look he is going to piss himself! Are you going to piss yourself grandpa, go ahead piss yourself!" ".....old geezer, don''t even think of trying to escape. You are in our territory and there is nowhere for you to run." They were like a pack of wolves that had smelled blood, I could almost see them salivate as they prepared to attack me. I sighed again as I saw that fighting these hooligans was inevitable. "I asked you politely. Please back away before it is too late." "It is already too late for you old man." They were still staring at me with eyes glimmering like predators and seeing that made a primal part of me rise up. That little human part of me still protested but the newer more primal part of me told it to shut the fuck up. In the end I was now more monster than man and with that realization I felt more free. I stopped trying to hold myself back and instead I followed the impulses that I had been subconsciously trying to suppress. I calmly started walking towards the bunch of hooligans in front of me ,some of whom weren''t even old enough to properly have hair on their balls. Most of them probably had a difficult life, some of them probably weren''t even thinking properly and were only doing this out of peer pressure, some of them probably didn''t deserve to die. But here is the thing, I no longer gave a fuck. In my eyes they were no longer fellow humans. No, they were now just convenient targets that I could try my new powers on. Chapter Five - Forgiveness Chapter five When I reached the first man, I tried to deliver a normal punch but I grossly underestimated my own strength. In my mind, I knew how to punch somebody; I raised my hand, formed a fist and punched forward with all the power that I could muster which turned out to be a bad idea. As my closed fist hurtled through the air heading towards the closest man''s stomach, my hand suddenly started to swell up, my skin became covered under layers of muscles that looked like raw meat, large blue veins started to pulse on the surface of these strange looking muscles and even my fist more than doubled in size. The consequences of my unintentional transformation was that my fist hit the man like a wrecking ball. My punch had so much power in it that the man''s body couldn''t contain it. His internal organs liquefied, his skin burst like an overfilled water balloon and he literally exploded sending fragment''s of his bones flying all over the place like shrapnel, instantly killing five of the other wanna be gangsters and wounding most of the rest. Some of his bones even ended up hitting me and I felt the sharp splintered end of his bones sink into the flesh of my thighs and slide in between my ribs. It hurt like hell but I forcefully suppressed my pain and pulled out the bone fragments out of my body. The wounds they left behind immediately started to close up and after a few seconds, completely disappeared. I looked up to see that most of the hooligans were on the ground, moaning in pain but a few had been lucky enough to escape injury and were trying to run away. At first I was going to try to run after them but then I remembered what had happened the last time I tried to run. I realized that the root of all my control issues stemmed from the fact that I was still acting like I had a normal human body. My mind had been used to doing some things subconsciously but now I had to learn to do some basic things allover again like how to modulate my strength and even how to run so instead of repeating my earlier blunders, I closed my eyes and focused on my feet before I consciously started to apply power into them. I actually felt the power rushing to the muscles and making them swell up but in addition to that I felt another sensation, as if some inexplicable warmth started flowing from my blood vessels and was bursting out. I opened my eyes to see what was actually going on and I saw raw muscles starting to cover my skin but unlike before , it was a thin layer and not a bulking mass. I took that as a sign that I was getting some modicum of control so I aimed for the area ahead of the fleeing men and jumped. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. I overshot my target by a few feet but I still managed to jump over the wanna be gangsters who were trying to run away and landed at the mouth of the alley. I turned around and smiled at the quivering mess that was left of the former ''tough guys''. In just a few seconds they had transformed from predators into prey, their eyes filled with horror and helplessness as they looked at me uncomprehendingly. My smile only broadened when I saw their despair. "Where do you think you are going?" They were all terrified. Some were crying, some had blank expressions on their faces, some even tried to beg for forgiveness but I wasn''t in the mood for forgiveness. The moment they had decided to make me their target, they had already sealed their own fates. The only forgiveness I could offer them was a quick death. Chapter Six - The Door Chapter Six I had finished killing the last gangster when I started to get a splitting headache. From the moment I woke up, I had no memories about myself. All the memories that I did have came from Dr Elliot and the taxi driver Abebe but following the headache I started to have flashes of images that didn''t belong to Elliot or Abebe. They were hazy and unclear, like pictures that wouldn''t get into focus. I stumbled out of the alleyway and ,driven by an unknown impulse, I started walking in a random direction. I only walked for a few meters when I accidentally ran into some random guy, "Watch where you are going Dumbass....hey are you alright?...is that blood?...oh my God, do you need an ambulance? Wait, let me call 911." That was when I finally realized that I was still covered in the gangsters'' blood. I saw the man I had run into pull out his cellphone and I reacted without thinking by hitting him on the head. Thankfully I wasn''t as clumsy as before and I didn''t kill him, well at least I didn''t think he was alive. He did fall down like a bag of bricks but he was still breathing so he was probably okay. I quickly dragged him behind a dumpster to take his clothes. I used what remained of my previous clothes to wipe off the blood as much as I could and wore the good Samaritan''s jacket and jeans, all the while experiencing a headache that made it hard to concentrate. I stumbled back onto the sidewalk and continued to move up the street as if something was calling out to me and I had no choice but to answer. My inexplicable journey was accompanied by random flashes of unclear memories and a pounding headache. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Eventually I turned a corner and saw a pink neon sign that said "Nude girls!! 24/7!" . I felt like I had been hit by a lightning bolt. Some of the fuzzy memories in my head started to become clearer. I knew this place! I remembered that sign! Not Dr Elliot or Abebe but me, Alex Mercer! I looked around and I recognized some other things; a broken lamppost, a giant graffiti that said fuck you, a Korean laundromat shop with a sign that had a few letters missing. As I continued to move forward , I started to recognize more and more things and the headache started to vanish. Eventually my feet led me to a rundown apartment complex. I somehow knew that the door didn''t lock properly so I let myself in. I ignored the elevator and headed for the stairs because I knew that the elevator was busted the same way I knew the front door didn''t lock. I ran up the stairs two at a time until I reached the sixth floor. I walked down the hallway with flickering florescent lighting until I stood in front of a brown door with the numbers 614 painted on it with faded black paint. For a solid five minutes, I just stood there. I knew that this place was important to me in some way. I knew that on the other side of this door would be some answers about my identity. For some reason, I wasn''t sure if I wanted to know. I felt like I wouldn''t like what I would find on the other side of the door. For a moment I hesitated but then I raised my hand and knocked. Chapter seven - Vanessa Chapter Seven At first, I knocked politely on the door but after waiting for ten minutes without anybody answering, I started to knock a little harder. A little while later, I was banging on the door while wondering if anybody was actually inside of the apartment. I was about yo give up and come back at some other time when the door was opened just a crack and I saw a sliver of a face. The face was barely visible but even though I could barely see what the person looked like, my mouth moved involuntarily and I said, "Vanessa?" The cold blue eyes peering at me through the crack suddenly narrowed, "Who are you? How do you know my name?" I was at a loss on how I was supposed to answer her questions, I had assumed that whoever was on the other side of the door would recognize me but then I remembered that I didn''t look any thing like Alex Mercer at the moment so it was only natural she didn''t recognize me. I quickly rearranged my thoughts and said, "Does the name Alex Mercer mean anything to you?" "Are you a cop?" "No." "Are you one of his suppliers?" Suppliers? Suppliers of what? I had no idea what she was talking about but it sounded like it was my best bet to get some information so I said, "Yes. Is Mr Mercer here?" The woman behind the door seemed to relax when she heard that. I heard her remove the chain holding the door and she opened the door wide affording me my first clear look at the woman. She was a tall skinny woman. She was wearing nothing but a towel and it barely reached her thighs leaving her long legs bare. She might have been pretty at some point but that point was in the past. Currently her face was almost emaciated, her eyes were sunken, her hair looked thin and unhealthy and her complexion was sallow. She noticed me evaluating her appearance and smiled. She moved one of her legs forward provocatively so that I could see even more of it and asked, "Do you like what you see?" I hadn''t even had the chance to answer her when a male voice shouted from inside the apartment, "Hey babe, who are you talking to? Tell them to come back in fifteen minutes, we should be finished by then." The woman smiled sheepishly then shouted back, "Come here Greg, it is one of Alex''s suppliers!" I heard some rustling and a giant black man appeared behind the woman, also wearing nothing but a towel. When I saw the woman and the man standing together, my head suddenly felt like it was splitting open and memories started flooding into my mind. Stolen story; please report. The tall woman''s name really was Vanessa and she was supposed to be Alex Mercer''s girlfriend. Alex Mercer was an orphan turned criminal. He had been willing to do anything to succeed and drag himself out of poverty. After some years of petty theft, he eventually got into dealing drugs. After selling weed in street corners and working as a runner for other dealers, he found out that he had the Midas touch when it came to distributing. At the age of twenty one, he had built up enough contacts to break off and start up his own venture. By the age of twenty three he had become wildly successful, so much so that he started to attract the envy and hatred of his fellow dealers but Alex was always careful. He never gave them an opportunity to get him but eventually Alex made a stupid mistake. He started sleeping with one of his clients, and even worse than that, he started to develop feelings for her. Her name was Vanessa, an orphan just like him and every time she smiled he felt like he was on cloud nine but the drugs she was taking, the drugs he was giving to her were slowly taking away that beautiful smile. Finally, he couldn''t take it anymore and Alex decided to cut her off. Vanessa had stopped working a long time ago and Alex paid for her apartment, clothes, food, and other things. He also provided the drugs she wanted for free so when he cut her off, she couldn''t really go to another dealer so he thought that she would eventually straighten out but he had been wrong. For a few days, everything seemed to be going okay and even her withdrawal symptoms had disappeared so Alex decided to reward her by taking her out on a date. They had dinner and even went shopping. Vanessa really did seem like she had tirned over a new leaf. Alex usually used a car but it had suddenly broken down the previous day so at the end of their evening, Alex and Vanessa had been waiting for a train to arrive in Grand central station. Alex could hear the sound of the train approaching when he felt a push on his back and he fell onto the rails. He quickly got up to try and escape the oncoming train but it was too late. The last thing he saw before he died was a smile on Vanessa''s face; a smile he had loved , a smile that he had been willing to kill for and in the end ,a smile he had died for. Chapter Eight - Reunion Chapter eight As the memories became clearer and I started to remember the past, I began to feel angry. Since I had woken up in that research facility, I had felt somewhat numb. All my feelings were not very vivid as if they had been watered down but as I looked at my former lover and the person who had killed me, I felt genuine emotions for the first time since my resurrection and that feeling was pure unadulterated rage. It didn''t take a genius to figure out what had happened especially since Vanessa was obviously fucking the person who was supposed to be my best friend and second in command. Greg had decided that he was tired of being second potato and wanted the crown for himself. Vanessa had decided that drugs were more important to her than I was and together they had decided to kill me. I felt grief, I felt betrayal but all of that was buried under a mountain of anger. I felt like I was going to explode because of the rage I had inside me. I could hear my heart beating like drums, my breathing became fast and labored like that of an angry bull. A familiar feeling of itchiness invaded my skin but in my frame of mind, it felt so insignificant that I ignored it but Vanessa and Greg reacted. Vanessa looked pale and stared at me with fear, "No...this is impossible....You''re dead!....I saw you die!" Greg wasn''t even talking. He just backed away into the apartment and left the blabbering Vanessa behind. When I saw the fear in Vanessa''s eyes, I felt some satisfaction but it wasn''t enough, not nearly enough. "Vanessa, honey, it seems you didn''t forget me. Let''s go inside and have a little chat." She started to tremble when she heard that. She repeatedly shook her head as if she could make me disappear if she shook her head hard enough but eventually she seemed to have figured out that I was real and not a drug induced hallucination when I grabbed her shoulders and dragged her inside before I closed the door behind me. I pushed Vanessa into the living room only to come face to face with the business end of a gun. Since I had woken up, I hadn''t been shot by a gun yet but I felt no fear when I looked at the pistol in Greg''s hand. "Greg! Buddy! My brother from another mother! It seems that you have been taking good care of Vanessa for me. Why are you pointing a gun at me? It''s almost as if you are not happy to see me." Greg stared at me for a second then turned to Vanessa, "I thought you said that he was dead you dumb bitch!" If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Vanessa couldn''t stop shivering as she answered, "He was! I saw him get hit by a train right in front of my eyes! The paramedics pronounced him dead right there and took him away in a body bag! He was dead, I swear!" "Does he look dead to you?" "I don''t know but didn''t you see him change appearance a second ago? I don''t know what is going on but Alex is dead, I don''t know what the fuck that is." I held my hand to my chest and said, "Vanessa, you hurt my feelings. Don''t you love me anymore?" Greg grit his teeth before he shouted,"Fuck it!" and started shooting his gun. A few seconds later, his gun was just clicking because he had run out of bullets but I was still standing. All of the holes made by the bullets were shallow. As they watched in horror, the bullets fell out of the wounds and they started to close right in front of their eyes. Greg continued to dry fire his gun but eventually he noticed the futility of his actions and turned back to run away. He hadn''t even managed to take two steps when I appeared next to him and broke his legs. "Where are you going Greg? Our reunion is just starting. If you leave now, you are going to miss the best parts. Vanessa dearest, please put that vase down. If bullets couldn''t hurt me, do you really think a vase would do anything?" Vanessa froze with a vase raised high above her head, then she slowly put it down, that was when the shock of what had happened began to wear off for Greg and he started to scream because he could finally feel the pain caused by his shattered legs. I found his screaming annoying so I punched his face and dislocated his jaw, shutting him up somewhat. Vanessa finally decided to speak and she said, "Alex, it isn''t what it looks like!" "Really? Then tell me what happened?" "Greg was threatening me. He said that he was going to kill me if I didn''t help him!" "Really? That is the best you can come up with? *sigh* Vanessa, you are a lying cheating whore and a terrible liar to boot. You are a disappointment in every way possible. I can''t understand how I ever fell in love with you." Vanessa broke down and started to cry, "I''m sorry Alex...*sob*...it was the drugs....*sob*.... I couldn''t help it...*sob*..Please don''t hurt me, I''m sorry....I''m sorry...I''m sorry." "Your tears won''t work on me Vanessa. You think you are sorry now? Wait until I''m finished then you will truly be sorry." Chapter Nine - Damsel Chapter nine I went out of the apartment building just as police sirens started getting closer to the area. I had a brand new hoodie to go along with a brand new body courtesy of Greg so I pulled my hoodie up, put my hands into my pocket and disappeared into the night before the cops arrived. As I walked the streets of New York, I felt like a sleep walker that had awakened. Before I had recovered some of my memories, I had felt like a robot, a ship adrift in the sea without a rudder but after my unpleasant reunion with my now deceased x-girlfriend, I felt like I had recovered a piece of myself that had been missing and I now felt more complete, more human for lack of a better word. I still didn''t have a purpose and I didn''t know what I should do next but at least I wasn''t numb, psychopathic monster anymore. Granted, I wasn''t Mr. Nice guy either, but at least now I had enough parts of my psyche that was human that I actually felt a little guilty about what I had done to the taxi driver and some of the younger gang members. I was roaming the streets wondering where that left me, when I heard screaming coming from nearby. Maybe it was the fact that I was feeling guilty about my previous ruthless killing spree, maybe it was because I was bored, I didn''t really know why I did it but I moved towards the screaming. When I got there, I was confronted with the most clich¨¦ scene in the world, two brawny men assaulting a woman in a dark corner behind a boarded up and closed down former bistro. I didn''t even say anything, I just saw this as an opportunity to get some karma points to balance out all the crap I had done and was probably going to do. I attacked both men from behind simultaneously and with a little application of super strength, they were both down for the count before they even had the chance to fight back. I was ready to turn around and leave now that I had done my good deed of the day but when I saw the unconscious bodies of the two men, a strange feeling started to well up inside of me. It felt like hunger but it wasn''t a hunger for food. The feeling grew and grew until it consumed my thoughts and by the time I regained my senses, I found myself elbow deep inside of the two thugs. A few seconds later they had been turned into balls of meat and they were then absorbed into me. I looked up from my little ''meal'' and saw that the woman they had been attacking had a strange look on her face. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. In fact, the whole thing was strange. The woman looked about twenty, had short brown hair, beautiful green eyes, pouty lips, fair complexion, large breasts, wasp thin waist, wide hips and long well toned legs. She looked like a Hollywood actress, she was just too beautiful to be anywhere else but on a screen. So what was a beautiful woman such as her doing out alone in New York, in the middle of the night? The clothes she was wearing didn''t make sense either. They were somewhat torn up but from what I could see, she was wearing something that resembled bedsheets with holes for her arms and head and could only be called a dress in the loosest meaning of the term. That wasn''t the only thing that made me suspicious. She had just seen me do something quite graphic and horrific but she wasn''t screaming or panicking, in fact she had a strange glint in her eyes when she looked at me. The corner of her lips were actually pulled up in a small smile. I stood there wondering what the hell was going on when she jumped up and shouted, "My hero!" and flung herself at me. I wasn''t really thinking so I caught her by grabbing her waist and before I could react she put her arms behind my neck and planted a kiss on my mouth. When I say kiss, I don''t mean a chaste little peck. No, she kissed me like she wanted to devour me. She pressed her entire body against mine before her tongue forced itself into my mouth like it was trying to check the shape of my tonsils. I was very distracted by the sudden and very illogical turn of events. I was also distracted by having a pair of breasts pushed against me and having a soft and pliant woman in my arms but eventually my mind managed to prevail over my dick and I pushed the woman away before I asked, "What are you doing?" The woman looked at me in confusion,"You are the hero in the story right? My knight in shining armor? And I am the damsel in distress. You have saved me from those evil people and now I am thanking you." Hero? Knight? Damsel? What the fuck was she talking about. I looked at her again and this time I noticed a blue plastic band on her wrist that said ''Manhattan Psychiatric Center''. My damsel in distress turned out to be an escaped mental patient. Chapter Ten - outbreak Chapter Ten Looking at her vuloptous body and her tempting crooked smile accompanied by her rough breathing that did interesting things to her breasts, I really really wanted to bend her over the trashcan and do her right there and then but I eventually managed to get a hold of myself. Who knew that even homicidal monsters had lines they didn''t cross? Even though it was one of the hardest things I had ever done, I carried the woman back to the Manhattan Psychiatric Center, unmolested. I handed her over to the orderlies at the door and fled into the night before they could ask me any questions. * * * I kept a low profile for the following two weeks. I knew that Trinity pharmaceutical and their dogs Overwatch were looking for me so I decided to lie low for a while. For fourteen days it was nothing but cheap motel rooms and abandoned houses. Whenever I had the urge to kill and absorb, I would go out and hunt homeless people in back alleys. For a few days my life became simple monotony. Even though it wasn''t exactly peaceful or pleasant, it was as close as I could get and it gave me a chance to come to grips with my new self. Was I a monster? Was I a freak that was an affront to nature? Was I a genetic aberration that should have never existed? Sure, I was all of these things but underneath all that, there was still pieces of the Alex Mercer still remaining, pieces of the sweet naive drug dealer who died because he fell in love with a junkie. As time passed, I became more at ease with who I was and I started to develop some semblance of a semi-peaceful life but then something happened that shattered the little pseudo-peace I had built up. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. Zombies. I would have thought that it was just a bad joke but they were showing multiple videos of dead looking people with milky white eyes shuffling around and trying to take bites out of people. The police were suppressing them but outbreaks started to escalate day by day. Eventually the police weren''t enough to stop them anymore. After the outbreak became too much for the police, the army and the CDC (center for disease control) were called in. They decided to quarantine the entire island of Manhattan and sent troops to clean out any zombie outbreaks. As people started to think that everything was solved and things would go back to normal, their naivety was cruelly punished by fate; things got even worse. New monsters started to appear, the crawlers. The crawlers were nothing like the zombies. They were super fast, so quick that they were nothing but blurs when they moved. They were strong enough to throw cars around like toys and they had sharp claws that could cut through metal like butter but what worried me the most was that they had no skin and their exposed pink muscular flesh was very familiar, it was very similar to how I looked when I absorbed someone. Could there be some connection between me and these monsters? My doubts were confirmed when a giant graffiti made of blood appeared on the empire state building the following day. The grizzly note was painted by crawlers who had no trouble climbing up walls like they were crawling on the ground. The note read, "Alex Mercer please come home. Your family is eagerly waiting for you." Chapter eleven - getting answers pt.1 Chapter eleven The situation in New York had devolved in just a few days. The entire city had turned into a battleground for the war between the army and what the people were now calling ''the infected''. The military with their guns and tanks fought with zombies and crawlers but the best they could do was hold them at bay. Even when they used helicopters to bombard them, they were still unable to eradicate them completely. It was somewhat suspicious. In the end the city was divided into areas controlled by the military ,those controlled by the infected and the front line areas where the military and the infected were constantly clashing. And now my name was being painted all over New York by the crawlers. The military had identified me as the main cause of the outbreak, ''patient zero'' they called me. They were adamant that the key to curing the outbreak lay with me and they were combing through the city searching for me. Under these circumstances, I couldn''t just keep hiding out and pretending that everything was fine not to mention the fact that I was running out of homeless people to prey on, so I left my hiding place and headed towards the nearest infected controlled area. Once I entered the so called infected area, I saw nothing but zombies shuffling in the streets. Crowds of men and women of every age and color mindlessly drifting around without any goals, sometimes bumping into each other, lamp posts and walls of buildings. Strangely enough these zombies didn''t immediately attack me like I thought they would. In the news, I have seen how they violently attacked anyone who got even remotely close to them but they were docile as I approached them and they didn''t do a single thing even when I passed right by them. It was like they thought I was one of them. Who knows, maybe I really was one of them in some sense. Stolen novel; please report. I shook that thought away and instead I grabbed one of the zombies shambling around me and absorbed him. I needed information on the infected and why they keep leaving those strange messages with my name in them and what better way to get the information than straight from the source? My brilliant idea hit a snag when my absorption yielded nothing but faint fragments of the man''s previous life and then a confused jumble of hunger and violence. It seemed that these zombies really were brainless monsters driven only by mindless instinct. So what now? The zombie idea had yielded zero results and I was left with tons of unanswered questions. How was this outbreak related to me? Was I really the cause of all that was happening? Why were the crawlers writing strange graffiti about my ''family'' waiting for me? I didn''t have any family, what could they be talking about? The zombies couldn''t provide me with answers so I had only one other option, the crawlers. And that meant going to the front line, the place where the fighting was most intense and most of the crawlers congregate to fight the military in a heated battle for supremacy and territory.