Breakthrough

Chapter 1 (Aria)

I sit in the corner of a small white room. There are no windows. No doors. Just me...and naturally, a small video camera. I imagine that I'm being observed by hundreds of scientists, all of them hungry for my every move, my every breath.

You see, I'm a Looker, one who has the ability to predict the future. It's not easy though. The future is always changing, growing, and evolving with every step. One turn or breath can make a huge twist. Plus, visions come to me randomly, and they're all fragments. It can be confusing at times. But enough of that - I don't want to scare you away.

I live at the GMSS, which is a small but vital operation that studies people like me, hence the name Genetic Malfunction Study Site. Here, they study the Shadows, Trackers, Movers, Screamers, and Makers.

In other words, they study mutants. None of us know how it happened, only that we are different from most people.

The scientists here first came up with this organization about ten years ago, when they found out about us. We try to constantly move to different isolated places, but they always find us. There is no escape from them. They wanted us for our powers, to see if they could duplicate them in people in the military. The problem is, whenever they try to "extract" or "duplicate" our powers, we always die. Like my mother. She was taken from me five years ago by GMSS. Since then, I was left fending for myself and hiding in Bangkok without any money, food, or home. They eventually found me, though. As far as I know, she's dead too.

And now, as they prepare the operation room, I'm sitting here, still being observed. The scientists here are all greedy, licking up every piece of information they can get from us by studying us and running tests. Even when I'm about to die. Can't they see that their operation will never work?

A short plump woman with grey hair walks through a door, which suddenly appears. I don't know how it got there, how it appeared - only that it is here. GMSS is constantly manipulating our brains. But, as I said before, I don't care. I'll be with my mother soon.

"Aria Young?" the woman asks, nodding towards me.

"'Course," I retort, shrugging. We all know that saying our names is just a formality. The GMSS never make mistakes.

"Please come with me, we are ready for your operation."

Sighing, I get up and reluctantly leave the suddenly comforting aura of my small room.

She leads me down several white corridors, turning left and right. I don't bother trying to memorize the labyrinths of halls for an exit. There was an eerie silence filling the air, aside from the woman's clicking high heels.

You'd think that there would be torturous screams and moans from all the other cells, but here at GMSS, the patients all suffer in silent desperation. We sit, we think, we eat, we hardly speak. We want to get out, but we can't. We can only wait for our death. We have no hope here.

She finally stops and leads me into another white room. This time, it's not empty. There's heart monitor, operating table with syringes, and a bed.

She gestures to the bed and gives me a sympathetic smile. I slink behind her then cautiously perch on the corner of the bed.

A tall balding man strides through the door, wearing a green operating suit and mask.

"Aria, in order for the first step of the operation to work, you must remain calm and lay down," he says in a thick Russian accent. "One of the main faults in the operation is the fact that our patients don't stay calm. Their panic causes the heart rate to quicken, allowing the numbing drug to course through the circulatory system and penetrate to the heart. The body is then paralyzed, and the drug interacts with your mutated cells and causes the heart to stop."