Nova Vida

Chapter Four

            “I really don’t care about your story, so if you don’t mind getting right to the point?” I usher him.

            “Ah, sorry. I guess I was going one a bit too long,” he admits, “I’ll get to the point. As you most likely know, Scientists were trying to make a cure for Huntington's disease, but it didn’t turn out well and a deadly virus arrived. The virus turned people into vile creatures.”

            “I know this story. It’s our worlds history, you don’t need to continue, I know what happens,” I tell him, dryly.

            “You don’t know this version. You know the fictional version that is in your textbooks. Now will you let me finish?” I don’t say anything to this, so Xavier continues. 

            “Back to the point. People were turning into monsters. Everyone was blaming the Scientists. The world was in hell. That’s when Nova Vida Inc. started up. Also known as my company. They were asking people from all around the world to come here if they had H-H blood type. Nova Vida thought that they could make a vaccine out of the blood.

            “I happened to have H-H blood. At first I wasn’t planning on leaving my home at a time like this, but when none of my family had come home, I knew I had to help the world create a vaccine. But when I had gotten here, Nova Vida had already tried and failed at making a cure with someone else that had H-H blood. The workers told me that I could stay and be part of Nova Vida if I wanted to. So of course I said yes.

            “After they figured out that they couldn’t use H-H blood. Scientists resulted to making humans in their labs. They used different genetics to create them, hoping that something they made would turn out to be, well, the cure.”

            I make a disgusted face. “How is that even possible? Could you even be made in a lab? I mean don’t you need a man and a woman to make a child?”

            “Technically speaking, yes. But with the technology we had now it was pretty easy. Anyway, back to what I was saying. After they made the humans, the Scientists needed to experiment with them. So they built a mini town, with a big wall all around it, so no one could get in, or out. They named the town Salvatore.”

You know that feeling, the one where you wake up and it was all a dream? I love that feeling. I need that feeling. Right now. So. Desperately. Trying. To. Wake. Up. My breath catches in my throat. “You mean...I’m not human? I’m an experiment?” I choke out.

            “Well, you aren’t exactly human. You were made with all the same stuff. But you were just made in a lab. But you didn’t go through the same aging process as other kids. Instead we made you to look like you were sixteen. So you were pretty much born sixteen. And, in reality, you have only been alive for a week. I guess you could be called Hybrid-human or a Para-human.”

            “What’s a Para-human?”

            “A Para-human is a human-animal hybrid. Scientists mixed your genes with animal’s genes, after they figured out that animals are immune to the virus. I guess to some extent it did make you partially immune to the virus.”

            “How is that even possible? I must be human! How could I only be alive for a week? I have memories from when I was a child!”

            “We programmed your brain to know everything that a usual sixteen year old would know. We also gave you fake memories. We made sure you knew the made up history of your town.”

            “You’re lying,” I whisper. “You have to be lying. It’s impossible. You can’t create humans in a lab.”

            “I am not lying Imogene, you are just in denial.”