Experimental

The First Flashback

Many young people in Hopetown, New York lived in a historic part of town in an old brick apartment building owned by Mrs. Kingsley, a woman in her fifties. Mrs. Kingsley had redone the old apartments and made them quite modern and comfortable. Such was the apartment that belonged to Olivia. Olivia was a young woman with a secret. She had powers. She had simply always had them, there was really no super interesting story about a life or death situation, only that she was born with them.

It was a dull night and Olivia turned in early, looking forward to the warm embrace of her comfy bed. She crawled under the covers, laying her head on the fluffed pillow. She lay there for several minutes before she was finally able to fall asleep. When she finally did, she didn't get the peaceful sleep she hoped for, her whole night was haunted by disturbing dreams. 

In her dream, she was a little girl again, maybe five years old, but she wasn't at her home. She was in a large white room, like one of the rooms in a science facility, wearing a hospital gown. holding her hand was a young woman with curly blond hair and a long white lab coat.

"Come, child, we must get you to your group for testing," the woman pulled Olivia's hand to get her to hurry up. 

They went down a long hallway and into a room with several other children. There was a young girl, maybe a year younger than Olivia with long, dark brown hair, hazel eyes and freckles splashed across her nose. Then, there was an older boy, maybe six months or so older than Olivia, with lightish brown hair, brown eyes and a missing tooth. Next to him was a taller boy, slightly younger than Olivia, with light brown hair and blue eyes. Next to him was a young girl, about two years younger than Olivia with dirty blond hair in ponytails and hazel eyes. The woman holding Olivia's hand hastily pushed her in line next to the other children. Olivia's own long, caramel hair was in a braid over her right shoulder. 

Then, several men in lab coats came into the room and each grabbed a child, dragging them through a door into a laboratory. They strapped each of the children to a table and before Olivia could see what happened, the dream changed. It was about seven years later and the children were still in the same place except now they were all locked in cages. Olivia wasn't controlling herself, she was moving on her own, watching this strange dream. She watched as a scientist ripped open the door of one of the cages and dragged our the brown-haired girl from earlier. He dragged her down the line of cages and out of the room.

"Rachel!" Olivia called, though she didn't know anyone by that name.

Then, another scientist came in and hauled Olivia out in the same way. Back to the laboratory from earlier, and soon she was strapped to a table. the scientist wheeled a rickety metal table to her, several strange things were laid on top as the scientist placed a mask over her face and the dream shifted again. 

It was maybe a year later, and all of the children were now wearing black t-shirts and pants. They all seemed to be practicing things. Some fighting with each other, others practicing something else. Then it dawned on her. They all had powers. All of them different, but they all had them. Olivia herself was disappearing, but only in parts. Her arm would disappear, or something along those lines, but she couldn't quite master completely vanishing. 

The tall boy from the beginning of her dream was practicing with weapons and dropping it every thirty seconds. His arms were littered with scars from past fails. 

The other boy from earlier, the one with brown eyes, was trying to summon fire, which informed Olivia that this facility had the power to create demons at will. Unfortunately, instead of both eyes turning black and his hands catching fire, only one eye turned black and fire erupted from one finger, effectively lighting his hair on fire. He patted out the flames and turned red with embarrassment.

The two younger girls were fighting each other, the younger of the two got startled when Rachel, as I had learned form the last part of the dream, swept her feet out from beneath her. When she hit the floor, a spark flew from her fingers, turning off the power. One of the scientists turned on a tablet and in a few minutes the power was back. 

"Watch it!" he yelled at the girls.

Rachel and the other girl soon went off to practice their powers. Rachel focused on changing forms. I quickly learned she was a shape shifter when she tried to turn into a horse, but it only worked for her bottom half.

"I'm a centaur!" she giggled as she tried to run around the room.

Finally the dream shifted one last time. A deep, demonic voice echoed through her dream.

"Find each other. You must unite if we are to truly end once and for all the Testings at Facility X," It rang out. 

Suddenly, four phone numbers flashed across her eyes. They flashed too quickly for her to memorize them, but when she woke up, they were burned into the wall.

866-740-4531, 215-475-5060, 603-413-4124, and 401-285-0696.