1 Lab lost in time

Prologue:

Cracks raged along the ceiling in angry, jagged lines as the world shook violently. Distant screams echoed along the vast corridors and abandoned hallways, demanding the retreat of anyone still lingering in the building. The world slowed and stilled. The laboratory now remained eerily still, a shattered shell of a once lively facility.

More than half of the computers that lined the walls were smashed, the data that they once held lost into memory. The window frames that lined the gray south wall all clung desperately to their last remaining shards of glass, trying to prevent them from joining the rest in a scattered heap on the floor. A single light illuminated the back of the room but flickered faintly like a dying heartbeat. The only thing in the lab that remained in visible working order was the white capsule at the end of the room. It lay on its back with a clear top and a white bottom that gave off a constant and unwavering light.

A boy. His looks suggested that he was in his early teens, but his experience was of someone three times his own age. With a hiss the cover to his capsule slid open, and whatever kept him asleep no longer held any effect. With his first new breath, he coughed several times and sat up. His eyes fluttered open to reveal light grey glimmering just slightly with specks of blue. Though beautiful, they bore an age to them that seemed to show the weariness of some drawn out battle. The coughing fit returned and he slid off of the capsule before running to the sink. He desperately grabbed a cup and filled it with cold water. Yet, as he lifted the cup to his lips, he heard a sizzle. He looked down and saw that it was practically empty.

'Running a temperature, am I?'

He dropped the cup on the floor and walked back over to the sink. With no care at all, he placed his mouth under the faucet. Cool, yet not very clean water poured into his mouth. Refreshed after a couple minutes  he stood and turned off the faucet. He then turned around and briefly glanced at himself in the mirror. He smiled while walking along the rows of computers, sliding his left hand along the screens. Suddenly, he retracted his hand, a small bubble of blood forming from where a shard pricked him finger.

He placed his right index finger on the screen of the ancient device and watched it ripple as if it were water greeting a single droplet back into a still pond; then it became whole again. He dusted the screen off before sitting down. At the touch of his skin, the chair followed in the screen's footsteps, seeming as though it could melt and dissipate. He tapped the "enter" button on the keypad and typed in several commands. The computer flickered to life, and the face of a woman with graying hair and age lines appeared. The screen flashed several times before allowing the woman to speak.

"Entry #65. The subject has begun to unlock new abilities that include brain control. It... he can move objects with his mind, even to the point of lifting them off the ground when it is physically impossible to do so, including living organisms with mental resistance."

She looked to the right of the screen for a moment, took a deep ragged breath, and continued.

"His development has reached the point where we can no longer hope to contain him. Mental dexterity has reached unstable and dangerous limits, even reaching the point of being able to fold and bend the walls of this facility. After these events, it... has been deemed necessary to place him in confinement under an induced coma. Under no circumstances should he be released, until we can find a way to terminate the powers or the subject."

The screen flickered and went to another video. It now faced the capsule where the boy rested in his innocuous comatose state. His black hair spread out in an ill-fitting halo. As he slowly, yet barely, began to stir, the monitor started to beep. Without warning, an alarm began to blare. The woman's voice quickened to a controlled sort of panic as she turned the screen around.

"He's becoming more powerful! He's starting to null the effects of the drug!" She shouted something to the people behind her, then cursed. "Son of a... it was already enough to knock out an organism of over ten thousand kilograms! Get more-"

The screen shook and the whole room shuddered violently as if being hit by an earthquake. People frantically screamed and ran for the exit, grabbing what they could on the way. They abandoned the boy in their mad rush to escape, terror filling the lab. The room suddenly stopped shaking. Now, the lab on screen appeared as it did around the boy at this moment. He turned off the computer as the video shuddered to an end. He looked around the room to observe the destruction he had created and smiled. Everything began to make sense now, and he absolutely loved it, in a sick and twisted sort of way.

The door to the lab swung open and three soldiers stormed in, pointing their guns at the boy. They shouted commands sternly to each other and kept their stony faces, but he remained without fear. His smile lit up as he stood to face them.

"Welcome to my lab, boys," he said in a hauntingly wistful tone.

"Quit talking! Put your hands on your head and get down on the floor!" the soldiers shouted. The boy sighed, tilting his head with a bored stare.

"No, I don't quite think so. You can't really be the best they've brought in, can you?" With that, he pointed his right hand towards them, slowly and without care. "But you're in my way."

From it, a bolt of white hot energy shot into them. He giggled, the sound jagged in his throat, and his eyes lit up with a savagery beyond animal and a genius beyond human. The light began to swell, then burst out into a swarm of deadly writhing streams. One would have seen it as lovely starlight, if only the stars weren't drenched in blood and burnt flesh. His victims' last moments of life consisted of only anguish.

Then total darkness.