1 CHAPTER ONE
Darkness.
Fear.
I felt it again. Just like that night. That night when my feet sent puddles of water up into the air in small droplets that landed on my boots and pants. My panting echoed through the tunnel as the professor's voice reached me from a place I couldn't see.
"Go, Xaia! Run!"
Faster, I dashed through the dark tunnel that led to the outside of the city gates. The alarms were blaring, soldiers were yelling, vehicles and drones whirring above me, but none could block out the sole thought in my head- How much of a lie I'd been living this whole time
Years ago they'd found me in the rubbles of Harare, a fallen city in Zimbabwe, or at least that was what they told me. The Corona Virus pandemic had mutated and was killing and infecting people three times faster. Many cities, countries even, had been overwhelmed and the world plunged into chaos. With nothing close to a cure, civilizations crumbled. Roughly half the population was wiped out, except for the ones they called the hosts. They were the only ones who survived 'the great death'. Experts say the virus still exists in them, but somehow their bodies had evolved, preventing it from doing any serious damage. But that wasn't the end of it. It was us, the next generation, that truly took the world by storm.
While most of us were born normal, just like the generations before us, there were some of us who were what I would call different. Some called us gifted, or rather, them. Not me.
At seventeen, there wasn't so much as a scar on my skin. The first time I sustained an injury, I watched in amazement as somehow every single displaced tissue fell back into place like nothing ever happened.
When I was five, they had moved me away from the nursery and taken me to a more organized, less populated area. Two days after, I had started seeing doctors. I had a pet mouse I called Snow. He'd died a day after I got him.
I was eleven when I fully understood it. I had snuck out of my room one morning to watch the other kids play on the field when I accidentally bumped into someone. I watched him fall to the ground almost as soon as I touched him.
It was clear. I had killed him, just like I killed Snow. And maybe someone from the nursery too. Maybe that's why they had me isolated.
Ever since, I was kept inside the Steelgarde. And for years, they trained me, experimented on me, occasionally taking a new strain of virus and testing it on me. Some of them, my body killed off on it's own. Others, I needed a little bit of biological enhancement to fight. They told me they were trying to fix it. Fix me.
They lied.
But it wasn't just me they lied to. Professor Rhys, like every noble scientist, believed he was doing his work for the greater good. But how wrong he was. Apparently, all they wanted was to retrieve my DNA and modify it. I was just a prototype for a new super-powered army. A lab rat. But unlike Rhys, The echelon, led by Colonel Ritter, was mostly a collection of narrow-minded egotistical ex-politicians and military officials who were only concerned with hunting down the newborns.
You'd probably think I'm referring to infants or children, and maybe you're right, but not exactly. I didn't understand what it meant either, until I met one...met him.
I had seen him around the lab a few times. He was part of the team that worked with the professor during my tests, but I never really got close to him. I spent most of my days alone or with the professor, and the people I did get to meet either kept their distance or showed up clad enough to prevent any form of skin contact, as did I. The only person who got as close as possible was Rhys. Maybe that was why he was the only one I trusted completely. Or maybe it was because he was the one who had found me all those many years ago.
And then one night, I woke up to someone looking down at me. Hazel eyes searching as he reached for something. But what?
Quickly, my foggy mind cleared up and I realised that he was reaching for me. And like lightning, I jumped off the bed and darted away from him, almost crashing into the small lamp in the corner of the makeshift room. I quivered in fear as I held up the lamp, trying to stop him from coming any closer. But I wasn't scared of him. Rather, I was scared for him. What if he ended up like snow? Or the boy? How did he even get in?
I wanted him to leave, but he obeyed and disobeyed me altogether. Not making any attempts to approach me, but not leaving either. Instead he sat at the other end of the room and watched me in silence. I could only see his eyes and grey hair between the hood and the face scarf. Then he took down the scarf, eyes still studying me.
"What are you?" he asked.
Silence.
"I've seen how they treat you. Like some kind of robot or something. You're different from the rest of them. But I don't know why"
Silence.
This was probably when he realized that I was mute.
"I'm different too." He smiled. "Can you keep a secret?"
Though skeptical, I nodded in affirmation.
"Alright then." He took his hand out and then, the most fascinating thing happened. Just above his palm, the air went up in flames. My eyes widened at the sight of it all. Fire sitting right there on his hand, then he clutched his fist and the flames died out. I had never seen anything like it. Extraordinary.
Afterwards, I found him staring at me, as if waiting for something. Instinctively, I reached for the old fish bowl on the table, smashed it on the floor and picked up a piece. And so this time it was me holding out my palm.I pushed the glass against my skin and shut my eyes before slashing my palm. Inhaling sharply as the glass tore through my flesh and revealed thick red blood. I noticed the frown on his face while he watched me. He must have thought I was demented. But then it wasn't long before the blood started to seep back in and the wound closed up.
And that night was the start of something. Soon, I started to learn more about Isaac than just the fact that he was a walking fire hazard. He was also learning about me. Some things - like sign language and how to play the guitar – I had taught him. Others, he already knew or figured out on his own. But I was learning about myself too. He was one of them, the newborns, and so was I.
Apparently, 'newborn' was the term used to refer to those of us who weren't born like the others, even though I think freaks would have been more fitting.
Now he had the answer to the question he had asked that first night. The reason why I was treated like a budding invention was because I was the first of my kind.
Facetious.
But what was more amusing was the fact that I was being used as a weapon to hunt them under the belief that they were enemies of the Genefied union. Mindless killers and marauders, they called them. But indeed they were fugitives hiding from the merciless grasp of the echelon. Isaac told me of how the union had hunted newborns for years, making him the last of his kind – the pyromancers. Others who were still alive had gone into hiding.
One day I spoke to Rhys and, even though he wouldn't say it, it was obvious that he knew about the Colonel's plans to use me as a weapons factory. But I was done living like this.
"Come down to the tunnels by the solar towers, " Isaac had told me. And so that night I made my way out of my room, past the guards, and outside the Steelgarde using Rhys's pass and a coat and wig for disguise. Almost as soon as I stepped outside, I could hear footsteps in Rhys's office.
"Where is she?" The Colonel asked in a gruff tone.
"She's gone." Rhys's voice was uneasy.
"What do you mean she's gone?" Ritter shot back. "No one saw her leave?"
"I told you this would happen but you wouldn't listen. She's just a child. She… "
I knew I was putting myself in possible danger, but I had to see. I had to make sure that Rhys wasn't harmed. I stood by the window, looking into the slightly crowded room.
"What she is is an abnormality. A freak. Just like the rest of them."
"After all this time, Ritter, you still don't get it. She's a person. A human. Not a bloody robot." Now the professor was getting upset.
"Take him away."
The soldiers were moving towards Rhys when suddenly, one of them somehow spotted me on the outside of the room. But before he alarmed the others I had taken to my heels, disregarding the wailing sirens and unintelligible shouts. But beneath the stir, I could hear still hear him.
"Go, Xaia! Run!"
