Changed

=Changed=

By: Lauren Peregrine
The last thing I remembered was lightning flashing, and big raindrops washing my skin from the grime of the City Saints Orphanage, taking a couple steps and falling to the ground as something sharp pierced the back of my neck. I woke with a pounding headache and soreness present in all places of my slender body. I tried to force myself to sit up but collapsed back onto the crisp bed more nauseous than before. I opened my eyes and squinted seeing the standard dura-glass that all buildings were made out of since after a ten-year war with North Korea decimated half of North America’s population and all steel re-enforced buildings with a toxic poison called, the angels poison. The rest of the room looked like a standard hospital room, hover bed and all, except for four burly men the size of large gorillas guarding the door. As I started to question them furiously from my propped up bed, a knock sounded on the white door. A tall man with red eyes, who looked as though he had never grown out of the gangly teenage stage, sneered, “well, well, our little… patient… is conscious.” “Patient?” I asked confused “Yes you heard correctly, but not in a hospital, in my lab,” he gestured with his hands around him, “you should feel blessed that we took you from that orphanage and made you… well let’s just say special.” “Special as in, you taught me how to be a concert pianist while I was asleep? I do feel a little more musically inclined, but seriously man, you don’t look like you have that piece of poo you call a head smashed on straight. Maybe you should bless yourself with some of this “special ness” you gave me. You look like you could use it more than me. So if you would be so kind to put me back where you found me, like a good crazy man, that would be fantastic.” I retorted sarcastically with a bit more howl and bark than usual, but then again I was not too happy about being kidnapped. “Oh yes yes yes! The gene change is already starting to affect her!” he practically jumped out of his shoes as he ran over to me and seized my right hand from where it was on the bed. “What do you mean gene change?” I stared wide-eyed at him as he pushed and prodded on my hand but with no answer, so I repeated my question to one of the monkeys in the corner he answered with something that sounded like a long O sound. As I turned back to the gangly red-eyed man I got my answer. I felt a slight tug in my hand as three-inch claws sprouted from between my knuckles. I held up my hand to a patch of sunlight and stared at these things that were not suppose to be part of my hand. The man’s eyes followed my hand as he exclaimed, “Goody! My first successful gene substitution with wolf DNA. Bugs please proceed to shooting Miss Lana,” The monkey in the far right corner pulled out a gun. I snarled and flew off the bed induced by adrenaline. I was not fast enough for him. The bullet caught me square between the shoulders. The force of the dura-glass bullet sent me to kiss the floor. I groaned and glared up at the man as he peered at my back he said to himself, “un-believable, the turtle DNA worked as well, she has not been hurt the bullet barely left a hole in her shirt smock.” This guy is insane, does he think that just because scientists manipulated our genes to cure cancer and aids and do a whole crap load of good stuff that he needs to even out the good, so he is stealing people of the streets and messing with their genes? “Well red eye… guy I would just like to thank you for messing with my genes your doing the very, very best for our society, by giving people this special ness.” I strained a smile and while he was surprised from my politeness and total change of attitude I stumbled/ran out the open door without being stopped most likely because the monkeys took only orders not common sense. I stumbled into a white hallway that stretched on I sprinted and tripped down the hallway only a few feet before the monkeys came firing their guns, to bad for them their supervisor genetically modified me so my skin can’t be penetrated. The bullets bounced of my skin and came like the rain before washing away all exhaustion and fright. I rounded a corner and flew down a flight of stairs the monkeys fast on my trail I came to the bottom only to be trapped by more monkeys. I squealed as all of them came at me launching themselves into the air, and once again I was kissing my old friend the floor. They peeled of me one by one the last one pulling me off the floor and swinging around to face the red-eyed guy. “Muhahaha, you thought you could get away from the red-eyed scientist. I won’t be tricked this time!” he gestured to the brute holding me and told him, “bind her hands.” “Very original name,” `sarcastic seemed to be the mood of the day for me. They led me into a room not to far from the stairwell and sat me in a chair. Bigs, the monkey who shot me apparently already given orders left with the other six monkeys leaving the Red-Eyed Scientist alone with me. “You couldn’t be so naïve to think that I would let my must successful experiment just walk right out the door? No I need you for tests and duplications then maybe, if you don’t die after that, I will let you go.” I thought that it was very ironic that his own experiment would back fire on him but I guess that’s just how the universe works. I felt the almost familiar tug in my hand as the claws extended I flexed my fists, all the while he was blabbing on about this and that, and how his mom would have been so proud of him if she hadn’t been his first test subject. I sawed through the flimsy ropes holding my hands hostage and sprang out of the chair like that wolverine from Z-men or was it X-Men; anyways I had his gangly body pinned to the floor before he realized it. “Who’s not walking out that door now? Hmm yeah that’s right you. I’m going to have the government breathing down your limp collar. They will shut down your lab and throw you onto Alcatraz Island to be tormented by howls and groans in the dark. It is not cool to mess with peoples genes without their permission butt hole!” The rope he had tied me with was a few feet from where I was I grabbed it and tethered him to a pole in the room, and proceeded to using the phone to call the police and tell them where they could possible find many missing persons. I found the six monkeys waiting outside, “ the Red-Eyed Scientist gave his orders to me, to give to you, your suppose to keep him company in this room,” I explained with authority. Taking their orders they filed into the room one by one. Not taking any chances I stuck a hover chair underneath the door and locked it into place so the door would not budge. Under the pressure of possibly being placed back into the orphanage I quickly stole a can of everything food, (The can that makes what ever you desire to eat with a push of the purple button,) camping supplies and Endless Water. The power down button for the force shields was stupidly placed next to the door letting me easily escape from the lab and into the world to live the rest of my life, changed.