The Lizard Reborn Rough Draft

Chapter 1: A Promise

Sounds of gunfire and explosive blasts constantly went off in the background, something that Dr. Curt Connors was accustomed to at this point. He ignored those sounds as he continued to pluck the shrapnel out of First Private Jenkins.

"Aargh! That hurts!" Jenkins shouted as he began to writhe in pain on his operating table.

"Hold still, I'm not done yet." Connors replies as calmly as possible.

"God, doc! This feels like it's taking forever!"

"Well, this is what happens when you charge the front lines of the enemy screaming."

Dr. Connors tried to focus on removing the shrapnel, but the sound of the blasts started to get louder and louder.

"They're reaching the camp!" One army man yelled aloud in the blaze. As the blasts grew closer, Jenkins looked at Connors with a desperate look in his eyes.

"You're, you're not gonna leave me behind, are ya doc?"

"No, I'll stay with you, I promise..." Connors replies to him. He tries to keep himself calm by focusing on the wounds, but his hands start shaking from the stress.

Then, one soldier starts shaking his shoulders. "Come on, we have to retreat." Connors snaps, knocking him away.

"Don't touch me! I'm not going to leave this man be..." then, a blast hit right next to the right side of his body, knocking him to the floor and making him fall unconscious.

A few minutes later, he wakes up to see Jenkins lying on the floor, barely breathing, clinging on to life. Connors begins dragging himself by clawing towards him with his arms. However, when he tries to move his right arm, a burning pain rings without his body that he can't help but to scream. He looks down only to see his arm covered in his own blood with countless bits of shrapnel sticking out. He keeps using his left arm, crawling towards Jenkins with every bit of his strength. "I'm gonna save you. I promised... I promised..."

Dr. Connors is lying in his bed mumbling "I promised... I promised..." when suddenly he bolts up from his nightmare. He looks around his surroundings. He sees his wife, Martha, sleeping next to him. He looks at his right side and sees the familiar sight of his amputated right arm. He moves his left arm up to wipe his brow. Sure enough, it's caked in sweat. He looks at the time on the digital clock across the room. The red numbers show a "4:55 AM". He gets up from his bed and walks over to the bathroom across the bedroom. He turns on the light, there are bags around his eyes and his short brown hair is a mess. He turns on the sink and starts washing his face with the running water.

"Come on, Connors. You have to stop getting these nightmares." He sleepily mumbles to himself.

"You had another one, didn't you?" Startled by the voice, he looks over to see Martha leaning on the doorway.

"It's nothing."

"You can't just keep waving this away like it's nothing, Curt."

"I'm on that new medicine, Martha. It'll start to kick in...eventually..." Connors takes a moment to think about all of the different medications that his doctors tried to prescribe him. He had been circling through medications for depression and anxiety for months and yet, none of them seemed to stop the nightmares.

"I guess that's the best we can hope for, huh? Anyways, are you going back to bed?"

"I don't know, I think I need to walk for a moment..."

"Connors. Whether you like it or not, you're still human and you need your sleep."

"I'll just drink some coffee and be fine."

"You need to stop drinking that stuff, Curt. It's not a replacement for sleep..."

"But what else can I do, Martha?" Connors butts in. He takes a second of thought to realize what he's just done. "I'm sorry... I got out of control there for a sec..."

"I know, I know. You're just tired and on edge, I get it. I don't blame you." The two of them stare at each other for but a brief moment, but for Connors, it feels like an eternity.

"I love you, Martha."

"I do too. And I hate to see you like this." Her voice starts to choke up a bit, "I just don't understand why this is only happening years after..."

"No one really knows how the human mind works. Heck, that's why I study animals, at least they're simple." He chuckles to himself.

"Regardless..." Martha reaches for and holds Curt's hand. "We're gonna get through this. We went through raising Billy, we went through losing your arm... we can do this."

Curt kisses his wife on the cheek and they have a warm embrace for a few seconds before Curt says, "I'm going to go downstairs for a drink, ok?"

"Try to be back soon."

"I'll try." Soon, Connors exits the bedroom and slowly walks down the stairs into the dimly lit kitchen. It looked like your average kitchen with white counters complementing white tile floors and a wooden dining table with four chairs in the middle of it all. Curt flipped the light switch and a luminescent white light swept across the entire room. We grabbed a glass from one of the cabinets and set it down on the countertop before turning on the sink and then grabbing the cup again to fill it up.

As he took a seat to enjoy his tap water, his thoughts began to drift towards his nightmares. Before then, he was relatively normal, mentally, at least. He didn't really have any problems and was content with life. Then, all of a sudden, he kept on dreaming of that day he lost his arm. The last day he ever did any kind of surgery, but most importantly, the day he failed. He had failed to save Jenkins, to him, it was his fault he was dead. He didn't push hard enough, try hard enough, and that's why the research he was doing was so vital to him.

After that, he was devoted to finding a way to fully regrow limbs back to their original state. He started studying genetics and herpetology. It was quite easy for him, since he was already an expert on biology. He then began to devise a way to safely infuse the DNA that allowed creatures like lizards to fully regrow their limbs so that humans could do the same. With luck, it would save lives and then maybe Jenkins wouldn't have to die in vain. That's probably why the memories of that day waited until now to haunt him once more. He's close to the answers, so close. He's almost finished creating a serum that can regrow his arm. Were these nightmares a screwed up attempt by his mind to keep him motivated? To remind him of why he began doing this in the first place? It doesn't matter. All that matters now, is getting his work finished. Not just for himself, not just for Jenkins, not just for his family, but for everyone who's lost a limb, or a loved one.

He let these thoughts swirl within his mind for a little while longer, before he went back up stairs to his bedroom. He walked in slowly, as he suspected his wife was already asleep. He looked inside and sure enough, she was. He looked at the digital clock once more, "5:11 AM". He slowly crawled back into his bed to rest once more.