About an hour later, in the lounge, while Leo flopped down on the couch, Amber stayed standing up, pacing back and forth, which triggered a worried look from the guy. "You okay?"
"Yeah," Amber replied, "just cold."
"How the hell are you cold? It's nearly 80 degrees in this room." Leo asked, thinking that she might've just had the chills.
Normally a man of few words, he felt this strange sensation in the presence of Amber, one that he had never encountered upon meeting any other individual.
She just had a certain aura around her, an aura of comfort, optimism, and tranquility-one which he could feel. He felt like she was the only one he could truly open himself up to.
"I....I have no idea." Amber replied, not wanting to accept the possibility of her manifesting abilities like Kai's. To her, it seemed that she was living through a situation ripped straight out of a comic book, and that was too much for her to believe.
And what would happen if she did have powers? She had so much bottled up negativity inside of her for so long, that she was afraid that one day she would just snap, becoming the very thing she despised-becoming like Bianca.
A heavy percentage of that boiling rage was centered around that terrible girl. She couldn't possibly count the days she'd skipped school to avoid the girl's malicious teasing, or the late nights that she'd stayed up crying her eyes out because of Bianca's crude treatment of her.
She then realized that she had to make a choice between 2 paths. One would end with her standing up to Bianca, finally embracing her own self-worth.
The other, however, would end with Amber constantly trying to please others and yearning for their approval.
And she had to make this choice soon, because it was tearing her apart.
As Kai stood in the bathroom washing his hands, still perplexed by his astonishing new abilities, he began to wonder if this was meant to happen.
What if this is what was meant to happen to him, to all of them? Some sort of higher calling? This could be his chance to come into his own. Before, he didn't know if he believed in some sort of higher power or not.
But that was before he'd found out that his skin could stop a 22 caliber bullet with ease. He imagined how many people he could help with his new abilities. The many catastrophes he could prevent. But he had to learn how to use them first.
He was questioning his beliefs. But, to be fair, he was questioning everything at the moment.
As his thoughts flowed like a river, he jolted as he heard a boy's piercing screams coming from down the hallway.
Outside, in the lounge, Leo and Amber had heard it as well. As she peered through the foggy glass, she began to make out what was happening.
Adam, the new kid, was holding his head as if he were in immense pain, as men in white lab coats rushed from all sides. "What the hell was that?" Kai asked, briskly exiting from lounge bathroom as he softly pushed the door open, nearly taking it off the hinges.
As Adam's screams of pain traveled out of his mouth, Kai, Leo, and Amber watched in horror as the doctors lifted him up onto a stretcher, rolling him down the hallway, with him screaming all the while.
"Oh my god. Is he gonna be okay?" Amber said, trembling in horror as she slowly backed up from the foggy window.
Kai stepped forward, wondering whether he should help Adam or not, but ultimately decided against it. Adam was safe under the care of the doctors, and he knew he couldn't leave Leo and Amber in that room, defenseless. They hadn't even unlocked their powers yet, and he barely knew how to use his.
He didn't want to accidentally punch a hole through someone's chest.
Besides, Dr, Matthews had reunited the three of them, so he felt that there was no reason he wouldn't bring the others soon. Jamming his hands into his pockets-and ripping right through them-the young superhuman's eyes fell to the floor as he waited.
Unconsciously, Leo sprang into action to comfort Amber, putting an arm around his new friend. He couldn't stand to see someone so kind and accepting feeling so fearful and desolate. "He's gonna be okay, Amber." Leo reassured, "Don't worry, we all will."
#
Elsewhere, a few halls down, Adam sat curled up like a ball on the operating table. Inside his head thundered a throbbing pain as hundreds of voices assaulted his mind. He couldn't get rid of them. Pleading and crying for the pain to stop, he held his head in displeasure as he began cough up blood.
In his office, behind the glass wall by the operating table, Dr. Matthews monitored Adam's neural networks within his brain, an astonished expression overtaking his face. His assistant, Nurse Delilah Rose, joined him behind the glass screen. "What's happening to him?" She asked worriedly.
"When the Genodium wave came into contact with Adam's body, it primarily entered through his head and affected the pre-frontal lobe. Now, look at these." Dr. Matthews pointed to the blue, slightly fluctuating readings on the monitor.
"These are Adam's thoughts. Now, anyone with a normal neurological process like you, me, or anyone else, would have only these blue readings, but.." The doctor swiped left on the screen, revealing a page of red, heavily fluctuating readings. "What the hell?" Nurse Rose asked.
"Now, these readings are new." Dr. Matthews explained.
"What do you mean by new?"
"What I mean is that while Adam's main thoughts have to go through the same process that ours do, these new readings are-different. They're foreign, like they're coming from someone else's brain."
"That's impossible." Rose denied.
"After what I've just witnessed a few hours ago, nothing seems impossible anymore."
As Adam's loud, piercing cry blasted through the nurse's ears, she began to worry about him. Dr. Matthews walked out of the office and into the cold, steel environment that Adam was in. "Adam." Dr. Matthews said, trying to calm him down. Shaking, Adam slowly turned his head from the wall to face the doctor. "Who...who are you?" He gasped, terrified of his circumstances.
"I'm Dr. Eliott Matthews. You might have a lot of questions-"
"What the hell is happening to me? Where the hell am I?" Adam asked in horror, tears streaking down his face as he wondered if he would ever see his family again.
"Adam, last night, you and your friends were hit by a wave of an incredibly unstable element, called Genodium. When the wave struck your body, it must've entered your brain and-"
"That's why I'm hearing all these damn voices inside my head?" Adam interrupted angrily.
"Well they're not voices, Adam, they're thoughts."
Even through all of that pain, Adam chuckled to himself, thinking the doctor was joking. "Thoughts? So you really expect me to believe that that chemical of yours turned me into some kinda mind reader?"
"I know, it's hard to believe."
"Nope, not at all." Adam replied to the doctor with a sarcastic tone to his voice.
"I want you do something for me." Matthews said, pacing back and forth around the room with his hands clasped behind his back.
"I'm not doing shit for you until you make these voices stop."
"What if I told you that you could make the voices stop?"
If the doctor didn't have Adam's attention before, he definitely had it now.
"You see, Adam," the doctor continued. "the mind is an incredibly powerful thing, and people often forget that. They focus so much on strength, that they often forget the strength in their focus."
Adam nodded, seeming to understand what the professor was saying. The boy looked up at him with his watery eyes as snot dripped from his nose, onto the metallic floor.
"So, what I need you to do, Adam," the Doctor continued, "is talk to me."
That was where he'd lost him.
"Uh, I'm already talking to you." Adam stated.
"Not with your mouth, with your mind." The doctor said as he slowly nodded.
"You can't be serious right now-" Adam protested.
"Focus." Matthews demanded.
"What you're asking me to do right now is insane. You really expect me to-"
Adam stopped. The voices in his head stopped.
Everything went quiet, so quiet in fact, that Adam was able to hear is own heartbeat. His eyes widened as he heard it. He heard the doctor's voice inside of his own brain, feeling the vibration within his skull.
"Hello, Adam."
"What the hell is going on?!" Adam exclaimed as he stood up, backing up against the wall. His black eyes were as wide as a grapefruit as he began breathing heavily. His thick, black hair was of average length, swaying back and forth as the boy shivered in fear.
"What's going on, is that you're now able to somehow manipulate your own neurons to tap into other people's minds, allowing you to read their thoughts." The doctor answered.
"And that's not all you can do."