Chapter One
Rebirth
Rebirth
“Evolution – also known as biological, genetic or organic evolution – is the change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms through successive generations. This change results from interaction between processes that introduce variation into a population, and other processes that remove it. As a result, variants with particular traits become more, or less, common. A trait is a particular characteristic – anatomical, biochemical or behavioural – that is the result of gene-environment interaction.”
Diarmuid Carsley looked up from the laptop screen and gazed at his long-time friend, Ciaran O’Connor. The expression he returned was not one that was curious or surprised. There was a strange look etched across his face, half disgust and half confusion.
“You just read that from Wikipedia,” he remarked, rolling his eyes. “Did it get you into University?”
“Are you jealous, perhaps?” teased Diar.
“Jealous that I’m letting you be unleashed on England? Yes,” replied Ciaran. “But jealous that you may have plagiarised and got into University? ’Course not.”
Diar closed the laptop and tapped his fingers against the desk. The two best friends were spending yet another summer day together before they parted ways. Whilst Ciaran was going to Spain to work as a travel rep in a few days, Diar was going off to Cambridge University to study History.
Ciaran shifted uncomfortably in his seat after an awkward moment of silence. “You know, there’s apparently going to be a solar eclipse today.”
“What? Here in Ireland? I doubt it!” Diar chuckled softly.
“All right, buddy, don’t believe me. But you know who you heard it from!”
***
Celeron University’s motto was puto quod prospicio, which meant believe and prosper. For its freshmen students, that meant the world. But for few, some had to work hard to where they were now.
One of those students was Amelia Winfield, although she preferred to go by the shortened version of her name – Ami. And speaking of working hard, she was struggling her way up the enormous stairs with the enormous suitcase in her hands.
Freshmen passed her by, almost knocking her over. She swore under her breath, wishing she could do it openly and not get kicked out for her totally inappropriate behaviour.
After what seemed to be a century later, Ami finally heaved the suitcase into the room that she was meant to be sharing with someone else. As she walked through the door, she noticed that her roommate had already become accustomed to the room, having set up their things already.
“Well, it’s going to be a very awkward introduction,” she muttered quietly in her English accent, dropping the suitcase onto the floor at the first available chance.
She lay back on the bed near the door, the only one available since her roommate had claimed the other one. Then again, it was her fault that she decided to stop for McDonald’s in the car … and felt sick after carrying that monstrosity up five flights of stairs.
“It’s nice to see I’m not the only one who gets to California and wants to sleep.”
A girl slightly smaller than Ami walked through with a timid smile on her face. She was holding two boxes, both of which half-concealed her face. Being the overly helpful person she was, Ami leapt off the bed and grabbed one of the boxes, despite her friendly protesting.
“It’s no problem, really,” she smiled.
“Oh, you’re not from here, are you?” the girl asked. “Wow, you must be –”
“Feeling out of place,” joked Ami, as she put the box down on the other bed. “And don’t feel bad about me carrying the box. It’s nothing, really. My old job had me carrying lots of these things.” She held out her hand. “I’m Ami by the way.”
“Jess,” her roommate replied, shaking her hand. “And I was going to say you’re the only English transfer student at this University this year, but you’re a good comedian. So did you come on your own? Do you have any family out here?”
“I suppose I’m right on cue then.”
The drawling voice belonged to a tall man with a suit and one thousand dollar wristwatch. Ami rolled her eyes, not amused by his sudden entrance. He glanced back at her, returning the expression.
“Well, aren’t you going to introduce me to your roomie, Amelia?”
“I told you not to call me that,” Ami replied coolly, yet sternly. “This is my Uncle Vincent, but I like to call him Uncle Vince because he just hates the shortened version of his name. Uncle Vince, this is Jess.”
“Now, now, Amelia,” Vincent said, crossing his arms, “let’s not do this now. So Jessica, are you looking forward to the semester?”
“Um, I guess I’m … hey, how’d you know my full name?” asked Jess. “I thought –”
However, she was soon cut off by Vincent’s cell phone ringing in his suit pocket. He looked apologetically at both Ami and Jess.
“I’m really sorry, I have to take this,” he said before leaving the room and walking down the hall, so that he was out of earshot when he flipped his cell open. “This is Winfield … yes. Amelia has arrived at campus safe and sound … no, she’s not reported any concerns … I have been working on this for the past fourteen years! I am not going to let my emotions …”
He paused to allow whoever it was speak to him fully. Vincent wanted to speak, but controlled himself. After all, he had to follow procedure.
“Yes, I understand. Hopefully, Amelia and Jessica will bond quickly. I’m presuming that having them as roommates will speed up the process. It won’t be much longer now until there are signs of activity. I’d give it another month at the most and then we can get on with the conversion. I’ll report my status in five days.”
He hung up, proceeding to look outside. The sky was getting dark …
A total eclipse was coming.
***
Damon Flashheart was fed up of the day job. He longed to get out of there and experience life for what it was really worth. But no, he had to make the money to live. He had to continue this shitty cycle of life, probably for the rest of his life even. He pressed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose and continued typing away on the computer.
Why his team manager felt the need to force him with all this paperwork was unbelievable and unreal. If it were him, he’d make the manager do it and spend the day playing computer games. Then again, he was in the middle of another run through of Dragon Age: Origins. He’d have to remember to carry on when he got back home …
“This is the seventh mistake I’ve seen today, Flashheart!” the manager said in a raised voice, scolding his employee. He was furious; annoyed that such a thing was possible. “I want them all corrected by the end of the day and if it means you have to work overtime to get it right, then that’s what’ll happen!”
All the while, Damon willed him to do one. He knew that there weren’t any mistakes and if there were, he blamed the manager. Even though he hated his job of compiling databases together for his company, he made sure he was perfect at it. Having to put up with this crap for the past three months now, Damon rose to his feet and grabbed the manager’s arm tightly before he had a chance to escape.
“Why don’t you just accept that you’re the one making the mistakes and back off!?”
Everything he’d bottled up inside for a while had exploded. The entire office heard him challenging the manager, noticing the physical contact in particular. Damon wasn’t the confrontational kind, but he didn’t want to put up with being treated like shit anymore.
Expecting the manager to yell louder, Damon was surprised when the manager broke into a wide smile. He released his arm from his employee’s touch and patted him on the shoulder.
“Of course, I can do that,” he nodded without any hesitation. “You sit tight, Damon. Why don’t you take double your lunch hour? I’ll go up to the head office and explain everything now! I bet you even feel like getting a promotion!”
Had his wildest dreams come true?
Damon watched the manager walk away muttering to himself, wondering aloud how he was going to fix up the mess.
Diana, the secretary who sat next to him, rose to her feet and smiled seductively at him. He was taken aback by this. Was this a dream? The boss admitting he had caused the mistakes and Diana – the sexiest women on this side of Manchester – only had eyes for him?
“Oh my …” he inadvertently blurted out, staring at the size of her breasts.
“I know you’ve been eyeing me up for the past month or so,” she said breathlessly and flirtatiously. She winked at him, signalling for him to walk out of the office with her.
He looked back at the rest of the office. They weren’t registering this whatsoever. Had his wildest dreams come true?
“Let me be your dirty Diana,” she whispered seductively in his ear. “I know somewhere classy we could take this conversation to the next level.”
“Well, if you want that, I think we should live up to the dirty part of this conversation,” grinned Damon.
Not even bothering to question how the boss had taken pity upon him and decided to take responsibility for his actions as well as the sexy turn-on from his colleague, Damon didn’t suspect anything was out of place. He decided to go with this paradise, knowing that this was real.
***
The English transfer student was their next target.
Preferring to be nameless as well as genderless, the uprising serial killer that had terrorised numerous states walked through California without a care in the world. No one suspected them. No one thought they walked amongst America’s newest psychopath. But what did it matter what the little people had to say?
They weren’t special. They weren’t on the list.
All that mattered was that they got what they wanted. The hunger for the power was so incredible, but they accepted it. The hunger was a part of them now and had consumed them. With more power, they could rise above the weak and seize all the power in the world. In fact, the world would be theirs for the taking.
The weaklings would bow down to them; there was no doubt about it.
Innocent people would die. Guilty people would die.
It didn’t matter.
Everyone would die.
And they would be the final evolved human on the planet.
All that needed to be done now was to track down the girl and feed the addiction.
***
He had a heart of courage, a valiant one.
Sonny Haines smiled and looked down at the people walking on the streets of London. The city was busy – as always – and yet here he was, stalking everyone on top of the highest buildings. He could have broken into the Queen’s place if he could; it wasn’t like anyone could stop him at the speed he flew at.
Yes, he was an evolved human possessing the unique ability of flight. It was a cool method of transportation and certainly beat the bus. For the past week or so, he’d been practicing very carefully. He didn’t want to slip up, although a little girl saw him fly once and had insisted to her mother that it really happened.
Needless to say, the mother didn’t believe her child.
Poor thing, Sonny mused to himself at the thought of her. Least I’ve not been found out because I’m only just starting out.
Suddenly, his phone started ringing. He groaned and picked it up, having a good idea who it was.
“Hello? Oh … Danny? What the hell are you doing ringing me now?” he said in his typical Cockney accent. “I’m busy. What? You want me to pay sixty-six pounds to come all the way down to Manchester because you’re bored. I do have a life, you know? You’re such a … all right, you’re a knob then. You guessed me. Look, I’ve got to go. I’ve got some revising to do … yeah, revising for when I get back! Bye!”
He shut his phone and put it back in his pocket.
“Insignificant prick.”
***
Who could ever say that they had perfectly replicated the back flip Lightning performed whenever she was in battle on Final Fantasy XIII? Well, for starters, one of those people happened to be Andrew Morgan.
Ever since the skies had grown dark, Andrew had been undergoing a significant change in his life. He had been perfectly replicating whatever he saw. Fortunately, no one had witnessed it yet. But the eclipse had to be connected. He willed himself to wake up and hope that he’d been massacred on Resident Evil 5 again instead of living this awkward reality.
The eclipse was the closest theory he had drawn out so far. The sudden coming of an eclipse was unexpected and didn’t that warrant strange things happening, such as replicating actions with perfect precision? He placed a hand on his chin and tapped his fingers on the wall.
His moment of silence was cut short when his dad was calling him.
“I’ll be down in a few minutes, Dad!” Andrew called back.
He was becoming increasingly anxious with each passing second. He hoped he wouldn’t end up going downstairs and then mimicking Alice from the Resident Evil movie. Everyone was watching it in the living room. It would be his worst nightmare.
He decided to cast his theories aside, took a deep breath and walked downstairs.
***
Mark Turner looked upon the destruction that he had brought with only his hands.
The campsite was completely burnt down … with his hands. He felt no remorse for doing what he did, but didn’t understand how he could be so blessed – or even cursed – with such an incredible power. The fire had just spurted out of his hands and burnt down all in site. The cabins were gone; the woods were rapidly burning down …
It was all he had ever wanted, just to rid himself of those terrible memories.
He shivered a little, realising that he had been stood there for about an hour or so. The sky was unusually dark. Wasn’t it summer now? He took a quick glance at his watch … one thirty pm. Well, well, well, that was highly unusual.
Turning his attention back to the campsite that was quickly succumbing to its doomed fate, he had decided on one thing.
He was blessed with this power.
He could wipe all the evidence.
***
Ami yawned loudly, as she walked back into her room. She noticed Jess wasn’t around; perhaps she was still at the mixer? Those sorts of things weren’t suited for her, anyway. She had wanted to come back early since she was still suffering from some jet lag.
She switched on the light and stretched her entire body, just to get tired. She hadn’t been sleeping lately – probably the excitement of coming to California – and she needed to catch up with it. When she reached her bed, Ami’s attention span was still there to notice that she had a note on it with neat handwriting.
You have something I want. Let’s have a fight to see who’s worthy of it.
“The hell?” she blurted out, holding back the laughter.
It was probably the ramblings of a drunken Jess since she was the only one other than her – excluding the campus security – who even had access into the room. Ami brushed aside the note aside, branding it useless and stupid. However, when she turned around, a shadowy figure stood there.
There was no indication as to whether it was a man or a woman. From what Ami could tell, they were wearing a baseball cap and the hood was concealing their face. She took a step back before becoming embroiled in a twisted struggle for survival.
Ami leapt onto her bed and jumped for the door, but the attacker was there before her. They grabbed her throat and tossed her into the wall like a rag doll. The strength emanating from her assailant was powerful. She thought she could defend herself, but this attacker was way out of her league. She coughed to regain her breath, feeling mutilated.
Before her would-be killer could make another move, Ami rose to her feet and grabbed the hockey stick near her. Was this Jess’s? It didn’t matter, though she was minimally curious at the time. She took her best shot and whacked the attacker in the face.
They grunted in response, but Ami was only half-conscious that she couldn’t register whether they were male or female. She was losing consciousness quickly from hitting the wall, but she refused to back down from the fight. She had the upper hand and she wasn’t going to be taken advantage of now.
The attacker seemed dazed. Now was the chance!
However, when she lunged at them with the hockey stick, she tumbled and hit the floor hard. It seemed that she was becoming more and more unconscious with each minute ticking away.
“You … bastard … bitch … screw you …” she managed to say, striving to get in some colourful language before waiting for her timely demise.
“Your words have no meaning to me, insignificant child,” said the attacker. They rose to their feet and grabbed Ami by the scuff of her neck with one hand. “I will finish you off here and now. Your power will be mine!”
“P – Power?” choked Ami. She struggled to break free. She was fading fast.
“And the Swedish boy will be next,” they continued to ramble on. “I will be unstoppable. I will be the only one left. I will be … indestructible.”
“In … your … dreams!” she cried out, raising her hands when the attacker was attempting to use the other hand to touch her face.
However, an unknown force caused a distance between Ami and the attacker. As Ami fell to the floor, the attacker was pushed through the air, through the window with the glass smashing and hurtled down towards the ground.
Ami lay on her side, as the cold air whipped into the room. She shivered not from the weather, but the fear of dying. She could have very easily died tonight. She glanced at her hands, realising her hands … had saved her. It didn’t matter how, though, as she found comfort in the quiet solitude.
“J … e … s … s …”