My arms won't move. They're numb, like they aren't mine anymore. The helmet is cold. Far too cold. It hums above my ears like it's alive. I want to scream, but even my tongue feels heavy.
Something feels wrong.. I hear whispers, too faint to make out. But I know they're meant for me, or maybe about me.
"Phase One initiated," Dr. Halvorsen's voice echoes from inside the helmet.
My spine arched and my jaw clenched so tightly I felt something crack. Pain didn't just arrive, it erupted. Something is burning, and it's not the chair... It's my skin. I smell it, the smell of burnt flesh. My fingers twitch without permission. My fingers curl, then lock.
A high-pitched shriek assaulted my skull. It wasn't coming from the outside, but inside me. It was my ears. They trembled like glass, then shattered. A sickening snap echoed, followed by blood running down my face.
I could do nothing but struggle against the electrocution assaulting my body. My organs, nerves, muscles, and skeleton all felt like they were being burned inside out.
My throat tightened, something warm filled my mouth. It was thick and metallic, blood. I was choking on my own blood.. My body jerked trying to break free from this agony but to no avail.
I screamed, I cried, I pleaded, I begged to be free, but no one came to my rescue..
"I don't want to die.. It's not fair, why do I have to suffer just because of my circumstances.."
His body stopped all motion, his heartbeat silenced, and his brain ceased activity. He was dead, and no one heard Roan's last and only thought before everything ended... or so he thought.
Seeing Roan's death, Dr. Halvorsen stopped all functions of the wooden chair. Even the metal cuffs came undone, setting Roan's limbs free. His burnt dead body fell on the cold hard floor like a broken doll.
Suddenly, Roan's Soulmark reacted. It writhed under his burnt skin seemingly alive and anchored his soul back to his body and before Roan knew it, his consciousness returned. His body was still charred, bloody, and blistering but he felt nothing. His nervous system and mind were ruined to feel any pain or thoughts whatsoever.
After anchoring his soul, Adaptive Regeneration triggered, ensuring tissue and organs were properly reconstructed. According to Dr. Halvorsen's previous tests, this process is anything but painless so he considered Roan lucky to be in his current state.
His charred skin peeled off, exposing his blood vessels, arteries , veins, tendons, ligaments, and in some areas, his muscles. However, from destruction comes creation. New skin was formed in place of the old, slowly but surely re-growing. If Roan could feel, he'd be experiencing pain far greater than electrocution.
After the skin, the muscles began to rebuild. Muscle fibres stretched across the bare bone, slowly weaving together. They twitched and pulled tight, layer by layer, forming solid muscle where there was once nothing. Blood vessels followed, spreading through the new tissue like tiny roots, bringing warmth back to the dead flesh..
After the muscles, tendons came next. They started to grow back. Like thick threads of cable, they lashed themselves between bone and flesh. Each tendon that found its place seemed to pull the body back into shape, restoring the tension needed to move, to stand and to fight.
Time kept ticking and the rest of this process lasted half an hour. Eventually, Roan's body arose from the dead. There was one thing Adaptive Regeneration couldn't regenerate, and that was Roan's mental state. Roan being in a vegetative state, would need rest to fully recover.
What should of been a very painful procedure was completed just like that, but not before something strange began to happen. A voice colder than any harsh winter could be heard coming from Roan's Soulmark.
"Survival is not a gift, it is a curse you chose." With that, Roan's Soulmark returned to normal. No one heard what this mysterious voice had to say.
"No matter how many times I see it, the way his body recovers from such fatal wounds is beyond me. We need to conduct more tests on Subject 0461-R." Naturally, the doctor was oblivious as to what happened as he watched the process from start to finish along with Nurse Ives.
"Dr. Halvorsen, with all due respect is there a reason why you must treat the boy this way?" Nurse Ives asked, only for the Doctor to look at her like she just asked the dumbest question in the world.
"To answer that stupid question. Let me ask you this, What is it exactly that we do here at SCD?" Naturally, Nurse Ives had an idea. At the end of the day, she might just be a Nurse, one out of many, but she'd be working at the Soulmark Containment Division for a few years already.
"Based on what I've seen from my years of working here, you and many other scientists experiment on kids and their abilities." Nurse Ives was correct, but she didn't know the organizations objective.
"This is why you're my favourite nurse, you're smart. Though it doesn't take a genius to figure that one out." even Dr. Halvorsen had to admit Nurse Ives was smarter than she looked.
"That wasn't a compliment, Doctor." Nurse Ives didn't even look at him as she spoke. Halvorsen smiled anyway, like he hadn't just been slapped with indifference.
"Anyway, Subject 0461-R is a bit special. Though extremely rare, there are indeed others with regenerative powers like him, but his healing is way stronger than anything I've seen. Others can recover a lost limb, perhaps survive without a head but they cant return from death, he can." Dr. Halvorsen looked at Roan like he was a monster and continued with his speech.
"Soulmarks are usually attained in various of ways, like emotions, traumatic experiences and desires, though not everyone awakens one. Some are more useful and powerful than others, some are downright useless. We call these people Bloomers and they all have one thing in common, they're cursed." Dr. Halvorsen explained, him and Nurse Ives completely forgot about the vegetative boy staring into space.
"Cursed? How are they cursed." Though Nurse Ives was more knowledgeable about the environment she was in, any information about these Bloomers was new to her.
"It varies from person to person. Some Bloomers have a unique curse that comes with their power but those are rare. The vast majority of Bloomers are cursed by their own emotions." Seeing Nurse Ives confused, he opted to give her an example of Subject 0224-M, a boy who awakened the power of Super Strength.
"Subject 0224-M was nobody special, he was just an average kid who lived in a village with his uncle, mother, and father. He was joyful kid and therefore was liked by everyone. One day, he went hunting with his father only to be ambushed by a pack of wolves. His father despite having no Soulmark, was not your average man. He had years of experience and fought the 5 wolves like a warrior whilst protecting his kid. In the end, he killed 3 and gravely injured the rest, who had ran away by the time his father collapsed. Subject 0224-M, seeing his father drop like marionette with it's strings cut, tried dragging his father back to his village in hopes of saving him."
"His efforts proved to be in vain though as he was simply too weak. He was only nine at the time, he couldn't possibly carry a grown man. Seeing his father bleed profusely and moments away from dying, the boy wished for strength. He wanted to save his own father even if he had to walk through all nine levels of hell. In the end, that despair, the emotions he felt, the disgust he had for being weak all led him to awaken his Soulmark. Sadly, he passed out and by the time he woke up, his father died in his hands. He died a warrior, and most notably, a man who the village people would consider a hero... and the boy ended up attaining the strength he so wished for, but only after it stopped mattering... "
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