FicWad

"Who are you?"
"What?"
"Who are you?"
"I am Greg."
"Who are you?"
"My name is Greg."
"Who are you?"
"I told you. My name is Greg!"
"Who are you?"
"My name is ... is Greg?"
"Who are you?"
"Stop it."
"Who are you?"
"Please, stop it."
"Who are you?"
"I, I don't, don't know."
"You are nothing."
Greg is immersed in a world of total darkness and shadow in a posture that is eerily becoming all too familiar, balled up in the fetal position with his arms around his bent knees and his closed eyes pushing against his knee caps. The blackness is so thick that it could go on forever or a mere few inches, but he seems too terrified to test its distance. The voice he keeps hearing resonates far too deep in him to be merely coming from his ears and seems to coming for the depths of his own mind. When he makes a response to the phantom voice, he can't feel his lips moving at all and it seems his own mind is giving the response.
"I can't be nothing," he replies.
"Don't lie to yourself. You know it all too well," it retorts.
"It can't be true," he answers, sounding thoroughly confused.
"You are nothing, because that is all this world will let you be," it snaps.
"That, that can't be true," he nervously argues back.
"You can dilute yourself all you want, boy. You will be a believer sooner or later," it chuckles and continues, "The one thing they care about is themselves, their selfish ambitions and nothing else. Anything else is merely fodder to be swept out of the way and treated as nothing. Look at you, they have thrown you away and isolated you to be balled up, reeling from the wounds they inflicted on you."
The boy gives no answer or reaction.
"Go ahead and hide, they have been doing it your whole life, using you for their own sadistic amusement as the perfect little toy and then discarding you. I bet you don't even know what real love is," the voice adds.
At very instant, a vision of the locket around his neck flashes into his mind, revealing itself also in the darkness behind him and answered by the voice's maniacal cackle.
"Oh, I find that amusing the one who first inserted the stiletto into your soul that so many have twisted is the very one you hide behind. The bitch that brought you to this hell to begin with and exorcised you from her life, when you were interfered with were her plans."
Suddenly, his breathing begins to get heavier as his muscles begin to twitch, as he seems to be desperately trying to keep his restraint.
"Sure, keep it all bottled up, that is all you ever do. You have been doing it for so long that it is screaming and begging so badly to come out that it will take any opportunity to do so," it argues.
"Is that why I lose control my body and do those things to those people?" he wonders, breaking his silence.
"Yes, you have known the truth all along to the point where your own subconscious decided to take the initiative for you," it replies.
"What, what initiative is that?" he very nervously and sheepishly asks.
"To end this world and everything in it, of course," it happily answers.

"Where am I?"
"Where in God's name am I?" says Maureen's voice for an abyss of darkness. The rapid movement of footsteps towards her and the sound of scattering debris quickly answer her cry. Finally, after a few long seconds, the blue light of moon seeps in, as do four male silhouettes. The four men quickly pull out four identical pistols out of shoulder holsters on their individual left sides and point them at her with red laser beams coming from the top of the shafts, petrifying her in terror. The style of the guns resembles that of a lot of products that she has seen in the commercials by S.L.A.P. Corp., a very boxy look with curved corners.
"Nothing here," one of them growls and they disperse.
Surprising relieved, she slowly moves her right arm to not arouse suspicion out of the rubble that is covering her of the neck down and when she feels that it is free, she twist her head and an extreme sense of shock rushes through her when she sees that it is not there. To add to her dismay, she sees nothing but a small cave in the pile of rubble in the shape of the rest of body where it's supposed to be. Her frantic mind desperately tries to come up with an answer for her current state. Did the explosion kill her and now she is stuck on this worldly plane until her death is avenged? Will she be force to poses the bodies of the living while at the same time causing their flesh to rot until they become a hideous zombie-like mass? Suddenly, she is also reminded that she has got to stop watching those late night "B" science fiction movies on TV. Her real life is weird enough. There has to be a logical explanation for it and it may have something to do with her new found abilities. If she were really a ghost, would she be able to feel and interact with everything around her, but then again, how many dead people has she ever gotten the chance to ask how it is like? While silently pondering, she stealthily creeps out of the pile that is covering her and up to her feet.
When standing upright, she finally gets to see the scale of the damage caused by the explosion. The scene looks like a destroyed sand castle that two children threw a tantrum over with piles of smoldering, flaming and pulverized debris that vary in size scattered everywhere that go as far as across the street as she once again starts questioning her own mortality. What strikes her as the most troubling is what is missing from this picture is the van that was parked in front is missing as is the severed body that was on the lawn with no trace of blood anywhere except for the spot it laid. Also, she can no longer sense the presence of the boy at all. It is as if someone has hidden him from her or maybe he has a way of hiding himself, only being felt when he wants to be. The reason for doing either is still unclear to her. Still, what gets her ire the most is that, besides herself and the four suspicious gentlemen, there is no one else here. There are no fire fighters to put out the flames, no ambulances to care for the possible wounded, no police to keep the peace and not even a crowd of people gawking. It confirms a disgusting feeling in her stomach that someone set this whole thing up and they were getting away with it. Judging by the weapons that all four men carried, she could take a good guess of who they are.
As she begins pay close attention to the rummaging activities of the four, another one comes running from across the street, heading right for her. He keeps running until he reaches her position and violently falls backwards on to the ground as if he had just ran into a brick wall. Stunned, he limply reaches his arm out to find a center of balance with her right leg. Intense discomfort paralyzes her body as she can feel his hands slowly climbing up her torso, his eyes facing still looking at the ground. Until finally, he reaches his feel with his left hand firmly grasping her right breast as he lifts his head to see her materializing before him. A great look of utter shock radiates from his face as a very uneasy one is plastered on hers. He takes a look at where his hand is as a smile begins to crack through his face. She responds by whispering the words "pervert" and swiftly administers a swift, paralyzing knee to his groin, causing his rectal region and his feet to briefly take flight two feet off the grown as does all the coloration leave from his face, his eyes rolling to the back of his head. The impact sounds to her like a small boxer's speed bag being torn off if it's mounting but to the other four men it sounds more like a thousand walnuts being cracked opened in unison. After he lands back on the ground, the others pause for a second in disbelief and uniformly take a big step back before they draw their weapons.
"Who the hell," one of them whines, but coughs as he tries to regain some bass in his voice, "Who are you?"
She begins to utter a response, but a familiar looking blue sedan with a glowing police light on the dash board drives up to the curb with her father and his partner jumping out, their own weapons drawn.
"This is the NSPD, nobody move," Joe announce as a low subtle groan can be heard from the ground, "Drop your weapons!"
The four men comply and place their pieces on the grass.
"And take two steps back," John calmly adds and once again they follow the order, "Now, will someone tell me how this building got spread all over God's creation and why you decided to draw you weapons at this lovely young lady."
"You see officer we were just walking home when we saw this building blow up and we ran over to see if we could help any survivors," one of the replies.
"Well you sure have a funny way of helping them or maybe you were "helping" yourselves to something else and that is your friend here is in his current condition," Joe chuckles as he looks down at the still writhing person on the ground, "And these pieces look a little fancy for just a bunch of fine, upstanding gentlemen just walking home even in this neighborhood. I think you gentlemen should come downtown with us and as for you, miss?"
"Mmm, White," she says as the begins to look herself over, "Lightning, my name is White Lightning," as John looks downward and places his right hand over his eyes, shaking his head.
Joe smirks as he asks, "Okay, White Lightning, what's a nice looking girl in such an interesting outfit doing in a place like this?"
She lets out a sigh and the calmly tells tell tale about the events that transpired at this place from the time of her arrival with striking detail from the damaged van to the dead bodied. Joe keeps a cool almost uninterested face until she gets to the part about describing the boy and then he begins to look more focused, almost angry. He breaks into her tale by saying, "The way you described him sounds a lot like the way you are dress right now. Care to explain that?"
"I really can't explain. I guess it's just a coincidence," she answers.
"A coincidence, huh, listen, honey, I don't believe in coincidences. You really expect us to believe that two weirdoes in almost matching outfit in the scene of a crime like this is merely by chance. You know what I think, that underneath that mask there's a fractured psyche that was getting enough excitement out of life walking the streets so she decided to get it some "real" excitement out of human flesh for whatever fucked up things happened in her childhood, that's what I think."
A look of total shock and betrayal beams out of her as her face desperately tries to hold back the tears and her body fights the urge to run away as her father looks extremely tempted to turn his Smith and Wesson on his partner as the sounds of snickering can be heard amongst the other four.
"Yah know, I wonder what IA would think of your little tantrum," John dry replies with an angry look on his face.
"What?" his partner says as he turns to him with a confused look on his face.
Before John can give him an answer a fleet of five very familiar looking black vans pull up and come to an abrupt stop behind their own sedan. The side sliding doors of each opens and five teams of four men and women dressed in yellow radiation suits come running out of each.
"Officer Smitherson and Drowsner?" one of them says as he run up to them.
"Yes," they both answer as they turn to him.
"We are from the SLAP Corp's radiation decontamination section. We have reason to believe that one of our top-secret new weapons may have been stolen and discharged several minutes ago at this very location, releasing a considerably high amount of radiation. Would you please come with us for inspection and decontamination?" he informs them.
"Listen, this is a crime scene and people have been killed here! We can't let you in here until our precinct finished investigating!" Joe snaps back.
"We are merely testing for radiation that is all and we will not move a single item. Your precinct has already agree to let us do it," he rebuttals, sounding as smooth as a used car salesman.
"Can we please see some credentials?" John asks.
The man opens a small Velcro flap on his suit to reveal his SLAP photo identification ands then closes it.
"Now please come with me so we can begin the testing and possibly decontaminate you. You are going to have to come with us too, miss? Where did she go?" he answers, smiling with a Cheshire-like grin as he turns to White Lightning, but she has vanished.

"Why do they do it?"
"They do it because they can. It's as simple as that."
"Then why do they choose to treat people like disposable waste."
"Because it makes them feel powerful. With the more power given then the more freedom to make the rest feel as though they have less. As they say, my boy, absolute power corrupts absolutely."

"What fools these mortals be."
"Its so simple to win a simple game when you own all the cards," Gerald Walker gloats, sitting in a black limousine parked parallel two blocks away from the demolished building as he watched his people rummage through the debris.
"Sir, I don't understand why we are here in a place like this when you have your dinner guest still waiting for you at your estate," his personal assistant nervously wonders.
"We are here because that girl represents the single greatest threat to my hold this burg and that is the unknown. If those idiots in the lab are correct then she and her counterpart could control the fate of this city if not this entire world with flick of their wrists and that puts me in a position for a man of my stature that is un acceptable. I refuse to have anything but omni potency. I could drop a nuclear warhead right in the middle of downtown and no one would know about or react to it until the dust had long since settled and I plan to keep it that way. As for my so-called "guest" our honorable mayor and Mr. James Thomas of Thomas Industries, they are merely fodder compared to me. The mayor knows better than to bite the hand that feeds him and I highly doubt he would have gotten into power if we didn't inform the public about his electoral opponent's little "habit". As for Thomas, that fool hasn't been the same since the loss of his child and his divorce. Ever since then, he has been a shell of his former self," his employer proclaims as he signals the driver to move.
"Do you think that these two could be the next step in the genetically altered specimens that have been cropping up over the last thirty years?" the assistant asks.
Walker violently turns to her as if she had just struck a nerve with that last comment, but he quickly returns back to his solid poker face and replies "Whatever that cause their enhanced abilities, they are far too dangerous to me to live and must be destroyed at all cost."
"Jeez, it's a shame we can't figure out a way to harness that kind of power and use it for ourselves," she wonders as he looks back towards his window.
"Yes, it would be a shame," he quietly whispers as a devilish grin grows on his face.

"How can you say that people can be nothing? They exist. Don't they?"
"You say it as if existence is a given."
"It's not?"
"Existence is never constant. It's has to reaffirmed from day to day. If they are not allowed to reaffirm their place, then what are they?"
"Why don't I just come out and say it?"

"Why don't I just tell him who White Lightning is?" John thinks to himself as he drives home with his partner, riding shotgun, as a hostile hush has ruled the car ever since they were "escorted" back to their precinct by a bunch of goons in suits after taking the so-called "tests" that came back negative. Now forced to give Joe a ride how home after they took his for "further testing", the two seem to be locked in their own thoughts as slowly oscillating street lights occasionally flow into the darkened car. John is still angry over the comments Joe made towards his young daughter and hasn't even apologized once for stepping out of line, but then again how could he know who she is when no one had told him, leading him to he current thought. Should he tell him? It's not a question of trust in him keeping it a secret as for he always seen him as a brother; it's really a question of how he will react, as for he has been absorbed by this case far too much and finding out that a girl in similar garb to the prime suspect is your partner's daughter might throw him over the deep end and destroy their friendship. So, there they sit in total silence and when he drops him off to his home, the two nod at each other and wave, as he exists the car.
When he arrives home, the house is completely blackened and silent, as Helen has already gone to bed. Jacky is either also in bed or once again staying out way past her curfew. Still, when he reaches the top of the stairs he can hear her tossing and turning in her sleep from her room, which isn't uncommon for her, as he quietly smiles in relief. He walks up Maureen's door and softly taps it with his right index knuckle as the words "come in" are heard from the room. He walks in to find her sitting on the large box next to her window, aimlessly looking out it with a very strained look on her face and sitting with her arms wrapped around her bent knees in front of her.
"It seems you to have had a wild night," he jokes as to lighten her up, but her expression doesn't change, "Did you any other interesting encounters?"
"I helped a lady back into her car," she replies, sounding very melancholy.
"What exactly drove you to go to that site anyway?" he asks.
Before she answers, she moves the hand with ring that started this whole mess in view and says as tears roll down her cheek, "I, I don't know."
He tilts his head down to soak in a thought and let out a sigh as he says, " Sorry for what Joe said back there. He didn't mean it."
"I know," she distantly answers in defeating manner.
An awkward silence fills the air as she endlessly stares at the ring.
"Where did you get that?" he asks.
"Tommy gave it to me. Nice, isn't it," she says as she gets choked up, ", but it won't come off and ever since" She gets too flustered to finish.
"Maybe you and your mother can have the arm x-rayed to find out why it won't come off and maybe we can get some answers to the situation," he urges as another silence follows.
"Do you think she will let me go to school tomorrow?" she wonder, a slight smile grows on her face.
"God, I hope so. I think she is running out of names for illnesses," he smiles, backing out of her door, "Good night."

"So boy, have you come to a decision, yet."
"No"
"Well, incase you needed more convincing. Let's take a trip down memory lane, shall we."
"Please don't."
"It was the first family their so-called system placed you with wasn't it. Yes, for the first couple of years it was total happiness with just the three of you, but then it happened, right."
"Please, I'm begging you."
"He lost his job from that same company those four unfortunate souls who ran in to you worked for."

A young man in his thirties sits on the couch blankly stares at the TV screen as he taps the remote to change the channels as he doesn't appear to be watching anything in particular and is sifting through them. Sitting in front of him, his five-year old adopted son, Greg, sits fully immersed in the toy action that he is playing with without a care in the world. His wife is in the kitchen, preparing dinner. For the last several months, that is all he has been doing is sitting here in this same damned spot. He's tried calling work to get his job back, but they never answer his calls. He tried to get work elsewhere, but the moment they hear his name they break contact, leaving to him to be a useless pile of flesh only good for sitting on a couch. The only thing he remembers on the last day at work is seeing an explosion coming from a lab across from where he was setting equipment in another one. He ran to see what was the matter and saw a room full of mangled bodies, littered with black marks and blood. After that, security grabbed and escorted him out of the building. Now, all he can do is just sit there with the memories of that night tormenting his mind. Why won't they call me back? I am good worker, why can't I find good work? Questions like that begin to fester unendingly in his mind as he mindlessly stares off into space. Why? Why? WHY? Suddenly, this word is the only one that sticks in his mind, pounding and pulsating in his brain. The blank stare slowly gets distorted into a twisted sadistic and maniacal grin as he turns his attention to the small child in front of him. He launches himself from the couch at the boy, tackling him with his hands his throat. His violently begins to shake him, pounding his upper torso on the carpet, as a primal cry comes screaming out of his lungs. His wife races over to get him off the boy as she jumps on his back. He releases his hold and rises to his feet, slamming her against an adjacent wall. Somehow, Greg's surprisingly conscious body limply stands up as he gasps for air and slowly marches to the front door as he can hear the sound of flesh hitting flesh. He inches closer as the door as sound of flying objects and screaming fill the room. He gets within arms reach of the door when his terrified adopted mother pushes him to the ground and runs out the door. He tries in vain to reach for the door as it closed on him and a large shadow from behind begins to loom over him.
Moments later after the chaos finally settles, Greg opens his now blacked eyes, blood dripping out of the side of his mouth and lying helpless on his back, to see is adopted father sitting down across from him with tears flowing out of his eyes and the end of a double-barreled shotgun in his mouth and all the boy could do is feebly watch as the man pulls the trigger, causing a loud noise and the contents of the inside his head to fly into the air.

"Now, you see boy. You've known the answer all along haven't you? I would give you more reasons, but as I can see, that is no longer needed."

In the sea of darkness, the cowering boy is now gone. He is now standing up and dressed in the red costume with the very same evil look his adopted father had many years ago.
"This world shall be damned," he proclaims, as the sound the unknown voice bellowing a demented laugh can be heard echoing in the distance.

As their chronicle continues.............