OVERMEN IN THE SHADOWS

PROLOGUE “Don’t try to fight it” the man in the gas mask said as his eyes darted round the chained woman. “Pain, fear, agony…is inevitable” he continued, pressing his fingers into the woman’s wounds to reopen them. Turning his eyes briefly from the woman, he looked to his side; there was a burnt man in what appeared to be a freezer absorbing the gas that hovered over the vacuum space. “It is the very essence of nature and life” the man said, returning to the woman as she stared at him, trying to figure out the monster that hid in the mask. She was bloodied all over, sweating and panting as blood flowed through her wounds, making her efforts to keep a keen focus on the man futile. She looked to her right, the direction that was the source of illumination in the room. It was some big container made of translucent glass that shone voluminous light; blinding to the sight and perspiring to the skin. Inside it was a boy; his skin the very color of the light. If one didn’t know, he would be mistaken to think the boy was the source of the light. But reverse was the case as he was rather a victim to the light. The more the light peered through him, the more his skin bleached, taking the color of the light. “It brings out the best in us” the man in the gas mask continued; gently and softly as he watched tears roll out from the woman’s cheeks. He turned to look at his work desk to see blood splattered all over his tools; particularly the sharp ones. He looked at the woman again and then the others that were chained and hanging in the air. Some were dead with blood still oozing out of their wounded body; and others, burnt beyond recognition and hanging lifelessly in the air, waiting to be buried. Out of them, was one body that was fast decomposing unlike any dead body before, and to its right, a woman burning in flames while hanging. The man in the gas mask turned his eyes from her and to the woman in front of him. He picked up his flame thrower, lighting it up distances from the woman. “…we only get to live when we feel pain and agony…we only get to adapt when we fear it coming for us all over again,” the man said, taking the flame thrower together with its flames closer to the woman. He paused to admire the color of it; blue, he smiled. The woman panting as she watched the heat and flames head for her, hung stiff in the air with her cuts and bruises. Below her was an obese woman, probably in her mid-thirties, strapped to a table with iron chains, begging not for the woman who was about being burnt alive but herself. Upon where she laid, was a machine rolling and jabbing the chains at her muscles as it continually pulled at her hinges. It was as if the machine was aiming at stretching her muscles. The man in the gas mask paid no heed to her cries though. Instead, he continued talking. “Only then can we become better,” he said. “Only then can we realize what we are capable of” the man added, taking the flame thrower closer and closer to the woman who hung in the air at his mercy. Her skin already covered in blood, continued reddening. She looked to her leftward axis to see the body that had been fast decomposing, completely crumble to dust. Perhaps her body would do the same, she hoped, closing her eyes as the flames met her skin. The woman had almost leapt out screaming but couldn’t as no sound made its way forward. Her throat apparently had been burnt beforehand; something made evident by her cut off tongue. “…our hidden potentials unlocked because of pain, agony and fear” the man in the gas mask said, taking the flame thrower from the woman’s skin to see the spot for which he torched, melt. He launched the flame thrower at the woman again, but this time to her face. The man had almost fired the flames straight at her left eye only to in time, swing and aim at her red hair. The woman’s eyes widened spontaneously to catch the name tag on the man’s lab coat; ‘Dr. T Nolan’ it read. As her hair burnt, so did the woman glisten her eyes on the man’s name; panting and sweating as she hung stiff. Much could not be said for an old man who found himself nailed to a pavement meters from the woman; battered and bloodied with holes in his skin while being exposed to a great deal of nitrogen gas. Instead of freezing up, his wounds in the most excruciating way possible, healed up as the gas found its way into his body. Few meters from him again, stood a glass tank; this one much bigger than the others. In it, was a teenage girl, kept company by different breeds of snake, who rather than keep calm, kept coming for her. The girl’s skin was already covered in blood and cuts but the snakes weren’t satisfied. Slowly, they came for her while she struggled. Then out from among them, rose the very largest; a python. At first, it stood still, but when the girl made a second attempt at movement, launched itself at her. It stretched its skin round her body, allowing its comrades to feed on her. As their fangs struck at her and their venoms penetrated her skin, so did her facial muscles wrinkle and turn green. Her eyes soon joined in the greenish coloration when she eventually let out her loudest yell. “You are right to feel and fear it. It’s what makes us human…coming out of it however, is what makes us different,” the man in the gas mask said, finally taking the flame thrower and its flames to the most sensational part of the woman’s body.