Swallow

# Swallow

In a dark room, chained to a heavy bed's leg and handcuffed, Eli sat down in dismay. Things had changed too quickly. He never imagined that slave trade had begun again!

"All that news about peace was just a facade!" Eli grumbled as he realized one thing. "Our civilization was based on the notion that the strength of an individual human did not differ by a whole lot, but now with the rise of trans-humans you have people who can act as individual weapons of mass destruction! The dynamics of the world have shifted drastically... it is a world ruled by the strong."

After much consternation, Eli sighed. He had to find a way to escape, but he realized that the cuffs were too tight. He could barely wiggle his wrists without grating it agains't the cold metal of the handcuffs.

"I don't know when those two people will return. I need to find a way to escape before they return..." Eli thought to himself as he grit his teeth.

It was then that he remembered what the two were talking about. Fruits which turned humans into trans-humans. Eli's eyes suddenly began glowing brightly.

He used his legs to pull his bag which had been left by the russians and struggled to unzip the main compartment using his toes. After struggling to remove his socks he finally managed to use his feet to open the bag and dragged out a small sphere wrapped in a white cloth.

After much twisting and turning and bumping his head on a plank of wood, Eli finally managed to grasp the fruit in his chained hands. The fruit was charcoal black and had a flowery protrusion on top just like a pomegranate.

Eli hesitated for he had suspicions that the fruit might be poisonous. After all, black fruits were rarely harmless in nature. Color was a sort of evolutionary warning.

"I will rather die of poisoning than become a slave!" Eli grit his teeth, and then bit a chunk out of the black fruit.

To Eli's shock, the fruit cracked open like a wafer and hundreds of tiny gel like seeds which shined like miniature glossy diamonds tumbled desperately into his mouth. Within seconds the fruit was emptied and the black peel disintegrated into dust and disappeared.

The small gel like pearls were cool in his mouth and immediately dissolved and slid down his throat, disappearing away. Eli felt a cool feeling emerge from his stomach, quickly spreading all over his body.

Suddenly Eli's heart beat turned arrhythmic and he felt a severe pain from his chest and head as his eyes bulged. At the same time Eli breathed out a chilly white smoke as his entire body began shivering and his vision turned hazy, before completely turning black.

When Eli woke up, he found that the temperature of the room was very hot and he was sweating heavily. His vision had returned and when he looked around, he found that the room was filled with a icy mist, with small ice droplets crystallizing all over the bed, the floor and the walls.

After a brief moment of mental haze, clarity reawakened within him and he looked at his body to find that there was no change at all. In front of him, two russians were standing with grim looks, staring at him.

"Has he awakened any ability?" One of them asked.

"No signs of anything, Vlad." Igor answered. "Yet the entire room is extremely cold, but this yankee has a heavy fever."

"Is a trans-human interfering?" The man referred to as Vlad asked with a slight fear in his eyes. "This kind of temperature drop here in the tropics is ridiculous."

Igor turned towards Eli with a serious look. "You better not mess around! If you take a wrong move, I will kill you!" He then turned towards Vlad, nodded and took out his gun before rushing out of the room.

Vlad stood inside the room and closed the door, keeping a close eye on Eli. Eli couldn't care less about these two people right now. He could feel that his body was going through some kind of metamorphosis.

His body was feverish, and his heart pulsating. He was sweating heavily and his breathing had turned erratic. Then without warning, everything shut down. A fearful thought emerged in his mind during his last glimpses of consciousness.

"Was I really poisoned by that damned fruit?" His last vestiges of thought wondered in dismay before everything turned blank.

Vlad saw the captive suddenly slump to the ground. Shocked, he walked towards Eli and touched his neck to check a pulse, only to find his body to be extremely cold, like he had been dead for a long while.

"бычить! He's dead!" Vlad grumbled with grit teeth. "Did the trans-human kill him as a warning?"

Vlad looked around in hesitation and wariness. He quickly called his partner back to the room.

"What happened?" Igor asked as he rushed back into the room panting.

"The yankee is dead!" Vlad said with a cold look. "He just slumped to death! This must be the work of a trans-human!"

Igor's face turned pale. The two were strong and had weapons, but against such a trans-human who could attack in such a mysterious manner while hiding in the shadows, they were powerless. Igor walked up to Eli's slumped, cold body and felt the coldness of death and shivered.

"We need to leave! Now!" Igor yelled as he picked up his belongings and quickly rushed out of the room, with Vlad following behind him with an equally hurried pair of footsteps.