C 19. My Ability

With God blessing, I return to the land of the living from the coma. But deep down I believe I have been somewhere, but I can't remember.

I sighed. At least I have my ability in that red room despite the witch's aim was to harvest my liquid ability.

But here in this facility, I spent two months with no clear head. And the time they stopped drugging me, I ran out of juice.

I changed my sleeping posture and thought if I did not run out of juice I might have escaped by now. But if I did, they might have known what my other ability is.

The fluid. My mysterious invisible fluid is not activating, the reason is unknown to me. No, it's more like I'm disconnected from the fluid.

The doctors are busy researching what my ability is. Now that I think about it, they somehow knew I might have two abilities.

My eyes are apparent now, but they are still looking for something else. Maybe there are things that I did not know.

I rub my right hand fingers together. The liquid only appears on my right hand from the wrist towards the fingertips.

Perhaps I should be open to them. Maybe we can help each other. They get to learn what they want and on the other hand, I understand the liquid more.

Ho Ho, I can't. The Boss said, 'Under no circumstances should I cooperate with any people in researching my ability, except if it's in a dire situation.

There were a lot of terms that were given to the fluid, but we just settled with Displacement Fluid, which is the name it was given.

In one of our conversations, my father said that my ability is more than I imagined. And if care is not taken, I will be hunted by every power in the world.

All this thinking has got me feeling sleepy. And within minutes I slipped through the confined darkness of oblivion, I hope to not have a nightmare again.

***

I slept for hours. When I worked up there was a message on the table. It says….

"Subject 3519. You have skipped lunch, in that regard Sector 7 will see you in the next 17 hours. Please refrain from eating and drinking anything.

Wow. A person in the second phase does have a bit of freedom. When I was in phase one, I will be left hungry until they request for me.

Some experiments require me to be on an empty stomach.

Sector 7 experiments revolve around blood, just blood. From what I heard from them and what I understood is the scientists there believe every secret of every human being can be found in their blood.

Peter once told me the sectors are arranged in numbers based on their confidentiality. From Sector 1, which is less secretive to sector nine, which has the highest confidentiality.

So this sector 7 is very secretive and their work on the blood is something groundbreaking that they rank it 7.

I washed and left the room. Other people are roaming about in the dormitory. Since I'm not acquainted with anyone I went out to explore this new section of the facility.

They called it sector 4. It's the sector where they trained us, ability users.

Damn!!! This place is enormous. It's like a small city. There is a stadium where every kind of sports game is played. Football and basketball are the most common, but I saw other games that are custom-made based on certain elemental abilities: water manipulation and fire.

They play it like an Avatar Legend of Korra game. Other games adjust to different abilities one has, as long as it's related to the body. Like special speed, strength, agility games.

There was another related to eyes. Indirectly all this is a way of training a person's ability.

But there is a building that has many people in a queue. After I asked around they said that the whole building is a stage game that reconstructs itself from the inside to suit any person with ability as long as it was registered with the facility.

The building is one of a kind that is capable of generating a stage to match any ability. True, some abilities are not conventional and hard to construct a suitable sports ground for them.

After I toured around I was sad. I did not find anyone I know. I was expecting to see Mharoni or Amina. But I did see so many playing around both girls and boys, young and old.

I return to my room when I'm tired. Skipping lunch makes me feel hungry. So I limit my movement to not tire myself out much. The fasting they are making me do is frustrating because I did not have a good breakfast.

***

I slept again, and I woke up hours later. I checked the time, another 7 hours before going to section 7.

Waiting is boring but when the time comes I feel nervous. A sudden knock on my door startled me. Opening the door I saw Elena standing in her white overall as per uniform.

"Good evening, Balarabe."

"Good evening, Ms. Elena."

"Your presence is requested." She beckoned for me to follow her. The walk is long but I was getting impatient. I want to get over this so that I will have something to eat. But the procedure is long and annoying.

The first door we reach to leave section 4. It takes some verification of me and Ms. Elena. And when we are in the neutral section, no problem. But getting to section 7 took us 2 hours of waiting.

One of the scientists must be there to test us using one of their futuristic devices before he escorts us in. And when we reach a certain point, Ms. Elina was left behind. While I follow the scientists.

Every door we reach he will use his ID card, iris and palm on the scanner before it opens.

"We are creating history in this place. Among ten thousand subjects, only about seven thousand were confirmed to have the ability, that was almost 30% of ability users in the world."

"Amazing," I said. He stopped abruptly and stared at me. "Was I thinking out loud?"