1

My life had been the same as long as I could remember; the same four white walls of my room, decorated with old posters and drawings in an attempt to make the space less clinical. Every day had the same routine. Wake up, breakfast with the others, training, lunch, more training, then dinner and lights out. It was all I'd ever known, and still I longed for more.

I laid in bed, staring up at the ceiling. It was still early, maybe 4am, so the lights weren't on yet. Today would be like every other, and the lights would come on in a few hours to get up. All I wished was for something new to happen, something exciting, but it never did.

After just laying there, the lights suddenly blinked on. Had I been thinking for that long?

The door beeped and slid open, and Amira, the scientist who was responsible for me, walked in. Amira was an older woman, who practically raised me. She was nice enough, not very nurturing though, and held her tablet with my vitals and such on it.

"Good morning, Dee. How did you sleep?" Amira asked, looking up at me.

"...fine." I mumbled, sitting up and smoothing my hair down a bit. It was a downside of having curly hair, it frizzed up in the mornings. I'd always wondered where I got it from, but the scientists didn't talk about who my parents were. Amira hummed and nodded, tapping on her tablet.

"Well, you know the drill. Get dressed and come down to the mess hall for breakfast. You have a long day of training ahead, and we have something big planned for you all." she said and I perked up. We never strayed from the normal schedule, so I was more than excited to find out what this 'big thing' was.

I dressed and joined the others in the mess hall for breakfast; toast and cereal. Jakob and Pepper were already at the table, and I could see Ben slowly walking into the hall.

"Hey." Jakob greeted me when I sat down.

"Hey, did you hear that something is going on later? Amira said it's something big." I asked and Pepper looked up at us, listening in.

"Yeah, Simon told me when I woke up. I think it has something to do with all the roaring last night." Jakob replied, but I gave him a confused look. Roaring? I hadn't heard anything all night, though Jakob's room was further East in the facility than mine.

"You didn't hear it? It was going on for hours, whatever it was, it sounded huge and angry." Jakob said, picking at his toast. Ben came and sat down with his tray, greeting us all. We exchanged a bit of small talk between us as we finished our breakfast, before the scientists walked over.

The lead researcher, a man we were told to call Mr Jones. He was the one who started the entire experiment, the one who caused all four of our births by artificially inseminating four women in the 90's.

"Hello, my children. Are we all ready for training today?" he asked, smiling down at us as we sat. We all simply responded with a "yes sir", excluding Pepper who was mute.

"Good, good. Okay then, Jakob, you'll be going with Melissa today, Ben will be with Peter. Pepper, you'll go with Nancy, and Dee will be going with Janine." Mr Jones said, reading off a list on his tablet. We all went off with our respective scientists to the testing rooms, same as every day.

Janine was one of the nicer ones, a younger woman with short red hair and tired eyes. She led me down a few halls to a small room with a desk and chairs. I sat on one side and she sat facing me, a machine on the table.

"Alright, Dee, I'm going to be trying a series of electrical shocks on you today, to see which you respond to the most." she said, sticking small pads to my arms that had wires to the machine attached. I nodded slowly, not particularly looking forward to it. Mr Jones had always told us this training was necessary to trigger our 'abilities' gifted to us from birth. He'd said I was to have superhuman strength and endurance, yet I didn't see it. I'd been 'training' for all my life, and now at 25, I was starting to doubt it would happen, but I knew better than to question the scientists.

The shocks started off small at first, like pin pricks, but slowly Janine turned the dial and they got harsher. Pin pricks turned to little jabs, then slowly to full on shocks. I started hissing in pain but was told to just endure it, that it would all be worth it when my body finally triggered itself.

It went on for hours, and by lunch I had multiple angry marks on my skin from where the shocks were. When I sat in the mess hall with the others, they looked as weary as me.

"They made me hold my breath for ages." Jakob grumbled, pushing his food around. His hair was still damp from his involuntary swim. Pepper was sniffling in her wheelchair, slowly nibbling on her crisps. I could see marks on her temples where they'd put patches, and assumed she'd been given some sort of mental training. Ben's arms were covered in spots and bites, probably from insects.

"Why do they even make us do this shit anymore?" he sighed, scratching his arms. I shrugged, mixing my soup. I wasn't that hungry right now, my body still shaking a bit from the shocks earlier.

When lunch ended, Mr Jones came over with the scientists again, smiling.

"Well, you four. We have new training for this afternoon, if you'll all follow me." he said, turning on his heel. Jakob pushed Pepper as we all followed him down the maze of hallways, and turned down a corridor we hadn't gone before. I glanced at Jakob and he gave me an equally confused look. Even Ben realised this wasn't the usual way we went for training, though he couldn't see.

We were led into a much bigger room, with what looked like a chamber inside though the window was blacked out. Mr Jones told us all to sit so he could explain.

"You're all much older now, and we've been trying for a while to trigger your abilities, as you all know. We've recently come into possession of... something very valuable, a weapon that nobody else has. This... weapon could be the missing piece we need to trigger those abilities of yours. This afternoon, we will be pushing you to the very limits to trigger them. Nancy, if you could?" he explained, then glanced at one of the scientists. She nodded and pressed something, and the window switched to see-through.

Inside was something... huge. I'd never seen anything like it, a monster. It sat in the corner, in the shadows but we could all see it was at least 7 feet tall, probably bigger, and looked very powerful.

"This will be your final test. This creature will either trigger your abilities... or it won't. Now, who's going first?" Mr Jones said, smiling. I felt sick, what happened if this didn't work? What was that thing going to do to us?

Just as I started trying to think of a plan, one of the scientists stepped forward and grabbed... Pepper.