Hero Super

Cold and wet.

Not exactly the premium otherworld experience Calvin was hoping for, but nonetheless he was somewhere new. Somewhere that wasn‘t at the precipice of the end of civilization as they knew it. At least he hoped so.

His eyes darted around confusedly, trying to understand his situation.

In his perspective, it was a blink of an eye between when he pressed the holographic ‘yes’ in his hospital room and suddenly being aware that he was suspended in some sort of gooey green semi-transparent liquid. Less snot, more syrupy Mountain Dew. But still, snot-adjacent.

“Blub—” He started to curse, which was evidently not the smartest decision to make given his current state of being underwater. Or undersnot.

‘Fuck!’ He cursed using his inner voice instead. ‘Fuck fuck fuck!’

He panickedly tried swimming upwards, hitting his head on whatever metal lid was preventing his escape. Another slew of curses shouted with his inner voice as he rubbed the top of his head while looking around for another way out.

As far as he could tell he was in some sort of cylinder, metal lids top and bottom with glass surrounding him and the green liquid that was currently on a mission to drown him. Attached to his limbs were some wires, thin and nearly transparent, connecting him to some port on the top lid.

Of course his first instinct was to pull them out.

“Blub!” He screamed as an instant but searing pain came and went through his body. Although it only lasted for a second, he still shriveled from the echoes of the pain. And from his stupidity. ‘Not your smartest moment, Calvin.’

He shook his head and refocused, trying to ignore the pain. ‘What can I— Wait! Glass! Maybe I can—’

Balling his fist, he pulled back his arm as far as the glass tube would let him. He calmed his heart, glaring at his target with desperate eyes.

Just one punch, one explosive punch against fragile glass.

“Blublublublub!” He screamed as he pushed against the water as hard as he could, his muscles contracting as he put as much of his body towards the blow.

Thunk.

Unfortunately, he lacked critical information.

One, he was working off of information from cheesy action flicks and phony internet skits. Now wasn‘t the best time to learn that glass didn‘t work the way it did in movies— in that it wasn‘t made of sugar.

And two, he‘s pretty goddamn weak. Similarly not the best time to find that out.

‘Fuck!’ He started panicking once again, now slapping against the glass.

With force not working and oxygen running out, he turned to grab and paw at anything he could. In his frantic wailing around inside the liquid, his arms snagged the wires he pulled out earlier. A gentle tug was all it took for them to be disconnected from the lid above.

A loud and sharp beep caught his attention. Red light flashed from outside as a digital display suddenly appeared on one part of the glass.

detcennocsiD tcejbuS

doP gninepO

75:1

He couldn‘t read it instantly with all the panic juices churning in his mind right now, but he could still recognize the timer counting down. Whether or not it was counting down to draining the water or opening the lid didn‘t matter; he was seconds away from gulping whatever the green liquid was into his lungs.

‘Shit… I need air. Fucking glass!’ He started punching the glass again, his vision slowly darkening. ‘Breathe— I need to breathe!’

Feeling too faint to fight it, his lungs expanded by itself to let in the green liquid. He clawed at his chest as a burning feeling came from liquid introducing itself down the wrong pipe.

‘Fuck— it hurts— it— hurts?’ He paused, realizing it didn‘t, in fact, hurt at all. “Blub?”

He breathed out, the feeling of water rushing out from his lungs was odd but not painful. The earlier feeling of nausea was now gone, replaced with a refreshing feeling of being alive and having breathed.

‘This is weird…’ He kept breathing in and out, tasting the cool and refreshing liquid as it passed in and out his mouth. ‘And kinda salty.’

He looked back to the timer, now finally able to decode it without the panic of drowning. ‘Opening pod. Guess it was going to free me from whatever this is. In around a minute.’

‘Wait—’, A thought came to him as he kept breathing in the liquid. He quickly looked down at his body, a bubble of relief escaping his lips as he realized the human limbs he still had. They were small and thin, but still human.

Naked, yes, but human. And a boy.

‘Not a fish. That‘s good, I guess. Does stop me from possibly becoming Aquaman, but no one likes Aquaman. How can I breathe then? Is it this weird water?’ He waved his hand, feeling the slight goopiness of the green water as it resisted his movements. ‘Magic water. Or maybe sci-fi water. Or both.’

A familiar beep rang from above, followed by the display on the glass disappearing with a fizz. The pod shook and trembled, making Calvin wary for a moment before an unseen door in the glass slid to the side, releasing both Calvin and the green liquid.

Not expecting the pod to just open like that, he was swept out like a turd floating through a canal filled with green miracle water. He tripped and rolled, hitting the back of his head on something metallic as he slid to a stop.

“W— bleg—”, his next attempt to curse ended up with him vomiting out the green water from his lungs.

After coughing out the last dregs of the green liquid, he laid tired on the wet ground, finally breathing proper air.

“Fuck.” He finally cursed out loud. “What the hell. Another world my fucking ass. I‘m wet. I‘m cold. And I smell like piss. What a goddamn scam.”

He breathed deeply, taking a moment’s rest to collect and calm himself from the anxiety of his unusual situation. He stood up, jiggling like a jellyfish. His knees felt like soft-boiled eggs as he tried to support his terribly malnourished body over a slippery and smooth tiled floor.

“Okay— uh, new environment. Calm down. You watched a lot of survival videos. You got this.” He pepped himself up before assessing his surroundings.

“Holy fuck…” He blurted out.

Around him were four more pods similar to the one he just escaped from. Inside each one was a person, a pre-teen or people that are vertically-challenged, floating like he was inside the breathable liquid.

Like him, each of their five limbs, chest, and neck was plugged with wires, running up towards connectors at the top of the pod. Unlike him, they were all pretty dead. Not just dead-ish, like ‘very-deep-comatose’ dead. But proper dead, like ‘flesh-is-starting-to-rot-and-atrophy’ dead.

“Evil lab. Great.” He muttered glancing at the science-y equipment in the room. He knew how hospital equipment looked, and these were most definitely hospital stuff. Except without the beeps and boops. And more evil.

Calvin pried his attention away and turned back to the nearest pod. Curiosity taking over, he walked up to the nearest one due to the big red button on a pedestal in front of it. There was no warning sign. No radiation symbol. No poison, explosion, demolition, or pedestrian crossing symbol.

‘You can’t just put a big red button and not expect anyone not to press it.’ He thought, pressing it.

A display screen appeared on the glass just like the countdown earlier. On it was information he assumed to be about the kid inside. “Subject 23. Cute name. What’s this— Essence status… extracted? What the hell is essence?”

Curiosity satisfied, he shook his head and flipped the switch in his brain from misplaced curiosity to desperate escape.

His eyes started darting around the room, looking for the closest thing that resembled an exit. “Where is the exit— huh, there it is.”

Luckily, on the other side of the classroom-sized evil laboratory was a red door with a sign on top saying ‘exit’. There was also a symbol of fragile equipment by the side, but that seemed less important. “I guess evil labs still have to comply with building regulations.”

He crouch-walked over to the exit, doing his best to imitate stealth games he used to play. Not like it would realistically help, but he felt safer doing it.

Reaching the door, he tried peeking through the keyhole on the door knob, similar to those games. Unfortunately, it was one of those door knobs that was more of a handle than a knob, which meant there’s no hole to put a key through nor to peek through.

He coughed, his cheeks slightly reddening before going for the next best thing. He opened the door the tiniest bit and peeked through the gap.

Calvin winced as a fairly loud creak rang out from his trying to be quiet, but kept going until the gap was wide enough to see though. ‘Fucking oil your hinges evil scientists.’

At the other side of the door was an eerie and empty hallway, like one of the ones in the underground floors of a hospital. It was surgically clean, no chairs nor any decorations. Just doors on the walls, lights on ceiling, and tiles on the floor.

‘Evil and creepy lab.’ He thought.

Swinging the door fully, he went through and into the hallway, still crouch-walking and sticking to the walls in case someone came. Not that there was anything to hide behind.

‘Not even a goddamn potted plant? Or a bench? Really?’ He sent curses to whoever the ‘minimalist’ interior designer was hired by the the evil scientist to decorate the place.

He continued through, noticing writing on some metal plates near the doors.

‘Subjects 16–20. Subjects 11–15.’ He read the plaques as he went by. ‘Was I the 24th? What evil experiments were they doi— shit!’

He stopped in his tracks, hearing faint footsteps as he neared the end of the hallway.

It was lazy and unhurried, the footsteps of a bored guard doing the rounds during night duty. He could practically hear their slouch as the steps grew closer. But right now, to Calvin’s hiding ears, they were practically war drums.

As quiet as he could, he opened the nearest door and snuck in with a dash, trying to ignore the fact that the footsteps were almost at the corner just as the door closed.

Calvin sat behind the door, hand over his mouth to hold back various colorful words to describe the pounding in his heart. He leaned his ear close, to see if he could hear them walk past so he could sneak away.

‘Fuck.’ As was his lucky streak so far, the footsteps stopped at the other side of his hiding place.

“Goddamn.” He heard the man groan. “Hey, you said the sensors tripped in the creepy corridor?”

‘Sensors? Fuck. Who‘s he talking to? A radio?’ Calvin did his best to listen in.

“Yeah, I‘m here. There‘s no one here as usual. It‘s probably just another glitch. It‘s always a glitch, you know? They’re so goddamn cheap that—” The man spoke, tapping his shoes in annoyance. “Fine, I‘ll check. Fucking square…”

Calvin‘s blood ran cold. He quickly looked around the room to find a hiding spot.

The room looked to be a storage room, with empty shelves lining the walls and an island-style table in the middle with items on top. Seeing as it was the only place to hide, he dashed as quickly as he could and slid behind the table.

The knob clicked and the door opened just as he reached the hiding spot. “Check each room, yeah sure. Okay, checked. Empty, like every fucking room in this creepy-ass place. Job done.”

The door closed again with a click, the guard‘s footsteps clacking as he moved on back to his rounds. Calvin released the breath he was holding and slumped down. ‘Hurray for chronic human laziness.’

He stood up before quickly crouching down as he heard the door knob click once more.

The door opened. “—essences? Look, I just checked that room— there I see them. All two of them. We good?”

And closed again.

He waited for the guard‘s footsteps to fade fully this time before breathing out. ‘Fuck, I need to get out of here.’

He peeked over the table first to see if the door‘s open before standing up. His attention was grabbed by the curious objects on the table. Two metal cylinders with numbers on it, namely 11B and 21A.

“They look important. Yoink.”

With no hesitation, he grabbed both then froze as something else grabbed his attention.

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