My eyes shot open as I regained consciousness. In less than a second, I was standing up, staring at the bright white light that illuminated me in this little cubic cage. Cameras tracked my every move, and there were dents on the thick metal walls from my last act of consciousness. I placed my hand against one of these walls and chose to test my new powers.

I thought about something simple, a single-handed blade, one made of a far lighter metal than that which surrounded me. I brought a hand to the metal walls of my prison and imagined this blade appearing in my hand. It only took a single second before my desire became a reality. Before the metal of the walls warped, twisted, and took the form of a blade. I looked at the weapon, capturing my visage in its glimmering edge, before stabbing the weapon into the concrete beneath my feet, causing it to crack as the blade forced its way down. 

Abigale was right. I was not human. I was something more, something greater, and I couldn’t contain myself as I made this revelation. It was not a laugh that followed, but a cackle, a sinister noise that was far more unsettling than it was endearing. I looked up to the cameras on the high ceilings of this room. I placed my hand against the metal wall, created a golf ball-sized sphere from it, and flung it at a camera. The camera swiftly exploded, sending chunks of burning metal from the ceiling and causing a loud clunk to echo through the room. With one camera destroyed, I eliminated the remaining seven in a similar manner.

Once all surveillance equipment was destroyed, a scarlet mist began filling this room, likely a stronger substance than what put me down first. However, it would not be able to affect me quickly enough. I pressed a single hand against the thick metal door locking me into this prison, only for it to degrade into a pool of sand. I casually walked through the pile, the sand lodging itself into my bloodstained boots. I did not make it halfway down the hall before an alarm, expectedly, went off. It’s constant wailing and bright lights annoyed me, but, like any problem I faced from now, I could solve it with a single touch of my hand. 

I had the power to transform matter, to turn anything into anything else. Anything touching me, anything I was in contact with, whether it be solid, liquid, or gas, was mine to manipulate. With the only limitations being that of mass and my imagination. It was a process of the divine, a process that Abigale called Real Booting. Named as I was transmitting my thoughts into reality, booting them up into the real world by using pre-existing matter as a catalyst. 

“I truly am no longer human,” I thought as I turned the alarm before me into gravel. “I am Abigale Quinlan.”

As I took a minute for this revelation to sink in, I felt something penetrate my skin and rupture one of my organs. A hot chunk of metal that was fired by a female soldier, pointing an assault rifle at me. I guess she opened the door before I could. 

I winced as I felt the bullet penetrate my body, still recognizing its pain. Seconds later, the bullet was pushed out of my body, my skin reformed, and another hole was left in my bloodstained turquoise sweater. The woman, shocked, foolishly began shooting at me once more. I ran at her in response, taking a few bullets as I made my way to her body. The pain was distracting, but I was able to grab onto the woman, and shove her against a wall of this corridor.

I could hear a voice in the back of my head, one indistinguishable from my own, imploring me to relish in my power. To partake in the thrill of murder. To rip this woman to shreds. To bathe myself with her blood. I would be lying if I said I did not resonate with such malicious thoughts… but I had one thing on my mind. One goal I wished to pursue. I wanted to find those I loved, and… move from there. While I enjoyed these powers— while I was filled with a sense of palpable euphoria whenever I expressed my divine might— they mattered not next to my objective.

In the time I spent pontificating such things, a large group of soldiers rushed towards me. It would take seconds to dispatch them all— a single bomb to murder the lot of them in a fiery explosion… but I simply wanted to escape this base. I thought with my powers and looked at the concrete ground beneath me. I placed my hands on the floor and converted it into a thick gas that would obscure the vision of those searching for me. After forming a crater in the floor, I ran through the facility, destroying walls in my path as I moved at 50 kilometers an hour, searching for any way for me to ascend out of this underground base.

I leaped over the opposition, Real Booted gas bombs from the metal walls, and suffered enough bullet wounds for my sweater to crumble away into nothingness. I demolished turrets with explosive spheres and climbed elevator shafts while creating grips in the sleek metal walls. I destroyed millions of dollars of equipment and weapons. I tackled and assaulted those who got in my way. And I momentarily lost consciousness dozens of times as I fled out of this facility. 

Time had no meaning, I likely ran around in circles amiss the confusion, and I stopped wincing with every bullet wound I felt. My mind began to phase out the sounds of constant gunfire, explosions, and the wailing alarms, when I got an idea..

I focused on the ground and formed a massive pillar beneath my feet, one that shot me up to the tall ceiling, where I Real Booted the concrete, earth, and metal above me into an obscuring gas. The gunfire did not stop, and I continued to feel the metal penetrate my organs and crack my bones. It was harsh, I felt my consciousness flicker in and out, but I overcame this challenge.

Through sheer determination, I dug through several meters of dirt, and was met with the night’s sky. A vast sea of darkness with specks of white snow floating through the air. I jumped out of the underground, onto the surface, and immediately began to stare upwards, taking deep breaths to calm myself. I eventually stumbled back onto the concrete, slamming my head against it and breaking my skull. 

I did not care. I did not care that my clothes were destroyed by the onslaught of gunfire. I did not care that I was lying on frigid concrete. I did not care that my hair was sealed into bloody clumps. I cared that I got out, and survived through all the hurt and pain, through all the agony. It felt good. …The wailing of the alarm then brought me back to reality, and I realized that I still had a long way to go before I could relax. 

The above-ground portion of the military base was nowhere near as secure or populated as the underground. With no labyrinthine walls to impede my progress, escaping was simple. I dashed to one end of the base and leaped over the 3-meter-tall fence with relative ease. I could not help but smile as I landed on the other side, planting my feet into a vast field of snow. As I looked onward however, I saw lights in the distance. Lights from helicopters patrolling the air and of vehicles shredding through the snow. I was out of the base, but I had not truly escaped…

I needed to move without being seen, and the most obvious way to do so was through the thick sheet of snow that went up to my waist. While I was immune to the cold, I needed some basic camouflage, as my dark skin tone clashed with the sea of white all around me. My mind immediately went back to the bear coat I wore for those two days. The coat I made from the remains of the bear I murdered with that axe. An axe that was originally a tree branch before I latched onto it, unknowingly morphing it with my mind. The only difference with this new coat and the original, besides its origin, was its color, a stark white. Making it a ‘polar bear coat’, I suppose. 

Fully dressed from the waist up, and with a set of dark underwear underneath, I began crouching beneath the snow, carefully freezing the snow above me, and turning the snow in front of me into vapor. It was a long, arduous process, and after an hour, I popped my head up to check my progress. The military base had become a mere speck on the horizon, and the helicopter and vehicles were all at least 500 meters away from me.

“Thank fucking god,” I said under my breath.

However, as I spoke, there was something distinct, something abnormal about my voice. The inflection I had given it was gone and now. I sounded exactly like Abigale Quinlan. …That did not seem to bother me. At all. In fact, the realization put a grin on my face. I viewed it as a sign of strength, a sign of overcoming my weakness, and an undeniable improvement.

As I looked away from the military base, I saw a small town peeking over the dark horizon. A place where I could learn where I was, what direction Oransen was in, and how I could get home. I swiftly Real Booted a pair of snowshoes from the snow beneath me, and dashed towards the town at an inhuman pace.

Despite being roughly several kilometers away, and wearing clunky footwear, I got there in under 10 minutes. It was a small rural settlement, devoid of bright buildings or such, but there were streetlights, cars being driven, and windows revealing illuminated interiors. With the sky coated with clouds, I truly had no idea what time it was but considering how lively my surroundings were, it could not have been too late. Still, that was of little help for me in achieving my objective, and in order to do that, I needed answers. 

Answers I sought to obtain by standing in the road, forcing an approaching driver to stop. Within seconds, I achieved my goal, as a driver slammed on the breaks, coming within precious centimeters of hitting me. A large, balding, middle-aged, White, shoddily dressed man came running out of the vehicle, ranting and roaring at me for standing in the street. However, his words fell on deaf ears, and once he was within arm’s length, I grabbed him by the collar, lifted him up, and asked him some simple questions. 

“Excuse me, could you tell me the time and date? Also, do you know how I may get to Oransen? It’s a Chicago suburb and I only need a vague direction.” I asked, smiling as I heard my voice coo from my throat.

The man stammered, far too intimidated by the two-meter-tall dark-skinned woman in a childish bear jacket to speak properly. He started talking when I put him down, and answered fast. Saying that it was 18:37, December 31st— New Year’s Eve— and Oransen was to the southeast. 

I thanked him for cooperating, and left the man, dashing at 50 kilometers per hour in the direction he described. In grabbing him like this, I likely changed his life in some regard, but it did not matter to me. I had what I wanted, and the rest of the world could burn for all I cared.