JHarp

This is a story of three parts, each their own whole but each can feed the next. This is more than a light vs dark, but the many expressions of people. Consider it a, test. If you will. For who? We shall see.

Like every story, there is a beginning. The path you choose, the road you walk and the pain you suffer.

Each leading to a culmination of the powers you sought, the people you needed and the final goal.

Oh how final it was.

The hiss of my cryopod breaking wakes me up with a start as air rushes to escape the chamber I have yet to flee. The change in air pressure managing to wind me as I barely manage to process the fact I'm trying to bodyslam the glass wall of the pod as the sound of cracking and stress echos constantly in my small fractured chamber.

─ Skill Acquired: Body Slam.

"Shit!" I barely manage to choke out due to the lack of air. The biochip implanted in my brain surprised me with its sudden notification. I barely recall a friend jokingly install a program before I was sent into this pod for the procedure. They said it would help me keep track of things and I ended up too busy to check or remove it before I went under for the experiments.

Focusing on the words hovering in a blue box in front of me, I decide to humour the program. Focusing on the idea of body slamming starts slowly moving my mana in a path. Encouraging it slightly I feel somewhat compelled to crouch slightly before the skill and mana bursts into a single flash sending me straight through the safety glass of the cryopod. Thanks to my skintight cryo-suit I avoid getting scratched as I skid across the floor, the safety glass chasing behind my momentum.

Outside of the frosted safety glass I can now assess my situation. The network silence from any of the data hubs leaves me worried, as does the destruction of the lab, seemingly overgrown and torn through by flame and sword strikes. The walls burnt and rusted with age showing that whatever destroyed my research lab, did so very long ago and left me there.

"Where am I?" I call out to the darkness only hearing my own voice echo around the laboratory. "Hello? Anyone here?"

I call up the self-diagnosis function of my biochip to display by thinking 'Status'

-----

Meidu Alou mure-zü Sune (Female)

Age: 24 years (10403)

Race: Genetic Paragon Elf

Current conditions: Malnutrition, Exhaustion Grade 4, Muscle overexertion.

Physical operational capacity : 56.3%

Bionics power storage: 10.1% (-0.5%/day - light activity, -2%/d = heavy. Passive sun recharge = +0.1%/2h)

Baseline stat: 10

─ Physical Strength: 45% (11/24)

─ Constitution: 44% (8/18)

─ Stamina: 70% (14/20)

─ Dexterity: 65% (13/20)

─ Willpower: 84% (22/26)

─ Mental Resistance: 87% (20/23)

Warning/Reminder: Users organs have been made bionic. Users heart depends on power storage, seek immediate power source.

Recommendation: Seek medical assistance to quickly recover peak physical condition.

Addon Skills:
Body Slam "That wall deserve it"

-----

I take a few steps further into the ruined laboratory before coming to an abrupt stop when something catches my eye. My gaze shifts away from what I saw, not wanting to get lost in memories again and move towards the door which led into the lab. It is now closed as the thick metal hazard doors had fallen leaving just a thin sliver of the door frame visible below the hazard plate. Not wanting to find myself trapped within this room, I start shifting the hazard plate.

─ Skill Acquired: Deadlift.

That stupid app again. Stopping for a moment I call up its settings, hovering my eyes over the delete option before pausing.

A moment of pause, from the state of this facility, the world might be completely gone outside. Do I truly want to delete something a friend gave me if theres a high chance there might not be anything left? No, I can't do it. I might be one of the last alive and I don't intend to go down while forgetting my friends. I'll deal with deleting this later when I have more time and space.

Success at prying open the door leads to a worse off corridor, warped metal and smashed tiles littering the floor. A quick glance to both sides of the hallway tells me there isn't anyone else around. There might be another lab further ahead but that is unlikely. With no choice, I press on towards what remains of the main lab and try not to worry about the possibility of someone being inside.

My first step into the second lab shows me why there's nobody else around, scraps of bone and torn clothing, extremely rusty equipment and tools as well as a large crack in the ceiling and a artillery shell embedded in one of the walls. If I hadn't known better, I'd swear this place once belonged to a mad scientist who kept experimenting on himself. But then again, I wouldn't put it past some of the scientists back in the day.

Walking closer to the centre, I see where the explosion must have happened, or perhaps it was magic. Either way, it ripped a large portion of the floor out from the ground. A pile of broken machinery sits at the bottom of the hole. Most likely the result of a spell or weapon. The metal framework of the machines looks sturdy enough to use to climb through the hole in the roof.

As I reach down to lift some of the machinery, my eyes catch sight of something lying near the edge of the hole in the floor. Pulling my eyes from the hole and towards the object, my curiosity gets the better of me and I pick up what lies before me.

A human femur and pelvis, still covered with skin and hair, lie before me. As I look closer, my eyes widen at how young they seem. This isn't some random corpse or even an experiment; these are two children. And judging from the clothes on them and how clean their bones were, they must have died recently. From the looks of both of them they must have fallen in the large hole on the surface floor, unable to climb out of it.

"Oh dear, oh sweet merciful goddess," I mumble to myself quietly before carefully setting the bodies back on the ground. I know my mana has already been drained by moving all that metal but this doesn't seem like the time to worry about that. I quickly make a small headstone using a metal shard to help mark a large chunk of rock.

"For the nameless, a path is given. For a person, respect is given. For a child, home is given."

I channel a small amount of mana between the two children to both bless them moving on and to prevent them from becoming undead.

─ Skill Acquired: Sympathy

I'm going to slap my friend for this addon if I meet them again.

With renewed energy I shift the final parts of machinery in the way and quickly scale the hole in the ceiling, breaking into the outside light.

JHarp

Yeah yeah, this novel is almost a week late; issues on both scribblehubs side and real life delayed me posting this, sorry about all that.
Second chapter will be with the other two novels tomorrow (sunday) hopefully.