i'm Michael: Transformation: A Supernatural LGBT Romance

by Hailie Drescher

  Once he had he just had to stare for several minutes as he noted he only had about a half an hour of air remaining in the canister supplying his suit. Rolling around to sit on the floor and lean against the door he mentally chastised himself. Stupid, stupid. Panicked breathing takes more oxygen than slow, controlled breathing.

  Looking down at the monitor he watched it tick off 2 Minutes, leaving him with 28 minutes. If he didn't find a way out of this tunnel soon - he’s soon run out of oxygen and if that happened he'd have no choice but to shallow breathe only what was in his suit. That would only last maybe 5 minutes, given the size of the suit and his own body, then the only way he could survive without suffocating would be to remove the suit.

  Jacob knew removing the suit would likely be a death sentence - no one could survive these levels of radiation. Not for long.

  As the suit ticked off another minute of his time, Jacob pushed himself to a standing position.

  No use wasting time sitting around waiting to die. Maybe I can find a fresh canister of O2. He thought to himself, as he struggled to keep his breaths slow and even and moved deeper into the tunnel.

  As he walked, thoughts of the recent tunnel collapse were filling his mind and making him anxious about being down here. It was, rather warm inside the suit as the internal cooling slowed to save power to conserve oxygen for as long as it could.

  However, he was scarcely 5 corridors away when the suit finally started alerting him to being out of oxygen. Stopping to shut the annoying alert off, Jacob weighed his options about whether to just take the suit off or use those 5 minutes or so of shallow breathing for protection.

  In the end, he decided to avoid Co2 sickness and started to strip the gloves off - tearing at the Velcro. Once those were on the ground, he quickly felt for the latch on his helmet and flicked it before tugging his helmet off.

  The air smelled surprisingly normal, if not a bit stale, considering he knew that he was now being bombarded with at least several thousand rems of nuclear radiation - if not millions.

  As he pushed the suit into a pile at his feet and stepped out of it, Jacob could have sworn he felt a prickling sensation of the radiation absorbing into his body. He knew he was likely imagining it, as it would probably get more painful than prickling the longer he was exposed.

  Sighing, he started to move again - deeper into the tunnel network - eyes constantly darting around for structural weakness. It was bad enough he was likely to die from radiation sickness - he didn't much feel like being buried alive too.

  *

  Jacob continued to move throughout the system of tunnels, meeting no one and finding no doors unlocked. He purposefully passed by what looked to be a tunnel starting to show age and disrepair for fear of it collapsing. However, after he had been wandering the tunnels he had deemed safe, well structurally sound, for hours by what his watch told him. He finally resigned himself to backtracking to explore one in hopes of finding some shaft of some sort that could lead out of this maze. Once inside the less structurally sound tunnel network, he was much more observant of every creak, moan and scraping sound. He even narrowly avoided a falling beam by suddenly diving into a small room through an open door several hours into his divergence into this section. As he stood up in the room and dusted himself off, he noted according to his watch it was approximately 7 pm already.

  “Holy hell…” he muttered under his breath as he looked around the room. That's when he saw what was sure to be his salvation. He had found his way into a ventilation room where several large, and broken, fans pulled air in from outside and expelled it. What Jacob was staring at, however, was the large hole caused by a beam that must have fallen ages ago on the grate covering one of the fans.

  This was perfect. Ventilation fans had to lead outside at some point, and judging by the faint amount of light filtering in it wasn't far. He hurried softly towards the large hole and got down on his hands and knees to crawl through. Once within the confines of the large fans' blade area he turned back towards the room and gave it a little mocking salute. “So long, it's been a slice but I'm tired of this place now.”

  With that, he began to crawl through the shaft attached to the fan and towards the filtered light. It turned out the light was filtering through several grates several feet above his head. Knowing the fan still had to lead out somewhere where another fan would have pulled the air in or out he continued.

  After about half an hour of crawling on his hands and knees, Jacob could finally see a large fan up ahead blocking his way. It was mercifully just as dead and turned off as the one he had crawled past to get in here - however - it also had all its blades intact.

  Once he had reached the large fan, he paused to rest for a moment. A sheen of sweat coating his forehead and arms - soaking through his t-shirt. Once he had rested for a moment he tentatively pushed on the fan blade with all his, albeit depleted, strength and found it stuck fast.

  However, given the size of the fan and the angle of the blades he could see a slim gap that he was certain his small frame could fit through. He had just been about to attempt it when suddenly a large flashlight shone in his face and he was forced to back up shielding his eyes.

  “You Jacob Russell son?” A deep voice boomed, echoing slightly in the shaft behind Jacob.

  After wincing at the voice Jacob nodded and croaked out, his throat dry and his voice cracking. “Yeah, that's me. You gonna get the light outta my face and get me outta here buddy?”

  He asked this with a note of impatience and annoyance in his voice but the light had soon moved from his face to a point below the fan grate and Jacob could make out a large black man in a radiation suit with a security badge silk screened on. He was looking at Jacob, sitting there without a suit with shock and awe.

  Rolling his eyes Jacob swallowed what little saliva he had left and voiced his annoyance, an air of impatience in his voice. “Look, I've already been exposed to say more rem of radiation than I would ever want to be - I'd rather not add buried alive to that list thanks.” The guard seemed to shake himself before nodding, “Right. One moment.”

  With that, he left the flashlight pointing skyward for a moment before trooping out of sight for several minutes during which Jacob hung onto the metal grate anxiously. When the guard returned, it was with a pair of large bolt cutters. “Stand back, I'll have you out of there in a jiffy.” He told Jacob as he hooked the cutters into one of the pieces of the grate.

  Jacob scrambled backward and watched as the guard slowly cut out a large square just big enough for his small frame to fit throughout of the grate. Once the square was kicked all the way around Jacob moved into position, feet up to it. “I got this. Stand back.” He rasped before giving the grate a firm kick and knocking the cut portion loose.

  He quickly, and carefully approached the hole and slipped through it to drop to the ground. Once there the guard looked him over, before starting to guide him back to his jeep.

  “Alright, let's get you somewhere to be decontaminated so you can get to a hospital.” He spoke kindly, almost solemnly.

  Intellectually, Jacob knew why the tone - but as he crawled into the jeep he realized something other than being dirty, tired, thirsty and hungry: He felt perfectly fine, zero feelings of radiation sickness and he had been down in the tunnels exposed for hours. How was that possible?

  As they rolled across the compound, he had evidently wandered underground for quite a distance, Jacob mentally prepared himself for what little he knew about what his parents and the doctors would act like upon seeing them. He knew he would be taken immediately to have anything washed from his skin, although he wasn’t certain if he would be allowed to just walk around because he was obviously a “dead man walking” or forced back into a suit. He also knew they would get him to the hospital in Richland straight away. He wasn’t seeing any time to stop for a hamburger or even disgusting hospital cafeteria food; in fact, the way he figured it everyone likely wouldn’t think he had an appetite considering such
a thing was a common symptom of radiation poisoning.

  As they neared the administration building he had entered that afternoon with the rest of his class he suddenly saw two figures bathed in so much light he couldn't make out who they were burst out of the building and run towards the jeep as it slowed down.

  However, two men in similar radiation suits stopped them as Jacob climbed out of the jeep.

  As the security guard lightly guided Jacob towards a decontamination tent with a gentle touch between his shoulder blades, he did make out the faces of his parents and gave them a light, reassuring smile. Even as he stripped out of his clothes and stepped into the shower to be scrubbed down, a man with a clipboard, clad in his own suit, was there asking him questions.

  “Jacob is it?”

  Jacob nodded as he lifted his arms to allow the spray disinfectant to cover him.

  “Hello, my name is Dr. Schmidt. I'm the resident M.D. here onsite at Treyton. How are you feeling?”

  Jacob shrugged as a rinse wash sprayed him off and he was finally able to step out of the shower and begin pulling the scrubs they'd provided on. When he was finally dressed, he crossed his arms across his thin frame and shrugged again.

  “Honestly, Doctor. I feel fine. I mean I'm thirsty, starving and exhausted but I think those are expected given how long I was down there don't you?” He was staring at the doctor with his eyebrows raised before he realized there were slip on shoes for him too and quickly bent to pull them on his feet. As he stood back up it was to the doctor regarding him curiously. “What?” He asked, his voice a little impetuous.

  Smiling the doctor shook his head, “Nothing, nothing. That fact that you are hungry is a good sign. Loss of appetite is a normal symptom of radiation poisoning and you being hungry must mean it's not as late as we feared.”

  Jacob nodded, not completely believing him, ‘How is that possible? I’ve been exposed for hours…’ He pondered as the doctor opened the door for him to step out.

  “No suit. Alright then.” He thought as he saw the two figures, which he recognized as his parents once they were closer, run up to him and fold him into their suited-up arms. When they finally released him, Jacob stood back and after failing to find any pockets in his current outfit - he crossed his arms awkwardly across his chest.

  “Doctor! Doctor!” His mother Katherine said hurrying towards the doctor who had stood back to allow the family some privacy. “Why… why doesn’t my Jakey have a radiation s-suit on?”

  Tears were pouring down her face even as Jacob slid a hand down his face in embarrassment over her use of the childish nickname. At her question, however, he went back to listening in - he was curious by this answer as well.

  The doctor’s face twitched into a small smile, seemingly in an effort to keep her calm and reassured, “He doesn’t have a suit on, ma’am, because either it is too late for such protections or the radiation levels are not as high in the area as we originally surmised.”

  Jacob couldn't help but roll his eyes even as his stomach growled loudly - well loud to him. “I don’t mean to be a bother or anything… but do you mind if we hurry this along? I’d like to eat sometime in the next century.” he stated with a rather annoyed tone in his voice.

  “Oh! Yes, yes! You just climb into the ambulance there and they will get you something at the hospital.”

  Jacob rolled his eyes, “Finally, let’s go then shall we?”

  The next moment he had clambered into the back of a waiting ambulance and a blood pressure cuff was being attached to his arm as his parents climbed in and sat opposite him. As he watched, fascinated, as the blood pressure cuff was pumped up he lifted his eyes to peer at his parent's worried faces.

  “You know, you don’t have to ride with me. I would be fine for the short ride to the hospital.”

  Katherine reached out and squeezed his hand, “Oh, I know how brave you are, Jakey. But we are staying right here.” There was a soft coughing sound as the medic cleared his throat, “Actually, regulations do state only the injured party and medical personnel. I know what sort of situation this is, Ma’am, but we could use the room to move around and assess your son as we travel.”

  The younger man, barely older than Jacob it seemed, smiled softly, reassuringly at the two parents who hesitated for a moment before nodding. “Alright. We will be right behind you okay, Jakey?” Katherine replied looking at Jacob.

  Jacob nodded, “Yeah, alright then. See you later, Mom.”

  Once the doors had swung shut and the ambulance started to move, Jacob looked back at the medic who had written his blood pressure down and was now feeling for his pulse. “Thanks for that, man. I mean… I love them and all but they can be so smothering, ya know?” The medic nodded as he scribbled down some numbers on his clipboard before looking back up at Jacob.

  “It was no problem, we actually do prefer family stays out of the ambulance. But I have some questions to ask you.” Jacob leaned backward in his seat as he pulled the pressure cuff off, “Oh yeah? Like what?”

  Glancing briefly at the open divider between the driver and then he nodded at the driver in the mirror before sliding it closed, Jacob arching his eyebrow at him the whole time. He leaned forwards to rest his arms on his knees before looking up at Jacob, “First off. I need to know exactly how long you were out of your rad suit.”

  Jacob shrugged, “I dunno, it was like… 1 p.m. or so when that ass Tyler locked me down there - and I had about like… thirty minutes of air left? So, following that thirty minutes since then? Why?”

  The medic did some quick math in his head before he answered Jacob’s question. “So, you were unprotected for approximately six and a half hours? Does that sound about right?” His pen was poised over his clipboard as he waited for Jacob’s answer.

  “Ye-ah, sure. That sounds about right. Why?” He repeated his question.

  As the medic jotted down the information he reached up to grab a pair of examination gloves and pulled them on. “Because with that much exposure you should be in agony about now. I need to examine your arms for lesions.”

  Jacob stretched his arm out and shrugged, “Dunno what to tell ya, I just feel okay.”

  The medic nodded as he started to inspect Jacob’s arms for radiation burns. “Oh, I believe you - every test I can perform here is supporting that claim. That's why it's so perplexing though.” He paused as he turned Jacob’s arm over before pulling back and looking up. “Well, doy. I guess I should introduce myself, I'm Andrew.”

  Jacob laughed, “Nice to meet you.”

  As they two finished speaking the ambulance pulled to a halt and the back doors were flung open. Jacob’s parents, Katherine and John, were to the right of the doors inside the hospital as Andrew urged Jacob onto the stretcher.

  “Regulations, man, sorry.” he apologized as Jacob laid down, hands under his head in a relaxed position.

  “It’s ‘kay, man. You do what ya gotta.”

  With that, Andrew and the driver unloaded the stretcher - unfolding the wheeled legs as they went - and then Andrew rolled Jacob towards the entrance. Jacob had already crossed his ankles over one another as they came through and his mother approached.

  “Oh, my poor, baby! Are you feeling okay, Jakey?” She asked him stroking his hair as they walked.

  Jacob lightly batted her hand away, “I’m fine, mom. Honest. Just regulations and shit like that. I just want a bloody burger or something to eat already.”

  As they wheeled Jacob into a curtained off area of the emergency room and put the brakes on the stretcher Jacob pushed himself to his elbows as a new doctor approached holding a clipboard and wearing the same grim expression. From there, Jacob proceeded to explain exactly what had happened and how long he had been wandering around without protective gear. After His explanation was done, during which a nurse also collected samples of his blood, the doctor decided he wanted X-Rays, an MRI and a CT scan. Jacob found the idea that he wanted him to be exposed to more radiation given why he was ther
e highly amusing.

  *

  For the next couple of days, Jacob stayed in the hospital undergoing more and more tests. He had so many blood samples taken from him he felt as if they were going to bleed him dry as they treated him like a pincushion. All the while, and somehow avoiding detection, Jacob’s mind and body were changing. Although no one attributed it to him changing, Jacob felt somehow stronger - even though his physical strength remained the same.

  By the time he was released from the hospital a week later, he was going stir crazy and desperately craving to sleep in his own bed. He even begged the doctor to just let him go home, that they hadn’t found anything wrong yet and he doubted they would. Eventually, after yet another round of blood tests, he relented and the discharge paperwork was drawn up.

  As Jacob was leaving the hospital, it was near dusk on Sunday night. He felt he required a proper shower, his own bed, and food that didn’t come from a hospital kitchen. On the drive home, however, as he leaned with his forehead against the cool glass window his thoughts were on Rebecca. It had been a brief meeting, and they hadn’t talked much - he doubted she remembered him - but he felt something inside. He wasn’t sure what, but he knew he had to see her again. The problem? He went to Treyton High, she went to Tri-City Academy.

  The only way, that he could see it working out was for him to transfer schools. As he glanced towards the front of the car, giving his mom a reassuring smile as she glanced backward in the mirror, his mind started to formulate a plan as to how to show just how much better TCA would be for him. Tyler Gandry and his bullying ways being a large part of his plans. Jacob had to suppress a smirk as he thought of some ideas to unfold in the coming couple of weeks. Unknowingly, as they turned onto the street they lived on, several metal garbage cans levitated for a moment and then crashed to the ground - a large fist-shaped dent in each of them.

  Chapter 3: Emergence

  After crashing in bed not long after returning home the previous night, Jacob woke on the Monday to the familiar sounds of his father cooking breakfast down in the kitchen. Like a typical teenager, however, he grunted and groaned and rolled over in bed to bury his face in the pillow.