Chronicles of the Supers (Book 1): Born From Darkness (The Story of Max)

by Williams, Jeremy

"I'm Special Agent Collins, of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?"

  "Yes I would. Now leave."

  "I'm sorry Maximiliana, I can't do that."

  Max pursed her lips at the sound of her first name. Or at least the first name she wished to be known by after having escaped her father. If the man was using it instead of 'Miss Einhardt', then clearly he had no intentions of following her order to leave. She quickly considered running, but there was no way she would be able to get away. If the guy knew her name then he already knew enough to track her wherever she went. She really didn't want to go through the hassle of starting over at a new school and getting a new identity. So instead she resolved to get him off her case as fast as possible and would just have to pray that he got the message.

  ##########

  The agent left Max's room looking decidely more tired than when he'd entered. He was convinced she had known nothing of the terrorist organization she had worked for. That had been a random happenstance. She claimed she'd run because she was frightened and all evidence the police had gathered had supported that and she was cleared of any crime she might have committed.

  She had also claimed she didn't know the man who had snuck into her room and tried to rape her. That, though, the agent hadn't believed. Every time she brought up the man the look in her eyes told him that she knew the man quite well. Probably even years ago, when she was but a young child. He'd wanted to press more and see what she knew, but he wasn't officially investigating the crime. That was being left to the local police. His questioning about it had overstepped his jurisdiction already and he didn't need to stir up too much trouble by pressing the issue. He could lose his job if they knew he'd questioned her at all.

  The agent sat outside the door and pulled a picture out of his wallet. He stared at it as a single tear fell down his cheek. After a long hour, he finally left. He had a criminal to chase and he shouldn't be spending so much time on the past anyway.

  ##########

  Max closed her eyes to try and sleep again. She hoped that no one would interrupt her this time. The FBI agent had been annoying beyond belief with his unending stream of questions about her father. She'd denied anything about knowing him, but she doubted he believed that. Still he had eventually left, much to Max's relief. She desperately wished she could lock the damn door to prevent anyone else from entering on her.

  After a while of cursing the man, Max finally fell asleep. When she did though, she had a nightmare that affected her far deeply than any nightmare before it ever had.

  ##########

  Max awoke in a fright. She sat up in her bed panting while sweat soaked her entire body. She looked around rapidly but noted she was alone. The room devoid almost entirely of light and her bed was a warm metal table. She quickly curled up and closed her eyes and wished for safety.

  She heard a soft clicking noise and started crying. After a long while she slowly opened her eyes. She saw that she was back in her room at the boarding school. She opened her eyes a little more and saw that she was alone in the room.

  After a long moment, Max sat up slowly and looked around to confirm that no one was in the room with her. She slowly uncovered herself and slid her legs around to the side of the bed, intent on getting a glass of water and using the restroom. Just as she swung them over the side of the bed, her legs hit something.

  Max's entire body froze and her blood felt like it had turned into ice. She slowly looked up and saw her father standing over her. He had a wicked looking knife in his hand. Max let out a screech capable of awaking the demons of Hell as she tried in vain to back away. Suddenly, the man let loose a blood curdling roar as he stabbed her in the side. She screamed and brought her right arm up to slap the man as her left arm clutched her side in a desperate attempt to stem the blood flow.

  As Max's hand made contact with her fathers face she heard a very sickening cracking sound. She tried to keep her eyes closed but the tears that were welling up stung and she opened them to see her father still standing over her, with the side of his head caved in and his bodily fluids leaking out like a smaller and deadlier Niagara Falls. Max let out another ear piercing screech to the heavens as the body started moving again. She jumped up and bolted out of her room. She didn't even bother opening the door when she reached it and crashed right through, leaving it in pieces behind her.

  She made a beeline straight for the front door of the dorm hall and burst through it too, leaving a spray of shrapnel in her wake. As she stopped to get her bearings she saw a few cops moving towards her with their guns drawn. They were yelling at her but she couldn't hear them. She turned to run the other way and was stopped by a tall man in an old suit. She looked up into the face of Agent Collins.

  He put his hands on his shoulders and started speaking to Max, though she couldn't hear what he was saying. She tried to escape the mans grip but every time she was successful he grabbed her and stopped her again. After her third unsuccessful attempt to escape she felt a rough hand grab both of her wrists. A moment later she felt a cold metal cuff around her right wrist. Before the other wrist could be cuffed she pulled her arms forward. She then brought up a knee into agent Collins groin. She heard a sickening crack as the mans legs seemed to cave in and he felt to the ground like a broken doll.

  Max then turned as she felt tiny stings on her body. As she looked she saw the small army of cops firing their weapons repeatedly at her. She blinked as one of the bullets made way for her eye. She felt it hit, but instead of any real pain, she felt a minor sting for a moment as the bullet bounced off of her eyelid.

  Max opened her eyes to see the cops still firing and, in a panic, she ran. Only she forgot to turn away and ended up running towards them. She bowled them over quickly, leaving them on the ground with limbs tangled and broken in multiple places. At least one of them was dead from his injuries and the others were in no shape to continue pursuing Max.

  Max ran and ran and ran, quickly losing track of where she was. After what felt like years of non-stop running she slowed down. She came to a stop after a short jog and sat down on her legs to catch her breath. As she did she heard a loud screech. Looking to her left to see where the sound had come from, Max spotted the front of the house she lived in up until just a few years ago when she'd run away from home.

  Panicking, Max ran inside to see her younger self taped to a heavy wooden table. Next to her, near the front door, was her mother. Her mother had rope roughly tied around her, keeping her held firm to the chair she was standing next to. She was screaming as Max's father pulled the trigger on his revolver. Thankfully the bullet didn't fire and kill young Max.

  Max's older self screamed at the man to stop as he walked back towards Max's mother. She stood there frozen in place and screaming for him to stop as he held the gun to her head and spun the revolver chamber a few times. Then he pulled the trigger. The loud explosion of a gunshot rang throughout the room and Max felt her mothers blood splatter on her body.

  She screamed a horrible screech that blew out the windows and dangerously shook the room as she grabbed her fathers gun arm. With one single motion she ripped the arm clean off. Then, less than a moment later, she sloppily punched the man. Her fist went right through him, ripping a hole into his body. His organs splattered on the floor and his body followed shortly after.

  Max looked over at her younger self and saw the girl fade as her tears began forming a small puddle on the ground. After several minutes Max felt herself begin to fade too. She lay on the floor curled up into a ball crying as the world around her began to lose its presence.

  ##########

  Max awoke screaming in pain as she felt someone grab her. She opened her eyes to see doctors and nurses gathered around her. One of them produced a syringe full of fluid and ordered some of the nurses to hold Max down. Max struggled in as they grabbed her and tried to prevent her from moving. When she noticed the syringe was about to touch her arm she screamed. The window to th
e balcony outside her room blew out from the pressure of the sound wave as several eardrums on the nurses burst. She threw one of the men holding her into a wall on the other side of the room before grabbing the other. She yanked his arm and the entire thing shattered from the force of the blow. Just as she was reaching for the doctor who held the syringe she felt it stick in her side.

  She looked down at the tiny syringe as the fluid was injected into her near the knife wound. She screamed loudly and grabbed the doctor by the throat. Without realizing what she had done she fractured his neck, leaving him alive but paralyzed from his waist down. He fell to the floor in a heap and Max grabbed the syringe. She pulled it out of her side and hurled it as hard as she could against the door. The tiny projectile stuck in the door as the needle hit, scaring the nurses who were about to enter the room to help with the situation.

  Max tried her best to stay awake but the drug began taking effect almost immediately. She fought hard against it but was soon rendered unable to stand. As the other nurses and a few security guards rushed in, Max lost consciousness. Her last thought before she slipped was a solemn vow to kill anyone who had touched her during that little episode.

  Part 2:

  Descent

  Chapter 6:

  Awakening

  Max awoke slowly but kept her eyes closed. She could vaguely feel the presence of the guard who had been posted outside her room. It was almost as if she had another sense that gave her a radar for her immediate vicinity.

  She finally opened her eyes to see her surroundings. She was in a new hospital room after she'd destroyed the other one and killed the nurse she'd thrown against the wall. She'd also crippled the other nurse she'd grabbed and the doctor who had injected her. Both had disappeared into early retirement after the event just 2 days ago. Several of the other staff held a grudge against her for it and the guard had to be posted for Max's own safety.

  Max had extremely vivid memories of what had happened but it made no sense to her. She'd been thinking on the memories since she had awoken but had made no sense of them whatsoever. Silently she got out of bed. There was only one way to resolve what was happening to her, and that was to test herself.

  She looked at the large chair next to her bed and knelt down. Reaching underneath the chair and grabbing hold of a small metal bar, Max let out a sigh and, after a moments hesitation, she blew out her breath and lifted. She had to close her eyes as she struggled with the weight of the chair. After a moment she felt herself moving up and hesitantly opened her eyes. Her jaw dropped at the sight before her.

  There she was, holding an overly large and impossibly heavy chair. It was being held at an odd angle as she used her fingers to try and stabilize the wobbly chair. Her fingers were aching from the strain of keeping the chair mostly in the same upright position it had been in when she lifted it, but she was still managing to do it. After a moment her hand became too worn out and she gently set the chair back down.

  Looking at her hand as if she was willing this to not just be a dream, Max resolved that she would have to test her newfound abilities more. Just as she was thinking of another way to test herself she heard the doctor at the door.

  She quickly sat down on the edge of the bed and pretended to steady herself with her arms. After a moment of him talking to the guard, the doctor finally entered. He had a clipboard in his hand and a scowl on his face. He silently went about a quick checkup of Max's side where she'd been stabbed, but the wound was already fully healed. There was a minor mark where the wound had been but it would heal in a few days.

  Afte the checkup the doctor thrust the clipboard into Max's sternum and left. Max glared at the mans back but he either didn't notice or didn't care. Max looked down at the paperwork and after a cursory glance she realized it was discharge paperwork. She was finally being let out of this surprisingly unsterile hellhole. And she was glad for that.

  ##########

  Max returned to school the same day. Classes had yet to be restarted so she just went to her dorm hall, which was the first to be refitted with the new security measures. This was due only to the fact that it was the girls dorm and it was the one attacked by the man Max thought she had left behind forever.

  She entered her room very slowly. Though she had been moved to a different room and her old one was pretty much closed until they could clean the blood stains, she still felt hesitant to enter. She was afraid that she would find her father in her room waiting on her. After a few tense minutes she finally had the door opened fully. Finding nothing out of place, Max hesitantly entered the room and searched it thoroughly for over half an hour before she was fully satisfied that it was empty.

  Max then slowly sat down at her desk. Her stuff was being kept as evidence, so she didn't have much of anything. Including school uniforms. The clothes she had on, while relatively professional looking, had been given to her courtesy of the police after the incident due to the fact that they'd kept her other ones and would be holding them indefinitely.

  The rooms had, thankfully, been supplied with computers. While the computers looked amazing, they were horrible for doing any actual work. They were expensive to buy, costing nearly 2 thousand dollars a piece, but they were made with cheap components that made them nearly inoperable for anything other than social media and the occasional video viewing.

  Still, it was all Max had to use. Her laptop had been collected as evidence and probably wouldn't ever be released. So she reluctantly booted the computer up and waited for the computer for several minutes. After it finally booted up, Max opened the internet browser and began researching her new abilities.

  ##########

  It was now mid afternoon and Max had finished her research. At least as much as she could given the schools limited internet access. Many websites had been denied by the school, but she still found plenty of avenues of research. While most of what she had found had been mostly useless conspiracy theories about the existence of superhumans, she had found some useful information about how to test herself to see what abilities she had. Super strength was obviously one of them, and she suspected she also had super speed.

  While she had never been much into comic books or hero stuff when she was younger, many people had. In this generation it seemed there were many hundreds of thousands of people who wanted super powers to be real. Even to the point that many went into the fields of science, technology, and engineering just to realize their dreams of being a superhero. All in all many people had posted theories and formulae online to help Max in her studies.

  To that end her first task was to find a place to test out her new abilities. She needed somewhere secluded, where no one ever bothered to go or check out for any reason. Several places came to mind because her fellow students had mentioned secluded "makeout spots". Though she quicly dismissed them. If those students really did go by regularly for their 'activities', then the places weren't secluded enough.

  She needed somewhere no one ever went for any reason, so she searched out a list of abandoned locations near her area. One was an abandoned factory from the second world war. Having been built for the sole purpose of producing machines of war, when the war ended it was abandoned and never re-purposed.

  Max decided that the factory would likely be the best place and quickly stalked away from the school and headed in the general direction of the factory. It had been positioned about 5 miles from the city because it was meant to be operated all day and night. Max knew she needed to hurry and decided that testing her speed would be a worthwhile way to make the journey. And the road to the factory was lined with heavy trees, meaning she could stay out of sight along her journey.

  ##########

  Max sprinted alongside the road, just inside the thick treeline. She was moving as fast as she could through the underbrush. She kept glancing along the road but so far had seen no cars pass. After she was nearly to the turn off to the factory one finally came up and paralled her path. The car quickly passed her by but before it was gon
e she was able to judge her speed. She guessed herself to be moving at around 20 miles per hour. While it wasn't the fastest speed on record, she was moving faster than she should have been able to with her malnourished body. Also she had run a full 5 miles without having to stop or slow down. Even though she felt extemely tired she wasn't really very fatigued in the sense of not being able to physically continue running. It was more like her mind was tired from the journey but her body wanted to continue. After another 30 seconds of running she reached the location of the factory.

  ##########

  Max had been exploring the inside of the factory carefully for the last 2 hours. She had checked every place she could, not that there were many. The machinery had been moved out after the factory was shut down and the components had probably been recycled for new machinery. There were plenty of walls and corners though and several rooms with no windows. It was the perfect secret lair for Max.

  But it would have to wait for now. Max needed to get new clothes for school and resume her jobs and schoolwork. The school had let her keep her job and the grocery store had bought her cover story. Though she would lose 2 whole days worth of money. Plus, with her new expenses, she had a lot of ground to cover and little time to do it.

  Max sighed as she realized she'd probably have to find another job on top of the 3 she already had just to pay for school now. But maybe there would be some miracle that would let her luck her way into enough cash to pay for her school. Though she knew it wouldn't happen, one could always dream right?

  ##########

  It was now the weekend and Max was going to her job as a secretary. She had convinced the school that she wanted to work two 8 hour shifts instead of two 4 hour shifts. Her reasoning had been that the extra time would prepare her for work in the real world and the school had bought it with little persuasion. Even for the kids who would inherit their families businesses, the need to work 8 or more hours a day often arose. They'd granted her request gladly and she was now making a considerable amount of money. She was now making a little more than 250 dollars for a single weekends worth of work.