literature

Turning the Tide

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Chapter one: Freedom


Clack clack clackclackclack.

Nimble fingers danced gracefully yet urgently over the cheap, old keyboard, causing more and more information to appear on the seemingly ancient Macintosh monitor. Grass green eyes fixed themselves on the virtual text, absorbing in the information as quick as the mind of an eighteen-year-old could. Papers were scattered around the hardwood floor, surrounding the Macintosh and its current user.

A girl who should be in her senior year of high school sat hunched over the keyboard, dark blonde hair swept back messily into a ponytail. Her face was twisted into a determined scowl. With exception of the clacks from the keyboard, there was a dead silence. Not a single foot step could be heard, and there was not a soul there. At least, that’s what she had hoped for.

But she was very wrong.

The wooden door was forcefully kicked open by a man in his forties with a receding hairline and more wrinkles than stars in the sky and a woman with graying locks cut to end right above her shoulder standing directly behind him. The girl jumped, obviously not expecting this, and spun around quickly, a look of pure terror on her face.

“Susanne!” The man bellowed. “What is THIS?!”

He threw his arms around the small room, motioning to the assortment of papers and various other items. She tried to swallow her fear, but to no avail. The woman stormed into the room, sending sheets flying in her wake, and kicked young Susanne in the head. After landing painfully on her side in shock, she panted before bolting out of the woman’s reach and into a random room. It just so happened to be the research lab where many “tests” had been performed on her previously. Susanne looked around in fear, there’s no way out now. Quick steps were heard and she whipped around, only to be socked hard in the jaw. Crumpling from the impact and with tears pricking her eyes, she glared up at the man she was forced to call her father. He gave a condescending smirk before grabbing one of the many knives used on her prior to these events. It was a six inch steel blade, the sharpest one they owned, and it was pointed straight at her.

“You’ve seen a lot, my dear daughter,” Carlos Colton said, the simper on his tanned face growing. “I can’t let you live with what you’ve uncovered.”

And with that, he threw a stab at her head. However, she was ready to fight back. Behind their backs, she had been training herself for the day she’d have to. It had been a long eighteen years, and Susanne was done. She rolled on the floor, somersaulting under one of the many metal tables. Carlos stumbled from missing, and searched for her, a murderous glint in his dark caramel eyes. A flash of blonde caught his gaze, and he stood confidently, waltzing over to where he had seen it.

“My dear Susanne,” he began, a sing-song tone laced into his almost insane tone. “Be a dear and come out now. It’ll hurt less.”

What neither adult saw was that she herself had acquired a knife of her own and was waiting for him to walk into her reach. When she saw her moment, she leaped out and stabbed him in the thigh, causing a stream of red to flow on his expensive pant leg. He howled in pain, falling to the ground. The knife was ripped from the wound and implanted deep in the back of his neck, silencing his cries and moans of pain permanently. Turning to her mother, Susanne picked up the steel blade from her newly deceased father’s cold grasp. Dianna Colton trembled in her golden pumps, frozen on the spot. As she approached the frightened woman, Susanne spoke for the first time in weeks.

“I hope you rot in hell, you son of a bitch.”

Dianna made one last plea before having a cold rush of steel embedded in her once flawless chest and gasping. Susanne tore the knife out and let the woman collapse on the wooden floor. There was another chilling silence. The girl stood over the fresh corpses, a blank look on her face and breathing heavily. It stayed like this for a few minutes. Their pools of crimson were slowly spreading out and Susanne just stood, watching the life ebb away from them.

That is, until she heard a crash upstairs.

An army of footsteps rained above her head in the upstairs level. Men could be heard shouting orders and responding. The door to the level she was on currently was kicked off its hinges and the steps came flooding down. Susanne could only look at the bodies and her bloodied knife. The men split up to find someone whose name Susanne couldn’t identify. Most men went left, while a certain Egyptian one went right down the hallway.

      Ankhhor Saliba stood shorter than most of his comrades; he was only about five foot six. When he had first come over to America from Cairo in high school, he was always called a runt. The jocks constantly slammed his books to the ground and mocked him for his accent. It wasn’t his fault that English is a difficult language! At least, that’s what he told himself. However, their words still hurt him, and he developed a social anxiety disorder. Once his college years rolled around, the teasing decreased slightly. His academic skills caused quite the uproar. It managed to attract the attention of the AAIAT, or Americans Against International Acts of Terrorism. The agency contacted him during his junior year and recruited him into their ranks. Which he found odd, seeing as he was short, weak, and kind of a wuss. But he accepted anyways, seeing as he had no other job offers at the moment and was running out of money. The Egyptian man who no one paid much attention to stood outside of the doorway which contained the one woman who would change his life permanently.

With a heavy gulp, he kicked open the iron door and rushed in, gun in hand, on Susanne. His amber-gold eyes widened on the gory sight before him. The girl turned her head in his direction, that same blank look on her face. Ankhhor and her just stared at each other with a heavy silence looming in the air. The sounds of his comrades moving towards their location rose in a crescendo and soon the silence was broken by Ankhhor’s director Samuel Jaeger.

“Susanne Colton?” His deep voice rang out in the deafening silence.

She gave a curt nod and he continued. “I’m going to need you to come with me.”

Her eyes grew to the size of saucers and her pale fingers tightened their hold on the knife. Director Jaeger noticed this and raised his hands in surrender, placing his gun on the bloody floor. He looked at the other agents behind him, and slowly but surely they did the same. The girl relaxed slightly yet stood her ground.

“What do you want with me?” She said, venom dripping off every word. The Director sighed, obviously having done something similar in the past.

“We just have some questions for you, and then you can go home.”

“But I don’t have one.”

Samuel hesitated for a moment. “Then we’ll find you one.”

Susanne took this into consideration. Would they “test” on her too? Do all people do that? Is that what he really wants to do, or is there more? As these thoughts raced through her mind, she moved her gaze over to Ankhhor. He stood there a trembling mess, clearly unsure of what to do next. She smiled internally. Maybe he wasn’t as bad as her “parents.” Making up her mind, she slowly dropped the six inch blade in her hand. Seeing this made the Director smile slightly, and he let one of his hands drop, while extending one out to her.

“You ready?”




The ride from the underground lab to the AAIAT base was long, silent, and awkward. Susanne and Ankhhor were sat next to each other while a female agent and the Director rode in the front seats. Both looked terrified; Susanne because she had no idea what a car was and Ankhhor because he was certain she’d kill him if he made any sudden movements. Occasionally one would catch the other staring and they would jump, blush, and look out the window. It took a total of four hours of this awkward behavior and driving to get to the AAIAT base. The Director looked proudly at the hundred story building. The building looked just like any other, brick walls, parking garage, and a shit ton of windows.

Seriously, half the building looked like it was just windows.

The agent in front, who had identified herself as Mary Christian, pulled the black SUV into the garage, causing the atmosphere to darken quickly and scaring the wits out of Susanne. But she held herself together pretty well.

And by that, I mean practically jumping out of her seat and punching Ankhhor in the jaw.



After apologizing about a hundred times, Susanne was led into a room with only a table and two chairs in it. She swallowed back her fear and sat across from the director.

After sitting himself down, he spoke. “You know, that was quite a swing back there. Thankfully Agent Saliba isn’t injured. By the way, I’m Director Sam Jaeger.”

“Susanne Colton.” She replied, voice quiet.

The dark skinned man furrowed his eyebrows together in concern. “No need to be scared, Susanne. We’re all your allies here, we want to help you.”

The tension in her shoulders was eased slightly after that statement. “Are you sure I can trust you?”

He nodded. “I swear on my momma. No harm will come to you as long as I’m around to stop it.”

A gentle smile was sent her way before the Director turned serious again. “I assume you figured out what your parents really are-...were?”

She grimly nodded, and he resumed. “What all do you know?”

“I know that they worked under a man by the code name “Moriarity.” I don’t know his real name, but I do know that. They were working on some serum to make their own human weapons, or something like that.”

Samuel nodded. “All of that’s correct. They worked under the organization known to us as Reptile. They have some fancy ass name, but everyone just call them that for the sake of simplicity. They were planning on using you to launch an attack on the U.N. as soon as you were done.”

Her eyebrows crossed, bewilderment obvious on her features. “U.N.? Who’re they?”

The Director sighed sadly. “I guess you really HAVE been in isolation your whole life. It stands for United Nations; they’re a group of countries who work together to neutralize threats and prevent another World War. Anyways, Reptile had been using you as a guinea pig- er, test subject, for years. I’ve currently got no clue as to what the hell they were injecting you with, only that it’s dangerous and it probably won’t kill you.” He emphasized “probably” to the point it scared the poor girl even more than she already was.

A sharp knock was heard on the door and Susanne jolted in her seat. Another agent, this one a tall and muscular man with short black hair and soul piercing blue eyes, stepped in after a word of permission from Jaeger. He glanced at Susanne questioningly before locking eyes with his superior.

“Sir, incoming transmission from the U.N. They wish to speak with you.” His voice wasn’t as deep as the Director, she noted. Everything about this man read “Danger!” in her eyes. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, which the Director noticed.

“Alright, Baldwin. Give me a minute.”

“Yes sir.” With a salute, Agent Baldwin left the room. Samuel sighed and looked back over at Susanne, who still looked uncomfortable beyond belief. After attempting to reassure her once again, he called in Agent Christian. The peppy brunette smiled brightly as she swung open the door. Upon seeing a familiar face, Susanne’s anxiety levels decreased drastically. The Director ordered her to be escorted to her new lodgings, to which Mary obliged happily.

Not long after, the two women were striding down the white hallways, with one trying to make conversation and the other simply nodding or replying in short, blunt statements. Still, the brunette was relentless. By the time they had reached her dormitory, they had actually conversed for a short while.

“If you need anything, sweetie,” Mary said in a gently, maternal tone, “don’t hesitate to call for me!”

“Thank you.” Susanne said, a miniscule smile curving the corners of her lips up.

Mary grinned and left the corridor, leaving the teen on her own. Releasing the breath she didn’t realize she was holding, she turned the handle and stepped inside, flipping the switch up and filling the room with artificial light she was all too used to. It was much larger than the cramped closet she had been stuffed into since the age of five. There was a window with a pale grey set of curtains on the wall directly in front of her parallel to where the door was. A queen sized, white and grey bed sat on the wall to the left, and a metal desk was to her right. There were a few lights overhead and a lamp on the side table near the bed and on the desk. A door leading to a bathroom was on the left of her bed and a wardrobe was inside said room. Grass green eyes surveyed the room discreetly. However, after not seeing anything too out of her ordinary, she relaxed her shoulders and took a seat on her bed.

     Her pale elbows rested on her knees and she ran her fingers through her hair, which cascaded over her face. Thoughts of what had happened raced through her mind with the speed of lightening. Ragged, uneven breaths left her lips. Had anyone else been in there with her, they would have noticed the levels of stress and anxiety radiating off of Susanne.

     And someone did.

     Three steady knocks sounded from the cast iron door. Ankhhor gently pushed it open, looking guardedly inside. “Susanne?” He called out. She looked up and their eyes locked. The Egyptian swallowed his fears and entered, fiddling with a silver watch on his left wrist. Her eyes scanned over him cautiously as he approached. He stopped five feet away from her.

     “Are you… you know, okay?” A bead of sweat ran down the side of his face.

      She nodded, causing him to flinch. What did I get myself into? He thought. I am going to DIE.

      Moving her gaze to the ground one again, Susanne spoke to him. “You can sit down.”
Ankhhor looked at her curiously before complying and sitting awkwardly next to her. Silence hung in the air between them. A subtle blush of embarrassment rested itself on his cheeks. He hated awkward silence, especially when he knew that he had caused it. Why had he done this again? Oh, right, he wanted to make sure that she was okay, as he had previously asked. His gaze roamed discreetly around the room, eventually coming to rest on Susanne. Though on the outside she seemed collected and stoical, he could see that on the inside, she was a complete wreck. Her emerald eyes shone with sadness and regret. His forehead creased with concern.

     “Are you certain? You seem… tense.” To be honest, so did he, but for a completely different reason.

     She nodded again, sighing out. “I don’t know how I feel. I’ve never had time for emotions other than fear and agony. That’s all I’ve ever had time for.”
His chest immediately clenched at that. No time for emotions? What kind of a life had she been living that gave her no time for love or joy? His mind made itself up at that moment. He was going to change that, give her a reason to be cheerful. He was going to make it his mission to bring some level of happiness into her life. Even if it was the last thing he did.

     Just as soon as he got over his anxiety.

     “Alright then. I’ll leave you to your thoughts.” He stood and walked to the door.

     “Just don’t forget, we’re here for you.”

     With that, he closed her door and left, leaving her to her ocean of thoughts.
And here it is! The first chapter of that story I mentioned in my last journal.

Yup.

That just happened.
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