Subject Seven

Evelyn Hope

She’d barely opened the doors before he was there, her worst nightmare come true. Seven, broken free and coming right at her, his entire body painted in blood and gore, as if he were a wild animal. And, really, wasn’t he? Hadn’t they almost guaranteed that he would be little more?

Experiments in sensory overload, long endurance tests, food and water deprivation, tests in every sort of extreme, just to see how he would react and whether or not what he experienced would carry over.

“Oh God, Seven! Stop before I shoot you!” She barely even recognized her own voice.

Seven came at her even faster, screeching like a wounded chimpanzee. She took aim at his chest and fired again and again.

The first bullet missed him. The second grazed his calf and the third hit him in his side, plowing through flesh and bone as he came for her, his face a mask of hatred and blood.

And before a fourth bullet could escape the muzzle of her pistol, he was on her. His body burned with the heat of an oven and the stink of sweat and blood was all over him, then all over her as Seven grabbed her by her hair and hurled her aside, his body smaller than hers, his strength so far beyond what they’d expected it would ever be.

The pain of her scalp separating from her skull was staggering. Still, there was a part of her, the scientist beyond the woman who was worried about her job and projects, that rejoiced. They had succeeded! If the others were anywhere close to Seven She struck the ground and felt the skin scrape from her hand and the side of her face. Before she could recover, Seven grabbed her and lifted her up in the air. She had only a moment to gather her breath for a proper scream before the wall took that breath away and knocked her senseless.

She would wake up to find that most of her world had been destroyed by the very thing she had struggled to create. Subject Seven had killed her Tom and stolen away her Bobby and so many of her dreams.

She had done it to herself, really. She might as well have killed her husband with her own hands, and as for her son? Well, that thought was enough to leave her crying.

In time she would get stronger. She would make herself be strong. There was no other choice, not really. Someone had to carry on her dreams, Tom’s dreams. Their legacy.