CHAPTER 3 #2
I’ve always craved being in water. They called me a little fish when I was a toddler playing in the bath. Then as I learned to swim, I would stay long past my skin pruning and wrinkling, only coming out to reapply sunscreen. Star athlete on both the high school and collegiate swim teams.
Just being in the lake, I feel all of my pent-up emotions floating away. The chill feels good on my skin, soothing and calming. I duck underneath the surface, admiring the fish skittering below. Their scales refract the few available sunbeams and scatter stunning rays of color.
Eventually, I resurface, gasping for fresh air.
Past the tree line, I see the ruins of the old research facility.
It’s decrepit now, but it wasn’t always that way.
I remember when they first built it. The owners were very secretive, so everyone in town assumed that they were working on something confidential, maybe research for the military.
The rumor mill spiraled and soon the legacy of the place became larger than life, haunted and cursed experimentations or nuclear weapons or whatever seemed interesting that day.
But they always say there’s a bit of truth in every lie. Whatever they were working on, it was surely cursed. After all, something had to cause the explosion. The explosion that killed me.
The birds were singing in the trees. My friends were splashing in the shallows. Liam was fiddling with the sunscreen. Our dads were all standing by the grill, overanalyzing the frozen hamburger patties while the moms were sipping lemonade in the shade.
I threw my flip flops underneath a tree and jumped in. My friends were finishing up a competitive game of chicken as I was aimlessly drifting further into the lake. Floating on my back, my hair sprawled out around me. Carefree flutter kicks slowly steered me onward.
It was peaceful, serene. Laughter. Birds. A subtle gust of wind. It was the perfect moment in time.
But perfect moments rarely last.
Everything that happened next happened all at once. The loud boom, as if a bomb had detonated. Screams barely cutting through the distance. Birds taking flight in a panicked frenzy. A bright light burst from the facility.
Our parents shouted, crying for us to get out of the water. My friends clamored to the shore. But they were in the shallows, and I was in the deep. The bright light was coming toward us, and I just knew, I couldn’t outswim that.
So, I made a gut decision and I prayed, and at the last moment…
I ducked beneath the surface.
The bolt hit the water, and I could feel everything. My nerve endings lit up with agony. The air was ripped from my lungs, replaced with water from the lake. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I sank to the bottom as the life left my body.
It felt like seconds later when I opened my eyes.
Everything was the same, but different. The water against my skin was alive.
I could feel it as an extension of myself.
I pushed off the ground and broke the surface almost immediately, without kicking my legs.
I coughed as air refilled my lungs, but no water came out.
I didn’t have time to examine these new sensations any closer as screaming drew my attention. Someone grabbed my arm and started towing me to shore. Hands. Hugs. Crying. Apparently, what felt like seconds was actually several minutes. I drowned. I shouldn’t be alive.
We drove to the hospital. The emergency room was full of burn and shock victims. A redhead a few years younger than me was crying in the corner as her older brother held her close.
We learned later that everybody who worked at the facility died, either on the scene or in the hospital later.
My family couldn’t believe I was okay, but the doctors didn’t find anything wrong.
No burns, no brain damage, no water in my lungs. I was discharged.
They held a mass funeral for the dead scientists. I stayed home.
My friends and family never came back to the lake, but I couldn’t shake this feeling of connection. I never told anyone about my newfound powers, heck, I barely understand it even today. But something happened in that explosion. Something changed me. Perhaps now it’s time to understand why.
The deteriorating asphalt crunches under my tires as I pull up to the fence surrounding the research facility.
Signs are zip-tied to the wires – “No Trespassing,” “Condemned,” “Warning – Danger.” I pull off to the side, wishing I had my Water Weaver disguise to hide my identity.
Typically, I try to stop crime, but I figure just this once, a little breaking and entering won’t hurt anybody.
I easily scale the fence and walk up to the building.
The front door is locked, but I am able to easily jimmy a window and slip inside.
The lobby is coated with a thick layer of dust. I make my way over to the reception desk and try to boot up a computer.
Nothing. There’s no power. Okay, we’re going analog then.
I open a drawer and pull out a notepad, noting the name on the letterhead.
Huh, Synergy Labs. Never knew what this place was called.
Wait, Synergy Labs? Where have I heard that before?
Oh god.
Anise.
Or well… Sparks. The only time I got her to talk to me about whatever she was involved in, she mentioned Synergy Labs.
She said she got her powers from them and the machine she was recruited to fix was actually a weapon.
She destroyed it, and all hell broke loose.
She was tortured, Jeremiah – a close friend of mine – was executed, and I killed a man.
That was also the day we broke up. It was probably the worst night of my life.
My mind spins as I try to piece together this information. She got her powers from here, but how? I pace around the room, hoping to settle my thoughts. Were they doing human experiments? God, I hope not.
I think back to all of the fragments of Anise’s past that I can remember.
She always claimed that people were after her, thinking she had some kind of special insight into her mom’s work.
That’s why it was so important that she had to be secretive and anonymous.
I never took her seriously, thinking she was being melodramatic, but I humored her.
Now, I’m starting to think that was the most honest thing she ever told me.
How did her mom die? Crap, I don’t remember. I fiddle with the edge of my sleeve, trying to trigger the rest of the memory. Yes! A workplace accident. I remember because it was so vague and ambiguous. I couldn’t figure out what she meant but had enough tact not to pry.
Oh no.
I pause my pacing mid-stride. I know how her mom died. She must have been a scientist here during the explosion.
But wait, what does that mean for her? Did she get her powers from the explosion like I did? But her mom died…
Oh. Oh goodness. Please no. Anise was here. I compare the details, hoping I’m wrong. Grew up in rural Pennsylvania. Lost her mom eight years ago. She had to have been here.
The muscles in my stomach clench as waves of emotion wash over me. In my mind, a teenage redhead runs across the room. Her screams fill the air with pain, grief, and devastation. The moment that your entire life changes.
Oh Anise. I’m so sorry. I look up, trying to blink back the tears threatening to fall. I can’t feel bad for her right now. I need to figure out what was so important about this place that people are still killing each other so many years later.
The rest of the reception area bears no fruit, so I move on through the only hallway.
A door on the left has a faded plaque, “Human Resources.” Sure.
I walk into a cobweb and swat at my face as the door shuts behind me.
Worker’s rights posters line the wall. I pick up a poster from the floor.
The corners are ripped, still stapled to the corkboard.
“What To Do in Case of Emergency.” A file cabinet in the corner is ajar, the records hastily gathered.
On a desk in the corner is a binder. Flipping through the pages, I find an employee roster.
Each page lists a few key pieces of information – name, title, address, emergency contact.
I can’t imagine having to make those calls.
Notes are scribbled among the margins. “DOA,” “DOA,” “Critical Condition,” “DOA.” I grab the binder and take it with me as I continue searching the area.
Back in the hallway, offices line the corridor.
Most of them are locked. I try to shoulder my way into one but end up with a firmly shut door and a bruised arm.
But I continue jiggling the handle of each office until I find one that gives.
I wipe the dust off the desk nameplate and match the name to one in my binder.
“Holly Jennings,” I read aloud. “DOA, sorry to hear that. It seems you were the Director of Research Integration. I’m not sure what that means, but it sounds impressive. You lived nearby in Danver Hills, a nice town. Huh.”
I pause as I continue reading. Her emergency contact was scratched out. I open the binder rings and hold the sheet up to the window, hoping the light would reveal something more. Nothing.
“That’s odd, Holly,” I muse. “Who would have done this?”
Perplexed, I snoop in her office. I find a few notebooks in a desk drawer filled with drawings and diagrams I can’t decipher. The word “energy” is circled in red. There’s a sketch of some machinery on the next page.
“You know who would be super helpful right now?” I ask aloud. “Anise. Probably the one person I can’t talk to about this.”
I close the notebooks and continue my search. There’s a bookshelf on the wall filled with worn textbooks. A few of them have dogeared pages and highlighted sections, so I add those to my pile of things to take home. Maybe those will help me decipher the notebooks.
On a second look, I notice a much-loved journal tucked on the bookshelf.
The edges are worn from being opened and shut so many times.
I lift the cover and see “For Lottie” written on the inside in an elegant script.
I flip through the pages and see letter after letter written to someone named Lottie.
There are so many letters that only a few pages remain blank.
It doesn’t say who Lottie is. Maybe a friend or a wife?
I skim a few more before shutting the book.
It’s too personal, too intense, digging through the possessions of a dead person who obviously had somebody they loved.
But I can’t leave the journal. Maybe if I find Lottie, I could deliver it.
I find a box in the Human Resources office to hold my clues and leave that in the hallway.
There’s a large metal door at the end of the hallway.
I try to open it, but it won’t budge. I can tell there’s some kind of electric lock, but without power, I can’t even try 1234 or 0000.
I walk outside and scout for a different window to sneak through, but the windows appear to only be on the office side of the building. Dang.
Defeated, I grab my box and head back to my car.
I make the trip to Danver Hills to try and find Lottie, but the current resident of Holly’s house has no helpful information.
He didn’t even know who Holly was. I sigh and lean against the headrest in my car, grieving the lives of people I never knew.