Prologue

Prologue

Is this thing on? Hey, Amp, this thing is recording, right? Yeah? Ok. So how do I start, huh? Do I, like, go in all epic like and begin with a single sentence or just explain it kinda quickly? …Full details? Alright, if you say so. Can I still make it sound badass? …Sweet.
                It all started with a field trip.
                I know what they may tell you, that the incident that took place 7 years ago was simply an act of domestic terrorism, that the destruction of Coda Labs and the death of over 50 civilians was the job of the organization known as Cypher. I bet that they also told you that the sightings of these “Super Humans” were nothing more than lies and rumors. My name is Cynthia Fuller of Strathmore (but of course, you probably already knew that by now), and I’m here with my friends and colleagues to tell you that everything you have known about that incident up to this point is a lie. But of course, I should start from the beginning.
                I was only 14 back then, a freshman in Strathmore High School. Strathmore was my hometown, a small town on the verge of becoming a city. Small suburban hideaways spread down cozily named streets like the pattern of a cobweb, the beginnings of a phenomenal city taking shape in the very center, spreading steadily outwards like poison through veins. One of the buildings that had been constructed years prior to the incident was Coda Labs, a building dedicated to seismological and meteorological research, or at least I think that’s what it was. School never really was my forte.
                Coda Labs had dedicated nearly all of its resources to developing new and innovative ways to measure natural phenomena as well as prevent them without damaging nature itself. As someone who’s a bit of a freak for that kind of stuff, I guess you could say I was kind of on board with it.
                I think it was on Monday when it happened. Let me Google that really quick. Yep, it was Monday. My friend in the background just scoffed at my “professionalism”. Please, I light jackass’s pants on fire in my free time. “Professional” isn’t a part of the job description. Anyway, it was Monday, the day of the field trip. I had always heard that high school was where those kinds of things go to die, but I guess my school was different in that sense.

 

March 17, 2008:

 

                It was just beginning to get warm, the cold claws of winter melting into its warmer counterpart. The bus was blaring the AC, the bus driver too fat to really understand what it’s like to be freezing your a*s off, unlike the rest of us students, some of us wishing we had brought our jackets. To my left sat my best friend at the time, Eugene Mason.
                Eugene hated his name from the moment he could process what it was, blaming his parents for helping him along a path filled with harassment and bullying. He normally found solace in comic books and video games, and on the very rare occasion, me. I couldn’t tell back then, but he totally had a crush on me. But that’s for later. Point is, Eugene was a skinny little runt with glasses, a stereotypical nerd, making him an easy target.  
                We had pulled up to the parking lot of Coda Labs at around 9:00 AM, a relief rushing over us as we could finally escape the freezer on wheels that we had been locked in for nearly 40 minutes. The place was gigantic, concrete towers shooting up on both sides of the structure, separated by a 4-story lobby in the middle. When we entered, we were greeted by an older man in a black suit, roughly in his 40’s. He was balding, with small scraps of black hair speckled with silver age around the sides of his head, and a beard that screamed executive.  
                “Welcome, everyone. My name is Charlie Redman, CEO and founder of our very own Coda Labs, The Leading Institute in the Scientific Prevention of Natural Disasters.” He boomed, catching the attention of everybody who actually cared. To his right was a black lady in a white lab coat, her brown hair tucked neatly into a ponytail. She wore wire-frame glasses with small and subtle flower designs on the temple. She wore a black dress that clung tightly to her hips underneath the coat, tapering just below her knees.
                The whole field trip was mostly a blur for me, ranging from in-depth explanations of boring lab equipment and uninterested interviews with nobody scientists that worked in the facility. Of course, none of that is important in any way. Or maybe it is, I don’t know. It was after lunch in their dining facility, at exactly 11:56 AM, that took the prize for my attention, as well as the world’s.

 

Cynthia:

                I sat there drowned in my thoughts, staring at the soggy sub that Coda had supplied, disgust overweighing my hunger. The facility was crowded with students, all of them chattering about Summer vacation and where they planned to go. I heard several people talk about going to their parent’s beach houses, others about how they were going to travel the country in an RV their family had rented, and so on. How little they knew.
                Eugene sat next to me, his glasses hanging loosely on his nose as he dug into his sandwich, as though it were a gourmet meal. He wore a black shirt with the batman emblem on the chest, regular blue jean pants, and white Nike sneakers, double knotted. He was always so specific about double knotting.
                “It was really sad, too. I mean, she put everything on the line for her country and they betrayed her almost without hesitation. And she never once blamed them for it. Kojima is a brilliant son of a b***h, I swear.” Eugene said, mouth half full of bologna and mayonnaise. He had been talking about a video game again.
                “Yeah, definitely.” I said.
                “So what about you? What was your saddest gaming moment?” He asked, swallowing.
                I stared at him for a few moments, contemplating an appropriate response. Video games were never really my thing. I found my entertainment in other things, like music or painting or throwing water balloons filled with paint into the neighbor’s yards.
                “I dunno. I had a memory card on my GameCube with all the Smash characters unlocked that got corrupted. Does that count?” I answered.
                “Ooph! Beats mine by a mile.” He responded, satisfied.
                To be perfectly honest that was my little brother’s card that got wiped, but it worked so whatever. I had a little brother, by the way. Skylar. Little Skylar… sorry, getting ahead of myself here.
                We sat there for what felt like hours of non-stop chatter about different kinds of video games and comic books, me listening intently. It wasn’t the content that drew me in, but the passion with which he spoke. He really cared about this stuff, even though I saw it as nothing more than a waste of time and energy, but he genuinely saw it as something to be invested in and happy about. It was that quality, really, that made us such close friends. Not his interests, but the passion associated with it.
                “Hey, do you know the time?” Eugene asked, almost sending me into shock.
                “Eugene Mason, asking about something that isn’t nerdy? Where the hell did my best friend go?”
                God I was such an ignorant girl. That probably hurt like hell for him to hear.
                “I just wanna know what time it is. I forgot my watch.”
                “You should really invest in an iPhone.” I replied, pulling mine out.  “11:55. We should be leaving soon. Thank God, I hate this s**t hole.”
                “It’s not all bad,” he defended, his cheeks beginning to redden, “what they’re doing here is amazing work. They could save thousands if not millions of lives with this kind of tech.”
                I couldn’t argue with that. That’s the stupid part about these kinds of conversations, if someone tries to be a hero, you become an a*****e for questioning them. People should question the heroes more. It might actually save some people next time.
                The clock struck 11:56.
                Almost instantly, the building began to shake slightly. The teachers and chaperones began to file us all neatly into lines, calmly shouting over the commotion that we needed to exit the building. They all looked terrified. The adults, I mean, like they had known only seconds beforehand that this was going to happen, but in greater detail. They herded us through a corridor next-door to a reaction chamber towards the exit. We didn’t get there.
                I don’t remember much about what happened. All I know is that we heard a loud noise, an explosion. Suddenly, I felt a force nearly crush my ribs, then blackness. Every now and then I could hear sounds, but they quickly gave way to the darkness. The first sound I remember was the screaming and crumbling debris of Coda. The next sounded somewhat like being on a highway with sirens blaring. The last was the foreboding rhythm of the heartbeat monitor they had strapped me up to.
                I was in a coma for a year, they told me. There were multiple complications when trying to save me, such as me flat lining randomly, unexpected seizures, temperatures of nearly 130 degrees, etc. It was March 15^th, 2009 when I woke up. Most people, when they wake up from a coma, are groggy and confused, not quite there yet. I was a different case.
                I shot up out of the hospital bed, my eyes wide and alert. My mom sat next to me, shocked awake by the sudden noise. She instantly hopped up and tried to hold me down to the bed, urging me to stay calm, that I would hurt myself while calling for the nurses.
                “Mom, please, I’m ok!” I told her, trying to get through to her. Eventually she stopped screaming and just stared at me, fear and relief layering her eyes with tears.
                “Oh my god, Cynthia…” she choked out, then hugged me. For me, no time had passed, but for her, she had sat by my side, praying to every religion she could think of for me to live. I guess someone must’ve heard her. I hugged her back. She pulled me away suddenly, wincing from pain.
                “What’s wrong?” I asked, confused.
                “My back is burning. What are you-?” She began to ask before she stopped. Her eyes were fixated on my hands. I looked down with her and froze in disbelief.
                My hands were on fire.

Reviews

[Jacob Clifford]

This is a refreshing little tale. It's a new idea, and it has everything it needs to be interesting: suspense, mystery, and mayonnaise. I've always had a soft spot for the 1st-person-looking-back-in-time style of narration. I look forward to seeing more of this!

On to critiquing.

Parts of this feel a little rough, but that's perfectly fine. You have plenty of time to revise this. Just try to keep things clear and concise, and all that stuff. Keep an eye out for grammatical errors - the coma splice is a common killer that many people miss.

The jump from the building to a year-long coma felt kind of awkward. I would try to elaborate more on parts and try to make it flow with the preceding and following paragraphs.

This is just a personal pet peeve of mine: prologues that could just be the first chapter. I feel that prologues should only be there if a Chapter 1 couldn't properly cover it. In this case, it certainly could be a chapter 1 instead. But again, just a personal thing I have.

Keep on keeping on! Good luck and don't give up.

[H.W. Morris]

I appreciate the critique. I plan to make the chapters more detailed and a bit longer in the future, but this is a point in Cynthia's life that isn't quite as clear as her other memories. I'll watch out for my grammar in the future :)