Chapter 21: Just Add Water
Racheal steps into the hot shower, letting the hot water cascade against her skin. Her short brown hair darkens from the moisture, flattening against her neck. Her amber eyes relax and scan the tile walls of the shower. She feels a burning sensation through her body, but dismisses it as the heat from the water.
The Director never before today had felt such an apprehension as before now. He knows something isn't quite right.
"All of the conditions of transformation were met... what's wrong? Wait... there was one thing...."
He quickly looks at the infectious cells, the ones that produce Xenophain.
"Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen... what's missing?" He mutterers, looking at the many elements and compounds composing the chemical.
"It reacts with Hydrogen and Oxygen... why didn't it activate then... It should - No... It's not just the elements themselves... what was missing was... water."
After a few minutes of deadly silence...
"WATER!!!" He roars. "GUNTHER!" He roars into his radio. "Get back to that girl's house! If she comes in contact with water, she'll transform!"
Gunther, several blocks away from Racheal's house, curses. He puts on the gas, speeding to get there on time.
Several miles away, Sara smells a strange scent. It smells like Racheal, but it's becoming more like her own... she immediatly breaks out into a run.
He must be turning her for not telling! Racing at high speed, she covers several blocks in only a few minutes. She just doesn't know if she can get there in time.
In her shower, Racheal starts to scream, pain burning her whole body. Her screams become so violent that it causes the glass door of the shower to shatter.
No longer able to stand upright, she tumbles out onto the floor, squirming violently. Her skin, paricularly of her legs, starts to bubble violently, slowly melting together, steam rolling off her body from the heat of the chemical reaction.
The sensation burns into her five senses, sharpening them to inhuman levels. After several painful minutes, she starts to feel heightening feelings of pleasure. Her legs cojoin, and melt into a fully functional tail fin. Gills sprout in her neck, and she finally collapses on the ground, too tired to even lift her head.
What's happened to me? She thinks meekly.
What have I become?
Sara gasps in both awe and horror, having witnessed everything.
She's... become like me...
"R-Racheal..." She stutters.
"S-Sara, what has happened to me?"
Sara gulps weakily. "You... you've become like me... I'm sorry this happened to you..."
Racheal manages to lift her head weakily.
"Like you?"
Sara feels tears threatening to fall.
"I guess I should explain... I owe you that much. But not right now, we have to get out of here before they show up again. You helped me, now I'll help you."
After getting clothes on Racheal aside from her morphed tail, she lifts her up and carries her on her shoulder, but not forgeting to grab clothes for when she morphs back.
Instinct, I need you to take over for me... bad people are coming...
With the change over to Instinct complete, she crashes through the window, into an alley. Something that Gunther, who just arrived, did NOT fail to see.
"I found you," He says softly.
YOU ARE READING
EX0L8: The Experiment
Science FictionEX0L8 is a sci fi novel, based in the distant future. The story begins with the kidnapping of a girl, leading up to the creation of 'EX0L8', a scientific experiment created by the mysterious 'Director' of a mysterious organization. EX0L8 is tortured...
