Every great story has an origin story, I mean who hasn’t heard of Batman or Wolverine. Every comic book edition explains their epic origin story usually involving some tragic death and epic montage of how they became who they are, some cool costume to impress the ladies *winks with both eyes* and WEAPONS! Well, this is mine except the deaths are a little alive and the only montage you’ll get of me, your hero, is my attempt at getting into problematic situations and then running away from them. I’m just your average thirty something year old. Studying Molecular Biology specialising in genetics and mutations, which is my FAVOURITE, thanks Spidey. I have my own place and it’s pretty rad, I try to keep it pretty chill between my figurines, comic books and posters of Wonder Woman, what? She kicks ass. ANYWAYS. Things have been different for a while to say the least and for you guys to get why I’m so chill about Zombies hanging around outside my window, running around the streets like a loss puppy, the kind of lost puppy that will give you rabies if bitten mind you. We gotta start with the beginning.
It was a day like any other, I get up, usually woken up by my pal Felix, he’s my cat so to speak. He’s actually my clock from when I was kid. My landlord wont let me have any animals but he’s a prick. You can’t sneeze without his permission. Enough about him, back to me. So I get my breakfast, off brand cereal, it’s cheap but it tastes the same. Shower without using all the hot water and brush my teeth. Probably should tame this mad mop on my head but I like the way it curls, it reminds me of my mums hair, before all this Zombie Fever Happened. One last look at this handsome mug and out the door I go. I was about to lock up and I hear this really weird banging from Steves room which was unfortunately opposite mine, lucky me.
I kept hearing this gagging and gasping for air and was like, “is this it? Has Mrs. Dee from down the hall cracked it?” Mrs. Dee was the nicest lady ever, she was like our mum and always had something to share with us. Her husband had passed a few years ago but we all came together from it. The two of them had travelled from Greece when they were young for work. Mrs Dianopolous was her full name but she loved the nickname Mrs. Dee, she said it made her feel like we were her family giving her a pet name. She is a pretty special, but scary when she needs to be lady. Steve had issues with Mrs. Dee all to do with her rent, of course. She didn’t get any help from anyone and still tried to pay all her bills, we all tried to help her out but she was stubborn and set on it doing herself, we all would do it on the sly though, mostly to piss of Steve but also more mostly, we loved that Greek woman, her hearty laughter when she’d reminisce and most importantly, her Baklava. She always had a fresh batch just oozing on her favourite wedding plate.
The gagging turned to silence, I thought yes, knock out! but being the good boy my mother raised me to be I could hear her voice telling me to check on douchebag Steve, usually I just hear her voice in my head but this time there was another voice, maybe it was my own. Maybe I had an epiphany and knew for some reason I should concern myself with the wellbeing of Steve or maybe I just wanted to see him get his, either way I was about to stickybeak. I crouched down on all fours on the floor and looked under the door way. I couldn’t see anything but to ensure my mothers nagging voice I kept looking, honestly I don’t know why. I and everyone else couldn’t care less if Steve got taken out, he was a douche. He was mean to everyone, he had a mouth you’d wanna just sucker punch, only when he opened it to talk though. Oh My GOD. The endless words so full of *insert poo emoji x 3*. UGH. I blinked and the next second I heard something moving about quite heavily in there. I could see Steve, he was walking really weirdly, stumbling and kinda growling. Two black shoes now stood at the door, the same door I was stupidly crouched down at. I can hear really broken breathing, Steve had no problem with asthma, so this was new. He stared to sniff, oh my god, why am I still at this door. I couldn’t move, half paralysed by fear, half curious about what the hell he was on. The doorknob startle to jiggle and he started to bash up against the door. I swore a lot and needed a new pair of pants after that but I raced back to my room, locking to door behind me. NO WAY, I thought, NO *expletive* WAY.
So, you know how I said I was studying Molecular Biology, well, I had an internship there too. I spent all my time taking in as much information I could get and putting in extra time for research, got to know everyone who worked there, all but one. Mark Reynholm. The Mark Reynholm. He was fourth generation Reynholm Industry and Research, they owned pretty much half the town, guess what it’s called, yep, Lake Makatoaw, City of Lakes. You thought I was going somewhere with that weren’t you? What can I say, I like to keep things fresh. Okay, okay enough with the semantics. So Mark, top dog, he never came in ever except one day, the one day I had taken of to talk to my girlfriend, Marlene. She was super sweet and I called her Marzelpan, like Marzipan? Yeah? no.. okay. She is real, she’s just.. online, but she is the next town over. Oh God, is this catfish. JUST JOKING, we skype WITH the video ON. Anyways, we were talking about her weekend and she just looks at me and says, ‘oh god! how are you not freaking out right now?” in her perfect you’re a dumbass kinda way, yeah she keeps me on my toes. “I was like what? What are going on about you perfect angel?” She was all like, “MARK REYNHOLM DIPSHIT. He is in your lab or whatever!” in her perfectly angelic voice. Needless to say I love this woman for two reasons, she tells me how it is and she remembers things for me. I had research to present to Mark as the top honour student, yeah my father was a genius and I think inherited at least that from him. It was about the possibility of cell mutation within a human to prevent rapid aging and cell decline. The usual Saturday night conversation piece, simple and easy.
I kissed this woman via the laptop screen, don’t judge me, grabbed the keys to my shitbox corolla and rolled outta there like Vin Diesel in Fast 8. There was a lot of swearing and speeding but I made it, just in time to decontaminate, change and meet the group of special high achievers like myself, in the Viewing Auditorium. The Viewing Auditorium was the cool place where we could watch different researchers come in and share how they achieved their contribution to the society of curing disease. This time, I was graced by the present of the almighty, Mr. Reynholm. There stood an average sized man, hair combed back into a state of dapper. He was a normal man in a really expensive suit but inside his brain was a wealth of knowledge and secrets only one dare to dream about. Hello everyone, he said in his perfect man voice, turns out he was the embodiment of the voice overs for the movie intros. “As I’m sure you’re all aware I’m Mark Reynholm and I’m very excited to see all your presentations and if one of you is successful you will be chosen to come and work at Reyhnolm Research where you will be able to grow as individuals and shape the future”. He literally said that, pretentious but revolutionary. We all had a chance to show Mark our presentations and theories, why we, college students, felt they worked and prayed he’d be impressed enough to say, “You there have been chosen”, cue angels singing.
My turn felt like it came and went, I messed up information and was sure I stuffed it right up, but Mr. Reynholm looked at me and made a face that I could only make out as intrigued. Oh god, could it be, my research and extra time had paid off. He whispered to his tight lip assistant and after the presentations were over called me aside. Jake, he called, everyone looked around, who in the hell was, oh. He got my name wrong, probably on purpose to ensure we all knew how powerful he was and he could call us whatever he wanted. Being the hate the world kinda guy I said there is no Jake, in the most punk ass tone. He looked at me and said, “You. Come with me” in his commanding tone. I shat my pants that day, hypothetically *cough cough* yeah. I was trembling to say the least, I had no idea what he wanted but he obviously felt my theory on anti-aging was important enough to listen to let alone try and say my name wrong. Yeah I’m still kind of bitter about it. He took me back to his office where he asked me to hand in my assignment, for thorough improvement and thanked me for my dedicated hard work, the usual bullshit. I was then excused and his wooden door shut behind me by that tight lipped assistant. This is were my crouching down and peering through doors began. I slipped my phone underneath the door just enough and I began to record their conversation, after a few minutes I heard Mark command the woman out and that was my cue to leave.
I made it back to my shit box and low and behold, there was a parking ticket. Best believe that went missing, must’ve been the wind. Thanks Mark. I sat in that car and began to listen, at first I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, then I thought maybe the knew I was recording and were taking the piss but the more I listened over and over, the more I realised my anti-aging was turning into an elixir of life, disease and death free. Right about now you’re probably think, you dumbass you gave your research to that prick, well you’d be right except for the fact I kept it on my trust usb, which was backed up to a floppy disc. You can never be too safe. Also the information on the floppy disc is my father and mothers life work. They were curing disease and death one tribe at a time. Everything they had on their was all field based, what worked and what didn’t. I only handed in the basic version and not enough for Mark or anyone to make something out of. Turns out I was wrong, but right. I’m currently trembling in my room because I’ve seen this before as a child. My parents were asked to visit a tribe who had an issue with the deceased, their bodies wouldn’t rest and their souls were somewhere here, somewhere there as the tribespeople described it. It terrified me but my mother whispered something to me, she said if I could just imagine lots of little cells inside our body, rapidly multiplying and all defective, we had nothing to be afraid of, because cells are cells, big or small. Like a rudder on a giant ship we can learn to control it. Thats why I do what I do, especially because of her.
I realised now Mark took my work knowing who I was, not because he knew I knew I was a badass molecular biologist and could let him live forever. He knew I had something to share, something he could use and weeks after he took my paper they had a press release talking about how successful trial runs were and they were able to provide eternal life, healing of diseases, defying death as they described it, to those who needed it. You’d think he was the return of Christ with his “I am here to provide the answer to life” or at least eternal youth, give me all your money, *laughs in millionaire*. This spiel which oozed self righteousness on the backs of others aka my parents life research and my hard work was nothing and he was a greedy bastard, at least my eyes anyway. He was here to make money of my defiled research. There was a lot of hand shaking and smiling, I turned the tv off at that point. Fast forward to now with wee running down my pants, I knew there was only was way to stop this, I had to stop Money Maker Mark, help douchebag Steve and stop mass production of this so called elixir of life. I was going to make my parents proud. Cue Superhero Music.
Oh SHITE, MARLENE!
Esoteric Realms 