The Road Ahead

Rose woke from her dreamless slumber. The sun’s scorching rays forced her into the harsh reality of the day. Squinting, she slowly opened her eyes. She groaned. The light of the blazing sun reflected off of the sand surrounding her, providing no relief from the pounding headache from which she was currently suffering.

She sat up cautiously. Her body was sore from sleeping on the hard ground. According to the location on her phone, she was in Mexico. Rose’s eyes wandered aimlessly around the dull landscape as she attempted to get her bearings, both in her mind and in the real world. It was difficult for her to recall what had happened over the past few days. Judging by the fact that it felt like her brain was trying to box its way out of her skull, she’d obviously been drunk last night.

She looked to her left and noticed a road a few yards away. Though people must have passed by while she was lying on the ground, she wasn’t surprised that no one had tried to wake her because she was currently invisible.

Slowly, she stood up, trying her best not to tumble over as gravity took its hold. My powers, she thought. That’s why I came to Mexico. Rose did all she could to remember any other details of her excursion but failed in her attempt. It was as though her brain was full of an endless fog that was pervaded by the constant slamming of cymbals and drums.

She touched her face in exasperation, only to pull back quickly as she felt a jolt of harsh pain.

“Great,” she said, her voice croaky and her mouth dry. She’d gotten sunburn from laying in the desert for hours, and she needed water.

Before figuring out what she was doing here, Rose decided to first focus on getting her body back to near-working condition. She walked toward the road ahead, using her last ounce of energy for the journey to civilization.

Thankfully, after only a mile and a half, she found her way back to the motel she’d booked for her stay in Mexico (the information had been on her phone).

As soon as Rose arrived at her room, she rushed to the mini fridge. There, hidden behind the rotten remains of a half-eaten burrito, she found her solace. The bottled water tasted like heaven on her tongue, and she gulped it down until there wasn’t a drop left.

After quenching her thirst, she cleaned up and decided to go into town to get something for her hangover as well as a decent meal. She checked her hands. They were visible again. Good. She wouldn’t have to hide.

Rose made her way quickly through the store. While she was walking back to her car less than 5 minutes later, she saw something that made her stop in her tracks.

One of the cars in the parking lot had a sticker on its back windshield. She wasn’t sure what it meant, but something about it seemed familiar to her. Rose stared at it in confusion for a few moments before her stomach growled, reminding her of the food she was carrying. She decided to figure it out after she’d had her meal. Rose got into her car and drove off.

She reached a stoplight, and, as she waited for it to turn green, a maroon car rolled up next to her. In it, a group of teenagers were laughing and blasting their music. Rose popped the pills she’d grabbed in the store to relieve her headache and prayed that the light would turn green soon.

The song blasting from the crowded car changed, and Rose was instantly transported back in time.

Rose sat on a worn-out sofa in the middle of a large warehouse-turned-hangout space. Music was blasting from a radio set on the table, and Rose was nervous. She didn’t know anyone here, but according to what she’d read online, they all had the same problem she did.

“Turn that down, Raf. I can’t hear myself think,” the girl, Wanda, spoke to the slightly younger boy.

He lowered the volume, and all seven individuals gathered around, each sitting on their own bean bag chairs, the couch, or the sofa arms.

“So, new girl. What’s your story?” Heidi asked. She didn’t talk much, but was the most intimidating of the group. Her hair was jet black and styled in a pixie cut, and tattoos covered her arms.

Rose took a deep breath and began, thinking back to the day when her life first started spiraling past her control.

She’d gotten her powers unexpectedly a few weeks before the meeting. She’d just woken up, only to find that when she looked in the mirror, her reflection was nowhere to be found. Initially, Rose had tried to shove it off as some kind of tired haze, but after hours of walking past the reflective surfaces in her home and seeing nothing out of the corner of her eye coupled with the fact that as she was trying to cut tomatoes, her hands mysteriously disappeared, she realized that this wasn’t just her imagination playing tricks.

So, she’d taken to the internet in an attempt to find some sort of explanation about what she was experiencing. It took her nearly the whole day, but, finally, she came across a forum where people were describing experiences similar to her own. They all seemed to have different powers, but everyone agreed that their new abilities were impossible to control.

A sub-group took prominence in the forum. They insisted they were close to a solution. Rose was initially skeptical, but after talking with Beth, a 22-year-old who was afflicted with telekinesis, she agreed to meet up with the group in Mexico.

As Rose explained her story, everyone in the group listened, some nodding their heads in consolation. This was their struggle, too.

“There’s this rumor,” Beth began, “that it’s the military’s fault. They’ve been experimenting on unsuspecting people for years, trying to build the next superhuman.

My uncle’s close to someone who works with that sort of stuff and from what I’ve heard – and, I will admit, I’ve been sneaking around his office a bit, too – I’ve heard they’re targeting the younger generation next. That’s why Raf and Diana got their powers later than us. I guess it’s some kind of theory that the younger they start, the more time they’ll have for their powers to grow properly.

Anyway, it’s all highly illegal stuff. And they keep screwing up.”

“And, now, Beth thinks it’s a good idea to just go in there blind,” Wanda remarked, throwing Beth an exasperated look.

“I told you, we’re not going to the military,” Beth replied.

Then, to the entire group, she added, “There’s this base close by, and they say they can help us. It’s a bunch of the brains behind the operation who went rogue because they didn’t like what they were being told to do. I’ve looked into it, and I really think they can help.”

“I don’t know,” Raf said.

“Me either,” Diana agreed. She was the youngest of the group.

“How can we know we can really trust these people?” Adrianne asked. Not having said a word since Rose had arrived, she was surprised to hear them speak.

Beth huffed. “This is our only shot, people. And I, for one, am not just gonna sit around and do nothing when we have a chance to get our lives back to normal.”

Wanda and Heidi shook their heads. Raf, Diana, and Adrianne remained silent, still skeptical of Beth’s plan.

“Is no one going to go with me?” Beth asked.

There was a moment of silence, which was broken by Rose’s voice.

“I’ll go,” she said, standing up. “Beth’s right. I’m not just going to sit here and let this ruin the rest of my life.”

“Thank you! At least one of us has some sense,” Beth remarked.

Beth and Rose were set to leave the next day. With promises of returning knowledge (and, hopefully, a cure), they began their journey with the hope that their lives could finally return back to normal.

“I don’t know about this,” Rose said as they observed the base from afar. “It looks more like my grandma’s house than somewhere that can reverse the effects of a military experiment gone bad.”

“Looks can be deceiving,” Beth assured. “Just trust me. Come on.”

Beth walked toward the building, leaving Rose with no choice but to follow.

An individual dressed in casual clothing greeted them at the door. Beth spoke to them quickly, and both women were ushered into the makeshift waiting room on the other side of the door.

Not long after, a woman in a bright white lab coat appeared from a side door.

“Follow me,” she spoke, and, with some hesitation on Rose’s part, they obeyed.

The woman led them through a labyrinth of tight, winding hallways until they reached an elevator. After a brief security check before squeezing into the small space, the elevator took them down to a much larger passage of tunnels. It seemed as though the house above served merely as a front for the actual operation.

Before reaching their destination, they were tried with a series of additional security checks and questions they had to answer to make sure they weren’t affiliated with the government. Each check increased Rose’s nervousness, and by the time they’d arrived at the lower levels, she was beginning to question her eagerness to follow through with this plan.

Rose and Beth were then led down another corridor with walls made of coarse rock. The corridor expanded out into a large, cavernous room, where they could see numerous people in lab coats doing various experiments.

“Doctor. The visitors,” the woman in the white coat alerted her co-worker.

A rather short man with a wisp of white hair on his head shuffled forward.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “Interrogation Room 4A, I expect?”

“3B, actually,” the woman corrected.

“Right. Right. I must’ve mixed up the numbers again. 4B it is!”

He smiled dumbly for a moment as the woman stared at him.

“No, 3B,” he said quickly. “Yes, I know. I was just joking. Only joking.” Rose wasn’t sure he was telling the truth.

The woman rolled her eyes and walked past the doctor.

“Follow,” she said with her back to the visitors, and they rushed to catch up.

She led them to a separate area of the large room, where a group of five surveyed the newcomers with interest.

“These are you attendants,” she said to Rose and Beth. “They will monitor and analyze the condition of your powers before you speak with the leaders of this operation.”

After a few procedural tests coupled with a bunch of scribbling on notepads, the woman reappeared and led them to another subset of the underground cavern.

“In here.” She opened a steel door to a much smaller room. Behind a metal table sat four chairs. Three feet from the table were two lone chairs that sat side by side.

“Sit,” she said as she took her place behind the table.

Rose and Beth sat down.

Three other doctors arrived soon after, taking their places behind the table.

Rose felt oddly exposed as they stared at her and kept fidgeting in her seat. Beth seemed nervous as well, though she hid her anxiety with an emotionless expression.

“You’re here because you want to be fixed, normal again,” the woman who’d led them into the room spoke. “The government has taken control of your lives and you wish to gain that control back. We can provide the answer to your troubles.”

The woman stood up. “Let me introduce myself. I’m Doctor S. I run this operation. These are my consultants.” She gestured to the three individuals who sat next to her.

“I’m sure you know how fickle your powers are, how unpredictable,” she continued. “We can’t change that. We can, however, eliminate the problem altogether. This is the only coarse of action. Otherwise, you’ll simply wither away to nothing.”

“I’m sorry,” Rose interrupted. “What do you mean ‘wither away to nothing’?”

Doctor S fixed Rose with a sickening smile. “You’ll die. The unpredictable effects of your powers will worsen until your atoms will no longer be able to contain the abnormality, and you will be killed by its intensity. It will be a painful and merciless death.”

Rose and Beth were stunned into silence.

“But there is a solution, remember?” Doctor S said casually, as if she had not just warned them about their imminent, painful deaths.

“Unfortunately, one caveat exists. Though our previous operations have been successful, we only have enough resources for one more rejuvenation. Our key ingredient for this reversal was stolen from the government’s resources, and, I’m afraid, to get more of it will be impossible, as their security measures have increased tenfold since our severance.”

“So, only one of us can be cured?” Beth asked.

“Precisely,” Doctor S agreed.

“Beth—” Rose began.

“I’ll let you discuss it further,” Doctor S said. The four doctors left the room, leaving Beth and Rose standing in the small space, alone.

“So, what are we gonna do? We have to tell the others,” Rose reasoned.

Beth shook her head. “There’s on time. If we leave, they’ll give the cure to someone else. Then, none of us will have a chance.”

“This isn’t fair,” Rose said.

She thought for a moment.

“No,” she said finally. “I’m not gonna do it. It’s all of us or none of us.”

Beth stared at her companion for a moment, thinking it over. “You’re right. This isn’t fair. We have to make the right choice.”

Doctor S was surprised to find out that neither of the women were going to go through with the cure. This had never happened before. Nevertheless, she allowed the visitors to stay the night before heading back when the sun rose.

Rose woke up early the next morning. Feeling slightly off, she realized that she was invisible again. Then, she remembered everything that had transpired the night before. Her heart dropped. The one hope she’d had of returning to her old life had been crushed like a fine pearl to useless powder.

No, she decided. She wasn’t going to let this be the end. There had to be a way to get what they needed to cure not just her, but everyone forcibly afflicted with their superhuman conditions.

She strode to the door, opening it with a flourish. She had to find Beth and come up with a plan.

Rose had been walking for only a minute and a half when she ran into one of the doctors.

“Ah, you’re up. Doctor S sent me to find you. Right this way.”

Rose nodded and asked, “Where are we going?”

“Uh, you’re leaving. Remember? This place is pretty large, so she thought it would be best if I saw you out.”

“Change of plans,” Rose countered. “I need to find Beth. I’m not giving up that easily.”

The doctor looked at her, confused. “Beth . . . I think it’s best if I just see you out. Follow me.”

“No. Where’s Beth?” Rose asked.

“She’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yes, uh, she received the procedure and left early this morning.” The doctor looked slightly intimidated by Rose’s stern gaze.

“She—no. We decided not to. We promised each other . . .” Rose’s head was spinning. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go.

“Ma’am, you need to leave now.” A guard attempted to usher her toward the exit by grabbing her arm.

“Let go of me.” Rose yanked her arm out of the guard’s grip. “There’s got to be another way. You can’t just kick me out.”

The doctor looked at her sadly. “You’re a hopeless case, Rose. Just accept it. It will make it easier.”

Two of the guards lifted Rose up, but she continued to fight.

“Taze her,” a calm voice spoke, and Rose’s world faded into darkness.

Rose woke up on the ground. The midday sun caused her to squint, and she realized that she was lying by the road that led to her motel.

How could Beth betray her like that? Rose took out her phone and dialed Beth’s number one, two, three times before giving up. The last sliver of hope she’d had, that maybe this was all just one big misunderstanding, was gone. Her supposed friend had betrayed her, and she had no good news to bring back to the people who were counting on her to save them.

Rose walked up to the motel and was surprised to see that her car was there; the last time she drove it was when she went to meet Beth and her group.

She didn’t even want to figure out how it had gotten there. It didn’t matter, in any case. Her whole life was a mess. She didn’t know who she could trust and she was sure she was going to die soon.

Rose gazed down at her hands. They flickered back to visibility. She got into her car and drove. She didn’t know where she was going, but she needed some soft of relief from how screwed up her life had become.

Driving by a bar, she decided that this was as good of a place as any to let go of her troubles, and steered into the parking lot.

Rose sat down in a shadowy corner of the bar, less she attract attention by suddenly turning invisible again. Judging by the current clientele, no one would have noticed, be she wanted to be sure that no one would bother her. Now, all she had was one goal and one goal only: to drink as much as she possibly could.

The loud honk of a horn startled Rose out of her reverie, and she jumped. The group off teenagers next to her laughed as they sped off. Her foot hit the gas pedal, and she continued the drive back to her motel.

Everything made sense now, but what was she going to do?

Rose knew one thing. The symbol on that car at the gas station was the logo from the base that had promised a cure. Maybe she could see who that car belonged to and find a way to get back to herself again.

In her current sober state, Rose’s mind was now overrun with possibilities. Now, she was determined to do everything in her power to get the justice that she and everyone touched by the government’s plan deserved.