Chronicles of the Supers (Book 1): Born From Darkness (The Story of Max) (2 page)

In the background she heard a man yelling, which caused her to cry
even more. Distantly she was aware of a woman screaming too, but she
tried her best to push it out of her mind.

Suddenly her door slammed open and a large and visibly drunken man
walked in. He was shirtless and had a surprisingly well defined upper
body. His muscles bulged with his movement as he grabbed the door and
slammed it behind him. His pants were torn in various places and were
very loose, looking like they were going to fall off at any minute.

She screamed as he grabbed her roughly and started throwing her tiny
body around, hitting everything in sight with her like she was a bat
and the room was the baseball. It took smashing into several objects
before Max lost consciousness. The last thing she remembered was the
feeling of glass from the mirror she'd just broken cutting her back.

##########

Max bolted upright in her bed. Sweat was rolling down her entire body
and her uniform was soaked through. She jumped out of bed and went to
her dorm room mirror. Once there, she quickly stripped her clothes
and checked her entire body thoroughly. Though it was extremely thin
and unhealthy looking, she had no bruises or other signs of injuries.
Even the bruises from earlier were completely gone.

She continued to check for nearly half an hour as she shivered
despite the sweat that was flowing off of her like a waterfall. She
couldn't help but remember the nightmare again and again and nothing
she did put it out of her head. Pretty soon she felt like she was
going to pass out from the memory but forced herself to stay awake
even as her vision started going blurry.

She looked over at the clock and saw the blurry 5 am marked on it.
Realizing she probably wasn't going to get anymore sleep, Max decided
instead to take a shower and put her clothes through the wash. She
headed silently for the showers to begin her day a bit early.
Besides, it would be a good idea for her to tackle more of her
gargantuan pile of homework.

##########

The next week flew by for Max. She didn't understand why it seemed
like her life was getting easier, even if only a little bit here and
there. She didn't put a whole lot of thought into it though. At least
until she noted her wounds healing within hours instead of days. One
day she cut her arm using a box cutter at work and the wound had
completely healed within the hour. Not even a scar was left. Max
thought about making a note of it but her responsibilites quickly
knocked the stray idea out of her head and she had completely
forgotten by the time she left for the day.

##########

"How is the experiment proceeding?" asked the
distant alien voice.

"It is proceeding well. At this rate we should have
the final result in one more of this planets revolutions about its
central star." said the alien sitting in the shadow of his
console.

"Very well. Keep me informed." The distant
voice said.

"As you wish commander."

Chapter 2:

Despairs
Return

"Will you slow the fuck down?" said Max's exasperated
coworker. For the last 2 days now she had been doing the work of 3
people by herself. She was almost sprinting around the store, even
performing feats that would normally take 2 or more well trained
workers to handle. She'd begun absorbing knowledge quickly and she'd
already learned to operate the powered transports. Of course, she'd
also been reprimanded and threatened with losing her job for
operating one without any certification. Apparently, being smarter
than most workers was frowned upon by management.

After
that incident she had moved on to greater feats of ability. One day
she had managed to restock half the store in under an hour. Many
times she walked past her coworkers so fast that they fell to the
ground, though that was more out of shock and awe than any wake left
behind by her running.

It was
now 9 pm, a mere 3 hours into Max's shift and the entire store had
been fully stocked again and there was no real work to be done.

"Nah.
I wanna get outta here now. I'm tired." Max said exhaustedly. It
was Friday and she wanted the weekend to come and go as fast as
possible. For some reason she was giddy about the coming weeks, but
she didn't know why. There was nothing but an endless stream of work
to look forward to.

Though
at least she'd be able to sleep tonight. She had finished her
freelance projects the night before, a full day earlier than she had
planned, and the company who had hired her would likely not contact
her again until next week, since it was a weekend and the company was
closed on the weekends. And since she charged a flat rate she would,
hopefully, not have to worry about the pay.

She
still had her job at the gas station to not look forward to. This
time she had 2 shifts in a row on each day. She'd be spending 36 of
her 48 weekend hours working at the gas station this weekend and she
knew it would be hell. Especially since the gas station job required
her to stand around and
not
move much. Not moving was as foreign to Max as her hellish work and
school schedule was to most people.

"I'm
tired too. Tired of you." The guy said in a huff before leaving
to go to the breakroom. She had been stealing the duties of her
coworkers and many were worried that they would be cut from the
payroll. All of them needed this job just to barely get by in life
and Max was possibly going to consign them all to death by doing too
good of a job. And they were pissed about it. There was even a
betting pool on who could get Max fired first, though she didn't know
about that.

Max
watched him leave sadly as a single tear flowed from her eye. Though
he hadn't intended to, that statement had forced a painful memory
from her past to re-surface. The memory flashed through her mind as
she drifted off into a day dream. She was, quite thankfully,
interrupted from the daydream by a woman tugging on her shirt. She
turned to face the woman who had a scowl that could curddle milk.

"Thank
fuck you finally stopped being a lazy cunt. Now where are the fucking
grapes?" the woman rudely asked, with as much hatred as she
could put behind her words. Max smiled, as she was required to do by
the company policy, and responded.

"They're
right over here. I'll show you the way." She said in the most
polite tone she could muster, which was extremely difficult
considering all she wanted to do was slap the woman standing before
her for the rude comment.

Max
escorted the putrid woman to the produce section and showed her the
grape stand. The woman forcefully grabbed a bag and threw it into her
cart, crushing a few grapes in the process. She started to leave but
stopped. As she turned back on Max it was clear she had another
insult to throw at her.

"Some
advice, young lady. Get the dick out of your ass and start doing your
duties. You can ride it in your off time."

With
that the lady turned to leave. Max, though, suddenly grew very pale.
She quickly made way to the bathroom and, though against company
policy, locked the public room. It was the only one in the store and
thus she was locking out potential customers. But this late at night
there was no more than 2 customers in the store anyway.

As she
dove into the toilet stall a particularly painful memory from when
she was younger forced its way to the surface. She retched up the
contents of her stomach as the memory started playing in perfect
quality and she relived every single tiny detail.

##########

A 14 year old Max lay crying underneath her bed, pushing against the
wall behind her as she tried desperately to escape the scary man who
was reaching underneath her bed. The man had a drunken expression
that somehow passed as both a grin and a scowl at the same time. She
kept trying to go backwards further but the wall seemed to defy her
wishes. It was almost as if the wall wanted to push her away from it
and into his grip.

After many minutes of failure, the man stood up. Max had hoped,
somehow, that he was going to leave. Instead the bed was suddenly
moving. It was pulled away from the wall swiftly and Max felt an
unbearably tight grip on her throat.

"There ya are you little bitch." said the man. "Why
are you trying to hide? I've already told you that you can't escape
me. No matter how far you run or where you hide I'll be there to
bring you back to me."

Max started flailing around in a desperate attempt to escape but her
body failed her in short order because she was unable to breath due
to the mans grip on her neck.

"Now today we're gonna try something new." the man said
with a sloppy grin that would make even the most saintly person
isntantly pull out a gun and shoot him.

"Don't worry. Daddy's gonna treat you just right." Max's
father said as he walked out of the room with Max being towed by his
iron grip on her neck. The last thought the young Max had before she
passed out was hope that she wouldn't end up like her mother.

##########

Max finally finished heaving her stomach contents into the toilet as
the memory began to fade. After a long while she got up and washed
her disheveled face off. She was once again glad that she chose not
to wear any makeup. It made times like this easier on her.

She finally exited the bathroom to find that the store was as empty
as ever. It was friday night and the local public school was having
their football game. No one would be in because the store closed at
midnight and the game would likely go to nearly that time.

She went about her duties as she tried to forget the memory that had
been dragged back into existence by a very hate filled comment and
found that the last few hours of her shift passed by quickly but
quietly. She managed to stave off any more attacks from her mind and
finally left to go back to her dorm room and get some actual sleep
for the first time literally years.

##########

The next day Max awoke very early. The sun hadn't quite risen but its
rays were visible on the horizon. She sat up in her bed and
stretched. For some reason she felt exceptionally great and very well
rested. Then again, she had gotten almost 6 hours of sleep, twice her
usual amount.

She quietly got dressed for her job and left. She had the next 18
hours to work and would not get a real break until it was over. The
ball game had let up and the away team and their families and
supporters would be leaving today. Given that the gas station was on
the outskirts of the town and on the most direct path from the
football field, she would likely be swamped with work for all of her
time there today.

Even so, she was, for some reason, not expecting it to be tiring or
debilitating. Perhaps the amount of sleep she had gotten had proven
adequate to heal her burned out body. She didn't know for sure, but
she was determined to not care so long as she was able to get through
the day. The next paycheck would reflect her extra time, though being
a part time worker she wouldn't receive the bonus 50 percent pay that
a full time worker would. And even if she was a full time worker she
still doubted they'd give her the extra money. The owners were the
sort to dock inexplicably large amounts of money for seemingly small
transgressions or, on one occasion, even something that did not
qualify as any type of transgression.

As she left the campus she was glad that students were allowed
weekend excursions into the town without guidance, else she would
probably not be able to pay her way through school. On school days
the school would require the students to seek written permission to
leave campus.

Max quietly stalked her way off campus through the bushes so as not
to be seen by her fellow classmates. They didn't need to know about
her weekend job and she doubted any would even show up at her work
place.

##########

"That'll be thirty-three seventy-nine" Max said, making
sure to enunciate so the price total was as clear as possible.

"These god damned muslims causing gas prices to go up. I can
barely afford to fill my truck anymore." the rough looking man
muttered as loudly as possible. He pulled out two 20 dollar bills and
slammed them on the counter. Max quickly rang up the amount and gave
the man his due change. She wanted him gone as quickly as possible,
so she didn't even bother telling him the amount of the change as she
normally did. Instead she just shoved it in his hand. He was the only
customer in and she was nearing the end of her hellacious shift and
she was getting tired of work.

'Only half an hour more to go' she thought sadly as she realized it
was already dark outside. She'd once again spent an entire day inside
instead of being able to enjoy the sun like she wanted to. She gazed
out of the window for a moment and thought about a day when she would
just be able to relax and enjoy her life for once. Though she knew it
wouldn't happen, she could at least hope for it right?

After the man left, Max grabbed a stool to sit down on. Her feet were
pounding painfully because this was the first time she'd been able to
sit down since she had arrived and clocked in. No one else had worked
during her shift except the manager, who locked himself in his
office. He'd decided that he was above "manual labor" and
thus didn't care about the goings on in the store or helping Max out
during the hellstorm of people who'd come through.

Minutes after Max had sat down she heard the very loud sound of tires
squealing on pavement. She looked out of the window to see the guy
she had just rung up pulling, of all things, a half donut with his
truck. When he was turned the other way he shot out of the parking
lot and down the road so fast that Max barely realized he was gone
before she could no longer see his tail lights.