Groaning in discomfort, David lifted his body up from the coldness he was feeling which had ordinated from a cold glass tube. He felt quite groggy and dizzy and his head was incredibly heavy.

He could hear a ringing sound in his brain, as though a gong had gone off and it felt as if he had been hit by a baseball bat square in the brain.

He couldn’t think properly for a while in that moment.

Shaking his head slightly, memory pieces he couldn’t fathom suddenly started to flash through his mind, increasing the pain and the ringing sensation in his head by a few degrees.

He couldn’t help but groan loudly. The memory pieces flashed rapidly and quickly, it was like he was watching a cracked movie scene of someone else’s life. Not comprehending what they were, David did what he does the best whenever he encountered something quite troublesome.

“Let it be, it’s very tiring trying to think.” David muttered softly to himself. The headache only got worse when he tries to.pry into the tiny little details. Thinking too much was always his downfall, as it was too troublesome to him. Sighing to himself he observed his surroundings to determine where he was, and he was immediately taken aback by what he saw.

“Eh? What’s all this about?” David observed his position and saw that he was in a sleek, neatly wired up steel futuristic Pod with glass cover, connected together with numerous large transparent tubes filled with green fluids.

He was then surprised to notice he was in an underground laboratory, with countless numbers of youths, both males and females looking no older than 16 – 17 years of age.

They had their backs facing him, standing in a straight line side by side in rows and columns, not moving a single muscle.

But amidst them, there was a space meant for someone which was placed directly in front of him.

Not much thinking was needed to know that the space was meant for him but then, he realized something was wrong with the scene.

He cast a confused glance at the group

Again and again then as if he thought of something he look down at himself and abruptly was about to shout, he suddenly bit his lips to stop himself.

“…” David inhaled sharply as he couldn’t help but gasp in pain. It was a normal thing to gasp in a normal environment but before the solemn atmosphere present in the underground Lab, it was almost no different from shouting.

The gasp tore through the solemn atmosphere like a sharp sword, displacing the previous solemn vibe.

The groups of youths couldn’t help but turn their heads towards his location, when they saw who it was, they all glared at him for daring to taint the sacred atmosphere.

Embarrassed, he quietened down quickly, moving forward to his position while blushing in shame and nervousness.

Coughing quietly to get rid of the awkward atmosphere. The students slowly retracted their gazes.

David stood in his position, motionless similar to his peers. Although he still didn’t understand what was going on but with the situation present right now, it was better to act normal and behave similar to the crowds. In order not to incur the wrath of the people present. As the saying goes, when in Rome, you behave like a Romania.

Even though it was an underground laboratory, the space it contained was enormous and sufficient to accommodate the thousands of people present.

If one spoke honestly, the laboratory was slightly creepy. With the tube pods, transparent glass and the greenish liquid present in the environment. It is almost like the typical mad scientist hidden Lab.

His first thought was that he had been experimented on or was going to be experimented on and was going to be tortured along with the other students, his face turned pale as his lips quivered. He wasn’t the type to be easily scared, but this was far too much for him.

But soon, his expression turned normal, no one would allow himself to be tortured especially the youths that were with him, this calmed his nerves severely.

Clap! Clap! Clap!

A series of claps got David’s and the other youth’s attention.

A neat, straight and fit young man dressed in a casual outfit with an average face in his late twenties walked together with a group of people dressed in white medical coats walking behind him, not much thinking was needed to know that the people were scientists. Letting down his hands, the man spoke.

“My name is Mu Chen.” Mu Chen said in a deep voice. “I guess I should congratulate each and everyone of you for surviving the experiment. Of the 1200 people in your group, 308 of them failed the implantation of the catalyst and that’s considered very good considering the amount of failures we have had in the past…”

While Mu Chen was talking, Dav was Intently observing his surroundings curiously.

He noticed that the teens in the laboratory were of different origins, backgrounds and ethnic groups like black, white, brown etc. Since they were especially selected from different survivor Strongholds stationed in various sectors since the population of 15 – 16 years old kids in the stronghold are much in numbers, although 15 – 16 years old kids are in abundance.

In the strongholds, some parents or guardians would strongly refuse to release their kids just to court death because on the premises that the implantation fails, they will die without a doubt and even if they successfully survive the transplant, they still have to face life and death situations before they grow in strength at a regular speed.

While some families bet on the slim chances that if the kids were to survive and then become stronger, they could lead a good life, others cared way too much about their kids and it wasn’t quite easy for the government to take them away to train them in different Institutions.

The only advantage the rich have the poor is that they could pay a huge sum of money to the government to scan the probability of the child surviving the implantation. At least that was what was being said in public.

But the implant is only successful with a catalyst. Without a catalyst, the implant would fail without a doubt and the subject’s genes and DNA would certainly collapse, eventually leading to an inevitable death.

Owing to the threats confronting humanity, the government decided not to holdback on any newly developed catalysts, making them accessible to both the wealthy families and those families with nothing to their name, for a slightly expensive price.

The first Manufactured catalyst AA-00 was an earth-shaking achievement produced a few centuries

Ago, constructed by a group of genetic engineers with the generic materials donated by the government through the blood and sweat of the countless soldiers and agents, fighting the various Evolved lifeforms.

Moreover, the materials weren’t easy to gather since the corpses and organs of RAPIDLY EVOLVED BEINGS (REB’s) were difficult to collect.

Moreover killing a single REB’s was not an easy feat as it involves several dozens of well equipped soldiers with heavy fire arms and cold arms just to tie down one of those monsters, slowly grinding them to death.

The first Test subjects experimented on by the government were the death sentence prisoners, that had committed heinous crimes.

The result was very disappointing considering the amount of prisoners being experimented on, not a single one of them survived the experimental process as the genetic load was too much for the human body’s gene pool resulting to either genetic breakdown which is a small predicament that could be solved with genetic therapy or a big problem resulting to either mutations or death. Due to that reason, the catalyst implantation failed.

But then genetic engineers around the world came together forming the ‘Genetic Association’.

After several years of genetic coding, dismantling and experiments, there were little breakthroughs, but suddenly, a scout assign by the Army of the government suddenly found an unregistered underground laboratory at the border guarding and dividing the territories between humans and the rapidly evolved beings.

The laboratory was small but there were about 30 humans, connected to different kind and types of tubes stuck into their mouths and bodies lying on a set of tables with locks tying them down. It was a chilling sight.

But when the group of soldiers were stunned by the sight, a fast moving figure began killing off the soldiers one by one. Its speed was very fast, not giving the squad a chance to retaliate but after the whole squad of soldiers were almost wiped out without even injuring the figure, the captain, an extremely brave man was seen pulling the pins of dozens of grenades attempting to die with the creature. Then Boom!

After that was nothing, by the time the reinforcements got there, the humanoid was gone.

But the humanoid face was captured by the combat cam built with the military suit.

Most of the things in the lab was seemingly destroyed by the grenades together with the humanoid. There was nothing to extract in there but luckily only one tube containing an unknown liquid was found under the body of a veteran soldier.

He was acclaimed to be the saviour of humanity and according to the president of the Generic Association, ‘the captain almost blasted humanity’s hope at surviving but a single brave soldier saved it with his life.

The Genetic Association were completely oblivious to the fact that the man with his experience of many years as a soldier, he comprehended that an unknown enemy is the most frightening.

You either have to take cover somewhere or retreat back to safe zone, the veteran was just running to take cover from the monster not even thinking about saving nothing when he was abruptly blasted from the back.

Therefore, owing to the explosion of the grenades, the kinetic energy forced him forward directly on top of the serum unknowingly protecting it from the scorching heat of the blast.

The unknown liquid was used as a reference to building upgrading and improving catalyst AA-00 to TY-13 throughout the years.