SUPERHUMAN

SUPERHUMAN

Chapter 1 : The Lab

He woke up to a piercing bright light, and the harsh, loud shrill of a high pitched metallic squeal. Evo was up.

“Yay!”

“Electra! Electra! Check it out! Evo is up… this one is awake! His eyes are open! Oh my God!” 

The emphatic line was delivered by a deep, intelligent female voice. An excited woman, for sure. This was The Professor, a woman who lived on Europa, one of Jupiter’s most beautiful and secluded moons. They were stationed in a large base underneath the ice, the “Lab”, or so they called it.

Evo opened his eyes a little more, and looked around the room. He was in a hospital bed, a large one, and he was in mild restraints. He didn’t feel unsafe in this place… not at all. His body was huge, muscular, and finely proportioned. Just like… all those other ones. He looked down the corridor to see bodies, and bodies… Evos and Evos, just like him. They floated around in their preservation tubes, hooked up and “alive”, but not present. Only Evo was present. Seriously, the Professor already left him alone. She ran off to find Electra and her Robot Assistant, Frederick, so they could all ogle at her creation, EVO 83733. 

Evo consumed his surroundings with his powerful presence. His eyes showed a deep crimson, that lit up with an intensity unlike anything words could describe. A deep, fiery passion shown in those crimson eyes, an inborn bloodlust. He felt his restraints and found he could easily break them. But why would he do that? This woman had a nice voice, and he didn’t feel unsafe here. She seemed happy to see him. Evo decided to just wait a minute and see what was up with these weirdos.

“Why am I here again?”

“I’m Alive? Again? Ugh. What now?”

Evo, who is also God, was not super happy about this revelation! He was alive. Again. Which meant he had to do things. Ugh. All the poor guy really wanted was some sleep, but he was conscious and in a physical body… again. The harsh reality of being a God, as Evo extremely quickly remembered, is that you know everything all the time. And where’s the fun in that? But, clearly, he made himself again for a reason, so something had to be done. He sat in his hospital bed, in the restraints, and patiently waited to find out why The Professor gave him consciousness. 

Boop

“Hello, hello! Hello my dear. Welcome home!”, said that same voice, still in another room. The sound of two people’s footsteps and a mechanical whirring noise approached the room. The Professor came in first, followed by a small, beautiful, pale blue girl, followed by a silly little robot on wheels. The robot ogled Evo with its inquisitive little eyes that protruded out of its body. “Hello, hello, little creepy guy!”, the eyes seemed to say. Evo’s eyes were drawn to the small girl.. for a moment. She was a bit, uh, “too beautiful for him to comprehend”, or whatever, so he looked away for a minute. Electricity filled the air and static flowed through his veins when she entered his presence.

“You have got a lot to learn, big guy! Let’s start off with why you’re here, my little Superhuman. There’s this planet, one of the little orb things with life on them, that is inhabited by these things called “humans”. The whole thing was Past You’s experiment. Unfortunately, the humans have gone on a bad path, or so it seems, and might need a little bit of guidance. That’s where you come in.” The Professor rolled out her handy board with pictures of the “Earth” planet, the humans that inhabited it, and a bunch of other handy dandy educational tools to help the fresh Evo understand the situation. “So, humans finally evolved to the Industrial Age around 1500 years ago. This would have been around 1800 in their time. The current “year” in Earth time is 3,322. Are you following this? There’s more. Evo looked a little confused, actually. Math was never his strong suit. 

“Well? You can talk, right? Tough guy?”

Evo looked bewildered. He couldn’t believe this puny pathetic creature would dare speak to him like this. But he was impressed, and she was his Mother, or so it would seem. But here’s the thing - he actually couldn’t talk. He attempted to make the sound with his vocal folds, but nothing came out. He conjured the words in his minds’ eye, but he just couldn’t make a sound. And so, the most powerful being in the Universe sat there with a bewildered look on his face and fear in his eyes, and the Professor went on. “Haha! Just kidding. We will wire you up to talk later, okay bud? You don’t need to say anything right now. Just sit there and be pretty for me, okay?”

The Professor laughed a little laugh, in that condescending and unlikeable tone someone too intelligent for their own good laughs. She was enchanted by this creature of hers, and his beautiful cat like crimson eyes, a true marvel of the physical form. But she was too cool to show it! Just for a moment, she paused, and Evo saw the admiration shine from her little brown eyes. It felt nice for both of them.

“So, Evo, we made you. You are something like what the humans were supposed to become, if they could figure out how to evolve to save their lives. All our friends on Jupiter and the other 8 planets want to meet up with the Humans, but they aren’t evolved enough to handle our presence. Their minds would explode and their “civilization” (she said while rolling her eyes), would collapse. Of course, it’s doing that anyways, so we kind of wanted you to show up. Do you think you could do that?

Evo looked around the room. This place was totally boring. He could hear from the way her voice reverberated against the walls, the full structure of the entire Laboratory. It was essentially a rectangular box, a hospital of sorts, really a working environment. He could sense the presence of thousands of unawakened or dead Evos in the halls, and all kinds of other creepy little science experiments that in no way interested him. So, he was listening to this earth proposition. This place was weird.

“Hey Evo, I can hear your thoughts, asshole! I’m not that weird!”, exclaimed The Professor. I mean sure, I’ve gotten carried away with the science experiments a couple times over the years, but you don’t need to be in such a rush! I’ve only spent decades of my life trying to create you, you ungrateful swine!” she said, in an exasperated tone.

Okay… Evo looked at her with puppy dog eyes. She got him. She raised a pretty good point.. he could be patient and stay for awhile, even if this place was totally weird and kind of smelly. “Good boy! It is smelly. There’s dead bodies everywhere. Sorry about that.. anyways,-“

She kept rambling on about Earth or something and the stupid humans. Evo was fried.. his brain just woke up, and he already knew everything. So, he sat there like a good boy and pretended to listen to his creators rant about the stupid humans and how to help them out. But really, he was thinking about this cute blue girl he was pretending not to notice. She was.. so hot.

Chapter 2. Seriously.

“Okay Ego, that’s enough learning for now. Let’s get you out of these restraints.” The Professor and her two little assistants helped take Evos’ restraints off. Electras’ little pale hand touched his for a moment and a shiver went down both of their spines. They both refused, or rather physically could not make eye contact. Too much chemistry. He appreciated the help, and took a moment to take in his new physical body. Not bad. He was only 8 feet tall, maybe 2 tons, or 4,000 lbs. His skin was a pure pale white, and his veins protruded from his body in a deep crimson. His hair was long, flowing, and as black as night. And those eyes just sat there, menacing and calm as always, crimson and full of enchanting power.

His body was dense as metal, and more beautiful than the humans’ very own conception of God. He moved his pale legs elegantly to the side of the bed, and placed his feet on the ground. The Professor watched her child with a sense of pride and trust. Evo picked himself up, and stood up in this new body. He was a little impressed.

“Let’s go for a walk”, were the first words to come out of that beautiful man’s mouth. His voice was honeyed and deep, soothing and elegant from the very beginning. The girls swooned, and so did Frederick, just a little.

And so, the four of them began a casual stroll around the wild place that was The Laboratory.  As they exited the room where Evo woke up, they walked past her… “failed Evos”. All 83,732 of them. The very next room from the hospital bed was huge, and absolutely filled with these dead bodies, his unawakened clones. It was something akin to a concrete box, maybe the size of eight basketball gyms put together, with the clones filling the room in neatly decorated rows, for the most part. It was jarring on the senses, to go from that little hospital room into this massive, hectic one. Some of the glass preservation tubes had shattered, and the bodies of his clone brethren were just lying there in a mess, emanating a dead body’s odor. Evo took in this room with a healthy amount of disgust and intrigue. “So what is all this?”, he asked, looking to hear the music of their conversation. 

“This, is you! This is how I made you, little one. And how I’ve spent the last 44 years of my life. Evo was always an experiment on the human race, to see what they truly could be. I left Earth around 120 Earth years ago, with my Father, and he sketched out the ideas for the Superhuman experiment with me. He was always so aloof.. and never had time to finish it, so I took it upon myself, after developing the chops for it! And so, science being science, it took a long, cruel, repetitive cycle of trial and error to get your butt out of that hospital bed. But I think it may have just been worth it, seeing how you’re already asking such delightful questions.”,the Professor said with a charming little grin and dance. Suddenly, a gang of four legged figures appeared from the shadows. He couldn’t quite make them out in this lighting, and they overtook the humanoids’ group. 

Now, they were being circled by the posse of menacing animals… He made out that they were around 7 feet long each, and stealthy but distinctly powerful. He wished they would get out of these shadows, and he was legitimately intimidated by this display. The others seemed fine though.. SLASH! A huge gash was opened on Evos left forearm by one of the creatures, and his blood started gushing out. He let out a wail and sat there in bewilderment, but, interestingly, without much pain. His blood was falling out at a startling pace and spilling all over the floor that surrounded them. “What do I do?” said Evo. 

“Just wait.”

His crimson blood flowed and spilled all over the floor, congealing into a pool in a sickening amount. The four legged figures continued to circle him, and seemed to be laughing at him. He was starting to make out little - cat ears? - as his vision began to blur from the blood loss. Perhaps this was a joke, a joke on God, to show how weak he was. Perhaps they would kill him now and this was all a waste of time, just another failed Evo. Maybe he already failed the test. But he didn’t want to be another failed Evo.. he wanted to be alive. So he decided to fight back against this pack of sinister wild lab cats. 

Evo reached out with his thunderous arms, and grabbed one of the figures by the scruff. It let out a yelp, and he tossed it vigorously into one of the preservation tubes, smashing it. His half-alive clone brother’s corpse fell onto the ground limply, and the preservation fluid spilled out. The glass shattered and cut the wild lab cat in many different places, but it was still alive. Evo proceeded to repeat this procedure to two more of the cats, out of the seven total. After seeing two more of their kin tossed around and bleeding, the rest of the cats backed off a bit. He could make them out better in this lighting. 

“Stop!”, their eyes seemed to say to him. They made a display of submission as their three fellow cats lay on the ground, writhing in pain and bleeding out. The three Evo corpses were just laying around, and one of them was covering one of the cats! The four remaining, able cats had a little stare down with Evo. Their eyes lit up in the darkness, like piercing jewels, a deep shade of yellow - Amber, some might call it. He was still bleeding, but the pace had settled down. It seemed like he would be okay, surprisingly. Evo looked down at his left forearm, where the first cat he threw had cut him open. His wound looked smaller, and it seemed to be closing in on itself. He watched the threads of his body come together like a tapestry, and his flesh returned to its original state. What was going on? How was this possible? 

“Okay kittens! Are we done with playtime? We have the rest of the laboratory to show this guy, and I’d like to do it today please!” exclaimed The Professor nonchalantly. The cats lay on the ground, struggling as they bled. Evo watched them inquisitively, and their response to being in such dire straits. Then, one of the cats - the one covered by a clone body - began to bite at it? What was that? The cat, that looked something like a leopard now, was eating the flesh of the Evo corpse. And then, just like magic, he saw its bleeding start to subside. The flesh of the big cat closed in on itself, just like Evo’s had a second before. The other two cats got in on this, taking bites of the flesh and healing expediently. Before too long, they were all healthy, and the pack of lab cats was together again, now from a safe distance and docile.

“The crew’s all together again! Hope you didn’t get too scruffed up, Jerry.”, the Professor exclaimed to the largest cat, in the front. Evo could tell this was the one who attacked him, and the dominant member of the pack. Jerry? That’s a silly name..

“What the hell is going on? How did all of our wounds just, magically heal like that?”, Evo said, bewildered as he had been this whole time. “Well, basic science really. That synthetic flesh of yours is really some high quality stuff! It is capable of taking in energy from its local surroundings and converting it into material, almost immediately. It’s truly beautiful, and beyond value, even out here in space, my dear.” she said, with light shining off of her crazy eyes. “Well, all of us have something like that, that’s just basic evolution. But, not with that kind of speed! That’s something only found in this lab, and on your body, my dear EVO. For most of us, it would take at least a couple days, maybe even weeks to recover from an injury like that! But, your designer from a past life thought that you were going to need it, for some reason.”, she said with a sinister gaze.

One of the cats came up to Evo with something in its mouth. It came up slowly, one of the smaller cats, and in a submissive and decidedly friendly way. Evo looked down at it, to find it was holding.. a leg.. in its mouth. The cat was holding one of Evos clone brothers’ legs. The blood was spilling all over the place and left a trail as the cat came closer to Evo. The cat, who he could tell was a female, bowed its head and seemed to “offer” him the leg. “Well?”, said The Professor. “Are you going to take it or not? God knows I could have some.” Evo was at a loss for words. He was supposed to eat this? They were all perfectly fine, and cool with eating the clone flesh? Before he could utter a sound, the Professor snatched the leg from the cat, and took a big chomp. Evo watched this scene in horror, as this little woman who made him, took a couple of bites out of raw flesh just like his. And she did this with a grin on her face, like she did it all the time.. it even looked like it was tasty. And then, she handed the bleeding leg to Electra, and the small beautiful girl took a bite too, just a bit less ravenously. After they both had their portions, Electra held out the remainder of the leg, which was most of it, to Evo, and seemed to offer it to him. He took the leg by the ankle, and examined it. The flesh was extremely dense and high quality, the fibers of the muscles were tight and gamey. Everyone was looking at him, even the cats, and this wild, dangerous situation turned embarrassing for him fast. 

Evo looked down at the leg, and back at everyone else. They were all watching him inquisitively. He took a nibble out of the calf muscle. The flesh sat in his mouth for a second, and he was shocked to find it was quite delicious. He chewed down the first bite with ease and went back for more. The taste of it was very gourmet, surprisingly, and it felt extremely nutritious. The flesh went in his body and filled him with an immediate strength. He looked back up for guidance after losing himself in the taste of the food for a moment. The Professor was looking at him with a creepy, well intentioned grin. “See? Told you, bud. Good stuff, right?”. Evo nodded his head awkwardly. It was, in fact, good stuff, despite its questionable origins. 

“Talee-hoo, astronauts! Let’s get going.”, exclaimed The Professor adamantly. And so, the little group of humanoids kept strolling through The Laboratory while the group of seven cats watched from a safe distance. The humans went on into the next corridor, and the cats stayed in the Clone Room, probably finishing off the fresh EVO corpses. Evo’s group pulled into the next hall, which had a glass surface covering its starboard side. It showed into an ocean-like atmosphere, and Evo could make out little figures swimming in the distance. The water was dyed a faint shade of yellow, and the glass emanated a chilling aura. “Ah yes, the Nitrous sea! Europa’s finest possession.” continued The Professor. They had entered into an extremely long hallway, all with this glass aquarium lining the path. The Professor led the way, and the group followed along at a decent pace. Evo just went with it. 

“This is the most wild place in this whole solar system my new friend!” she continued, clearly elated to have someone to share her home with. “In Europa’s ocean, there is the finest and most diverse population of Giant Sea Monsters known in our entire solar system!” Right as she finished explaining that, Evo could sense a powerful presence enter his aura. He looked to the right casually, and found a massive pair of glowing eyes burning directly into his, right in front of the glass. There in front of him, and the group, was the head of a massive lizard creature, with its eyes staring like lasers into the depths of their souls. “GODZILLA”, said The Professor calmly. Evo and Godzilla were engaged in a stare down, locking eyes fiercely but calmly, with a distinct air of mutual respect shared between the God figureheads. 

“I see you remember him! Yes, this is Godzilla. Godzilla was found washed up on shore on one of Earth’s many islands. Your dad liked the guy, and wanted to help him out. So we sent a little aircraft in the middle of the night and picked him up real discreetly! And just blasted him off over here. I think he likes it here, there’s lots of other Monsters for him to socialize with. Just look at him! Seems fine to me, right?” continued his wacky instructor. Evo shook his head calmly. After his shocking encounter with the cats and the encounter with death, he wasn’t ready to be mind blown again. He was still in a trance, and locking eyes with this massive dragon-like creature. They seemed to share a bond that went back many lives, but they weren’t going to linger on it. Evo turned his head back to the left, and was greeted by an array of sea monsters, who had come by to say hello. First, there was a posse of Thresher sharks, around 9, swimming around and dancing in the water. All types of different sharks were filling his vision and the glass display. Hammerheads, great whites, tiger sharks, all filled the aquarium in a massive swarm. He felt safe behind the glass, and around the animals. And then, a massive creature appeared from the depths, a supermassive shark, and swallowed up a huge amount of the smaller sharks whole. An entire Great White Shark clearly was devoured by these menacing jaws. The creature continued its upward ascent and displayed its body to the little humanoid group. The thing must have eaten hundreds of those sharks in one move.. his brain was too bombarded to continue processing it. He turned back to the right, and Godzilla was right there, staring daggers back at him. “Keep up”, those Godly dragon eyes seemed to say to the fresh Evo. 

And as he turned his head back away from those enchanting dragon eyes, he found there was nothing left to see. All the sharks had vanished, and the only thing that was left was blood. The entire display case had become blood, and when he looked back to check if Godzilla was still around, he wasn’t. It was all just blood. “Why? Why are you doing this?” exclaimed a tortured and mind blown Evo. “We just want you to be ready, little one.”, said The Professor, with real concern in her voice. “The Universe is a tough place for all of us, let alone a God Concept like you. You have to be ready to face some wild and cruel things. You wanted to be alive, right?” she finished, confidently. Evo took a second to himself, and stared daggers at the wall. Just a boring, concrete wall. He didn’t want to look at any of them anymore. His brain was processing way too much information, his mortality was being made incredibly apparent, incredibly fast. He could feel the blood filling the surrounding area, and the chilling bite from the display glass. But he wanted control, just for a second, in this fresh life of his. So he just stared in that moment, and tried to tune out his little group, and tune out everything that just happened. The stench of blood penetrated his nostrils. He meditated, and a moment became an eternity. The scent of blood and sea water violated his nostrils more apparently after this moment, and he quickly looked to the side. “CRACK”

Within seconds, blood was pouring into the hallway. The crack was a far distance from them, maybe 100 meters, from what he could tell. But the stench of blood was overtaking his senses and the hallway was filling, fast. “Oh shit.”, said the Professor. “It’s him, Evo. Let’s run.”. Before Evo had any time to process this, the group was already running full sprint back into the clone room. He found his body had joined them. They quickly made their way back to the clone room, as they had not walked far. The hallway was rapidly filling with the blood fluid, and it was catching up with them. The Professor quickly pressed a few buttons on a pad by the door that connected the two corridors, and it sealed shut rapidly. “Keep going. We’re not safe. Go.”, she said authoritatively and calmly. The group all continued running, directly past the clone room, back into the hospital room where Evo woke up just an hour ago, and The Professor closed the door to the clone room in the same manner. It sealed shut, and she gestured for the posse to come together.

“Evo, that wasn’t normal. The glass isn’t supposed to break. It’s almost impossible for the glass to break, which means I suspect something very sinister is going on. I think we are having an encounter with Evil. I’m surprised he showed himself this quickly to you. He must think extremely highly of you, young one.” Evo was over all of this. But, he looked around at his surroundings, and found he didn’t seem to have a choice in this situation. It was this crazy lady, who seemed concerned for him, or Evil and shark blood. So he kept listening. “Okay, okay. I’m getting it, I’ve got a lot to do, right?”, asked Evo. “Yes. But for now, let’s just try to survive and get back to the surface of Jupiter. I think we have seen enough of the lab for today, and I’m worried he might be here.”,she said. “Evil?”, he asked. “Yes. Let’s go.”

The Professor went into the next room, adjacent to the hospital bed room. It was an office of sorts, with a cluttered and hectic desk, and a telephone connected to the wall. She hurriedly grabbed the telephone and dialed a number into the circular mechanism. It dinged as she spun the dial to the correct numbers. “Zeus. I need you. Please come get us, right now.”, she said calmly. Evo could make out a deep, booming voice come out of the other line, in what sounded like an affirmation. She hung up the phone and immediately scurried over to a latch on the ceiling. “Pick me up!”. Evo quickly picked her up and held her to the latch, which she opened by simply unscrewing it. The latch opened up into a long ladder that showed light on the surface. The Professor grabbed the ladder and said, “Evo, toss them up and then let’s get the hell out of here. Evo grabbed Electra and gently lifted her into the escape hatch, followed by Frederick, who had a couple limbs robotically expand from his body to help him up. As Evo went to pick himself up into the hatch, the door inexplicably slammed shut. He found himself in complete darkness, alone, in the hospital room. “HELLO?” he screamed. Evo was overtaken by fear and solitude. It was pitch black, and he was alone in this hellhole filled with blood. “Evo!”. He could hear the Professor’s voice in a muffled scream through the closed hatch. He tried and tried to open the hatch, but it was completely slammed shut from both sides. “Evo, it’s him. It’s the only way. There’s nothing I can do, Evo! I have to get us out of here and you have to try your best. He might just be messing with you! Good luck, little one!” she finished. “Good luck!”, exclaimed a soft feminine voice, which must have been Electra. And with that, he heard them climb up the footsteps and leave him on his lonesome in the nightmare.