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Chapter 5 - The Cube

The Cube was an organisation that was formerly an orphanage for feeble and disabled children with low mental capacity, which was located on an island. The founder, Michael Leo Daniels who was a very wealthy scientist, bought the orphanage and decided to turn it into his personal laboratory. He tried to cure those children by conducting experiments on them to see just how much he could alter human DNA. Some experiments were successful where the children had an IQ higher than the standard, increased strength, increased vision and hearing, some could even run faster than a horse, others a cheetah. The other experiments failed but not to the detriment of the lives of the children.

The rest of the island didn't realise what was going on in the neglected children's home and as Michael expanded the orphanage, more people kept abandoning children there. Initially, they abandoned disabled children and babies but as the years went by, people started leaving babies that were perfectly normal at his doorstep. So he tried his experiment on a normal child to see if it would work just like his previous ones and it was successful, hence in his hands, all the children became better than normal with no form of disability with a few being slightly different.

He homeschooled all the children with the aid of his best friend, Bernard Marson to prevent his secret from being revealed. He did all these till the children became adults and he died while handing the orphanage and his wealth over to Ethan Leo Daniels, the very first child he conducted a successful experiment on and adopted. But as he handed the orphanage over on his death bed he left a warning and also pled with Bernard and Ethan that the secret of the orphanage should not be handed down or told to anyone outside the orphanage to ensure the safety of everyone related to it.

Ethan took total control of the orphanage with the aid of Bernard's knowledge and experience, so it ran smoothly so much so that they developed it and named it 'The Cube' in the honour of Michael because he always carried out his experiments in a cube-shaped room in the laboratory. A year after, The Cube became somewhat like a mini town because of the overwhelming number of people it occupied. Hence, to further ensure their safety, Ethan and Bernard decided to spread false rumours of a contagious airborne disease that was rapidly spreading across the island to scare the islanders away. They even staged plays of people dropping dead and also released fake fog to make it seem more believable.

The rumours struck fear in the hearts of the islanders and they fled to different parts of the world where they also warned people of the barren diseased island making it isolated for years. The Cube gradually occupied the whole island, taking over all the hospitals, schools, hotels, pharmacies and all the other amenities that the islanders left behind, combined with their 'gift', it created a whole new kind of world. They even created a training center where the children and adults could master their skills and use them to their full ability. The adults in the orphanage got married to one another, had more children and the whole island was flourishing. However, to maintain the prosperity of the island, some adults were sent to the 'Mainland' to gather yearly supplies and also to act as spies inorder to protect the seemingly 'barren diseased island' from nosy and curious humans.

But Ethan and Bernard noticed something very strange about the newborns, they were not 'normal'. They realised that some of the newborns had certain characteristics of their parents' gift while others had an entirely different kind of gift, however, the residents of The Cube all thought it was natural cause they believed they were also born gifted. Ethan soon realised that it was genetics playing mind games with them and was relieved to know that he wouldn't have to carry out risky experiments on innocent children. But what really made him delighted was that he wouldn't have to reveal the secret of the The Cube to anyone afterall. Hence, the secret was safe in the hands of Ethan who later decided to pass it on to his own descendants without Bernard's knowledge.

Now, Ethan made a rule before he passed on that each of his male descendants were only allowed to pass the secret to just one of their male descents who will be chosen to inherit the right to be the President of The Cube. It was a fair decision but there was a clause:

'If perchance any of the successors of Ethan Leo Daniels who is meant to be the President of The Cube dies or refuses to take up the position, then a male descent shall be taken from Bernard's lineage to assume the position as the rightful heir to The Cube'.

The clause was said to be written to honour the loyalty and sincerity of Bernard who passed away few years after Michael did because Ethan could never forget the assistance his father's bestfriend rendered to him when he died but most of all he was grateful to Bernard for keeping The Cube's secret.

After Ethan's passing, each of the males in Bernard's lineage were always at loggerheads with those of Ethan's who found it rather perplexing cause they believed they were meant to be best of friends just like their fathers. Why? Well that would be because they also had a particular belief passed unto them, they felt they were the true heirs of The Cube.

Why, you ask again? Well, that would be because just like Ethan, Bernard passed on the secret of The Cube to his own male descents but apart from that he also left a parting clause that said,

'Whosoever knows the secret of The Cube is it's only true heir'.

This clause astounded Bernard's male descents who later came to a conclusion that they were the 'true heirs' of The Cube cause they held its 'power' in their hands which was actually only a scrap of paper that Bernard scribbled on. As the years went by, the hostility between Ethan and Bernard's descents heightened mainly because of Ethan's clause as they also wanted a shot at being President, so they were always on the lookout for their refusal or more preferably, their death.

Due to this scary discovery, Davis's father Liam Leo Daniels decided to keep his son's identity a secret by placing a decoy in his 'quarters' to act as the heir while he sent Davis to mingle with the other residents. However this 'decoy' was also Liam's son, Davis's identical twin, David who didn't know about the secret just as the rule had stated. Davis switched names with his brother for...well, for their own entertainment, they felt it was fun to be identical and switch names too.

Now with all the planning, backstabbing and secret meetings that occurred, both parties never realised that they both knew the secret of The Cube...AT ALL.

Hence, the supposedly 'harmless' clauses left behind by their forefathers actually destroyed the peaceful cohabitation of the residents of The Cube Island in the following years.