They finally found me. All my work, my research, my dreams, and ambitions will be for nothing if they stop me. For the past 15 years I have been researching a phenomenon I now call Mana.
Discovered during a collaboration project, my colleagues and I had been trying to discover the history of an asteroid for our last group project together before we graduated college. During one of the tests, I found an anomaly. A single piece of a crystal that did not show up on one of our scans. It did not register on anything except for manually operated instruments so I decided to take it to my home laboratory for further study.
It was one of the strangest crystals I had ever come across and that is saying something. At that point I had finished my material science courses and was graduating with the highest score across the nation.
The crystal was emitting some form of substance that according to my studies seemed to interact the most with organic substances.
I was very lucky to figure that part out because science studies the measurable, but the substance emitted wasn't able to be measured.
The only reason I noticed was the mysterious mass gain of various organic substances. My theory at the time was that the emissions were building up on organic substances because of the nature of the materials. After a year of testing, I had run into many dead ends when trying to verify that theory. It was about this time that I started to run into two problems. The research needed materials and better equipment to continue getting results. Both of these things cost more than what I had. I had to start figuring out how to support both myself and the ever-increasing costs of research. Due to how I graduated I was able to secure an old laboratory out in the middle of nowhere from the 1980s. Using that as a base of operations I was able to start up a material research company called Crystal Tech or C.T. for short.
Most my buddies from the very same group that was researching the asteroid joined the starting up of the company. Together we started talking contracts for various manufacturing companies whenever we got them. Suffice it to say that the competition was fierce and the hoops to jump through were many.
During this time my hobby of trying to understand the secrets of the crystal slowly turned into a obsession. What little social interaction I had at the time started to turn into isolation, but I did not mind. I had my research to keep me occupied.
Now able to further enhance my research I soon had a breakthrough, though it was mostly accidental. I still remember it like it was yesterday, anyone would remember the turning point that put them at odds with the authority.
One of my tests was the effect of the emissions on animals, and the outcome was highly unusual. That day my friend Jake, he always kept me on track, told me he had heard some unusual sounds from my personal lab. When I go there the cage containing the mice used to test the effects was empty except for one mouse I almost mistook for a massive rat. I immediately rushed to review the footage and what I saw terrified and excited me.
One of the mice, after accumulating more of the emissions than I thought possible, changed and started attacking all the other mice. It's fur had turned pitch black and it seemed to grow stronger with each mouse it consumed. By the time there were no mice left something seemed to change. The black mouse's fur started to slightly glow and continued to grow in intensity until it suddenly stopped and the glow vanished.
After reviewing the footage and data several times I decided that I needed to preform an autopsy to see if there were any other changes than what was observable. When entering the room that the rat was in it fixed its gaze on me and quickly came up to the side of the cage.
At this point I was very wary of it and cautiously approached the cage. I intended to take the cage, and the rat in it, to a portion of the lab that could be used as a makeshift gas chamber. But many things did not go to plan. How would anyone account for a rat that can chew through a durable steel cage in a few seconds flat?
I had regained consciousness about a day later covered in dried blood that was both my own and not. When the first thing you see after you wake up is a rat's body parts scattered around you, you have every right to panic. Little by little I started to remember what had happened.
At the time the rat started to break out I had crossed the room and picked up the crystal from where it was on the instruments. The cage was next to me and as I realized the rat was gone, I felt a great pain in my arm. Hanging off my arm was a rat four feet long from head to the tip of its tail. As I took in the mess that was my arm everything seemed to slow down. I was right next to the table, so I did the first thing that came to mind. I slammed that rat against the side of the table. It seemed that the rat had realized I wouldn't let myself be an easy meal and let my arm go. At this point I was out of my mind in pain.
I needed to kill that rat to survive. I felt something snap, and power seemed to flow through me. I did the first thing that came to mind and directed it at the rat in a ball of pain and fury.
The air in front of me seemed to distort and reveal a crack large enough to fit a car in and pitch black in color. There were a few seconds of silence before a powerful force acted on everything around it. That was the last thing I remember before passing out.