William watched as the scalpel slowly trailed towards him, 'what a drag' he thought. The insufferable blade plunged deep into his arm making a massive gash and drawing an even larger amount of blood. "Oops! sorry I must've slipped." Mark says in a condescending tone. He was sure no actions would be taken against him after all his father owned the school.
'The old man sure is gonna hand a mouthful to me,' he thinks, completely ignoring Willliam. The school Medic club members in the room rush towards William with a first aid kit nearby, planning to tend to his wounds. While the teacher groans, wondering how she'll explain this, the rest of the students murmur amongst themselves.
'Shit!' William thinks as funny sounds start coming from his wounded arm,' No, no, no not now!' William panics. The Medic club members near William show puzzled expressions as the gurgling sounds coming from his wounds increase in intensity and volume making it spread throughout the room. The group of bullies who were recording to have evidence of how they embarrassed William are stunned as the wound begins healing at a visible rate.
The deep gash runs deep into William's arm, and with each passing second, the wound bubbles and seethes with a life of its own. Fresh, torn flesh writhes, knitting together as blood vessels reattach with disturbing speed, stitching themselves in like wormy tendrils. The exposed muscles and sinews twist and reconnect, fibers snapping back like taut elastic in a grotesque display of regeneration.
Clots form and break apart in seconds, gathering into a thick, syrupy liquid that nourishes new skin cells surging over the open wound, merging in seamless layers from deep tissue upwards. One is able to see the granulation tissue—a slick, raw red—rapidly crawling to cover exposed tissue, its every millimeter glistening with plasma that almost boils as it rushes to seal the breach. The scab forming on top appears jagged and distorted, like dark scales, before it cracks open, flakes away, and discloses underneath patches of smooth, ghostly pale new skin. It's an unnerving process, relentless in its persistence, the throbbing arm alive with some monstrous energy. The site radiates heat as if some dark and primordial force powered the speedy recuperation and restored the skin to its former state, though tinged now with an unnatural pallor, scribed by eerie veins and faint scars, that also soon disappear, all of this happens in front of the class that's too stunned to even speak.
'F*ck,' William curses mentally. 'There is no way I'm gonna be able to dismiss this as normal or maybe I can' he brightens up as a plan forms in his mind.
'Step one: Minimize the injury.'
"Hey don't stress it wasn't even that deep, Mark here doesn't even know how to use a scalpel." He downplays the wound and fires a jab at Mark at the same time. The Medic club member seems to not be convinced just yet.
'Step two: Blame it on good genetics.'
"I'm also a fast healer so it's normal for this to happen if the wound is small enough." he says, "Isn't that right Mrs. Agnes?"
"Actually it is as in many cases some people are born with extremely fast healing, didn't we go through this?" the teacher asks the class. 'Though it never works that fast, does it, also I don't think it should be that unnerving' she thinks to herself.
Seeing that the situation has been diffused enough William proceeds to pull off his last step, 'Step three: Humour'
"Hey stop staring, you'll jinx it," he says casually to the medic who'd come to help him.
Finally putting the issue down the medic steps away from William and goes back to her position and the class resumes just fine. Mark who had witnessed the whole thing close up doesn't seem quite pleased.
He narrows his eyes, furrows his brows, and peers closely at the wound- or what's left of it- his disbelief is obvious.
He says, "Come on, you can't be serious," folding his arms and leaning in suspiciously. "I saw that gash; it was deep, and now there's barely a mark. Good genes don't work that fast." His voice would resonate with tones of disbelief, perhaps a bit angered, as if he has been deceived.
He presses further, not letting up. "I mean, this isn't just some little cut that scabbed over," he continues to look at the site of the wound. "This is. like, I don't know, some kind of sci-fi shit! Don't you think that's a little weird?"
William tries to brush it off again instead Mark gets frustrated, running a hand through his hair and letting out a sigh. "You don't think this is weird? You're not freaked out at all?" he would, of course, be interested in an honest answer
He shakes their head and mutters to himself, "No way I'm buying that," while walking away from William, "Trust me, I'm gonna expose you."
'Who is gonna believe you after all you have no evidence.' William thinks to himself not knowing that the whole incident had been caught on camera.
This event acted as a catalyst for William's upcoming anguish. That day as he cycled home the feeling that something bad would happen deepened within William's psyche.
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Inside a dimly lit high-security briefing room with a long table and a group of government officials seated around it. On the screen in front of them, a shaking, phone-recorded video plays: it shows a boy with a deep, bleeding gash on his arm. The camera captures the initial shock and concern from onlookers, but then, in less than half a second, the incredible happens. The skin and tissue begin to close the wound on their own- as if through some sort of invisible medic- right before their eyes. A series of gasps emanates from the video, followed by frantic, whispered remarks.
The officials look at each other, their eyes intense; some lean forward, their faces a mask of unbelieving and fierce curiosity. When the video ends, heavy silence descends on them, with static on the screen. One official, an older man with glasses perched low on his nose, speaks up. "How many people have seen this?" he asks with an urgent and dreaded tone.
Too many, sir," answers a younger agent, visibly ill at ease. "It's already spreading on social media. Some people are just calling it a hoax, but others, well, they believe it."
A woman in a sharp suit raises an eyebrow and leans back, tapping her fingers on the table. "If this is real, we have a serious situation on our hands. This kid has a healing factor, unlike anything we've documented. The minute word gets out, people are going to start asking questions we just aren't ready to answer."
Another official nods grimly. "And if it falls into the wrong hands… we're talking about potential military exploitation, scientific experimentation—there's no telling where this could lead."
One by one, the officials start enumerating actions to take: scrubbing the video from every platform, tracking down the source, and locating the boy. "Containment is the priority," one says sternly. "If he's out there, unmonitored, this could blow up far beyond our control."
Murmurs fill the room, all with an edge of nervous anticipation to them. Among the mix of conversation, a plan is born-protective, yet quietly ominous, again and again as officials realize the gravity of what they have seen. This isn't just a boy. To them, he is the key to something huge and possibly dangerous, and they aren't about to let him stay in the public eye anymore.
"Sir we have looked into the boy and we haven't found anything about him. The only thing is that he popped up in an orphanage around ten years ago," a young man says
"And so, What is the matter?" The person being referred to questions.
"Sir, at around the same time The Red Wraith vanished right under our noses."
"We have found him!"