The Omega Archives

by Erik Melendez

  I still composed myself even though I really wanted to rip Derek’s head off and shove it up a place where the sun doesn’t shine, but that wouldn’t look too good. Some students started to gather up and watch. A teacher walked out and saw the incident.

  “That’s enough,” the teacher said. Derek and his friends walked off.

  “Are you okay?” asked the teacher.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I replied.

  Later that night, I arrived at Sarah’s house. It was a fairly big two story house in a nice neighborhood. There were plants in the front garden, and I saw kids making their way up to the house. I approached the door and knocked. Sarah answered.

  “Hey, you’re just in time,” she said as she opened the door.

  “Thanks. May I come in?” I replied.

  “Of course. Come on in,” Sarah replied.

  As we entered the basement, I saw not only my friends there, but some other students that were less popular at the school.

  “Quite impressive,” I said.

  “Thanks,” Sarah said.

  I could hear the sounds of people talking and music playing in the background. I talked to some of the other kids; one group I could relate to because they were talking about games.

  “So, did you hear about the next Call of Duty coming out soon?” one of the kids asked.

  “Yeah, who hasn’t? I just hope that it’s better than the original. Are you getting it, Alex?” Max said.

  “Yes, I preordered it some time ago actually,” I replied.

  “Lucky. You know, I’m still trying to complete the first game’s hardest difficulty,” one kid said.

  “I actually completed the game on the hardest difficulty, no deaths,” I said.

  “Wow! You must be really good,” Max said.

  “Well. I just really like those kinds of games, I guess,” I replied as I tapped my fingers on my cup a bit.

  I continued to socialize for a bit, then I went to find the bathroom.

  I stumbled upon Mark making out with one of Derek’s friends in a bedroom. Mark pulled me into the hallway and closed the bedroom door.

  “I apologize. I didn’t mean to interrupt,” I said.

  “Look, just keep this between us, okay?” Mark asked.

  “Yeah, sure. I take it you two are together?” I said.

  “We have been secretly dating since the eighth grade. We kept it a secret for reasons,” Mark explained as he stuck his hands in his pockets.

  “What reasons?” I asked.

  “It’s just that he does not want anyone to know. It’s a long story and hard to explain, just promise you won’t tell,” he said.

  “Sure, I guess,” I said.

  He walked back inside the room and closed the door. I listened to him talking to the other guy in there telling him to stay calm and that I was a friend.

  Later that night, I decided to sit outside for a minute until Sarah came out.

  “Having a good time?” she asked as she sat down next to me.

  “Yeah, having fun. Thanks,” I replied.

  “No problem.”

  “So, how long have you lived here?”

  “I was born and raised here. How long have you lived here again?”

  “Two years now.”

  “Where were you before?”

  “It’s hard to explain. What made you get into performing?”

  “Well, my stepmom was a former Broadway actress. So, when I turned eleven, she started to teach me how to act, sing, and dance. I also do some dancing outside of school. I’m hoping to become an actress someday.”

  “Sounds like you’re on the right track.”

  “What are you planning on doing?”

  “I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do here, I guess.”

  “Tell me more about you,” she said.

  “Well I’m just a new student here and…”

  “No, I mean, who you are. Likes, dislikes, pet-peeves. I want to get to know the real you.”

  “Well, I am an avid video game player. I mostly stick to tactical shooters like Rainbow Six. Maybe Call of Duty on a rare occasion.”

  “So, you like to go around shooting at people?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. I mostly just like the action. Other than that, there’s not much to tell.”

  “Oh, come on. You have to have a story. We all have stories.”

  One of the partygoers came and got Sarah, and I sat on the porch for a little while. I wanted to tell her, but I couldn’t risk my secret getting out. Not to mention how she would feel if she knew what I was.

  The next day, I went to talk to my therapist again. This time I wanted to talk to her about my high school life.

  “Alex, good to see you. How are you doing?” she asked.

  “Fine,” I replied as I sat on the couch.

  “How’s school life coming?” she asked.

  “Fine. And sometimes confusing,” I said.

  “How so?” she asked.

  “The classes seem tedious. All we do is sit there and get lectured on subjects. Also, some of the kids are mean to the other kids for no apparent reason. My parents and I talked about it, and they said it was because they were cowards,” I said.

  “It’s true, high school can be a rough place, especially for new kids,” she said.

  “I also made some friends. They’re nice. But there’s one girl I feel different about,” I said.

  “How does she make you feel different?”

  “I don’t know. I just feel happy when I’m around her. Every time I’m around her, I’m afraid that I will embarrass myself in front of her,” I said.

  “That usually means that you like her,” she said.

  “I have never felt that way before,” I said.

  “It’s perfectly normal to feel that way,” she said. “Is there anything else you would like to talk about regarding school?”

  “Maybe some things,” I said.

  We continued to talk about what I was doing in school, among other things, before my appointment was up.

  Chapter Six

  The following day, in my math class, the students were given their first test. It was long and complex even for the smarter students; however, I was able to complete it in less than ten minutes. I was about to hand it in when I realized that doing that might give me away. I chose to resolve this by waiting until another student turned his test in first, and then turn mine in second. I sat and waited for what seemed to be an eternity. Thirty minutes after the class started, one student got up and took his test to the teacher’s desk, but he just had a question.

  I started to tap my pencil lightly on the desk trying to ease the anxiety I felt. I noticed Emily watching me. At first, I thought she was trying to copy my answers, but then I realized that she was starting to grow suspicious of me. I turned around to look at her, and she immediately looked back at her test. It was now forty minutes into class, and one student finally finished his test. I waited for a little while and turned my test in.

  Later in gym class, the students were doing their warm-ups. Some kids were well fit and others not so much. Another problem was that I could do 110 sit ups in less than two minutes, but if the other students saw that they would know something was up, so I paced myself. We were doing our warm-ups where I held Max’s feet down as he did some sit ups.

  “I hate gym class,” Max said.

  “Doesn’t bother me,” I replied as Max struggled to do his sit ups.

  “How much can you do?” he asked.

  “I can do about thirty reps,” I said hesitantly.

  “That’s better than what I can do. Hell, I would be lucky to get fifteen,” Max replied.

  Then we went to the track to run laps, Max had trouble keeping up, but I had no problems. I could run fourteen miles in twelve minutes with a fifty-pound rucksack on my back and ankle weights, and I would barely feel tired. Here again, I had to pace myself. So, I slowed down to let the other students catch up to m
e.

  Derek was in the same gym class as me and Max. He noticed how I barely broke a sweat while we ran. I saw him looking at me in the distance.

  When we stopped running laps, Max caught up to me.

  “Wow, you haven’t broken a sweat,” he said, trying to catch his breath.

  “I run a lot,” I said.

  “Maybe you should join track or something,” Max replied.

  “Not my style.”

  “Ha. You doing anything tonight?”

  “No, why?”

  “We should have a game night. I got some new games if you want to try them,” he said.

  “Sure, sounds fun,”

  Later that night, I arrived at Max’s house. He greeted me and went inside. When I entered, I noticed numerous academic awards and achievements by him and his parents, and some pictures of his parents, who appeared to be highly educated people. I saw their Harvard graduation plaques sitting in a trophy case. His parents came in to greet me.

  “You must be Alex,” his father said.

  “Yes I am. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I replied as I reached out to shake his hand.

  “Pleasure to meet you. I have some snacks if you’re hungry,” his mother said.

  “Thank you,” I replied.

  They seemed like well-adjusted people to me. We went to Max’s room. His room was covered with sci-fi posters and figurines. Max turned the game on; it was the first Call of Duty Modern: Warfare game.

  “Let’s do this,” Max said.

  The game came on; it was a typical tactical first-person shooter. When the game loaded up, we began to play. We started by shooting other players. We had to capture certain points on the map for our team to win. I got the hang of the game pretty quickly; the training I had was way more advanced than this. Soon I was dominating the game like it was nothing.

  “Wow, you’re picking this up pretty fast,” Max said.

  “Thank you,” I replied.

  “I didn’t know you were so good at games.”

  “I play a lot actually.”

  We continued to play the game, and we eventually won by taking all the points on the map. We played a few more rounds before my mother picked me up and took me back home.

  “See you later,” I said as I left.

  “Yeah, see you later. We need to do this again,” he said.

  Max’s mom called from the living room.

  “Come on, you’ve got studying to do,” she said.

  Max turned around.

  “Coming,” he said as he nodded his head and closed the door.

  Chapter Seven

  The day of the pep rally came, and the whole school was there. Everyone was cheering on the school’s athletes, the marching band was playing, and the cheerleaders were cheering on their individual teams. I spotted Sarah, Max, and the others sitting down.

  “Hey, Alex,” Sarah said as I sat down next to her.

  “What did I miss?” I asked.

  “Nothing. Honestly, I would rather do anything than go to class,” Sarah said.

  “I’ll take anything that will get me out of class,” Max said.

  “Yeah,” I replied.

  We sat in the wooden bleachers as we watched the pep rally go on. You could barely move around because there were so many people in the bleachers, and it was starting to get warm. Not to mention it was pretty loud. The bleachers were located on opposite ends of the gymnasium. The freshmen and sophomores sat on one side, while the juniors and seniors sat on the other. The teachers stood along the walls watching. The team’s athletes were introduced one by one to the school. The students’ cheering in the auditorium was extremely loud.

  The freshmen cheerleading team came in, which included Emily. All of the individual cheerleaders were introduced by the announcer, and they did their performance, which was impressive. Afterwards, the freshmen football team came out, which included Derek. All of the team members were individually introduced, and everyone cheered on for them.

  However, I needed to use the bathroom.

  “I need to use the restroom. I’ll be back in a minute,” I said as I got up.

  I went to one bathroom near the gym, but the door was locked. A janitor stood in front of the door with his cleaning supplies.

  “Sorry. Maintenance,” he said.

  “No problem,” I replied as I walked off to another bathroom. The second nearest one was busy with students; I was left with no other option than to go to a bathroom even further from the gym.

  As I made my way to the other bathroom, I noticed two men dressed as janitors casually following me to the bathroom. While I used the urinal, the two men dressed as school janitors entered the bathroom.

  “Don’t mind us, just cleaning up,” one of the men said. One guy washed a mirror, while the other guy was mopping the floor near the toilets.

  Two more men entered the bathroom, one dressed in a white button down shirt, and black pants. The other guy had on a black coat, blue shirt, and black pants. One approached the sink looking like he was brushing his hair, and the other went into one of the stalls. I noticed that the janitor was wiping the mirror over again, and the other guy was washing his hands while looking in the mirror. I could sense the sweat coming off of their bodies, the smell of recently eaten fast food, and metal that was recently touched, like a gun. A fifth guy entered the bathroom. He was pretty big, wearing a black coat, and clearly did not work here. He slowly approached me from behind. Once he was directly behind me, he raised his arm with the gun in his hand and pointed it at my head.

  Before he could pull the trigger, I quickly ducked out of the way, elbowed the guy and bent him backwards. With the gun still in his hand I used his gun to shoot the other guys as they pulled out their own guns. I was super-fast and was able to perfectly shoot all of their heads, with their blood splattering on the walls. All I could hear was the sounds of things being smashed. I knocked the gun out of his hand, but he put me in a headlock.

  I ran up the bathroom stall and broke free by doing a flip out of his hold.

  The assassin got up and started attacking by throwing a punch. I blocked it, punched him in the chest three times, followed by two knee strikes into his chest, and threw him into the wall.

  I then did a spinning hook kick to his face, blood spraying out of his mouth, and knocked him onto the ground. His mouth oozed blood as he laid there. I picked him up and threw him into one of the stalls.

  He got back up and attacked with several more punches. I was able to block all of them, and eventually trap them by locking his wrists with my hands. He broke out of the lock by moving his arms in a circular motion, and then hit me with a back fist, followed by a crescent kick, then a tornado kick to my face, knocking me down. He grabbed me, slammed me into the wall, and started punching me in the chest repeatedly. He then elbowed me and threw me to the ground.

  I got back up. He pulled out a knife and came at me. He swiped at me several times with his face covered in blood, but I dodged and eventually broke his blade by blocking it with my wrist. My skin was reinforced, thanks to my specialized genetics, so he would need something a lot sharper to cut my skin.

  I front kicked him in the chest again. He got back up and came in with a punch. I used the top of my skull to absorb his punch, and his wrist shattered like a twig being snapped in half. I then grabbed him by the chin and smashed the back of his head onto the wall, breaking his skull and killing him. I was sweating like crazy and breathing heavily.

  After I killed the last guy, I sensed five more guys armed with machine guns with silencers on the ends of them enter the school. I could smell, hear and sometimes feel changes in air density from up to half a mile away. These armed men moved into the school and headed toward the bathroom.

  The gunmen approached the bathroom. One gunman threw a flashbang into the bathroom, and the other four went in and shot up the bathroom in an attempt to kill me. The pep rally continued and, due to the noise of the rally and the distance from the bathroom
to the gym, no one heard the shots. When they ceased fire, they didn’t see my body anywhere.

  I was able to sneak into the ceiling and launch a surprise attack. I knocked the four gunmen to the ground as I jumped out of the ceiling.

  The first gunman got up. I grabbed the end of his rifle and shot the second and third gunman while the fourth gunman took cover behind the wall. I knocked the gun out of his hand. I threw the first gunman on the ground, and broke his neck.

  The fourth gunman came out and tried to shoot, but I ran blocked his gun, and kneed him in the head twice and broke his skull. The last gunman tried to escape.

  Thanks to my superhuman speed, I was able to chase the last gunman. The gunman reached the parking lot and ran toward a van to retreat. I pulled my gun out and shot at the gunman’s leg, knocking him down before he could reach the van. I grabbed the final remaining gunman and began to interrogate him. As I walked over, I saw him pulling something out of his pocket and putting it into his mouth.

  “Who are you?!” I yelled as I hit him. “Who sent you?!”

  The gunman chewed a cyanide capsule that he had put in his mouth, and saliva poured out of his mouth.

  “Long… live… the Union,” he said before he died.

  I dropped the lifeless body onto the ground, frustrated about what happened. My heart was still pounding from the attack, and my mind was all over the place. What did they want? Why now? Did any of this have to do with what I was? So many questions raced through my head.

  I spotted an SUV pulling up to me. I ducked behind a car and pointed my gun at them. Two people exited the car, a man and a woman, somewhere in their mid to late thirties judging by their appearance. The guy wore a dark blue T-shirt with a green tactical vest over it and green pants. The girl had on a leather coat, a black T-shirt underneath, and black leather pants on.

  “Who are you?!” I yelled.

  “Relax. We come in peace,” the man said. “I’m Jack, and this is my partner, Harper. We have been sent to bring you in.”

  “Bring me in to where?” I asked as I got up from behind the car.

  “To the Strategic Tactical Reserve an independent counter-terrorist organization. We’re on your side,” Harper said.