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Chapter 1:
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Small, stifled grunts echo through the abandoned building. All around there is browning iron, and more every day; the walls are going out, revealing the metal skeleton that supports the structure. Every day, the skeleton is suffocated by the air; it weakens continually, and some day, perhaps, the whole thing will crumble. Some of the rooms house gang tags and the fading smell of weed; the rest are dusty and unused.
The grunts are coming from one of these rooms. An adolescent is alone - at least, he seems young, but the shaved head and inexpressive face make it difficult to tell. He is either imprudent or very well-informed, because he seems unconcerned with the possibility that gang members have passed out in one of the adjacent rooms - it's not an uncommon occurrence. He is laying on the floor, his body completely straight. After a few seconds and a long breath, he lifts his arms and legs, supporting his entire weight on his abdomen. He reaches his hand forward slightly and pushes a button on a digital clock; the clock is brand-new, stainless steel, and some feet behind it sits a cardboard box with a picture of the clock on the front.
The clock's display changes to display 0:00. His breathing is even. The clock ticks up. 0:10, 0:11, 0:12. His right arm starts to descend, but he grits his teeth and slowly moves it back. 0:15, 0:16. The rhythm of his breath is starting to change now; his lungs expand and contract against the concrete, and the faint sound of exhaled air can be heard in the room. Outside, all is still quiet.
0:45, 0:46. A faint grunt, followed by a sharp breath; he shakes his head and continues.
1:05, 1:06. A small tremor begins in a leg; he can't quite tell which. He slowly brings his legs together behind his back, steadying both, then separates them again.
1:21, 1:22. The tremor returns in an arm, and this time he makes no effort to still them. His eyes are closed, his teeth are clenched, his skin is stretched tight against his face, hugging his skull. His breathing is uneven; the rhythm faintly resembles "Call Me Maybe," a song from Earth Aleph, but surely that is a coincidence.
1:40, 1:41. A shout, followed by several quick, shallow breaths.
"Not worth it," he mutters. His arms and legs are shaking.
1:55, 1:56. His arms start to come down, and there is another shout, louder this time. The arms will not go back up, but he can keep them from descending further.
Two hours later, the clock displays 2:00, and he collapses all at once. He takes a few seconds to catch his breath, and his arm reaches weakly to another button on the shiny clock. He depresses it, and the clock displays 4:45 a.m. in black, blocky symbols. He pushes himself up, getting his feet under him, and shuffles vaguely into a soft chair, also brand-new. There is a large stack of books beside the armrest, in various states of disrepair. He grabs the book on top of the stack, a small leather journal with holes on the margins of the cover. The book's front and back are curling up at the contour, but the pages inside seem fine; the middle section is a bit wrinkled, but most of the pages are either a pristine white or covered in neat black ink.
He consults a page near the beginning of the journal, a list of several dozen books, accompanied by some sort of organizational system. "A History of Parahuman Activity (change?) - 89 142 220 311 401 480 575." "Jiu Jitsu - 31 86 107 161 200 241 266." Several others.
He opens a thick book - "A History of Parahuman Activity," according to the title. He turns to page 575, frowns for a moment, then consults the table of contents. He turns ahead again, to page 577, and begins reading.
Some time later, the clock hits 6:25 and starts beeping insistently. He notes the page number, strikes out the number 575 in his journal with a precise line, and writes a new number - 647. He underlines the word "changes" on the same page, then turns to the first blank page in the journal. "Day 140," he writes, then "3/3/11." The previous entry reads "Day 139 - 2/1/11," the one before that "Day 138 - 6/16/11."
Then he starts writing; diligent notes about the activities of the day. Exercise records, notes on his reading, commentary on the situation in general. The journal has such records dating all the way back to "Day 9 - 5/8/11."
When he's finished his entry, he carefully pulls out a needle and sews the journal into the inside of his shirt. The pages open easily to fit in the new space.
He walks over to a mirror, or, at least, the portion that still hangs on the wall. He studies himself in the cracked mirror, then walks out of the door, drinking the last of a bottle of water and breaking into a jog.
"I'm going to fucking kill her," he mutters.
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Now it's 6:42, and a girl rounds a corner at a jog. He lies in wait behind the wall, a gun in his hand. She runs by, barely registering him. He shouts to calls her attention.
"Hey, don't move another step."
The girl turns around, not quite as scared as she should be.
"There you go. Give me your wallet."
The girl is getting less nervous by the second. He shifts his stance and tightens his grip on the gun.
"I didn't think the Empire Eighty Eight went after white people. Is there a change in policy?"
"I'm not with the Empire, and I never will be. Wallet, now." He tries to keep the tension out of his voice, but it won't stay down. He's prepared for this, but there is still a morbid thrill to it.
"You're not E88? The shaved head could've fooled me." The girl is no longer retrieving her wallet. "In any case, you chose the wrong target today."
He grimaces. If only she knew.
"What's your name, mysterious mugger man?" The girl smiles viciously.
"Gage Argus," he says. He punctuates his statement with a gunshot; the bullet flies straight toward the girl's chest and lodges itself there. Blood flows from the wound and she starts to scream.
The scream deepens
Deepens.
It's not a scream anymore; the girl is roaring, less in pain and more in anger. Gage steps backward and fires another shot, this one at her head. The bullet doesn't penetrate the skin - there is no skin by the time it reaches her skull. The bullet deflects off of the scales, and another guttural, bone-shaking roar comes forth. And suddenly Gage gets it.
"Lung. Damn." He is muttering quietly, but the girl hears him.
"Good thought, but no. You wouldn't believe how quickly I regenerate; a punctured lung would have been no trouble." She looks up and gives him a strange expression; it would be a glare, but her face is entirely devoid of anger. "You know, I would have let you live if you had held your fire. It's unfortunate that you made that mistake."
More bullets fly from the gun, but both she and Gage know that they won't do much damage. Smoke curls up from the girl's mouth when she breathes, and her hands are magma red.
Gage starts backing up slowly, then throws himself to the right as a blast of fire comes from the girl's hand. He starts running at her, discarding the empty gun and drawing a knife. She throws another casual blast of fire, and he dives out of the way again, throwing the knife toward her so as to avoid stabbing himself. He's on his feet as soon as she turns, running straight at her as he draws another knife from his belt. She attacks again, but he's already moved, just to her right. He slams the knife toward her face. The first stab glances off of the emerging scales; the second hits something squishy. She screams. An eye.
Gage reaches back to stab again. Before he can start his next attack, his body is totally engulfed in flame, as is the ground within a foot of the girl. She steps from the fire, howling in unison with Gage. Her eye is growing back quickly, and her screams are calming.
A few moments later, Gage is dead.
A few moments later, Gage wakes up in bed, clawing at his face.
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Day 141 - 4/28/11
Never done this day before. Dogeared page accordingly.
Jake leaves his gun on his bedside table. There's a guard at the mall, so getting the clock is hard; taking Jake's alarm clock is better; the saved time makes up for the inferior display.
Day 140 confirmed that she changes the books. Every Day is a new history, consistent with her, but somehow manufactured so that she ends up there. Start indexing books, particularly A History, to keep track of her powers.
Sounds like there's somebody else in the building. Probably skinheads.
Don't -
The entry ends there. A tear of blood drips onto the bottom of the page, staining a good centimeter of the notebook crimson. There is a jagged hole in the page, small, about half a centimeter in diameter. A thin thread runs through the hole, loosely hanging off of the paper, as if the hole were made hastily, too big for its contents. The thread snakes up to a shiny needle, which has been shoved through a white cotton shirt and into Gage's chest, right next to a gaping gunshot wound.
"Looks like we got 'im," says an Asian man. "That'll show the fuckin' Empire."
"Let's see what he got on 'im," says another man. He steps toward the moribund man. "Whaddya think this book is for?"
A few moments later, Gage is dead.
A few moments later, Gage wakes up in bed, clutching his chest.
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A/N: My writing has recently gone from borderline-readable to borderline-unreadable, which means it's time to start publishing. My friend keeps recommending fics to me, and it seems far too convenient that every iteration of Taylor triggers in the locker and gets to test her powers on some hapless mugger, so I've decided to riff on that for a while. I'm not well-acquainted with the Worm fandom, so I apologize in advance for any tropes.