Yet another month has passed by without me being able to write anything, and that makes me sad. Oh well. I'll try to make up for it next month if possible, but for now, here's a hot-buns story that I produced alongside one of my anonymous co-writers some months ago. We had tons of fun with this story for sure, and I'm definitely hoping to revisit it soon. There's another story I have in the backlog with some of the characters here, but that's something for tomorrow if I can remember it! ^^;
By the way: this story takes place in the same universe and setting as "Prometheus Busted"... which I absolutely should resume when I get the time. It's been way too long since I last wrote for it, but I've been kinda stuck on what to do for the next few chapters. Hopefully that'll be amenable to change soon enough, though...
We hope you enjoy!
All characters belong to the writers.
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The Amazing Origins of Mind's Eye!
by Skaea and an anonymous co-writer
Contains: F/M, M/M, */M, and some */F and F/F hotbuns. Mildly NSFW.
Word Count: 15,696
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It was the
dawn of a bright new day in the shining city of Monumentropolis. Rising from
the east coast of the United States, the beautiful skyline was a bastion of
hope in a country torn by greed, bigotry, and cruelty. High above the rest of
the buildings, the iconic Monolith Tower seemed to spear the heavens with its
golden steeple, a beacon of liberty signaling a haven for the tired, the poor,
and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
Here, the
phrase “ordinary life” was both a common refrain and an oxymoron. Beneath its
glittering exterior, the city seemed to be a magnet for every global threat
imaginable in this existence. Aside from rampant crime, there were giant
monsters, aliens, and even supernatural dangers from other dimensions invading
almost every other hour. Nobody knew why this was the case; some had speculated
that the Monolith Tower was to blame, but evidence pointed to trouble plaguing
the city even before it had been constructed during the Roaring Twenties. Just
how Monumentropolis had not collapsed in on itself and become lost to history
would have been a mystery to all if not for one critical factor.
In a stroke of
true kismet, good luck had balanced bad. Every single citizen who dwelled here,
from the lowliest of the homeless to the mayor himself, somehow developed at
least some modicum of supernatural talent, usually enough to put an end to the
public menaces that showed up every day. How this happened was just as much of a
mystery as why terrible things always seemed to gravitate towards the city
itself, but nobody seemed to question it. Mysterious disappearances, mystical
artifacts, magical visitors from other worlds, strange but attractive new
transfer students… Literally anything could happen to anyone here, and nobody
could predict who would be the next one to ascend to heroism or when that
ascent would be.
Whatever the
case, no matter who you are, or where you came from, in Monumentropolis, you’ll
become the hero of your own saga — or the villain of someone else’s. Many, many
stories have been told in this wonderous city since time immemorial, and many
more will be for eons to come. This is but one of these stories.
*****
There are
heroes who are made, heroes who are born, and heroes who build themselves up.
And then, there are those who become heroes completely by accident. Usually
it’s because they end up being dumped into the worst possible situation and end
up doing the right thing without even realizing it. But some simply happen to
be near that radioactive beetle, in the path of that mutagenic meteor… or in
this particular instance, unlucky enough to sit on a misplaced syringe
containing an experimental mind-enhancing serum.
Deep within
the heart of the Osthanes Research Institute, the narrative forces were
stirring. Try as they might, though, they were quite unable to awaken the
twenty-four-year-old researcher passed out on his desk, unable to avoid the
inevitability of sleep even with four mugs’ worth of coffee, each downed every
other hour, the nonstop late shift having lasted from the previous evening all
the way up to 5 AM.
If one were to
happen across him, they wouldn’t expect this seemingly ordinary youth to have
achieved breakthroughs of any sort. He was currently wearing a wrinkled blue
shirt with some coffee stains on it as well as faded jeans and a light brown
jacket, as it was cold in the lab. With light brown, almost dirty blonde hair,
blue eyes with gorgeous long and dark eyelashes, and smooth, flawless pale
skin, he was certainly not the commonly imagined picture of a nerdy scientist.
He had a nicely chiseled jaw with high cheekbones and was overall an extremely
handsome young man. That said, his short hair was currently messy from lack of
sleep and too much work, and he had bags under his eyes to boot. His reading
glasses were set aside by his resting head as well.
His ID badge
for the lab, as per the norm, bore his full name, Zechariah Edward Fitchus, but
the name tag pinned to his coat bore witness to the hasty, shoddy handwriting
of someone whose mind was thinking far too quickly for its own good. Without
his clarification, it seemed to read “Zeakanah” rather than “Zechariah”. He’d
long since given up on correcting those who called him “Zeaka”, having
shortened the misinterpreted name to make it easier to say. So the narrative
shall refer to him as Zeaka from this point forward.
Over the past
two months, Zeaka’s team had been continuously studying and researching a
formula they had deemed “Mind’s Eye”. Kept carefully under wraps and accessible
only to the members of the team itself, the intent was to exploit certain
properties of the human brain by activating certain synapses and altering their
cycles of activity. If successful it could supposedly boost intelligence and
mental clarity, bypass genetic illnesses that affected the brain, and even
fully treat Alzheimer’s and brain cancer. Breakthroughs were imminent, of
course, but there were too many setbacks to count – not in the least being the
inevitability of human testing and all the ethical concerns it implied.
Still, about
the only thing that could stop the project from nearing its completion, at
least for today, was Zeaka falling asleep on his desk and remaining conked out
for three hours straight.
In a shocking
twist, it was not some epic plot twist involving a supernatural or otherwise
extraordinary event that woke the sleep-deprived young man, but his phone going
off with a text message alert.
