X-Virus

## X-Virus by Godzilla2199

(X-Virus was created by MamaPorcupine)

My real name is Cody, and since the very beginning, I’ve always been an unwanted kid. I never knew who my father was, and my mother was a criminal, too busy with her scheming to worry about me. She left me for days, sometimes weeks, so I soon got used to being alone, I’ve never had friends. One day, a social worker arrived and took me away from my irresponsible mother to take me to an orphanage. In the beginning I didn't really care much, in fact, it was the perfect chance to start from scratch and start socializing with other kids my same age.

But I don’t know why, it all went wrong. Nobody liked me, and they all intimidated me. I would sit on chair and wouldn't talk to anybody, I was afraid to. I got used to the idea that I wasn't normal and that I didn't fit anywhere. Suddenly, one day, they told me to pack because I was gonna be adopted. I was really surprised. Who was gonna adopt a 13 year old boy? People usually prefer younger and cuter kids. Plus, I was a weirdo, it was obvious. I was even more surprised when they took me to a big and luxurious mansion, more than I had ever seen.

I settled in my room and some days went by until I finally met my new dad. He was the chief scientist in a big laboratory that studied the behavior of a virus. Because of his job, he couldn't spend much time at home either, and I started to re-awaken old ghosts from the past. In order to avoid this, I started showing interest in his investigations, and I even started helping him in his own lab. He returned the favor by explaining to me how everything worked and the amazing destructive power viruses have.

Just as him, I started keeping a work journal, where I draw sketches and wrote down formulas. All this took up a lot of my school time, and when I did go, my classmates treated me as a weirdo. When I was 17, I had learned so much about virus, that I decided to start carrying out my own experiments. I used rats and other animals, and usually, all tests ended with the dead of the subject. When they died, the emitted high noises, a kind of suffocation, as if their lungs were about to explode. It was an incredible moment. I wondered what sounds human would make, but each time I talked about this with somebody, they said I was sick and I should look for help. However, I didn't give up. One day, when I was with my father at work, I was left alone and took advantage of the situation by filling up a syringe with a very lethal virus.

That same night, while everybody was sleeping, I put on a black jacket and blue jeans, and went down to the basement. I had my baseball bat, and by coincidence I found a jar with used and rusty nails. I nailed some of them and so created a simple but mortal weapon. In another drawer I found an old gas mask and some blue welder glasses. Once I had it all, I went out to the darkest neighborhood in town. I chose a house randomly, an old and ramshackle house, and I went inside. It wasn't difficult to end the lives of everybody in there, thanks to my improved bat. But I saved the last person, a 50 year old man.

I immobilized him and injected the virus I had stolen. I waited till it had spread all around his body. The man barely complained, he was terrified. After a while, he started groaning out loud – groans that sounded like those of animals, and suddenly, he fell on the floor. He was dead, and I couldn't help but smile – I had finally lived that moment. When I went back home, my father was waiting for me, awake. I decided to tell him what I had done, hoping as a scientist he would share my desire for investigating. But instead, he was horrified and wanted to call the police. He looked at me with the same expression of disgust as my classmates.

When he grabbed the phone, I took the opportunity to smash his head with my bat. I left running, toward the research lab, where I sneaked in thanks to the accreditation I had stolen from my father. I grabbed a bag and started filling it up with syringes and virus samples of all kinds. I had decided to escape, but before doing so, I went around that dirty neighborhood of the town to try out some of my new acquisitions. After that, I needed some refuge, so I went into the woods.

After some time walking, I found someone. I tried to sight him in the darkness, and I saw a boy wearing orange glasses and a muzzle covering his mouth. He was wearing a grey hoodie with a dark blue hood and he had two axes with him. I didn't know if he had seen me so I hid behind a tree, but when I looked again, he wasn't there any more. I looked in another direction and suddenly, I saw him, face to face really close to me. “Get out of there… I know you, you have nothing to hide”. It didn't seem like he wanted to attack me so I went, and horrified, I asked who he was. “My name is Toby”. I wanted to say my name, Cody, but instead, something different came out of my mouth: X-Virus. “Nice to meet you, X-virus. Now, come with me”. He started walking and I followed him, without even imagining I had found a great friend, my blood brother.