“No…no… NO!”

I shot up rather quickly and violently. I was soaked in sweat, my left shoulder and back was killing me and I was breathing heavily. I saw Melanie… and… and I left her.... GOD WHY!!? Anyway, once I began to regain my senses, I realized that I was sitting in a bed, covered by a lone sheet. I looked around the small, grey and metal room. It had nothing but a chair -which had my pack on it- this bed I was in, and a desk with a lamp on it.

I wasn’t really thinking at the time. Immediately I threw the sheet off me and fell off the bed. I landed with a thud and moaned out of agony and frustration, it was mostly agony. I used my one good arm and pushed myself off the floor and limped my way over to my backpack. I quickly adjusted the bag and opened the zipper and stuck my arm in. After a few seconds of searching with my hand, I found what I was looking for.

I pulled my 1911 out and removed it from its holster. I held the weapon in front of my stomach and used my battered left hand to grab the slide and chamber a round. Once I had the gun ready, I placed the pistol down on the chair and grabbed an extra magazine. I’m leaving, finding my wife, and going on my way, an no one is going to stop me! I held the extra mag with my left hand and the pistol in my right. Once I was ready, I limped my way to the small doorway. I propped myself against the door way and looked down one end of the hallway that connected to my room.

When I saw nothing to my right, I looked to my left. There was nothing. The hallway was made out of grey metal and concrete, something you would see in a military grade bunker. There were a few doors here and there but otherwise nothing much. So I had a choice to make, left or right? I chose right. I promptly left the doorway and began to limp my way down the hall. Everytime I passed a door I held the pistol up case something happened, but I ran into nothing. While I stumbled through the long and bland hall I came to a ‘T’ intersection. I couldn’t believe how desolate the place was.

“Y-you shouldn’t be up. You need to rest!” said a female voice behind me.

I quickly turned 180% on my heels and shoved the pistol to the woman’s forehead. She froze immediately. She was about five foot eight, probably a hundred and fifty pounds, had dark brown hair and light grey eyes and wore a white nurse’s outfit.

“Fuck…you.”

The tension in the air was so thick, that I would have needed a chainsaw to cut it. I was filled with hate, sadness, regret, and a just about every other emotion known to man except happiness. I slowly backed away from her and rounded the right corner before turning around and limping back down the hallway. I ended coming up to another intersection in the bland hallway and I froze against the wall when I heard voices.

“-yeah, and then I was like, ‘dude! Look at her, what have you done?’” said a male voice.

“Oh man that’s great!” replied another male voice, this one more joyous.

By the volume of their voices, they were close.

Using what strength I had, I stepped out around the corner and held my pistol high. Both men immediately stopped when they saw me. They wore white shirts, grey cargo pants, black boots, and had exo-suites suits. Both guys must have been through a lot because they weren’t even fazed at my appearance.

It was a tense few seconds.

“Son, why don’t you put the gun down?” calmly asked the man to my left.

I didn’t say anything.

“Well it’s good to see you’re awake,” said the man to my right.

“What?” I quietly asked out of confusion.

“You don’t recognize me?” asked the right soldier, “Well, then again, you were pretty banged up,” he said to himself while looking to the ceiling momentarily. He focused himself back on me, “Staff Sergeant Kurtys Regnet, at your service son... Now, why don’t you lower the gun? We’re not going to hurt you,” he said calmly.

I took a moment to think about it before I finally gave up and lowered the gun. The sergeant slowly walked up to me and gently took the pistol from my grasp. I didn't even resist. Where was the point in fighting anymore? I had nothing, the only reason I had to live was gone, I was never going to find her. I started to cry.

“Hey, what’s wrong partner?” asked Kurtys.

“She’s gone… I’ll… I’ll never see her again,” I admitted through my sobs.

The young soldier wrapped an arm around my shoulders, “Hey… why don’t we go talk about it?”

I wiped my eyes with my right hand, “Okay…” a lot of good wiping my eyes did, I just went back to my sobbing.

The rest of that day is a blur. I talked to my new “friend” and admitted everything. But I never expected him to be so understanding. Well, as it turned out that he lost contact with his family shortly after the attack on Earth. But, from that point on, life was dull. I sulked in my room, cried myself to sleep at night, and rarely ate.

But Kurtys checked up on me every day. It turned out he was the one that carried me from where ever I took that brutal hit, all the way back to this secret military installation. Oh, I guess I should explain where I am. Kurtys took me to a special, hidden bunker in the Canadian Rockies. This place used to be an old mining facility before it was turned into a hidden underground bunker. The place was fully self-sustaining. But all I had in this place was my backpack and a shitty ass room.

As it turned out, the facility was populated with a few thousand civilians and military personnel. But I never talked to anyone. The only times I did anything was answering questions for nurses and talking to Kurtys. After about the third or fourth week of being in this place, Kurt, dragged me out of my room. No, he literally dragged me out of my room by my ankle. I relented and he let me stand up... eventually.

Fucking exo-suits.

Anyway, we were walking through one of the many hallways when we passed an open door. As we passed it, I took a double take and looked in the door. What I saw amazed me. In the middle of the white room, surrounded by scientist, sat a suit of armor hanging from some wires strapped to a metal support frame. It was grey in nature, the fake pecs attached to the right arm looked like it was made of stone, and the helmet had a small horn. It looked like something out of a video game.

Without thinking, I stepped into the room and walked up to the set of armor.

“Hey, who are you!?”

I ignored the voice. This armor just spoke to me; I wanted to put it on... badly.

Kurt ran inside when he realized I was gone, “Hey, hey, hey, it’s cool. He’s with me,” he said to whomever as he ran up to me, “What are you doing?” he whispered in a serious tone.

“What is this?” I asked, not taking my eyes away from the suit.

“This is the Excalibur Prime proto suit,” said a scientist as he walked up to me, "Names Jazier,” he said while sticking a hand out.

I looked at his extended hand before taking it and shaking it and looking back at the suit, “This is awesome,” I let go of his hand.

He looked at it, “It’s our last hope.”

I looked at him, “Really?”

He looked at me and nodded, “This is the new Warframe Project. Classification, Tenno.”

I looked at the suit again, “Does it work?”

“Yes… well... in theory,” replied Jazier questionably.

I looked at him, “What do you mean, in theory?”

“We lack an operator.”

“How come?”

He looked at the suit, “We’re messing with powers beyond our basic comprehension. The suit itself, runs off the power of the void.”

“The void?” I interrupted.

Had to be some top secret military thing.

He looked at me, “We figured out how to harness the power of the space between space.”

I held my hands up, “Waitwaitwait,” I pointed at him, “You mean the space between space… space?” I let my arm drop.

“Correct,” he looked back at the suit, “We figured out how to harness its power, but harnessing that power through the suit is where the problem lies,” he paused, “But I believe we have found the way to control that power. Here follow me,” he said with a gesture of his hand.

Hard to believe that he was letting a civilian look at a top secret piece of hardware, then again, this is the apocalypse the government is no longer in control. I followed him over to a table where another scientist was looking through a high powered microscope. On the table sat a tray of test tubes full of this orange goop. He grabbed one of the vials and held it up.

“This is called the Tennogen Virus.”

I took the vial from him and inspected the orange paste, “What does it do?”

“Well, in theory it should boost the individuals over all physic. You know the story of Captain America?” he asked me.

I looked at him, “Uh, yeah, some skinny white guy gets injected with some special ooz and becomes a super soldier,” I replied.

“That’s the idea,” he took the vial back and placed it back in the tray and started walking, “Our initial tests show that our latest version of the virus works. But we are yet to test it on a human subject.”

“Why not?”

We stopped in front of the suit and he turned to look at me, “Because no one is brave enough to test it. We don’t know how the virus will affect a human host.”

“Oookay... What does it do specifically?” I asked.

“It alters the hosts DNA. It makes them smarter, faster, stronger, and so on. But the process is painful and extremely dangerous.”

I looked at the suit. I didn’t even hesitate to say something, “I’ll do it.”

“WHAT!?” screamed Jazier and Kurt in unison.

Everyone in the room froze and looked at me dumbfounded.

I looked at the scientist, “I’ll put on the suit.”

“You can’t be serious!?” asked Jazier frantically.

“I am,” I paused, “Look, if this works, humanity has a new weapon. And if it doesn’t, well... you got a new list of data.”

He looked around at other scientists, lost in his own thoughts, “Are you sure about this?” he nervously asked while looking back at me.

My head dropped, “Look…” I took a deep breath, “I have nothing. The only thing I cared most about in this world is god knows where!” I looked at him, “If this works… I’ll fight. And if it doesn’t… at least my suffering will be over,” I said with sadness.

The next few hours involved a lot of yelling, debating, and finally submission. Scientists and military personnel discussed and debated and finally made an agreement. The next day I was strapped down to a table in a rather tight and revealing pair of boxers, ready to start the first part of the process. I was surrounded by scientist and doctors who all wore white face masks and full body gowns. Nearby, Military Generals and other personnel stood in an elevated room on the other side of a set of windows.

“If I had known there were going to be this many needles, I might had said something different,” I said sarcastically.

There were about eight needles filled with the bright orange liquid strapped to two sets of robotic appendages that sat on each side of me and just above my arms .

“Hey, you’re going to be fine,” said Kurt with a big smile, who stood on the left side of the table.

“I’ll hold that to you Kurt.”

He smiled and chuckled, “You’re the most stubborn S.O.B. I’ve ever met. I know you can do it.”

That little shitty speech made me feel better about my current situation.

“Are you ready?” asked Jazier from the right side of the table.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I replied while laying my head against the table.

“Alright,” he turned and grabbed a mouth guard before placing it in my mouth, “Here we go.”

He stepped away and over to a large control panel and placed a hand on a large red handle. Cliché much? He looked at me and nodded. I nodded in return, telling him I was ready. With a jerk of his arm, the lever dropped. I watched in nervous anticipation as the eight needles began to descend to my forearms.

Did I forget to mention that I hate needles?

Yeah I do, a lot. Anyway, before they reached my biceps I had a though run through my head.

‘He goes something.’

They two arms made their final descent and rested against my arms. I felt the uncomfortable prick of eight needles before the cold liquid drained into my muscles. I hate that feeling. Its cold and it just spreads through out my arms. It just feels so... wrong. Once the injection was done the arms moved back to their original position.

‘That wasn’t so bad.’

I was wrong… so. Very. Very. Wrong!

After a few seconds that’s when I felt the pain, the unbearable, crippling pain.

“MMMMMMMMMMMHHHH!!!!!” I screamed into the mouth guard and scrunched my eyes shut while my body shot off the table in agonizing pain. The only thing keeping me in place were the wrist and ankle restraints. Once the initial shock wore off I fell back on the table and jerked around violently while I continued to scream into the mouth guard. The pain was unbearable. It was hard to believe that the virus was actually changing my DNA. My cells themselves were being torn apart and altered.

Basically, my everything hurt.

I jerked around for what felt like an eternity. I felt my muscles swell and my bones lengthen. It was beyond miserable, I might as well have just sat in a taffy puller. Probably would have gotten the same affect. I will admit, this was one of the times where I actually wanted to die willingly. Because on a scale of one to ten, I was at the infinity sign. I must have flailed around on that table for a few minutes before everything had finally stopped. Once I finally relaxed; I was coated in sweat and breathing heavily. Death would have been better than what I just went through.

Jazier was standing nearby looking at a screen on one of the many consoles.

“It worked,” he smiled victoriously, “Haha! It worked!” he turned from the screen and ran up to me, “The virus has successfully adapted to your DNA!” I could see the enthusiasm and accomplishment in his eyes.

“Mmm hmm mm!”

Without hesitation he took the guard out of my mouth, “What!?”

“Good, now get me off of this table!” I demanded.

He immediately unstrapped me from the table. Now that I was free from my restraints, I sat up and looked around the room. I noticed an immediate change. My vision was clearer. I could make out every detail and every color I could see was much more vibrant. My hearing had also improved. I could hear the military guys talking on the other side of the glass.

“We might be able to win this.”

“Humanity is saved.”

My mentally improved tenfold. I caught sight of a clipboard full of equations and other mathmatics. I processed it so fast I didn’t even realize I knew the answer.

I looked at the woman with the clipboard, “Hey,” I said with a nod of my head, “the answers two.”

She held up the clip board and looked at it before looking at me with utter shock and disbelief, “You’re right!”

“How do you feel?” asked Kurt.

I looked at him, before a victorious smile crawled across my face, “Never better,” I looked at Jazier, “What’s next?”

A few hours later I was strapped down to a different table, face down this time. This part of the procedure was the attachment of the systems for the frame. They were going to literally attach the systems to my spinal cord. Jazier and his scientist were betting on the fact that the virus would keep me alive. So first they gave me a sedative, well, when the first injection failed to put me to sleep, they gave me more doses. I had about ten times the amount flowing through me. Enough to kill the normal me more than once.

Several hours later I woke up covered in white bandages, lying face down on the bed in my room. Once I woke up, I moaned and sat up. Now that I realized that the surgery was over, I removed the bandages and walked over to a nearby mirror. I finally got a good look at myself... and... I... was... ripped! I was every girls dream, but looks aside, I had apparently gained like twenty-five or thirty pounds. I turned around to look at my new addition. On my back, between my shoulder blades, sat a small, black and gold round thing, it was twelve inches long, and about five inches wide at the top before coming to a taper at the bottom.

“Now... you ready for the next step?” asked Jazier.

I turned to look at the man in the doorway, “Let’s do this,” I replied with confidence.

The next part of the process was the attachment of the suit itself. I was in the original room I first saw it in. Except this time, the scientists were around me and were attaching the suit to my body. It was strange, because everything was loose as hell. But once the last part went on, the whole thing shrunk and became skin tight. It caught me off guard, but that meant that I was almost ready. The last part was the helmet. Jazier handed me the horned, grey and white helmet before I looked at it. It lacked a visor; so I didn’t know how I was going to see through it.

I adjusted the helmet in my hands before I slipped it on over my head. Once it attached to the rest of the suit, it too, shrunk to fit my head. After a few seconds the visor lit up. I could see everything. It was like I wasn’t even wearing the helmet.

“Alright, everything seems to be running smoothly,” said Jazier while looking at one of the consoles in the room.

I looked at the HUD on the inside of the helmet. On the upper right sat a blue number at 100, next to it was a red 100. In the lower right, sat a small blue bar with four icons above it. The one on the left looked like a hand and a sword, to its right looked like a bow, the third looked like a bunch of circles, and finally, the last was a sword with a bunch of lines coming off the blade. Finally, on the upper left hand corner, sat a mini map full of blue dots and had the exact layout of the science room.

For the next few hours I got accustomed to the suit, its powers, and abilities and ran start up test for the scientists. My Slash Dash -or first ability- propels me forward in a flash of speed and I can materialize an ethereal sword to attack my enemies. Next is called Radial Blind, I summon forth another ethereal blade, except this one explodes in a flash of blinding light, blinding anything within eyesight. Third is called Radial Javelin, I use yet another ethereal blade to target enemies and it summons and surrounds an enemy with multiple blades and impales them with enough force to send them flying. And finally, my Exalted Blade, I bring forth yet another ethereal blade, but this one I use like a regular sword. But with a catch, it can “fire” long blades of energy. The best part is I control everything with my mind! Since the suit is attached to my central nervous system it works, well too.

For the next week, I was given gear and weapons. The gunsmiths had a large variety of rifles, bows, pistols, throwing knives and melee weapons sitting on various tables in front of me. I stood there with my arms crossed as I examined my options. With the vast array of short and long rifles, along with shotguns, and bows, I had no idea what to choose. But with an enemy we knew nothing about, variety is probably a good thing. Immediately I went to the gun with the biggest clip. I walked over and grabbed the long gun and held it up.

“What is this?” I asked while I examined the weapon.

“This is the Soma Prime. It fires a .223 caliber round out of a massive two hundred round clip,” said one of the gunsmiths.

I examined the gun in my hand before shouldering it, “That front sight is way too big,” I removed the gun from my shoulder and looked at it, “and that mag guide obstructs my view,” I said with a gesture of my hand to the mag guide. I set it back down on the table, “And the gold color is too flashy, it’ll give away my position.”

“Do not worry, we have other options for weapons. Please, take a look,” said the gunsmith while gesturing to the other tables.

I picked up a variety of other rifles, the one thing that they all shared, was they had gold and white coloring. If a gun has to be a color, it needs to be black. After examining the rifles I moved to the pistols. Some felt good, others not so much. The throwing daggers would take a lot of practice. But when my eyes landed on the large, semiautomatic pistol that looked similar to my 1911, I immediately went for it.

I grabbed the large pistol and examined it, “And this?”

“The Lex Prime. It fires a converted .45 long colt caliber round and uses an eight round magazine,” said the gunsmith.

I held it up and looked down the sight before lowering it and attaching it to my right thigh, “I like it,” I looked at the smith, “What’s next?”

“Your melee weapon,” he turned and started to walk over to another table, “Right this way.”

I followed close behind him and over to a third table. This one was strung out with a multitude of swords, daggers, battle axes and hammers, and other weapons. I saw a rather interesting long sword. I picked it up and held it high. I don’t know, but this sword… I connected with it. I had to have it.

“I don’t care what anyone says,” I lowered the blade and looked at the smith, “This is mine.”

“And yours it shall be.”

I went on to exame the rest of my options. I eventually rested on the Venka Prime retractable claws, and the small, three bladed, Glaive Prime. All I had to do now was settle on a rifle. I examined my options yet again. But that Soma, I wanted it so badly! But that color, sight and mag guide were the problem.

I picked up the gun again, “I think I’ll settle with the this,” I lowered the gun and looked at the smith, “But on one condition.”

“And what would that be?” asked the smith questionably.

I looked at the gun, “Remove this garbage of a front sight and cut off the top mag guide,” I said while gesturing to the two parts of the gun.

“This is one of the finest machine guns ever made!” retaliated the smith.

“It’s to ornate! This is war not prom!” I retaliated, “Remove that sight and the mag guide!”

“I will not!” he ordered while crossing his arms.

I grabbed him by the collar with my left hand and pulled him in close, “You make the gun, I fire it. Unless you want me to teach you a lesson, you will do what I say!” I threatened before pushing him back.

He stumbled back with terror written all over his face. A separate gunsmith ran up and broke the tension. He took the gun from me, “Yes sir,” he said before walking away quickly and quietly.

I looked at the new face, “Hey,” he looked at me, “paint it black… and put a skull on it,” I looked back at the original smith, who hadn’t moved, “I want to be remember for my actions,” with that I turned and left the room, “And I want that ready by tomorrow!” I hollered over my shoulder.

Author's Notes:

How the man of the story came to be.