Alright. Longtime reader, first time poster. I think I started tuning in around the end of the Bush (the lesser) years. Here's the beginning of a pretty basic story that I think could be fun.

If you like it and want more, say that and I'll post the continuation.

If you hate it and want me to kill myself. Maybe just say that you don't like it.

It's whimsical, it's dark, it's twisted and borderline nonsensical.

Chapter One
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It was fourth and goal from the six yard line, last play of the game. We were leading by five points against the number four team in the country, UCLA. We’d dropped all the way to eleventh after a loss the previous week, one more and we could kiss a shot at the playoffs goodbye.

So they had to throw it here, with a quarterback that was already being projected as a first rounder in the draft and a 6’7” Tight End named Erulic Adajanti who was considered a freak talent. And lil’ ol’ me had to shut down what through five weeks of the season was being called the most prolific offensive duo in the country. Not a problem.

See, I’m fucking awesome. Just sayin’. This was my senior year, and I was gonna get drafted too. Maybe not a first rounder like the two guys I was up against, but definitely second or third at worst. Anyways, I was good too is what I’m saying.

They broke their huddle and the Adajanti immediately headed out wide to the right. I followed him, keeping tight to the line of scrimmage so that I could jam him at the snap. Did I mention this guy was big? Not just tall, but big. Easily two-fifty of solid muscle, and a good four inches taller than me. I was our tallest defensive back, hence my drawing the honor of guarding this monster, and everyone in the stadium knew he was going to get the ball here. As he jogged across from me I waved my arms at the screaming crowd and the formerly deafening din reached an ear splitting level of intensity.

He lumbered to a stop outside the numbers and I got as close as I could without being offsides. A familiar feeling settled over me as I lined up a little inside his left shoulder, the world around me faded out of focus until there was only me and Adajanti. This was what I lived for. The ten or so seconds immediately preceding and following the snap of the ball.

I wasn’t looking at the ball, I didn’t need to. When the colossal took a step forward I threw myself into him in an attempt to disrupt his route. This initial contact, over in a blink, would dictate which of us would be the hero and which the goat. His forearms hit my chest like a pair of iron clubs, creating a half yard of distance between us. But I’d taken away the slant route and he immediately turned away to head for the back corner of the endzone.

Fade. The word was all that mattered as my cleats chewed up the turf between us. I’d caught him before he crossed the goal line. By the time he took another step I was brushing off the hands that were trying to push me away. Halfway through the end zone I was on him like a blanket as we both turned to look back towards the quarterback.

There it was. The ball was just reaching the top of its arc, it would come down just behind us. The quarterback was good, he had thrown it nice and high trusting in his All American teammate to use his height to come down with the pass. I could feel Adajanti behind me as the ball started its descent, he tried to push off my shoulder but I shrugged his hands away before leaping backwards with all of my strength.

I couldn’t see the ball, only the clear sky as I extended my right arm above my head reaching with all my might for where I knew the ball’s trajectory would carry it. Dimly I could feel the receiver behind me extending himself to catch my target, could feel his forearm against the back of my hand. Something touched the tip of my gloved fingers and I flexed my arm to bat it away.

By the time we tumbled to the ground together in a tangle of exerted limbs I knew I’d done it. As we slid to a stop out of bounds I caught a glimpse of the football landing near a cameraman some ten yards away.

What happened after that is a bit of a long and confusing blur of excitement. Before I could even raise my arms in the air to celebrate it seemed like half of the team was jumping on top of me in their rush to celebrate our win. I saw Peters and Wright, Jeffrey and Chambers, all of them screaming in excitement before my best friend Mike was able to get me to my feet. His face was lit up like a Christmas tree as we and sixty other guys jumped and flailed in a downright palsaic dance of victory that can only be experienced by those who can no longer perceive the idea of disappointment. To be sure, I’m pretty sure I suffered more bruises in those moments after that play than I had in the entire season up to that point.

Very distantly I knew I was being interviewed by the sideline reporter, Mike at my side. I muttered a series of congratulations to our opponents for a great game and espoused the virtues of my teammates and coaches before heaping praise on the other members of the defensive secondary when the reporter asked about how we had managed to keep one of the best passing teams in the NCAA to under three hundred yards of total offense.

After leaving the field we almost tore the walls down when Coach congratulated us on a game well played, and I took the usual post game questions with an arm around Mike and Switzy (our nickle corner) before the inevitable party began in some frat house or another on campus. “Fuck. U.C. LA” was being chanted all night as the defense and I did our best to drown ourselves in whatever alcoholic beverage came into our sights.

At some point around midnight Mike and I ended up playing Bowser party with a few other guys. I could barely see straight after some six or seven hours of drinking and I’m pretty sure that I ended up sending Yoshi straight into a spinning serrated saw or something similar. “I think you’re ready for pong!” Mike shouted in my ear after that. He was a few inches shorter than me, and a bit smaller in general. White Thunder and Black Lightning were our nicknames, not exactly the most creative way to describe a hard hitting white guy safety and his faster black guy counterpart but what are you gonna do?

“I can barely hold this controller!” I shouted back at him over the music, managing the previously unheard of feat of swaying in my seat.

“Dude, you’re holding an uncooked bratwurst.” He informed me in an understanding tone.

My heart swelled with friendship. “You’re right, Mikey. Get the balls!” A roar went through the room at my declaration and some blonde was stuffing her tongue down my throat as a backup defensive lineman named Casey was dragging me through the trashed house towards the dining room.

All the chairs had been removed and a series of cups had been arranged at each end of the handsome table. Mike was making out with what very probably might have been a potted tree at one end, while at the other were our top two runningbacks who seemed to be defending a victory. There must have been thirty people crowded against the walls and hanging in the two doorways and what sounded like Kendrick Lamar blasting through the house. Casey cleared a path through the mass of humanity that made me wonder if he should have been a fullback before he threw me towards Mike and was bellowing “QUUUUUUUUIEEEEEET!!!!!”

The immediate vicinity met his demand, and even Kendrick Lamar seemed muted as he began narrating in a booming voice “ladies and gentlemen… our main event! In the left corner, we have two douchebags who barely gained a hundred yards between them!” A chorus of boos and conflicted cheers answered him as Mike emerged from the brambles in which he'd become engaged. “And in my right corner… You know them, you love them. They’re as handsome as a couple of straight guys can be. IT’S WHITE THUNDER AND BLACK LIGHTNING!!!!”

I did what might generously be described as an interpretive Egyptian dance while someone filled the cups in front of us with beer and Casey tossed two ping pong balls to our opponents. “Runtards are defending, they get first shot!” He announced to the room.

Leaning over to Mike I told him “Hey, if that fullback thing doesn’t work out for Casey, I think he could be a sportscaster.” He looked confused as I turned back to the table to watch two balls land in our cups. “Oh fuck” I said to myself as we each chugged one of the cups a ball had landed in.

Five cups later we had defeated the RB’s and advanced to a double or nothing challenge in which the cups in front of each team would be filled with vodka and crown royal instead of beer.

After that, all I remember is Mike and I staggering back towards the dorms at something like four in the morning. Somebody offered us a ride. I thought it was weird that he was driving a van down the sidewalk, but before I could bring it up he was waving a weird smelling can in front of our faces and I felt strongly like taking a nap.

What felt like a lifetime later I became aware of my surroundings. I’d like to think that my hangover is an excuse as to why it took me so long to realize what an extremely bad situation I was in. Seriously, I probably had alcohol poisoning.

You’ll have to forgive me on the somewhat scattershot nature of the beginning of this narrative. As I said, I was drunk on victory and later on… well, on irresponsible amounts of alcohol. And this part. Well it’s a bit hard for me to bear. But I’m doing my best here so don’t be a dick. I was a football player, not a writer.

Anyway, to skip a long period of confusion I’ll just say that I was restrained on a gurney and spent what was probably a few hours trying not to vomit. Eventually I started to take stock of the room. It looked like I was in some kind of warehouse that had fallen into disrepair, judging by the spiderwebbed ceiling I could dimly make out some twenty feet above me. There were no walls, rather what looked like discarded medical curtains. You know, those kind they hang in the ER to give a semblance of privacy? Well these were stained and torn in places, very not-comforting.

The light in the ‘room’ came from a couple of construction lights standing to either side of my gurney which allowed me to see that I was hooked to a series of beeping readouts that looked more or less normal for a hospital setting as far as I could tell.

I hadn’t quite gotten to the point of screaming in terror at my vaguely Saw-esque surroundings when the curtain to my left was swept aside and a tall figure strode into my limited field of perception.

He was a fairly ordinary looking man, a bit tall maybe. He had an unremarkable face and close cropped hair that was greying a bit, as was his well maintained goatee. He wore medical scrubs and tennis shoes, I could tell. And he seemed very happy to see me.

“It’s so good you’re awake!” He exclaimed. He had a German accent that, combined with the rest of my surroundings, did not inspire a sense of well being. “I was afraid you would sleep all day, my young friend!”

He walked over to my side and began fiddling at the machines that had begun to beep a little more rapidly with his appearance. “Ummm, sir?” I started, with no idea where to take the conversation.

The man looked down at me and smiled. “What can I do for you Mr. Myles?”

Thoughts and, in particular, words seemed to come a bit slowly “uh, where am I?” I asked a bit lamely.

“Oh, you’re my guest. And a very special one at that.” The man told me with a pat on my shoulder. “We’re going to accomplish great things together.”

Any hopes of being told that this was just a really shitty hospital vanished pretty quickly as I stared into deeply brown eyes that can only be described as ‘batshit insane’. “Well, sir” I told him in as non-confrontational a tone as I could manage “I hate to be rude but it occurs to me that I didn’t call my mom yesterday after the football game. And if I don’t talk to her soon, y’know it’s just gonna be this whole thing. And there will be accusations of unappreciative sons, and ‘getting too big for my britches’ and the like. I mean, last time she called the campus police and had them almost busting down my door because it was after one o’clock…” I smiled sickly at my caretaker and belatedly added “eastern time…”

“Oh, don’t you worry young man.” He told me with a smile that didn’t reach those eccentric eyes. “I don’t think your mother will be bothering us. We’re quite safe here.” That last bit was delivered with a wink that did nothing to allay my concerns.

“Who are you? What are you doing?” I blurted. Unable to avoid the questions anymore. I’d obviously been kidnapped by a madman. Hell, I’d known it as soon as I heard that fucking accent. Look, I’ve got nothing against Germans. Excellent engineers, but as unexpected medical providers in obviously unlicensed facilities they carried a bit of a reputation.

Mr. Scary arched an eyebrow at me and sat on the edge of the gurney next to my restrained wrist that I had been trying to wriggle free in what I hoped had been a discrete effort. “My name is Dr. Kind” he told me, “and I am going to assist you in reaching your full potential on this Earth.”

Dr. Kind, who seemed anything but, apparently wanted me to be excited at that announcement. But all I could say was “how’s that exactly?”

The ‘Dr.’ sprang to his feet and clapped his hands like a child and practically sang to me “well, I have perfected a serum that isolates the deviation gene. If my calculations are correct, in fact, I can even determine what changes it makes in the subject!” The insane smile that spread across my captor’s face made my blood run cold. This psycho was going to try and deviate me! I didn’t need this! I was going to have a chance at the pros! Sure, it’d be an uphill battle. I didn’t quite have the top-end speed required in the pass-happy NFL these days, but I had the size to be an asset in run support and the coverage skills to take care of tight ends!

But deviation!?! What possible reason could he want to force that on me? And artificially no less! “Please, doctor, I uh… I don’t really know if that’s a great idea! I mean, I’ve got commitments to maintain. And the NCAA would want me to take a bunch of tests to ensure I wasn’t trying to acquire an artificial advantage. Maybe I could pass on this?” I don’t know what I expected, but of course he wasn’t buying it.

“Oh, my son” he patted my head in a manner that was anything but fatherly “you won’t need to worry about football anymore. Once I grant you superior physical strength and speed I will be engaging you to my financiers. They will make good use of you, I’m sure.”

That smile again, as he turned and strode out of the room. I lost it. I’d always tried to keep things calm, a remnant of growing up in a broken home according to the school shrink, and whatever part of me that was responsible for that personal attribute disappeared that instant. “Are you out of your fucking mind!?!” I bellowed at the insane man as he pulled the curtain aside. “Let me go! I won’t be deviated, it’s fucking impossible! Get back here! Turn around and face me! Let me out of these straps and I’ll rip your goddamn head off with my bare hands! Real tough man, closing the curtains! You can’t even! You fucking! FUUUUCK!”

Needless to say, I was screaming for quite some time as Dr. Douchefuck left me in there. I struggled against the straps around my ankles and wrists, I tried to break the gurney, I even did my best to shout the roof down.

To no avail, I’m afraid to report.

Eventually I screamed and exerted myself out. After that I just lay there, envisioning what this maniac might do to me. Deviate. He wanted to deviate me and, unless I’d been mistaken, sell me to whatever assholes paid his bills. Leaving aside that anyone who wanted to ‘buy’ someone who’d deviated was guaranteed to be a Grade A asshole, I really didn’t want to be deviated.

I’d dodged that genetic bullet when it first cropped up in 2019, and was happy to have done so. I’m not prejudiced or anything, but I was happy with what basic homo sapien evolution and my own hard work had given me as far as physical attributes. Superpowers, can’t say I was too interested. Especially considering all the possible physical mutations one had to deal with.

The ability to fly or deadlift a city bus wasn’t worth the chance of having tentacles sticking out of my ears is all I’m saying.

And this asshole said he had a way to force my body to make those changes. The fact that he was making those claims at all did not make me feel better about his implication that he could control the mutations. Nobody could control deviation, it was the next stage of human evolution according to science. It had to work itself out.

While I was ruminating on my borderline panic Dr. Kind swept back the curtain again and walked toward me. The insane smile had been replaced by an unsettling frown as he walked to my side again and began raising my bed into a sitting position. “You were very unkind, Mr. Myles. Very unkind.” He nodded at me severely before administering an I.V. that connected to a bag of fluids. “I did not appreciate your profane language at all. So I will allow you to see that I am very correct in the administration of my treatment before I help you grow into a more perfect form.”

The pouting look he shot me made my stomach roil as he walked to the curtain directly in front of me and drew it to the side. I could see Mike directly across from me, similarly restrained to a gurney. He also was connected to medical equipment, but there was a whirring machine to his right that I had never seen before. It looked… weird. Like a small windmill made out of ice cream scoops with a centrifuge in the middle. I don’t know, it was fucking weird.

Out of this device Dr. Kind fed an I.V. line and inserted the needle into Mike’s arm. Mike was thrashing about and attempting to scream, but a gag of some sort had been stuffed into his mouth. I watched in horror as Kind fiddled with the strange machine for a few seconds before the I.V. line began feeding a disturbing blue liquid into my best friend’s bloodstream.

Mike thrashed harder than ever as the substance entered his body and I was screaming for him. I shouted every obscenity at the doctor that entered my mind, doing my best to rip my bonds from their foundations on the gurney.

We locked eyes, Mike and I, as a horrible ripple spread across his dark skin. I could see his eyes bulging with pain and fear as he began convulsing in his restraints.

My incoherent screaming must have lasted hours after Mike’s limbs had stopped thrashing, I can’t quite remember. I’ll leave the details out, but suffice to say that it became very apparent very quickly that the Dr.’s serum was flawed. Mike diverted, I suppose you can say, but there was no surviving the changes that his body underwent.

I saw it all. His skin bursting in a dozen places, his panicked eyes, the Dr. gibbering beside him.

He died, that’s the last I’ll say about it. My best friend died at the hands of a goddamn psychopath who thought he’d discovered the secret to human perfection. And I just sat there, on my gurney.

Eventually I must have sobbed and screamed myself to sleep, because I remember waking up with a jerk as the Dr. was standing next to me administering a new I.V. The look I gave him must have spoken volumes because with a faint smile he told me “not to worry, my son. We know just what went wrong, just give me a bit of time to revise the formula. No mushrooms for you!” He tried to pat my arm and I roared in protest and did my best to get a hold of some part of him.

He retreated without touching me and I sat there alone for some time, pondering my very existence. Eventually, though, he returned with a bowl and a folding chair. He set the chair next to me and said “we need to keep that strength up, my friend! Here, a bit of soup.” He sat down and made to feed me some of the rancid looking concoction contained therein. As soon as the hand holding the plastic spoon was in range I bit into it with a savagery previously unknown to my spirit.

Dr. Kind’s eyes widened in shock as my teeth pierced his flesh and clamped down to the bone. He was howling like a banshee trying to get loose, but I ground my teeth and relished the coppery taste of blood that filled my mouth. The madman threw the lukewarm dreck into my face as he tried to pull away and I felt his index finger pop in its joint, locked as I was between it and his thumb. He thrashed at my face with his free left hand, raining down blows on my eyes and nose. I ignored them all, savoring the terror and pain in his suddenly wild eyes. Eventually he got his free hand on a weapon because a sick thud over my temple left my vision blurry and my jaw involuntarily relaxed long enough for him to pull away.

A surprising amount of blood was covering my body as Dr. Kind danced away hooting in harsh Germanic syllables. I’m no linguist, but my general impression was that the good Dr. was not appreciative of my rebellious gesture. That feeling was reinforced when he turned to face me, hunched over his mutilated hand like Gollum over the one ring.

“You fucking animal!” He screeched, face contorted in what I have to say was a pretty intimidating mask of rage. “Look at what you’ve done to me! And while I have been trying to help you evolve!” The mad bastard waved his maimed hand in front of me. To be fair, it was pretty gruesome. I hadn’t even known a person could do damage like that, maybe I’d already diverted a super powerful jaw.

The flesh between the man’s index finger and thumb was hanging in a loose and ruined mess, and I could see quite a bit of white bone. And the index finger itself was in a horribly unsettling position, not quite connected to the bottom knuckle. I’d say I think I’d dislocated it, but that doesn’t quite say everything I think needs to be conveyed. It was really fucked up, is what I’m trying to tell you.

Anyways, he ranted and raved for a minute or so about how grateful I should be before stalking off through the curtains again. I’d spent the time trying once again to free myself of the restraints and eventually calmed into a weird state of giddy anticipation. I knew he wanted to do terrible things to me, and I probably wouldn’t get another chance to strike back again, but this act of revenge for Mike had put me in a fairly positive mood.

I’ll fast forward through the very long time that passed when he did not feed me, or indeed even check on my condition, and just let you know I think it was at least 24 hours before I saw him again.

Kind was looking a bit unwell when he hurriedly entered my presence, muttering hysterically. That right hand was heavily bandaged and in his left was held a very serious looking syringe and needle containing an odd salmon colored solution. I was pretty weak from my captivity and didn’t do much more than mumble threats as he began preparing what was clearly going to be my injection of his serum.

I was almost completely resigned by then so I didn’t struggle, or indeed even pay him much attention, until a loud boom shook the building. Dust rained down on us from the shadowed ceiling and the Dr. looked behind him in a panic. “Whas appening?” I murmured.

Kind didn’t respond, only continued his muttering as he swabbed his own blood off the inside of my left forearm.

A series of loud crashes and what might have been a woman’s voice letting out a stream of curses came from somewhere outside my curtained world. It occurred to me that this might be a rescue. “Help!” I croaked, as loud as possible. “Over here!”

I began struggling then, as Kind picked up his needle with his good hand and set about to administering what could not possibly be medicine. I thrashed wildly, screaming for help, and tried to keep my arm moving so he couldn’t find a vein, but my movement was extremely limited and my strength dangerously low. I heard a voice, to my right. Clearly a woman’s, I thought I heard her calling to someone else “this way!”

Dr. Kind looked in that direction and I tried to slam my forehead into his jaw, but he pulled back and, with very poor medical technique, jammed the needle of his syringe into my forearm.

I screamed and bucked, at first in defiance and an attempt to get the needle out, but soon from the mentally fracturous pain that seized hold of my body the instant the Dr. pressed down on the syringe plunger.

My sanity was afire, and my body an inferno of indescribable agony. My vision almost immediately was reduced to a tiny pinprick of perception as a red haze settled across the world. 'This is it', I thought. 'I’m going to die, just like Mike.' I knew Kind was babbling incoherently about his successes, but could barely hear his words as I watched my body seem to waver like a poorly secured poster in the wind. I managed to catch “I’ll find you, precious.” Before he must have fled.

Every bone in my body seemed to break at once after that, attempting to reshape themselves to whatever insanity the Dr. had deviated onto my genetic code. The pain was beyond any description, a starburst within my flesh.

Very distantly I saw a woman fly across my feet, a purple haze surrounding her hands. Then, a man’s face was hovering above me. Concern and horror etched into what were most likely quite handsome features in less extreme times. He was talking, I could tell because his lips were moving, but I could no longer hear. And before long, consciousness mercifully deserted me.