I am a cog in a giant machine, and once my cog stops working, I will be discarded and replaced by another. Despite the fact that I risk death every day that I wake up, I have never felt more alive. I no longer have nightmares of those I’ve killed, I’ve stopped caring about things like that. If I become too soft, then I will end up like Jack, and I have no intentions of letting that happen.
After I disposed of Jack I was given a week off, it had been a while since I had any time to myself, it was a bit strange. I never had many friends to begin with, and my work had distanced me from the few family members I had kept in touch with. This week off made me realize just how empty my life had become, was this what they had wanted?
Regardless, I was at work the minute my week was up, ready for my next assignment, and I got one. Codename: Mimic.
As her name implies, Mimic is a master of disguise. She has the ability the morph her face in to a perfect replica of anyone she chooses, but she is unable to change her body. I imagine she’s still a work in progress, can you imagine what the government could do if they could create perfect body doubles of anyone they wanted?
Mimic had escaped with a few other experiments, but she was the top priority. It was believed that they had all split up, but I was still warned to be on the lookout in case any of them teamed up.
Due to her ability, Mimic would be incredibly difficult to locate. Because of this, several hunters like me were given her as an assignment. If our information was correct, then she had not made it out of the city we live in yet, but if she had, we may never find her. The only way we would be able to identify her is by a distinct scar on her left shoulder. The government had set up road blocks at all of the cities exits while us hunters searched within. Three other hunters and myself were each given a quadrant to search. Mimic had no family, so she would either have to break in to somewhere, or find an abandoned location to stay.
I spent several hours walking the streets of my quadrant, asking strangers if they had seen a suspicious looking woman, as well as checking out old decrepit homes that hadn’t been lived in in years, I found nothing though.
That was until I was approached by a slender, young looking man, probably early 20’s.
“Are you looking for someone?” The man asked
“Yeah, it’s hard to explain. I’m looking for a girl, but I’m not entirely sure what she looks like.” I replied.
“Aren’t we all?” The man chuckled before continuing, “But I may be able to help you. I saw a girl run in to an old building around the corner. She was acting pretty weird, constantly looking over her shoulder. Maybe she’s who you’re looking for.”
“Thank you, I have to go check right now.” I said as I pushed past the man, not giving his words a second thought.
I quickly made my way to the building, and let myself in. To my amazement, Mimic was actually there, but it wasn’t quite what I had expected.
Mimic was tied to a chair, I knew it was her, because her scar was in clear view. No other hunters had contacted me to tell me they had moved in to my area, or that they had found Mimic, so why was she tied up? That’s when I remembered who told me that I would find her here, the stranger.
Before I could even turn around I heard his voice.
“It’s a gift, she’s quite important to them isn’t she.” It was the strange young man I had just met, but he wasn’t behind me, no he was in front of me, near Mimic. How had he gotten in front of me? I had almost sprinted over here.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“That’s not important right now, aren’t you going to thank me? Oh wait, that’s not important either. The real reason I’m here is to deliver a message to you.” The man said.
“A message, from who?” I was truly perplexed, as I said earlier, I make contact with almost no one.
“Don’t look so confused friend. It’s from your girlfriend, have you already forgotten her? Dahlia would be so upset to hear that.” The man mockingly replied.
I immediately cut him off.
“Dahlia is not my girlfriend; Dahlia is a demonic doll that I want nothing to do with, unless it involves a large fire.” I was almost shouting.
The man laughed before responding.
“She said you would say something like that. Regardless, she just wants you to know that she’s coming to pick you up soon, and that she really misses you. Now if you’ll excuse me.”
The man turned and began to walk away.
“Where do you think you are going?” I said as I pulled out my tranq gun and aimed it at him. He didn’t respond, nor did he stop walking, so I fired. My aim was dead-on. Well, it would have been, but the dart passed right through the man as if he wasn’t even there. He continued walking straight up to a wall, and proceeded to walk through.
What the hell just happened? A man appears out of nowhere and leads me to Mimic, and then he tells me that Dahlia is coming for me. To top it off, there’s obviously something going on with the man too, seeing as how he knew Dahlia, but also the fact that objects pass directly through his body. Was he under her control?
I didn’t know what was going on at all, but I still had a job to do, and my target was right in front of me. I let the other hunters know that I had found the target, and that I was taking her back.
That’s what I did, I brought Mimic back to my bosses, I was almost expecting some sort of praise, but I knew that would be unlikely despite her value. I would be surprised once again when I made it back to the holding facility though.
The whole place was in complete lockdown, well whatever was able to be locked down. Half of the building had been blown off. The facility was located outside of town in a secluded area for obvious reasons. So I knew no innocent people had died, but I did see the corpses of many scientists and guards strewn around the area. I know some of them had families, but these people weren’t exactly angels.
I managed to find one of my superiors who was able to briefly fill me in on the situation.
While our forces had been thinned looking for Mimic, a group had attacked the facility. It’s obvious they were looking for a particular experiment, but it’s unsure exactly who they were after at this point. Around 20 of the 50 experiments held in this facility had escaped.
I tried asking which of the experiments escaped, but I was told that was confidential. They simply told me to leave Mimic with them, and to go home and wait for them to sort this out. I would be busy soon.
Part of me already knows at least one of the experiments who escaped. Was she the target? I think it’s a big possibility, I was already told she’s coming for me.
I’m not sure what’s about to happen, but it can’t be good.
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Credits
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