Tanzanite - something I wrote once...

[AshDim]

Wrote this years ago, but never did anything with it. If people like it, I can try and continue it. It’s in first person, which is weird for me, so I might have messed up here or there. Also, it’s a little violent / gory, so I hope that’s ok ?

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It was early morning, and my day started as it always has - the soft thump of the bars in front of my cell door receding into the wall, the bright light turning on with a high pitched static noise, and the soft clicks of locks releasing all throughout the building. We were trained to wake immediately, our biological clocks completely in unison; we had orders. We were not, however, instructed when to go to sleep, and as such, I rarely slept. I ran pretty efficiently on 3 hours of power naps, spread out sporadically throughout the day, with the last hour being the longest, right before the doors unlocked.

Since we were locked in our cells about an hour after dinner and not released until the morning, I got the vibe that everyone else used that solitary time for sleep. I used it to paint. They didn’t provide us paint or canvas or even paint brushes -though I have seen those things once before on a group outing - but I made do with mud, different oils and pastes I could stumble upon, and my hands. I painted by oil lamp when it drew dark, the walls of my cell covered from floor to ceiling with my art.

I mostly painted landscapes - rolling hills, bright suns, flowers in full bloom. I was obsessed with the outdoors. I yearned to be out there; our trips were so infrequent. Sometimes, when I painted the sun, I could almost feel it’s warmth. Being in here, in my cell, or my “quarters” as it was more commonly called, was the closest I could get to actually being outside.

I filed into the hallway, dragging my feet and lining up with the others. We stood outside our doors facing West. The cell mate in front of me, Aurora, stood rigidly, muscled bunched and hands balled into fists. She was a good foot shorter then me, with wild hazelnut hair that stuck up every which way. Her outfit, the same black t-shirt and sweatpants we all wore, hung on her petite frame loosely, exposing her left shoulder. She peeked over her shoulder at me and her dark green eyes were fierce and determined.

I leaned forward a tick and lowered my voice so only she and maybe a few others could hear if they were listening very closely. “Making a run for it again?” My eyes sparked with excitement, my smile mischievous.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she tilted her head ever so slightly and winked, a smile tugging at the right corner of her mouth.

We were born and breed in this facility, for this facility. No one left and anyone who tried was made an example of. The last time Aurora attempted an escape, no one saw her for 2 weeks. We started to think she may have actually made it outside, when in the middle of the night we heard the thump of her cell door. She hasn’t been the same since - twitchy, anxious, neurotic, and a little bit deranged.

She shifted her weight back and forth on her feet, clenching and unclenching her fists.

We were what the officers called the “mutarani”, which I’m told is some other language for “mutated”. I didn’t like being called that. I remember hearing a story once about mutants that were little gooey creatures, dripping slime and eating people. I had never seen any of us do that. We were created for one purpose and one purpose only - to destroy. Our talents were extremely wasted being locked up in this place, but until the powers-that-be decided that there was worthy enough a cause to deploy their living, breathing secret weapons, here we stayed, held hostage by the only thing that could make us hostages (our Kryptonite, so to speak) - Tanzanite.

You see, nature always finds a balance. When man messed with nature to create us, the Earth produced a gem to destroy us.

The officers walked down the hall from behind us. They were always armed to the teeth with tanzanite and other weapons, though most of us weren't foolish enough to try and escape. Aurora was a repeat offender and I itched to see what she would do this time. Would she attack one of the officers? Would she simply make a run for it? I hoped she had a plan.

As was tradition, three guards hung back by the door and 12 stood in a row down the aisle next to us all, one guard appointed to each of us. My guard today was Greg. I liked Greg; he was young, maybe mid 20s, and his face still held that youthful innocence.

Aurora's guard was Brandon. Brandon was not a friendly. He also usually wasn't one of the escorting guards. Brandon's specialty was training, both with weapons and hand to hand combat. I had no idea why he was here, but could only assume that Aurora's behavior warranted additional reinforcement.

It didn’t look like it would stop her though. As I watched, and before the guards could begin filing us out, one by one, Aurora launched herself at Brandon. She jumped up, straddling him like a baby bjorn, and in one fluid movement, crushed her teeth into his jugular. She was quick, so quick he couldn’t brace himself for the attack - guess bringing out the big guns was useless - but his gun went off at the same time. She collapsed, withering on the ground, a black pool of blood pumping out of her left side and surrounding her on the tile floor. When the last pulse of her blood escaped her, her face paled and her eyes glazed over.

Damn. One shot with Tanzanite and she was dead.

That wasn’t even the worse part. Brandon stood clutching his hand over the wound, but his jugular was severed and dark red blood was squirting out of his neck like I’d never seen before. It sprayed against the wall, squirting between his fingers as he attempted to keep the wound covered. Then, the most bazaar thing happened. He fell to his knees, and the impact made him crumble. He fell apart like he was made of pieces glued together and the glue had lost its adhesive. He... his body broke apart into a hundred pieces of flesh and blood and guts, and I was dumbfounded.

As more of us, the mutarani, realized what had happened - she bit him and freaking crumbled, and I was pretty sure people didn’t do that - they began looking around at each other and the guards beside them. The guards raised their guns, trained on the heads of each of us - myself included, even though I was still open mouth staring at the bite sized chunks of Brandon.

We had been trained for moments like this since birth. I had been trained how to fight since before I could walk. I had learned how to use, clean, and properly take care of a weapon before I could speak. I was bred to kill. I was a weapon. As our abilities started to develop - super human strength, immunity to any known weapon other then tanzanite, immortality, the fact we all stopped aging 12 years ago - the guards had others like us teach us how to use and control them. The First Generation, as they were called. But they were much weaker then us, created a different way we were told, and they had never mentioned anything like this.

And as I stared at a pile of what used to be a human being, something clicked.

I was a weapon.

They wanted us to do this - only this - our whole existence to be death and murder.

I was the last to look away, but the first to revolt. I swept my right foot up and whirled it against the gun in Greg’s hand. It went off, a Tanzanite encrusted bullet whizzing past my head by inches. The gun skidded against the ground towards another Mutarani, who swept it up. I heard the gun fire, but I didn’t look to see who had been shot. I launched myself at Greg, knocking us to the ground. He thrashed his body and whirled so I was beneath him.

“I don’t want to kill you!” I yelled. “I just want to leave. But I will, if I have to.” My words seemed to make him hesitate, a pinched expression on his face. I took advantage of the opportunity and jerked my hips, pushing Greg to the side. I stood and tried to take a step towards the door but Greg’s hand grabbed my ankle, and I landed on my stomach with a huff. “Dammit, Greg,” I muttered. I quickly scanned him - his clothes were completely covered in Tanzanite, and I definitely wasn’t taking a bite of that. I’d have to go for the neck, like Aurora did.

In an uncomfortable twist and shove movement, I propelled myself on top of him and sunk my teeth into his neck so fast that the movement was almost instinctual. He gurgled and flailed, but I didn’t wait around to see if he crumbled.

I ran towards the door.

The guards were all falling - of course they couldn’t take us; they had created us to be the strongest things in existence. I realized how stupid it was of them to have created us as I ran down a hall that lead to the elevator, and I wondered why in the world it’s taken me almost 35 years to try and escape. The Tanzanite scared us - most of us were afraid to touch it, that it would leak into our skin somehow and kill us, but most of us had at least tried to simply run out the door. We would be caught, tortured and beaten, and then deposited back in our cells. No one had gotten very far.

And of course none of us knew we could do what we were doing. I mean, what kind of sane, rational person bites someone in the freaking neck?

I wiped blood from my lips with the back of my hand. Several other Mutarani were behind me now. I knew what would happen. The elevator doors would open and a fleet of officers would converge on us. We were going to die. And maybe it was the adrenaline, but I suddenly didn’t care. Better to die then to continue this life.

I pressed the call button, and eight of us stood, waiting for the door to open, braced for a battle. Only eight, then, I thought, as I counting again. Four of us were lost.

When the elevator door opened I realized it wasn’t the guard that stood before us but the First Generation. 3 of them, at least, and they raised their hands in surrender.

“Listen!” The one who spoke was short and lean. Her willowy blonde hair was wind blown, and her green eyes shined bright. “You cannot leave; you must stop this! They will never stop looking for you. They will kill you and any-“

Her words were cut off by a shot of Tanzanite to the face and my head whipped around to see who wielded the weapon. It was Mena - short for Philomena - and I realized that she is who wielded Greg’s weapon. Greg who I killed.

She aimed the weapon pointedly at the next of The First Generation and then the last, before tossing the weapon to the ground. Empty. This all happened in just a fraction of a second, but each shot of the gun felt stretched out in time.

Before any of us could process, we filed into the elevator, squeezed tightly together. Someone pressed the button for ground floor and off we went.

I was wound too tightly, my muscles shaking in protest. I couldn’t believe, couldn’t fathom, couldn’t quite wrap my head around what we were doing. As I looked around at the others, I could tell they felt the same. If we actually made it outside it would be a miracle, but the party didn’t end there. What the hell we were going to do once we got outside was beyond me. It’s not like we could blend in; we’ve only seen civilization twice a year our whole lives. We’ve only seen the sun, and grass, and trees, and other people twice a year our whole lives.

As the elevator neared the ground level, I mentally mapped out the floor. We would have a short run to the emergency exits. If I remembered correctly, they were just to the left of the elevator. But outside that entrance was God-knows-what. In my head I imagined 50,000 guards armed to the teeth, and tanks armed at us. I took a deep breath and held it as the elevator doors peeled open.

We filed out quickly once we realized no one stood waiting for us. It all seemed a little too easy, and I felt a set up brewing. I stepped out the door, though, the emergency door triggering the alarm system. At the same time, the building exploded, propelling me into the air and a good 50 feet from where I'd once stood.

I pushed myself up slowly, waiting for my scrapes to heal, before I turned to look. The building... it was gone. That's why the guards weren't waiting for us at the elevator - they had evacuated. That's why they sent the three First Generation-ers to try and convince us to stay. That's why the three hadn't tried to fight us. They knew we were dead.

They were all gone, but I couldn't wait around, watching the white cloud of smoke billow up to the sky. I was out. I was alive, and if I didn't get a freaking move on, I was going to end up being captured. And I really didn't want to kill anyone else.