Elements

I stepped out into the sunlight, now fully clothed in a white t-shirt, denim jeans and a pair of Converse low-tops. The nurse had given me directions to where I was to go, along with a message to deliver to a “Mr Andrews”. I started off down the pavement and looked around.
The sky was bright blue and looked as though it was made of porcelain. I looked over my shoulder to see a huge white building with a sign saying “BLOCK A” placed above the entrance. I carried on walking, turning right onto “5th Street”, just as the nurse had told me to.
There were crab apple trees lining the street, their green leaves glowing in the light of the sun. A sudden gust of wind came from nowhere and blew a few of the leaves off. I stumbled slightly at the force, and then carried on.
Odd. There’s not a cloud in the sky…
At “3rd Street W.”, I did a left, just as the nurse had told me to. Straight ahead of me was another white building, with a sign reading “BLOCK B” placed above its entrance. I headed up the steps and through the great double doors into the atrium, where a short middle-aged woman was standing at the reception desk.
“Ah,” she said in a snappy voice. “You must be Mr Jackson.”
“It’s Tyler,” I offered, but she ignored me. She fumbled with some papers and then took a look at her computer monitor. I glanced at her name badge.
Marjorie Dalton
“Right, Mr Andrews is waiting for you in Room 4. Straight down the corridor, second door on your right. I believe Nurse Brandon is there with him, they’ll be expecting you.”
“Thanks, Marjorie,” I replied with a stab at politeness. She gave me a heated glare and brushed her steel-coloured hair out of her face, which I took as my cue to turn and set off down the corridor.
Room 1 was the first door on the left hand side. It had a large plastic sign above it with a blue “1” emblazoned upon it. I read the bronze plaque which stood out on the white paint.
Lounge.

I walked a little further and saw Room 2 on my right. Again, I read the plaque.

Kitchen Area.

It seemed like I was in some sort of communal residence, almost like dorms at university. I carried on walking, passing Room 3 on my left hand side. For the third time, I read the little bronze plaque.

Bathroom.

This place seemed perfectly normal, and I started to wonder who Mr Andrews was. A counsellor, perhaps? My new landlord? A doctor?
Room 4 was indeed the second door on the right. I turned and proceeded to knock, but not before I’d read the plaque bearing the room’s purpose.

Dr. Maximilian Frederick Andrews
CEO

Okay, this just got weirder…
“Enter,” came a booming voice from inside the room. I opened the door and walked into what, at first, seemed to be a library. There were shelves upon shelves of leather-bound volumes. Here and there, a door would break the seemingly endless amount of books. A dry cough alerted me to my senses and I stared ahead, where a suited man (who I assumed was Mr Andrews) was sitting at a magnificent mahogany desk. He had a head of thick, sandy coloured hair which was streaked with grey. Sat in a chair behind him was the blonde-haired nurse who had assessed me earlier that day. I opened my mouth to question why the hell she hadn’t told me what was going on, and how she’d even got there before me, but Mr Andrews held his hand up to stop me.
“Mr Jackson,” he said, his voice echoing around the room. “I am Dr. Max Andrews.”
Go figure…
“I am here to answer any questions you may wish to ask me. Miss Brandon here tells me you have quite a few.” He gestured towards the nurse, who flushed furiously and stared down at the floor. “Please, sit,” he offered, gesturing to a chair. I obeyed and immediately asked the thing that had been bugging me since I’d woken up.
“Where am I?”
Mr Andrews started to answer before I had even finished speaking.
“You are at headquarters of a top-secret government agency, Mr Jackson,” he replied. I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. I took the opportunity to prompt him.
“And what’s the purpose of this agency?”
Mr Andrews simply stared at me with his dull brown eyes.
“That, I cannot tell you.”
I gave a humourless laugh.
“So let me get this straight,” I said, trying to muster what was going on. “Your agency kidnaps me, puts me in some chemical, injects me with God knows what and leaves me to lie in a hospital bed for God knows how long. I wake up without a clue where I am, have a beautiful woman ask me to get naked so she can give me a ‘physical assessment’,” – at these words, the nurse blushed even harder and it was hard to tell whether I’d hit a nerve or not – “then get told to come and see the man who I’m guessing made all of this happen, only to be told that he can’t tell me what the fuck has happened to me?”
I didn’t know why I was so angry. I could feel my face flushing as the blood rose to it.
Mr Andrews stood up so suddenly that I started. He took a deep breath and started to talk, pacing around the room.
“First of all, Mr Jackson, we did not kidnap you. You volunteered to participate in a government program.” His words had a dull, learned-by-heart sound to them. “I cannot divulge the details of this program to you, but I can tell you that should the program be successful, it would bring a change to America like nothing else before.” He paused, apparently deliberating on how much he should tell me.
“The chemical you were placed in is called pancuronium. It is a muscle relaxant which is used to prevent pain in operations. It is most often used in its gaseous form. You know it best as general anaesthetic.”
He walked up to the closest bookcase and removed a book. He placed it on his desk and flipped it open to the centre pages, where a single piece of paper lay.
“The substance you were injected with is called metamorphosilanium, a creation of my own which is a chemical compound containing artificial matter known as ‘metamorphulin’. This artificial matter changes certain areas of human DNA to bring about change in the overall structure and form of the human body.”
He handed me the piece of paper and I looked at it. It was the chemical formulae for metamorphosilanium. I sat there astounded.
So I’m part of some government plan, now?
“You were lying in the hospital bed for six days. Were it not for Miss Brandon here, you would have died. We’ve been monitoring your progress following the procedure and I’m happy to say that you’re perfectly fine.”
He looked at the nurse, and it was quite clear that she was beyond embarrassed. Her head was bowed and her eyes were closed, as though she was in prayer. I tried to take in all the information that had just been relayed to me.
“So basically, you’re trying to tell me that I’m one of your experiments? And that it succeeded?”
“Certainly,” said Mr Andrews with a smile. “I’m glad we cleared that up.”
“But what kind of experiment?” I asked. “What did you do to me?”
Mr Andrews walked towards me and took a hold of my hand. He faced my palm upwards.
“What word comes to mind when I say ‘flame’, Mr Jackson?” he asked. I stared at him, dumbfounded.
What the fuck is all this about…
“Umm, ‘fire’, I guess…” I replied, not a clue what this guy was talking about.
“Indeed, indeed,” muttered Mr Andrews, more to himself than anything. “I want you to concentrate very hard on that word, Mr Jackson. I want you to focus every single particle of your body on that word.”
I opened my mouth to question. Again, he held his hand up.
“Your question will be answered, Mr Jackson, if you do as I say.”
He closed the palm of my hand and whispered into my ear.
“Focus…”
I focused as hard as I could. I concentrated as much as possible. So much, in fact, that my eyes were screwed up tightly in the effort. This must have been evident, because at that point, Mr Andrews spoke.
“Open your hand.”
I opened my hand and felt a tingling sensation in my palm. My eyes snapped open and I gasped in shock. Amazement. Awe.
There, in the palm of my hand, were flames. Red, orange, yellow. Sparking, crackling, burning.
“Congratulations,” Mr Andrews said, a smile on his face. “You’ve just created fire.”